Gov. Kathy Hochul jokes about Jews fleeing to Florida, pokes at Ron DeSantis during Holocaust event
Gov. Kathy Hochul sounded like a bad Borscht Belt comedian at a bill signing tied to Holocaust education in schools Wednesday as she tried to land a joke at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ expense.
“I just want to say to the 1.77 million Jews who call New York home: Thank you for calling New York home. Don’t go anywhere or to another state. Florida is overrated. I shouldn’t say this, but look at the governor. It starts at the top down,” Hochul cracked.
“Getting in trouble – gotta stay on script,” the governor quickly added before she was forced to abruptly segue to her introduction of Holocaust survivor Celia Kener at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan.
The impromptu and out-of-left-field partisan attack against her Florida counterpart came as the governor talked up the virtues of anti-hate initiatives that included signing into law legislation requiring the state Education Department study how well schools are teaching students about the Nazi genocide of six million Jews in Europe between roughly 1939 and 1945.
“The lessons of the Holocaust need to be front and center in our minds today, as we see hatred, rising up to the surface, unfettered in ways we’ve not seen before in my lifetime,” Hochul told reporters while citing stats showing hundreds of anti-semitic incidents have occurred in New York this year.
“After a breakup, some people cling to the hopes of reconciliation. It’s sad to see governors acting like desperate exes. Perhaps they should spend more time relieving their people of oppressive taxes, needless mandates, shuttered businesses, and crime-infested cities. Florida’s freedom agenda works — they ought to try it,” responded Dave Abrams, a DeSantis campaign spokesperson.
“Can Kathy Hochul really be this totally out to lunch and clueless about why New York leads the entire nation in population loss?” Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Suffolk), the GOP nominee for governor, said in a statement to The Post.
The Florida conservative has attracted the ire of Democrats in the Empire State through moves like highlighting the testimonies of former New Yorkers who moved to the Sunshine State in hopes of escaping high taxes and crime-raising progressive policies alike.
“Hochul’s glib smugness aside, it’s no joke that residents of her state are fleeing to the one DeSantis runs. Who gets the last laugh?” Peter Warren, director of research at the right-leaning Empire Center for Public Policy, tweeted.
An exodus of New Yorkers to Florida has helped slow population growth in New York in recent years, resulting in the loss of a U.S. House seat after the 2020 Census.
Meanwhile, a May 2022 appearance at the museum by DeSantis, organized by the advocacy group Tikvah, was cancelled following protests over his conservative record as governor.
The museum denied at the time that DeSantis had been effectively banned from the premises.
In July, a Holocaust center in Florida condemned the presence of protesters holding Nazi flags and posters with antisemitic imagery outside a convention of young conservative activists where former President Donald Trump, DeSantis and several Republican U.S. senators were set to speak.
Florida Holocaust Museum chairman Mike Igel said that the demonstration represented “a direct threat” to the Jewish community in the area. The museum is based in St. Petersburg, across the bay from the Tampa Convention Center, where the protesters showed up to the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit convention.
“Carrying the Nazi flag, or that of the SS, the unit responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust, is an indefensible act of pure hatred,” Igel said in a statement. “This isn’t about politics or religion. It’s about humanity.”
— Additional reporting by Selim Algar
