Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul is a Guest on Wnyc’s All Things Considered

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul was a guest on WNYC’s All Things Considered.

AUDIO of the Governor’s remarks is available here.

A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:

Sean Carlson, WNYC: It is a busy time of year for parents and students gearing up for the new school year. Joining us now is New York State Governor Kathy Hochul. Governor, we want to talk about the upcoming school year and a few related policies that you’re pushing. But before we get there, we need to ask you about something else in the news, specifically your former Deputy Chief of Staff, Linda Sun, who was arrested today by the FBI. She’s been charged with acting as an agent for the Chinese government. What is your response to the allegations?

Governor Hochul: I’m furious, and I’m outraged and absolutely shocked at how brazen her behavior was. It was a betrayal of trust – the trust of government, the trust of the people. And I’ll tell you this, the second we discovered some levels of misconduct, we fired her, we alerted the authorities and hence we ended up with what happened here today.

We’ve been working with the Department of Justice in this investigation, and we’ll continue to make sure that all the information that’s out there is revealed and that justice is served. This is absolutely shocking.

Sean Carlson, WNYC: What was the misconduct that she was fired for?

Governor Hochul: I’m not at liberty to talk about that right now, but it’ll be coming out in the court hearings.

Sean Carlson, WNYC: The indictment accuses Linda Sun of influencing what you said and didn’t say. Examples include your position on Taiwan, even a Lunar New Year message that you sent. Is that true?

Governor Hochul: That’s what they’re alleging. It’s something that became apparent to us when we read the indictments. She primarily worked for Andrew Cuomo for many more years. She was with me just a short time, about 15 months. But what I read in the pleadings, the indictment today was very much focused on a lot of things she did under the previous administration and some directions she tried to provide us when I was Lieutenant Governor.

But, again, I would just say this, the scope of what she was capable of doing is shocking. I’m furious, outraged by this behavior and we’ll let the process play out.

Sean Carlson, WNYC: Okay. Let’s move on to the school year. You’ve indicated that you’ll be putting forward a plan for restricting smartphones in classrooms this fall. How would that work exactly?

Governor Hochul: What I’ve talked about during the over a year process of sitting down and convening groups of parents and teachers, administrators and particularly students, is to first of all, find out why students are suffering from such high levels of anxiety and depression and a record number of young people – particularly girls – contemplating suicide.

So, I went through this whole process of talking about the mental health aspects of it, but really came to the conclusion and dealt with it in the legislative session that this is driven in part, but a lot of it has to do with social media.

And the algorithms – the addictive algorithms that are bombarding these young people with messages throughout the day, and many times very negative messages – how do they get to the young people during the course of the day? It’s their cell phone. And when they’re in school, this has become a huge distraction. Those are not my words, those are the words of the teachers. 74 percent of teachers have said that it is almost impossible to teach now because the young people are 100 percent focused on their device, and they’re not learning. They’re not interacting with other young people, learning those interpersonal skills that are so important for their own growth.

So, I’ve looked at this, we don’t have our plan out yet, but I’m absolutely contemplating this and working with, again, the teachers and parents and administrators to make sure we get this right. So, nothing can happen until the next legislative session, which is months away in January, but I’ve been working very intensely on this because our young people are begging for help. They need the adults in the room, the adults in government, to start looking out for them and to allow them to be liberated from these algorithms and how it’s their own cell phones that are holding them captive.

Sean Carlson, WNYC: Speaking of adults in this situation, what would you say to parents who are worried that they wouldn’t be able to reach their kids, especially during emergencies?

Governor Hochul: I had the same fears. I’m the first mom Governor of New York. This is something that has been with me since Columbine when my kids were in middle school. And when you think about a mass casualty event, a mass shooting, any kind of crisis in a school setting, your first thought is the safety of your child. But what I learned through this process turned my thoughts upside down. That law enforcement comes into a classroom or comes into a setting and talks to parents and teachers, their position on this is simple: if there is a crisis, the last thing you want your child to be doing is searching for their cell phone, connecting with you, their friends or videoing what’s going on. They have to be 100 percent focused on the adults in the room who will lead them to safety.

Once parents hear that message, it’s almost an “aha” moment. They hadn’t thought of that. Because my first thought was, “I want to talk to my kids.” But their first thought is, “Let’s get your child to safety.” And that turned it around for me, and I do understand why a lot of parents would be anxious about this, I understand.

But talking to parents and students in schools where they have gone cold turkey, where they literally say, “We are a distraction free environment.” Some school districts in the State of New York, for example, they say after a fairly short amount of time, just months, that they see a dramatic change in the connectivity between students and other students. Teachers are saying their students are paying attention to them, they’re no longer just staring at a device, they’re actually making eye contact and behavior has improved because many times, students especially in the higher grades are prompting fights and conflicts so they can record it and post it on social media. So, there’s a lot of positivity that’s going to come from this. We just have to work through the final stages of exactly what the language will look like.

Sean Carlson, WNYC: Would teachers be the ones to enforce a ban? And what would happen to students who don’t follow the rules?

Governor Hochul: This will be dealt with in our legislation, because what the teachers have asked us to do, and the administrators have too – they don’t want to be the heavy in this. They want to be able to point to a statewide policy. But I’m sure it’d be some levels of progressive discipline.

This is something we’d want to work out with the teacher organizations. And in New York State, our teachers’ unions support this. They’re the ones saying that their teachers are getting frustrated that they’re in competition with young people staring at their cell phone, doom scrolling, checking out posts, seeing what other students are saying about them, and it really is taking hold of young people at a time when they should be focused on learning. Let’s make it easier on the teachers as well to do their jobs. And I know with this, the outcomes will be better. So, the disciplinary side is important, and that’s going to be developed in confluence with teachers.

Sean Carlson, WNYC: For schools that might have to do things like, say, purchase phone lockers or pouches to implement the ban to put all the phones when you’re collecting them, where would those funds come from?

Governor Hochul: I will say this, there are many ways to deal with this. You can have a ban that says students should leave them at home, you can leave them in their lockers. There’s a lot of ways to address this. That’s something that we’ll be focusing on – what are the options for the school districts.

I’m still gathering information about the actual implementation, but we have given more money to school districts, and many of whom are sitting on significant reserves right now, and we’re focusing on making sure that money is being spent in smart ways. And my opinion is, a smart way is to make sure that students do not have access to these cell phones during the day, and they can use that money – even now school districts in the State of New York have already adopted this plan without asking for money. They’re just managing their finances.

Sean Carlson, WNYC: Governor, you mentioned doomscrolling, which I think is something we’re all familiar with. You recently signed two bills that would restrict how social media companies display content to and collect data from people under 18 years old. How else can we protect students from the downsides of social media outside of the classroom?

Governor Hochul: What I’d like to see – and we’ll talk about outside the classroom – but I’d like to see other states adopt what we did. Here in the State of New York, we are the first state in the nation that successfully held back an intensive lobbying campaign from social media companies to finally say, “Parents, you should be the ones who determine whether or not your children are being bombarded with messages all night long, or that information is being collected – personal information collected about your child that is being used to increase the profits of companies. They sell information about your child.”

No parent feels good about that, I can tell you right now. But also, the whole idea of these addictive algorithms, they’re intentionally calculated to take the interests of your child – because they’ve been following and monitoring your child’s activities and where they’re going – and then to use that to send messaging back to them.

It is addictive. It is not the child’s fault. These people are figuring out strategies to make sure that they hold your child captive throughout the day. So, this is what’s happening during school, but after hours.

Even the Surgeon General has said that this is now a public health crisis for young people because the place that it takes kids to when there is, for example – they’re trying to search some information on suicide, maybe they’re having dark thoughts and they’re anxious and they want help on how to take them to a healthier place, try to get help – And guess what? You search suicide, it’ll tell you how to commit suicide.

I don’t know if parents know that. To me as a mom, it is shocking. It is absolutely shocking. So we told these companies, “You can no longer bombard our kids with these addictive algorithms without the parent’s permission.” So, we’ll also be educating parents into what that’s all about, what other ways they can protect their children.

But I’d also suggest this to families and parents. Every child models the behavior of their parents, especially from the youngest age. Think about how often you’re on your cell phone during the dinner hour, or when you could be reading to your child, a young child at night, or talking to them throughout the day or on a weekend when you’re together in the car. Just be aware of what you’re doing.

And I believe that we can be the first generation that really separates our kids from the addiction of the cell phone and to allow them – going forward and certainly children after them – to have a more carefree childhood. One where they’re not held captive, one where they’re not feeling such stress and anxiety and really emerging as fully functioning adults that know how to collaborate together, that have the social skills of working with others.

They’ll be more productive, not just in school, but I believe they’ll be more productive adults in a workplace. We just have to recognize over the last five, six years, this has taken hold, and we must be the leaders who step up and say, “Enough is enough.”

Sean Carlson, WNYC: Governor, before we let you go, and we just have about a minute here, but we did want to ask you about congestion pricing. You’ve said that you are open to reviving the idea under a new plan, which could potentially lower the base toll of $15. Would that raise the money that the MTA needs? And if not, how would we make up the difference?

Governor Hochul: What I have said from the very beginning, and my position is unwavering, $15 was too much for New Yorkers at this time. There have been a tremendous amount of stressors on families: the inflation going up, the cost of everything escalating, how hard it is to pay for mortgages and rents. We cannot be tone deaf to what people are feeling and experiencing.

We also know that for over 100 years, we have been successfully funding the MTA. There are other sources of funding. So, I will look at an opportunity to talk about this in the next legislative session, which again, is in January, to talk about how we can modify congestion pricing to something that is reasonable if we go that path.

But also, we will make up the difference. I am committed to making sure that the capital plan is funded. Not just the existing one, but we have a future capital plan that is being presented to us in the next couple of weeks, and it’s a decision we’re going to make.

And I want to remind everybody, when anyone questions my commitment to the MTA. I was the one who orchestrated the plan, put it together to be able to stop the MTA from going off the fiscal cliff just one year ago. People did not believe we’d be able to figure out a financing package that would save the MTA. We did it because I know how critically important this lifeline is for New Yorkers, Downstate New York, all the way out to Long Island and the Hudson Valley, but particularly in the city.

And I’m committed to this. All the improvements we need to make, we will make, and that is my promise to New Yorkers. And we just needed some time to get some breathing room to talk about exactly what congestion pricing is, what else we can be doing, and make sure that the objectives of reducing congestion and funding the MTA are met.

Sean Carlson, WNYC: That was New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Governor, thanks so much for joining us.

Governor Hochul: Thank you.