I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, April 13th.

And Governor Kathy Hokel is with us now. Governor, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC. Thanks, Brian.

Appreciate you having me on. You know, I was telling the listeners that you schedule this

appearance with us before the subway shooting and before Lieutenant Governor Benjamin was arrested

and resigned yesterday. So with all of that, we didn't know if your schedule would permit you

to keep the original plan.

So we appreciate that you have made some time for us this morning.

How are you after the events of the last day?

Well, it's been traumatic for all New Yorkers to have to witness what happened on the subway.

I was on the subway trains yesterday evening just to get a sense

of what people are feeling. And it just proved to me, Brian, that New Yorkers are so resilient.

You know, it's almost like nothing phases them. But we know deep down, there is a sense of

anxiety about their safety. And I'm committed now more than ever to continue working with

my partners in local

government. I talked to Eric Adams yesterday. Our MTA workers, I heard you had John on just a few

minutes ago, we're outstanding in this. And all the first responders, I went to the hospital

last night to see the parents of some of the teenage patients. I mean, the incredible stress

they're under. So I'm just

here in person just to give them that love from all New Yorkers and show support, but also renew our

commitment to dealing with the scourge of violence in our streets and restore that sense of

safety that many of us had, the city had, just before this pandemic hit. So we've got a lot of work to do. Yes, when we scheduled, Brian, I thought we'd be talking about the budget, but I'm here to talk about any topic that's on your mind. And we will talk about the budget as we go, but obviously you have been in the city after the shooting. You appeared with the NYPD commissioner at the first news conference yesterday in the noon hour.

We carried that live.

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