Hochul blames Trump; President and Blakeman say 'nice try'
While Gov. Kathy Hochul blames the Trump administration for the LIRR strike, the president and Hochul's gubernatorial challenger, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, say its her fault. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp; AP
With the LIRR strike underway, the political finger pointing is too.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, in a theme she’s touched on repeatedly, said the groundwork for the contract stalemate was laid by the Trump administration, which effectively gave authorization for a strike when it released the unions from mediation last summer.
Since then, there’s been two “presidential emergency boards” appointed to present terms to get the sides to settle to no avail.
“The disruption that Long Islanders face starting tonight is the direct result of reckless actions by the Trump Administration to cut mediation short and push these negotiations toward a strike,” the governor said just after the midnight strike began. “For weeks, the MTA has attempted to negotiate in good faith and put multiple fair offers on the table that included meaningful wage increases, but you cannot make a deal if one side refuses to engage in good faith.”
President Donald Trump and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman – Hochul’s opponent in this fall’s gubernatorial election – fired back quickly.
Trump said in a statement posted online “she knows, full well, that I have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT - never even heard about it until this morning.”
He went on to say Blakeman could have solved the issue.
Blakeman, a fellow Republican, piled on, saying Hochul “failed.”
“Blaming the LIRR strike on President Trump is so disingenuous it is laughable,” Blakeman said in a statement. “Hochul runs the MTA and she alone bears responsibility for the disruption of services.”
As Newsday previously reported, the MTA and unions were in mediation – which prevents a strike – but were released from it last summer. Binding arbitration was offered but the unions declined, which eventually led to the two emergency boards.
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