Hochul: Trump Defunding Police by Withholding $87M

"Donald Trump is defunding the police, defunding the NYPD intelligence analysts who foil the attacks, defunding the brave members of FDNY who run into the fire while the rest of us are running out, defunding the National Guard, the units who protect the major transit hubs, defunding bomb squads, defunding police departments and sheriff's offices from Long Island to Westchester to Buffalo," Hochul said.

"Here's my message to the president: don't undermine our public safety efforts," she added. "Don't defund the police who thwart terror attacks. Don't play political games with people's lives. Release the $87 million you owe us."

Mamdani framed the money as a matter of the city's exposure to attack. "New York City is the greatest city in the world," he said. "And yet, because of what this city represents, we also know that it will always be a target. Our city has made enormous strides over the last 25 years, and yet we know that we live in a complex and fast-moving threat landscape."

FEMA pushed back hard. "Instead of falsely accusing President Trump of defunding law enforcement, Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani should answer a much simpler question: Why is New York and NYC demanding even more taxpayer money when it has failed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars already provided to protect its communities?" a FEMA spokesman told the Washington Examiner.

The administration also says that for fiscal 2025 it restored New York's grant allocation to the $133 million originally listed in the funding opportunity, after Hochul appealed directly to Trump.