Last week, an ICE operation in the Bronx ended with shots fired into a vehicle that had a 5-year-old boy sitting inside. At Tuesday's New York governor debate, the Republican candidate was asked about it and used his answer to explain why it was Kathy Hochul's fault. The kid, miraculously, was unharmed. The debate question, apparently, was not.
The Question Was Simple. The Answer Was Not.
The only scheduled debate of the New York governor's race opened with the subject of ICE conduct, according to Fox News. Days earlier, federal agents shot Oscar Bergal, a 28-year-old Dominican national, during what the Department of Homeland Security called a targeted operation in the Bronx. DHS says Bergal refused to comply with lawful orders. A 5-year-old boy was in the vehicle. He was not hurt.
So the moderators asked about ICE's behavior. A reasonable person might expect a candidate for governor to say something about whether agents should fire into a car holding a small child. Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County Executive and Trump-endorsed Republican, went another direction entirely.
Blakeman's Pivot to the Rap Sheet
Blakeman skipped the shooting and went straight to the biography of the man who was shot. He said Bergal entered the country illegally, has a conviction, faces pending drug charges, and is "a gangbanger." Then he asked the room: "This is who Kathy Hochul is defending?"
Here's the thing. Nobody on that stage was defending a drug dealer's right to sell drugs. The question was about agents firing guns into a vehicle with a kindergartner-aged child in it. Those are two different questions, and Blakeman answered the one that polls better.
He also claimed Hochul "appealed to ICE to let this criminal out," and that the shooting happened because New York is a sanctuary state. His logic: if local cops had been allowed to cooperate with ICE "in an orderly way," none of this would have happened. "That's why things like this happen," he said.
Hochul Calls It a Non-Answer, Which Is Fair
Hochul pounced, and she had the easier job. She called Blakeman's response a "non-answer" because "he refused to condemn what ICE did." She laid out what she heard him saying: that he'd be fine with ICE agents "shoot[ing] guns into vehicles, not knowing who's inside," in a way that "could have killed a 5-year-old child."
She also reached for her résumé. Hochul pointed out that she oversees more than 500 policing agencies in the state and more than half a million arrests a year, and said that is not how law enforcement conducts itself. "ICE is out of control," she said. "It's out of control in Nassau County."
That last line is a direct shot at Blakeman's home turf and his proudest talking point.
The Sanctuary Dance
Blakeman bragged that his county had a cooperative agreement with ICE until Hochul ended it, and that the arrangement got "over 2,000 illegal migrants" with criminal records out of Nassau County. He added that his county never raided "one school, one hospital, one daycare center or one church."
Hochul answered that she has said, "from the president on down," that New York is "not a sanctuary for criminals. Full stop." She said Blakeman's claim was absurd and that she had a right to rebut it.
Notice what neither candidate did. Blakeman never said whether the shooting itself was appropriate. Hochul never said what specific rule changes she would push. Both of them found their favorite talking point and sat on it.
Everybody Loves Talking About Trump Except When They Don't
The debate then drifted to the economy, where Hochul went after Blakeman's closeness to the president. She said Trump promised to cut energy and grocery costs and instead raised gas prices and energy prices, with tariffs driving up the price of everything. "If you bought groceries lately, my God, the people are suffering," she said. She called Blakeman the "president of the fan club" and asked, "Why are we at war with the rest of the world?"
Blakeman's counter was that Hochul only talks about Trump because she can't defend her record, which he called "a record of misery and failure." He cited the highest taxes and utility rates he says run 70 percent above the national average.
Then came the best moment of the night. Blakeman said Trump is his friend and has endorsed him, but so have Bonnie Lautenberg and actor Debra Messing, both liberal Democrats. Hochul's reply: "Alright you got two votes. Good for you."
The Dingo Take
Blakeman had a chance to say that agents shouldn't fire into cars with children in them, and he passed.
Think about the shape of that answer. A 5-year-old was sitting in a vehicle when federal agents opened fire. The most basic human response is some version of "thank God he's okay, and we need to look at how this happened." Instead the candidate for governor reached for the suspect's criminal history, as if a pending drug charge settles the question of whether you can shoot toward a child. It doesn't. You can believe Bergal is exactly as bad as Blakeman says and still believe agents should not fire into a car without knowing who is inside. Those positions are not in tension. Only a campaign strategist thinks they are.
Hochul isn't a saint here either. She didn't lay out a concrete plan for what New York would do differently, and "not a sanctuary for criminals, full stop" is the kind of line a politician delivers when she wants the heat off. But the contrast on the stage was clear. One candidate called the shooting out of control. The other called the victim a gangbanger and moved on to taxes. If you're a New Yorker with a kid in the back seat, you know which answer you heard.
Comments