New York governor to Mike Johnson: Stay in Washington

ALBANY, New York — Gov. Kathy Hochul doesn’t see the benefit of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s visit Wednesday afternoon to Columbia University.

He should stay in Washington, she told reporters.

“I think politicizing this and bringing the entourage to put a spotlight on this is only adding to the division,” Hochul said of his afternoon visit to the tumult on the Manhattan campus. “A speaker worth the title should really be trying to heal people and not divide them, so I don't think it adds to anything.”

She added he’d be better off working on a border deal as New York continues to grapple with a surge of migrants.

“It seems to me there's a lot more responsibilities and crises to be dealt with in Washington,” the Democratic governor said. “I'd encourage the speaker to go back and perhaps take up the migrant bill, the bill to deal with closing the borders, so we can deal with the real crisis that New York has.”

Johnson’s visit comes just hours after he called on the college’s president to resign as pro-Palestinian protesters have set up an encampment on the campus and resisted calls from the president to disband.

Johnson has joined other Republican leaders in calling on college president Minouche Shafik to resign, saying she has failed to guarantee the safety of Jewish students and has shown herself to be “inept.”

New York’s GOP House delegation wrote a letter to Shafik urging her to step down, and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania also said she should leave her post if she can't do the job.

Hochul visited the campus privately on Monday, and the Democratic governor has refrained from saying Shafik should go.

“I went there privately; I did not bring press with me,” Hochul said.

Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat, whose district includes Columbia, echoed Hochul’s criticisms: “Speaker Johnson is unduly using this moment to further political division instead of addressing concerns of the American people,” he posted on X.

A spokesperson for Johnson responded that he's going because New York leaders aren't doing enough to address the issues at Columbia.

“Speaker Johnson is going to speak to students at Columbia University because Governor Hochul and other officials in New York have completely failed in their duty to protect Jewish students and combat the rise of antisemitism in their party. We wish it weren’t necessary," said Athina Lawson, a spokesperson from the speaker’s office, in a statement.

Mayor Eric Adams has also strayed from joining the calls for Shafik to resign, and he said any police response — which last week included breaking up the Columbia protests at the college’s request — is limited to what the school wants.

Hochul noted that the university’s administration is in the midst of negotiations with students as it attempts to clear its West Lawn of protesters who have set up tents on the quad and refused to leave.

In an email to students, Shafik said the encampments and protests have brought a crisis to Columbia as outside protesters have descended on the perimeter of the campus. Shafik said some protesters have spewed “incendiary language that is causing deep distress for many in our community.”

Jewish students at the Ivy League university have also reported antisemitic incidents connected to the protests. University leadership said negotiations are still ongoing, but protesters have committed to “removing a significant number of tents,” according to an early Wednesday statement.

“The encampment raises serious safety concerns, disrupts campus life, and has created a tense and at times hostile environment for many members of our community," Shafik wrote in an email Tuesday night. "It is essential that we move forward with a plan to dismantle it."

Hochul said Tuesday she has no plans to send in the National Guard to the campus, even as Sens. Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley have called on her to do so.

The NYPD intervention last week came after Shafik called on it to dismantle the encampment. That move led to the arrests of 113 students and seemed to further inflame the situation. Since the arrests, NYPD have been largely at bay as they stand on the perimeter of the campus, ready for Shafik to call on them once again.

Since the college campus is private property, politicians are limited in what they can do to control the protests.

“I want to make sure that we get the results we need, which is to make sure that every student on campus feels safe and secure, and I believe that is the path that they're attempting to be on,” Hochul said.