In the first paragraph, when you say inflation has made progress, dropping the word further progress, and in the second paragraph, dropping the sentence that the committee had gained greater confidence that inflation was progressing towards its 2 percent goal.
Is there any policy substance behind either of those changes in language?
Is it meant to open the door to a December pause?
Is it meant to communicate anything about the stickiness of core inflation the last three months?
Not really, no.
So let me tell you what we were thinking.
So the test of gaining further confidence was our test for the first rate cut, right?
And so we met that test in September, and therefore we take that test out.
If you leave it in, then it's new forward guidance.
It's brand new forward guidance.
What do you mean by it?
Are you requiring yet further?
We have to say yes or no at every meeting, whether we've made further progress.
The point is we have gained confidence that we're on a sustainable path down to 2 percent.
So that I would tell you is what that's really all about.
It's not meant to send a signal.
Neither of those is meant to send a further signal.
And saying further progress, it becomes a test.
We don't think it's a good time to be doing a lot of forward guidance.
There's a fair amount of uncertainty in that in what I've said.
The path that we're on, we do know where the destination is, but we don't know the right pace and we don't know exactly where the destination is.
So the point is to find that, to find the right pace and the right destination as we go.
And I think there's a fair amount of uncertainty about that.
And you don't want to tie yourself up with guidance.
You want to be able to make sensible decisions as you go.
Steve.
Steve Leechman, CNBC.
Mr. Chairman, you talked about higher rates, perhaps from an expectation of higher growth.
You didn't talk about it in terms of expectations of higher deficits.
Is that something you think might be behind the recent rise in interest rates?
And are rising deficits a concern to you?
So we no comment on fiscal policy.
And again, I don't have a lot more to say on what's driving bond yields.
In terms of policy changes, though, let me give you a sense of how this works in the ordinary case.
Let's say Congress is considering a rewrite of the tax laws.
It doesn't matter what's in the content.
So we would follow that.
At a certain point, we'd think we see the outline, so we'd start to model it.
And then we'd wait and we'd wait.
And then at a certain point, the staff would brief the FOMC and say, you know, these are the likely effects.
There's lots and lots of literature on the effects of tax policy changes on various parts of the economy.
So we'd try to get smart on that.
And then the law actually passes.
And you'd start to put it, you'd probably run an alternative simulation before that happens, just to keep people trying to understand it.
Then when it actually passes, it goes into the model along with a million other things.
So we have a very large economy.
Many things are affecting it at any given time.
And a law change of some kind would go in there, but it would go in.
But it's a process that takes some time.
Clearly, the legislative process takes a lot of time.
And of course, the real question is not the effect of that law.
It's all of the policy changes that are happening.
What's the net effect?
And the overall effect on the economy at any given time.
So I think that's a process that takes a lot of time and that we go through all the time with every administration constantly.
And this will be no different.
But right now, there's nothing to model right now.
It's such an early stage.
We don't know what the policies are.
And once we know what they are, we won't have a sense of when they'll be implemented or all those sorts of things.
So I think I would just say we're not doing that now, and all that will take time, and it will be very much regular order when we do do that.
If I could just follow up on Nick's question, are the current rates something you feel like you need to lean against in that they go against the direction of policy by being adding restrictions to the economy, or do you just take them as a given and perhaps a signal that you should do less?
Look, I just think the first question is how long will they be sustained?
If you remember the 5% 10-year, people were drawing massively important conclusions only to find three weeks later that the 10-year was 50 basis points lower.
So it's material changes in financial conditions that last, that are persistent, that really matter.
And we don't know that about these.
What we've seen so far, we're watching it.
We're doing the decompositions and reading others, but right now it's not a major factor in how we're thinking about things.
Chris.
Thank you, Chris Rugaber at Associated Press.
You mentioned the positive economic data that we've seen since the September meeting, including the revisions to things like savings, higher GDP growth.
We saw a stock market jump yesterday.
That's renewed some of the questions about why do many cuts at all with this backdrop.
So you're right.
As I mentioned, as you mentioned, the latest economic data have been strong, and that's, of course, a great thing and highly welcome.
But of course, our mandate is maximum employment and price stability.
And we think that even with today's cut, policy is still restrictive.
We understand it's not possible to say precisely how restrictive, but we feel that it is still restrictive.
And if you look at our goal variables, the labor market has cooled a great deal from its overheated state of two years ago and is now essentially in balance.
It is continuing to cool, albeit at a modest rate.
And we don't need further cooling, we don't think, to achieve our inflation mandate.
So that's the labor market.
Inflation has moved down a great deal from its higher, its highs of two years ago.
And we judged, as I mentioned, that it's on a sustainable path back to 2 percent.
So the job's not done on inflation.
But if you look at those two things, we judged in September that it was appropriate to begin to recalibrate our policy stance to reflect this progress, and today's decision is really another step in that process.
Overall, as I mentioned, we believe that with an appropriate recalibration of our policy stance, we can maintain strength in the labor market even as our policy stance enables further progress toward our inflation goal.
Great.
And just to follow up, what might cause you to pause rate cuts in December?
What kind of economic data would lead you to that path?
Thank you.
So we haven't made any decision like that at all.
So we're in the process, as I mentioned, of moving policy down, our stance down over time to more neutral level.
And as a general matter, as we move ahead, we are prepared to adjust our assessments of the appropriate pace and destination as the outlook evolves.
So for example, if we were to see the labor market deteriorating, we'd be prepared to move more quickly.
Alternatively, as we approach levels that are plausibly neutral or close to neutral, it may turn out to be appropriate to slow the pace at which we're dialing back restriction.
Again, haven't made any decisions about that, but that's certainly a possibility.
You can think of it as similar to what we do with asset purchase, with asset runoff, with QT.
So we reach a point where we slow the pace, much like an airplane reaching the airport slows down.
And so We're thinking about it that way, but it's something that we're just beginning to think about.
Edward.
Thanks, Chair Powell.
So with the noise in the jobs reports that we've seen, and you look at the Fed's favorite inflation, PC inflation, overall it's 2.1%, very close to the Fed's target, but core inflation is 2.7%, and it's been that way since July.
So why doesn't this data give fuel to a rate pause for this meeting?
Well, so I think if you look at the three and six-month, you're quoting the 12-month, so we look at all of them, right?
But if you look at three and six-month core PCE, you'll see they're around 2.3%.
So we look at all of them, and we also look at 12 as well.
But what it's telling us is that we really have made significant progress, and we expect there to be bumps.
For example, the last three months of last year, the core PCE readings were very, very low, probably unsustainably low.
So that's why forecasts generally see a couple of upticks toward the end of the year.
On the other hand, the January reading certainly looks like an example of residual seasonality so that we saw last year.
So when that falls out of the 12-month calculation in February, we should see a thing down.
So it will literally be a bump up and then down.
We understand that.
Overall, you see the progress on inflation, and you also look at the economy and you say, what is the inflation story now?
Where is it coming from?
So I point to a couple of things.
One is the non-housing services and goods, which together make up 80% of the core PCE index, are back to the levels they were at the last time we had sustained 2% inflation, which happens to be in the early 2000s for a period of five, six, seven years.
So they're back at that level.
What's not is housing services.
So let's talk about housing services.
Housing services is higher.
What's going on there is market rents, newly signed leases, are experiencing very low inflation.
And what's happening is older, you know, leases that are turning over are taking several years to catch up to where market leases are, market rent leases are.
So that's just a catch-up problem.
It's not really reflecting current inflationary pressures.
It's reflecting past inflationary pressures.
So that's one thing.
The other thing is I'd say look at the labor market, not a source of inflationary pressures.
Where is it coming from?
It's not a very tight economy.
What is the story about inflation?
You see that catch-up inflation also in insurance and several other areas.
So you're seeing, we're not declaring victory, obviously, but we feel like the story is very consistent with inflation continuing to come down on a bumpy path over the next couple of years and settling around 2 percent.
That story is intact, and it won't be one or two really good data months or bad data months aren't going to really change the pattern at this point now that we're this far into the process.
So you're quickly trying to get to that neutral rate that you see, or do you foresee that you have some time to get there?
Nothing in the economic data suggests that the committee has any need to be in a hurry to get there.
We are seeing strong economic activity.
We are seeing ongoing strength in the labor market.
We're watching that carefully, but we do see maintaining strength there.
And so we think that the right way to find neutral, if you will, is carefully, patiently.
Again, that's not meant to have a specific meaning other than we, to the extent the economy remains strong, we have the ability to take advantage of that as we try to navigate that middle path between the two risks.
Hi, Chair Powell, Craig Torres from Bloomberg.
Two questions today.
Did you learn anything about what Americans think about the economy from the election results?
First question.
Second question.
I want to talk about some labor market indicators, and I do so with great respect for your attentiveness to the maximum employment side of the mandate, Chair Powell.
So the unemployment rate has been at 4% or higher for six months.
One of the broadest measures of unemployment is up about a half a point from a year ago.
Compensation gains are sliding back.
The quits rate, a signal of labor market dynamism, has been heading down to that bad neighborhood of the 20 teens.
So you have put a marker at Jackson Hole saying any further cooling is unwelcome.
It is cooling generally a little bit further.
So at what point do we reach what you would describe as a shortfall from maximum employment?
Thank you.
Sure.
So on your first question, I'm not going to talk about anything that relates directly or indirectly to the election.
On the second one, this is the great question, and it's the one we think about all the time.
So I'll just say a couple of things.
There's nothing really surprising here.
What we know is that the unemployment rate is low.
We also know that it's come down significantly, sorry, moved up significantly from a year or so ago.
So we've seen a big change upward in unemployment.
Sometimes that has meant bad things.
So far, it doesn't appear to be, it appears that the, I wouldn't say that the labor market has fully stabilized because I do think it's continuing to very gradually cool, but it seems to be in a good place.
And our policy, of course, is designed to keep it in that good place, to maintain the strength in the labor market while also enabling further progress on inflation.
You know, you mentioned a bunch of indicators, and you're right.
You know, the openings to unemployment rate is back to a normal level.
I would characterize it more broadly as normalizing.
You mentioned wages.
Wages are still running just a bit above where they would need to be to be consistent with 2 percent inflation, unless productivity is going to remain at this high level.
If we see productivity more sustainably at these high levels, then that would sustain higher wage gains.
So I would say, in fact, you can say it the other way: that wage increases are now consistent with 2 percent inflation given current productivity readings.
But of course, the lure on productivity readings is whenever you see high readings, you should assume they're going to revert pretty quickly to the longer-term trend.
That has always been the case for 50 years.
But it may be that we're now five years.
If you look at the NIPA revisions that came out a month ago, we're five years into a nice set of productivity readings, which are sustained and very healthy.
But overall, it's a good labor market.
We could talk about 20 different data series.
We'll be looking at all of them, of course.
But we don't want the labor market to soften much from here.
We don't think we need that to happen to get inflation back to 2 percent.
Victoria.
Hi, Victoria Aguida with Politico.
Some of the President's elect advisors have suggested that you should resign.
If he asked you to leave, would you go?
No.
Can you follow up on it?
Do you think that legally you're not required to leave?
No.
Mike?
Michael McKee from Bloomberg Radio and Television.
You talk a lot about what the data are telling you and how you are dependent on the data, but in terms of forward-looking assessments of the economy, what are you hearing from CEOs or other officials around the country?
What did you hear today from the regional bank presidents about what companies and consumers think about where the economy is going from here rather than looking backwards?
And does that match up with what your forecasts have been and what you think the appropriate policy path should be?
So it's hard to characterize a really interesting set of discussions we had, and of course you'll see them in the minutes in three weeks.
But I would say this.
I think the comments from our Reserve Bank colleagues and from the CEOs that they talk to are pretty constructive on the economy right now, pretty constructive, feeling that the labor market is back to normal to the point where it's no longer that much a discussion topic in their world, whereas two years ago it was all they were talking about.
So they feel like the labor market's in balance.
People feel good about where the economy is.
Demand is obviously pretty strong.
And you're seeing, what, 2.8% growth in the third quarter estimated, maybe the year is 2.5%.
This is a strong economy.
It's actually remarkable how well the U.S. economy has been performing with strong growth, a strong labor market, inflation coming down.
We're really performing better than any of our global peers.
And I think that is reflected in what you hear from what I hear people hear from CEOs.
I don't get to talk to a lot of CEOs in my job, but I hear what others summarize from those.
And of course, I hear the Reserve Bank presidents do a lot of that.
And it's pretty constructive overall.
Now, that's not to say there are areas of caution and things like that, but ultimately, overall, pretty positive.
To follow up, the areas of caution, if there were black clouds on the horizon that you identified as something you're watching, what would they be?
I think it's things like clearly geopolitical risks around the world are elevated, and just as clearly they've had relatively little effect on the U.S. economy.
Now, that can change through the price of oil or otherwise, but people talk about those as something that's on the horizon all the time.
But ultimately, if you look at the U.S. economy, its performance has been very good.
And that's what we hear from business people, and expectation that that will continue.
If anything, people feel next year, I've heard this from several people, that next year could even be stronger than this year.
Andrew.
Hi, it's Andrew Ackerman with the Washington Post.
I just wanted to follow up on the discussion earlier on fiscal policy.
Your predecessors, Greenspan and Volcker, spoke up loudly when they thought large budget deficits endangered economic or financial stability.
Will you do that too?
And right now we're in a period of full employment.
We have large budget deficits and debt at historic and historic highs that are rising.
Is that something you'd speak out against?
So, you know, I have said many times, no more, no less than what the predecessors you mentioned have said.
And what that is, is that the U.S. fiscal federal government's fiscal path, fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path.
The level of our debt relative to the economy is not unsustainable.
The path is unsustainable.
And we see that in, you know, you've got a very large deficit at you're at full employment, and that's expected to continue.
So it's important that we, you know, that to be dealt with.
It is ultimately a threat to the economy.
Now, I can say that.
I don't have oversight.
We don't have oversight over fiscal policy.
I've said it on many occasions.
Just said it again.
Okay, thank you.
I guess the other question is to follow up on Victoria's question.
Do you believe the President has the power to fire or demote you?
And has the Fed determined the legality of a president demoting at will any of the other governors with leadership positions?
Not permitted under the law.
Not what?
Not permitted under the law.
Thank you.
Courtney.
Chair Howell, Courtney Brown from Axios.
In response to Howard's question, you said it wasn't an ideal time to give forward guidance because of the economic uncertainties.
Can you lay out what some of those uncertainties are and whether or not it includes some of the proposals that the president-elect has put out on the campaign trail?
Tariffs, for instance?
No, I was not referring to the new administration's policies at all, nor will I today.
So what I'm just saying is as we look ahead, we know, and I mentioned this in my statement, that the risks are two-sided.
I guess I should start by saying that we think that the economy and we think our policy are both in a very good place, a very good place.
But as you look forward, you say, what are the risks?
And one risk is that we would move too quickly and find ourselves having moved too quickly and inflation comes back and we lost our chance to get inflation back to 2%.
So we have to avoid that risk.
And to avoid that risk, that means you want to move carefully.
The other risk is that we move too slowly and that we allow the labor market to weaken too much and do unnecessary damage to the labor market and to people's working lives.
That says don't get behind the curve.
So these two things are the two risks that we have to manage.
And so we're in the middle there.
We try to be in the middle and deal with both of them, manage both of those.
Again, the idea is to maintain support, the strength we have in the labor market and in the economy, but also with somewhat less restrictive but still restrictive policy, enable further progress toward our 2% inflation goal.
So there's, you know, this is a thing where we're meeting by meeting.
We're going to be making our assessment of what the right path is.
You know, it's not as important.
The precise timing of these things is not as important as the overall arc of them.
And the arc of them is to move from where we are now to a sense of neutral, a more neutral policy.
We don't know exactly where that is.
We only know it by its works.
We're pretty sure it's below where we are now.
But as we move further, there will be more uncertainty about where that is.
And we're going to move carefully as this goes on so that we can increase the chances that we will get it right.
Simon.
Thank you, Chair Powell, Simon Raminovich with The Economist.
I know you don't want to share your decomposition of bond yields, but if you look at the break-evens, it is clear that longer-term inflation expectations do seem to have risen up at about 2.5 percent, for example, on the five-year.
That's off half a point from when you cut in September.
Do you have any concern at all that longer-term inflation expectations are de-anchoring, or put another way, are anchoring at a slightly higher level?
Thanks.
So we would be concerned if we saw, if we thought we saw longer-term inflation expectations anchoring at a higher level.
That's not what we're seeing.
We're still seeing between surveys and market readings broadly consistent with, you know, I looked at the five-year, five-year earlier today, and it's probably moved, but it's just not, it's just, it's kind of right where it's been, and also it's pretty close to consistent with 2 percent PCE inflation.
So that's one that's been a traditional one that we look at a lot.
But overall, expectations seem to be, and really have throughout this, in a place that's consistent with 2 percent inflation.
But you're right to say we watch that very carefully, and we will not allow inflation expectations to drift upward.
But that's really why we reacted so sharply back in 2022 was to avoid that.
Kelly.
Hi, Chair Powell, Kelly O'Grady, CBS News.
We just talked about what you've heard from business leaders on the economy, but many average Americans are still not feeling the strength of the economy in their wallets.
So what's your message to them on when they might expect relief?
So you're right that we say the economy is performing well, and it is, but we also know that people are still feeling the effects of high prices, for example.
And we went through, the world went through a global inflation shock, and inflation went up everywhere.
And it stays with you because the price level doesn't come back down.
So what that takes is it takes some years of real wage gains for people to feel better.
And that's what we're trying to create.
And I think we're well on the road to creating that.
Inflation has come way down.
The economy is still strong here.
Wages are moving up, but at a sustainable level.
So it's just, I think what needs to happen is happening and for the most part has happened.
But it'll be some time before people regain their confidence and feel that.
And we don't tell people how to feel about the economy.
We respect, completely respect what they're feeling.
Those feelings are true.
They're accurate.
We don't question them.
We respect them.
And just a quick follow-up.
President-elect Trump has been critical of your performance.
Any concern about his influence on the Fed's independence?
I'm not going to get into any of the political things here today, but thank you.
Hi, Chair Powell, Nancy Marshall-Genser with Marketplace.
What is your plan if we start to see stagflation?
Well, so that's a, you know, the whole plan is not to have stagflation, so we don't have to deal with it.
So that is actually our plan.
You know, it's, of course, a very difficult thing because anything you do with interest rates will hurt one side or the other, either the inflation mandate or the employment mandate.
I would just say that, you know, we've been able to see inflation come down a whole lot, you know, much closer to our goal without the kind of sharp increase in unemployment that has often accompanied programs of disinflation.
So, knock on wood, we've gotten this far without seeing a real weakening in the labor market.
And we believe we can complete the inflation task while also keeping the labor market strong.
And that, of course, is exactly what we're trying to do.
Can you rule out an interest rate hike next year?
No, I wouldn't rule anything out or in that far away.
But that's certainly not our plan.
I mean, our baseline expectation is that we'll continue to move gradually down towards neutral, that the economy will continue to grow at a healthy clip, and that the labor market will remain strong.
If you look at our, that will not change from the September SEP.
That is our baseline forecast and short of some exogenous event, that will continue to be our forecast for the foreseeable future.
But ultimately, you know, we're not in a world where we can afford to rule things out a full year in advance.
there's just too much uncertainty in what we do let's go to jean for the last question hi chair powell jean young with mni market news um I wanted to go back to a comment that you had made about Americans being quite unhappy about the cumulative price level rises over the past few years, even though now inflation is back on a path to 2%.
Would it be appropriate for the Fed to undershoot for a while on its inflation goal under the average inflation targeting regime so people have a chance to catch up?
No, that's not the way our framework works.
We're aiming for inflation at 2%.
We do not have, we did not think it would be appropriate to deliberately undershoot.
And, you know, part of the problem there is that low inflation can be a problem too, in a way, but that's not part of our framework and it's not something we're going to be going to be looking at in our framework review.
Thank you very much.
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Sunday on Q&A, Stuart Eisenstadt, former domestic policy advisor to President Carter and U.S. ambassador to the European Union under President Clinton.
He shares his book, The Art of Diplomacy, in which he discusses his career and the impact the civil rights movement had on him.
We go to eat, and black students from North Carolina Central are sitting in.
You can look at the, you can Google this.
That's when the sit-in started in Queensboro and Durham.
And I said naively to my fraternity brother for New York, why are they doing this?
And he said, what universe do you live in?
It's because they can't be served.
And it was like somebody lifted a veil from me and I saw the world in a very different world.
I had gotten so used to the segregated world, I didn't question it.
I became very active in the civil rights movement in UNC.
And when I was with President Carter, we supported affirmative action and minority set-asides for black contractors.
So these kinds of transformative events when you're young can sometimes carry over into your career and they certainly did for me.
Stuart Eisenstadt with his book, The Art of Diplomacy, Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
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New York Attorney General Letitia James held a press conference in response to Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 election.
After congratulating the president-elect, she said she would try to work with the Trump administration if possible, but that her office was prepared to fight back against any erosion of rights.
The Attorney General was joined by Governor Kathy Hochle as they talked about the impact of the 2024 election results on New York.
Thank you all for coming, and thank you, Governor, for convening us.
I want to take a moment to thank everyone who ran for office.
Those who were victorious and those who didn't get the results that they worked for.
There is nothing more difficult than running for office, and our democracy is better off because of your efforts.
We also achieved an important step in our efforts to protect our right to choose in New York.
And I want to thank Sasha Ajua for all of her efforts, and Donna Lieberman of ACLU for all that they have done to get us to that point.
Thank you to all of those who worked so hard to enshrine that right in our Constitution and protected generations to come.
I also want to thank New Yorkers for showing up in record numbers to the polls to exercise your most basic and sacred democratic right.
And lastly, I congratulate the president-elect Donald Trump.
And if possible, we will work with his administration.
But we will not compromise our values or our integrity or our principles.
We did not expect this result, but we are prepared to respond to this result.
And my office has been preparing for several months because we've been here before.
We faced this challenge before.
And we use the rule of law to fight back.
And we are prepared to fight back once again.
Because as the Attorney General of this great state, it is my job to protect and defend the rights of New Yorkers and the rule of law.
And I will not shrink from that responsibility.
You see, between 2019 and 2021, the Office of the Attorney General took nearly 100 legal actions against the previous Trump administration.
including when he attempted to cap the state and local tax and when he sought to eliminate funds and grants for law enforcement officers here in the state of New York.
We fought to preserve DACA and protect the Affordable Care Act.
We fought to prevent a question about citizenship from being on the census because we were concerned about the impact of funding, the lack of funding to the state of New York and how it would affect these programs.
We beat the Muslim ban.
We stopped the dismantling of the United States Postal Service.
We challenged anti-LGBTQ plus efforts.
We safeguarded key environmental policies and we protected access to reproductive care and we protected the right to organize.
We worked around the clock to defend these basic rights with our Democratic colleagues across this nation.
So as you can see, we know their playbook.
We know Project 2025 before it was even published.
And we have been working both in my office and with other Democratic AGs across this country to make sure that we would be ready to respond to any attempt to roll back our rights.
So here we are.
We've studied their platforms.
We've identified certain possibilities, fact patterns.
We've created contingency plans.
So no matter what the next administration throws at us, we're ready.
We're ready to respond to their attacks.
We're ready to respond to any attempts to cut or eliminate any funding to the great state of New York, as the governor outlined.
So despite what has happened on the national stage, we will continue to stand tall in the face of injustice, revenge, or retribution.
We will continue to protect and our most vulnerable and marginalized amongst us because it is my sworn duty and responsibility to lead that fight, working with the governor of this great state, Kathy Hochul.
This is not the time to be fearful, New York, but faithful and steadfast, knowing that I, as the Attorney General, along with my entire team, we are guardians of the law.
And we are prepared, my friends, to fight back.
Thank you.
Again, thank you for joining us.
Happy to take any questions from our friends in the press.
Let's start over here and work our way this way.
Maya, you want to go?
Yeah, Governor, from Politico, what are your plans in the coming weeks to insulate New York's health care system in short funding for providers worried about potential funding cuts to Medicaid and other programs?
And also along those lines, are you going to try to accelerate the process of getting the MCO tax approved or Medicaid labor extended?
No, those are important questions.
These are issues that we've been working on for months with the administration.
They know we have a timetable.
We know we have a timetable to get them done.
In fact, we just had a meeting with my federal office in Washington on this.
So yes, there is a list of initiatives that we want to get accomplished in the next few weeks.
We put this together over the summer.
We've been continuing to work with all the different agencies, especially CMS, to get that MCO tax taken care of.
But other shortfalls will have to be addressed in our budget.
I mean, that's what we will be having to take up if we see something that's important to New Yorkers and there is a cut from the federal government and we're not able to fight back and be successful.
I have to game out all scenarios.
So New Yorkers' health and livelihoods and educational opportunities and child care, none of that is compromised by what this administration does.
So that's why many of those ought to be taken up in the budget with the legislature.
Morgan.
Hi, Governor.
Two questions.
Trump improved his margin from 2020 by seven percentage points.
Do you see this as a warning sign at all to Democrats?
And also, Mayor Eric Adams says he would like to see President Trump or President-elect Trump make changes to sanctuary city policies, especially when it comes to ICE cooperating with law enforcement when it comes to migrants convicted of crime.
Is that something you would also like to see?
Well, with respect to the outcome, you're the pundits.
I would just say Democrats should never take any vote for granted.
And that'll be part of the massive outreach that needs to continue beyond anticipation of the next election.
But just, you know, there's a difference between sanctuary cities and New York State.
We are not a sanctuary state.
We work with ICE when it comes to our northern border.
We work closely with them because we've had people come in not through a legal program, not through the asylum program.
So those are initiatives that we're already ongoing.
So the mayor can speak for what he's going to do in the city.
I will always be happy to address the state.
Gloria.
Madam Attorney General, I want to ask you, you mentioned retribution and revenge in your remarks.
Trump has appealed the civil case, the $450 million judgment.
I want to ask you specifically what you think last night's results mean for that.
And more specifically, Trump has said that you should be prosecuted, and I'm quoting, for your role in the suit.
He's also said that you should be arrested and punished.
That's also a quote.
And he said that he would support plans to prosecute you for election interference.
Are you worried about any of that?
So I have the opinion that faith and fear don't share the same space.
I'm not fearful of Donald Trump.
I've never been fearful of Donald Trump.
It's unfortunate that Donald Trump would engage in these comments.
At this point in time, as you know, the case is on appeal, and we are looking forward to the decision of the appellate division.
Governor and Madam Attorney General, on Prop 1, you mentioned fighting back against any actions that the Trump, incoming Trump administration might take.
What options exactly does Prop 1 give you against a federal abortion or gender affirming care regulation or law?
Can you explain exactly what action that you could take now that you couldn't take before?
Yes, and I'm happy to actually, the Attorney General can answer.
I can also have my counsel, who's been working on this intensely, explain that these are rights that are now enshrined in the Constitution, but I'm also, and I'll let them answer, but I'm also concerned about federal regulatory action,
like Donald Trump putting someone who's anti-reproductive freedom in the Department of Health and Human Services or those agencies that would determine whether or not medication-assisted abortion is legal or even Miffy Pristo or maybe even contraceptions.
I mean, these are regulated by the federal government, the FDA, and other agencies, and so that's sort of the pressure point for us.
And that calls upon us through this new initiative I'm announcing today that we anticipate the worst and hope for the best in some of these areas.
And that would be also if we feel we need to stockpile, just like we talked about the last time when we thought there could be a Supreme Court decision that banned some of these medications that women used.
So, Attorney General, do you want to answer on the attorney?
Okay, Brian.
This is my counsel, Brian Mahana.
Good afternoon.
So it's hard to anticipate exactly what sort of challenges the federal government might undertake that would potentially undercut New Yorkers' reproductive rights or other rights that are now greater protected by Proposition 1.
I mean, what the proposition does is enshrine in our statute a certain set of, excuse me, enshrined in our Constitution, a certain set of rights in broad respects.
And so depending on what the federal government does, the state government may have some responsibilities to further protect those rights or may have some authorities or additional legal justifications for resisting federal encroachment.
So, you know, yes, the federal government certainly has, if they were to enact a statute, federal law would apply to the extent that it's not, that there is not a 10th Amendment or other sort of state's rights justification for resisting a federal policy.
But I would say it's not possible to sort of anticipate every different type of way that the federal government may seek to interfere with those rights.
But what we have done is enshrine in New York state law and the New York State Constitution additional powers both from the state government to resist federal threats and for individual New Yorkers to do so as well.
Can I just say that?
Can I just add on something on that, though?
Also, you're talking about threats in the federal government.
It also matters who's sitting in the governor's seat.
You know, to run against someone, as I recently did, who openly said that he'd put in someone who is what he called pro-life, you know, in key positions in the administration, I think that's what you also have to be aware of.
New Yorkers need to be aware of, that this is further protection against someone who could be sitting in this seat who is hostile to the rights of women.
So it's not just federal protections, also state protections.
Let me just quickly say this.
The question that you're posing is whether or not New York would be preempted by a federal policy, a regulation.
You have to draw a distinction between a regulation and a law.
Regulation, I would say no, a law would be a different outcome.
One for the governor, one for the attorney general.
For the governor, the Riders Alliance and some environmental groups are asking that you now, today, lift the pause on congestion pricing so the MTA can begin it 30 days from now and then would be harder for President-elect Trump to dismantle if it's already on.
Are you considering now using this intervening time to restart congestion pricing?
I will tell you this.
We always knew this election would be a toss-up.
This is a scenario that we planned for starting last summer.
And before the end of the year, you know, in a timely enough frame, we will have our announcements and a plan and a funding plan.
And we'll also be talking about the capital projects for the next five years as well.
So we have a comprehensive approach to this.
This is literally the day after the election, but we have had robust conversations with the federal administration about both scenarios and what needs to be done in the right time frame.
For the Attorney General, a spokesman for Andrew Cuomo today said that you basically revived Donald Trump when he was politically no longer a factor by pursuing some of the cases against him.
I'm just wondering what your response to that.
No response to comments from the former governor.
Sale?
Sorry to go back to congestion pricing, but the last Trump administration was not good to the MTA.