A powerful New York State Democrat made waves when she suggested the Empire State “think outside the box” like President-elect Trump is with his mass-deportation plans and potentially secede to Canada, or at least battle the feds if they try to strip federal funding from the state.
New York Democratic state Sen. Liz Krueger suggested to Politico that if Trump follows through with a reported threat to slash federal funding from “sanctuary” jurisdictions, Albany could return fire against Washington for holding back some or all of the more than $360 billion it annually sends to the Treasury.
“We’re talking a lot of money. We’re talking money we couldn’t possibly replace unless we started sending the feds a lot less money,” the state Senate Finance Committee chairwoman told Politico, noting the feds similarly fund billions in New York Medicaid subsidies.
Krueger was also asked about a recent comment about joining America’s neighbor to the north now that Trump is president-elect.
“If Trump won, yes,” she told City & State NY prior to the election, regarding having her state join neighboring Quebec and Ontario as its own “southern province.”
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New York State Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, speaks at the Women’s Rally in support of presidential candidate John Kerry. (Trish Lease/Getty)
Meanwhile, a top official in the New York Republican Party suggested Friday that Krueger have at it.
“Liz Krueger is a completely unserious person,” said David Laska, communications director for the NYSGOP. “She should feel free to lead the way and expatriate: New Yorkers won’t miss her bloviating,” Laska told Fox News Digital.
On X, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley posted an image of CSA Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendering at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, at the end of the Civil War.
“While perhaps tempting for many, State Sen. Liz Krueger is not the first to ‘think outside the box’,” Turley wrote.
“Apparently, when elections don’t go your way, the solution is to plant the Maple Leaf flag in America,” wrote the conservative X aggregator site Twitchy.
“I’ll treat you to a one-way ticket to Montreal on the climate-friendly Amtrak,” wrote political strategist and former New York Post reporter Candice Giove. Krueger had headlined a Monday climate change demonstration with Democratic Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz.
“Your elitist proposal to leave the U.S. and become a Canadian province is an insult to my uncle, who died for our nation. It’ll be the best $122 spent,” Giove said, posting a screenshot of the latest fare for the national railroad’s “Adirondack” service.
A large Canadian flag. (Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
Krueger had suggested New York’s fellow liberal New England neighbors band together and become the newest Canadian province since icy Nunavut split from the Northwest Territories in 1999.
“I thought I would suggest to Canada that instead of us all trying to illegally cross the border at night without them noticing, which is pretty hard because there’s a lot of us, that they should instead agree to let us be the southeast province, a new province of Canada, and I offered, even though I hadn’t gotten agreement from other states yet, that I thought New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, would combine and be a great new province as the southeast province of Canada,” she said.
Krueger said she loves the U.S. and that Trump winning a second term is not her fault or that of New York — which ultimately awarded its electors to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Krueger said at the time that “basically everybody” in the northeastern states is a progressive Democrat in the vein of Canadian liberal leadership.
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New York State Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan. (Getty)
Krueger also reportedly received “unofficial responses” from Canadians who characterized the idea as “sellable in Ottawa.”
However, in remarks to Fox News Digital later Friday, Krueger said her secession idea was a “joke, of course.”
“But what is actually deadly serious is the threat from Donald Trump to take away tens of billions of dollars in federal money from New York and other states that didn’t support him in the election,” she said.
“And those Trump cuts will affect all New Yorkers, whether they voted for him or not. They could impact healthcare coverage for millions of people, thousands of manufacturing jobs, transportation infrastructure that millions of New Yorkers rely on — the list goes on. So, though obviously New York is not going to become part of Canada, we will need to think outside the box to try to protect New Yorkers from Trump’s vindictive and destructive policies.”
Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”-designate and an upstate New York native himself, told “The Ingraham Angle” this week that people who say they will stand in the way of mass deportation proceedings will fail.
“I’m going to do this job — the men and women of ICE are going to do this job — you’re not going to stop us,” said Homan, who hails from the Fort Drum area.
“If you impede us, there’s going to be consequences,” Homan warned.
During the election, Trump pledged to “save” New York and saw thousands gather for a rally at Madison Square Garden.
In Manhattan, Reuters reported Trump only won a single voting precinct called Two Bridges — between the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge — near both Chinatown and the “Five Points” immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York.” The area is reportedly 80% Asian American.
Meanwhile, other New York Democrats blamed some within their own party for Harris’ loss instead of lambasting Trump.
Rep. Ritchie Torres of The Bronx recently said Trump can thank the “far left” for his win, suggesting progressives delving into “absurdities” like “from the river to the sea” and “Latinx” alienated many minority voters who would typically vote Democrat.
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