NY1: Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate for governor, will meet with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
Blakeman said he’s traveling to the White House in his capacity as a candidate and that the trip will be paid out of his campaign account.
“We’re going to talk about New York state, and we’re going to talk about issues. We’re going to talk about policy. We’re going to talk about a wide range of things,” he told reporters in Albany on Monday.
The longtime ally was endorsed by Trump last fall after Rep. Elise Stefanik dropped her bid against Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Both Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Hochul have working relationships with the president, and have even earned his praise at times.
“I embrace the fact that they’re cordial with each other, but the fact is that their policies are diametrically apart from the president’s policies, and they’re diametrically apart from my policies. So the fact that they get along doesn’t mean anything when it comes to policy,” he said.
He declined to go into detail about whether he planned to ask Trump for help to fundraise for his underdog campaign.
Blakeman is currently suing the state’s newly set up Public Campaign Finance Board after the Democratic-led panel kicked him out of the program, making him ineligible for taxpayer funds to boost his campaign — seen as a major disadvantage for a Republican running in the majority blue state.
