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.

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 used 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 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. Thank you.