Gov. Kathy Hochul has offered an explanation for the awkward moment she was drowned out by “Tax the rich!” chants at a rally for socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani — and it’s one for the highlight reel.

“I thought they were saying ‘Let’s go Bills,’” Hochul told reporters Monday, when asked about the jeers that echoed through Forest Hills Stadium during Sunday’s “New York Is Not for Sale” rally — an event headlined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“I wasn’t sure,” Hochul added. “I heard some noise, I heard a lot of cheers. But later on it became clear to me. I know there is a passion for that.”

The remark — delivered with a straight face — instantly ricocheted across Albany and social media, where critics accused the governor of pretending not to notice a very pointed protest against her centrist record. “Let’s go Bills” quickly began trending on X, used sarcastically alongside videos of progressive activists shouting the three-word slogan that Hochul somehow mistook for a football chant.

The episode underscored Hochul’s increasingly awkward position inside her own party. The Democratic governor has endorsed Mamdani — a self-described democratic socialist running to her left — even while openly worrying about his “tax-the-rich” platform and calls for sweeping new levies on the city’s top earners.

Her appearance at Sunday’s rally, meant to project unity, instead became a snapshot of the widening ideological gulf between the state’s establishment Democrats and the ascendant progressive bloc led by Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders.

“Tax the rich!” was not just a chant — it was a policy line from the very candidate Hochul had come to back.

Still, the governor tried to spin the moment as a positive sign of Democratic enthusiasm. “I love the energy out there — I told them that,” she said. “What I want to do is bottle all that up and use it in a few days.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)