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Fox News Digital sat down with New York Republican attorney general candidate Michael Henry, who made his case on why the Democrat currently holding that office, Letitia James, needs to go and why his campaign has the message to do that.
“Two things,” Henry told Fox News Digital when asked what voters in New York tell him they are most concerned about. “Crime and affordability.”
Henry explained that New Yorkers are “fed up” with the cost of living in the state and may not realize that many of the regulatory policies that affect affordability are handled by the attorney general’s office.
“It’s really put a hamper on economic growth in the State of New York, how her and her bureau chiefs, deputy bureau chief, and the attorneys in the office, who all serve under the discretion of the attorney general, have really crippled the New York State economy,” Henry said.
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Fox News Digital interviewed NY AG candidate Michael Henry about his plan to unseat Letitia James. (Fox News Digital/Getty)
Henry expressed concern specifically about energy costs and what he called a “far-left agenda” that James has been implementing.
“We see a Democrat governor in Josh Shapiro, who’s encouraging New York energy companies to work in Pennsylvania right across the line, where you could literally throw a rock and hit a truck on the Pennsylvania border. But then the 100 years worth of energy under our feet in the southern tier of New York State, which would not only revive the economy, but the people in places like Manhattan would see probably about a 60% cost of energy go down,” Henry said.
“And Letitia James has been wreaking havoc on the daily lives of New Yorkers, and in many instances they just don’t even realize it, and this is something I’ve been trying to shine a light on, letting them know how much damage she’s doing to them and their ability to just be able to afford to live here.”
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New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul during a press conference in New York City on Nov. 6, 2024, discussing the impact of Donald Trump’s reelection as president. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Henry ran unsuccessfully against James in 2020, but his 45% of the vote was one of the best showings for a Republican in the state in decades.
Henry told Fox News Digital he lives a comfortable life as an attorney and didn’t plan on running again, but when he looked around and surveyed the situation he felt compelled to do so.
“You travel to upstate New York, you see these wind fans that don’t work, you see solar panels that break in the winter, yet we’re not allowed to use all options when it comes to energy development,” Henry said.
“Three thousand correctional officers, which is a huge employer in upstate New York, were fired by Letitia James and Kathy Hochul, three thousand families that relied on that income to take care of things like tuition or put food on the table, and they were blocked from going into other civil servant employment. You just see the war on agriculture, war on dairy farmers. There’s a 62-county drug crisis that’s been exacerbated, and if you had told me in 2022, all these issues would have happened or been this bad, I never would have believed you.”
Ultimately, Henry believes that New Yorkers need an “outsider” candidate who has “no fear of Letitia James at all.”
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Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, and Zohran Mamdani, New York City mayoral candidate, embrace during a campaign rally at United Palace in New York City on Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (Christian Monterrosa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Henry explained, “Look, let’s be honest, she wakes up every day focused on three things: targeting the president of the United States, weaponizing her office against political opponents, and ignoring the issues that matter most to hardworking families,” Henry said. “And she’s forgotten that the New York state attorney general is the people’s lawyer, and it’s not the enforcer for the Democrat National Committee.”
On the crime front, Henry hit James for “not cooperating with local law enforcement,” particularly sheriffs in Republican areas, and said New Yorkers are “fed up” on the crime issue.
James will be in court Friday morning after being charged with mortgage fraud, which she has dismissed as political, but Henry pushed back on that narrative.
“People have seen her awkwardly stumble through these press conferences off the cuff, and now we’ve seen her ethical issues, where apparently she’s not only multiple times signed documents saying she’s married to her father, she doesn’t even know what state she lives in, apparently.”
“And Letitia James can’t have it both ways. She can’t say I’ve been trained by the best and then have these discrepancies on numerous occasions in her mortgage applications. It’s either that she knew what she was doing or she lacks the basic reading comprehension skills of a middle schooner, because I could walk into a middle school and put a mortgage application on any child’s desk, and they would say to me, I’m not married to my daddy,” Henry added. “So she cannot have it both ways, and she’s going to be held accountable this time, and we’re seeing it on a daily basis.”
