Speaker 1: Welcome back to the CEVN.
Speaker 2: Smith Stoke here with his honor himself, the Mayor of
Speaker 2: New York City, Histeric Adams. I want to get into
Speaker 2: a subject and I want to be very very unapologetic
Speaker 2: and transparent about where I'm going black man a black man.
Speaker 1: About the state of our two party system.
Speaker 2: And what kind of impact you believe that has had
Speaker 2: on the black community, particularly in recent memory, even compared
Speaker 2: to a few years ago, to a decade ago, to
Speaker 2: before that.
Speaker 3: Right, well, first of all, we should be after the election.
Speaker 3: It should be.
Speaker 4: About building up our communities and our cities in our country.
Speaker 4: You know when people say, well, while you sitting down
Speaker 4: with Donald Trump, doctor King wanted to sit down with Nixon.
Speaker 4: You know, when you pulled into purchase something for your family,
Speaker 4: they don't ask if you're a Democrat or Republican. When
Speaker 4: a bullet car a highway of death in your community
Speaker 4: and it hits someone, it's not a Democrat or Republican.
Speaker 4: Obama said it right after the election. We must transform
Speaker 4: into the United States. The election is an intramural There's
Speaker 4: no reason we're holding these grudges Every four year years
Speaker 4: we say who's the one up and I'm gonna take
Speaker 4: my ball and go home. No, I am very consistent
Speaker 4: on who I am and making sure that I'm willing
Speaker 4: to sit down and communicate with anyone.
Speaker 3: And I'm an open book.
Speaker 4: Brothers, I don't There's never a time even when you
Speaker 4: talk to my team, they never will say you can't
Speaker 4: touch that subject area. I'm an open book. I have
Speaker 4: an authentic life, and I think as black men, we
Speaker 4: need to look into who is understanding our issues in
Speaker 4: a gender.
Speaker 2: Just recently, I spoke up on behalf of Snoop Dogg
Speaker 2: and Soldier Boy and Nelly as well, And the only
Speaker 2: reason I spoke up for them was on this level.
Speaker 2: People were going off about them performing at the Crypto
Speaker 2: Ball and it was supposed to be a part of
Speaker 2: the inauguration celebration and Donald Trump was supposed to be there,
Speaker 2: but he wasn't there. And I'm like, so what at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, you know what, you're making
Speaker 2: a little paper. Somebody's gonna ain't gonna pay you six
Speaker 2: figures for one night's work. Everybody says, it's not just
Speaker 2: about the money. It's not just about the money. But
Speaker 2: I'm thinking along these lines, this is our problem. We
Speaker 2: have politicians alluding to him being a racist, comparing him
Speaker 2: the Nazis and stuff like that. Right, but then I'm
Speaker 2: supposed to expect you to go out and do business
Speaker 2: with this man and to legislate policy within this country.
Speaker 2: And then I'm thinking about people in the media. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna say any names about them right now, but
Speaker 2: they called them everything but the child of God, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, they're going to Maro Lago
Speaker 2: to kiss the ring. And I'm like, you wouldn't have
Speaker 2: had to do that if you didn't go that fall
Speaker 2: and you just judge on the issue instead of personalizing
Speaker 2: and engaging in incendiary content. For some reason, we don't
Speaker 2: seem to get that message nearly enough, especially as a community.
Speaker 1: Am I wrong in feeling now?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: You are dead on, And that is why we have
Speaker 4: to find our own space and not allow people to
Speaker 4: identify our space. And we need to really look at
Speaker 4: and do something that's really revolutionary. We need to start reading,
Speaker 4: look at the real data, don't just look at the headline,
Speaker 4: don't just flip through the Instagram, the TikTok or the
Speaker 4: quick Twitter post. Sit down and say, let me do
Speaker 4: some real research on the issues that are impacting us,
Speaker 4: because you can't have generation after generation of different administrations,
Speaker 4: but we're still going through the same hell. Why aren't
Speaker 4: we going through the same hell? Archbishop Desmond Tutu head
Speaker 4: a quote that lives with me. We spend a lifetime
Speaker 4: pulling people out of the river. No one goes upstream
Speaker 4: and prevent them from falling in in the first place.
Speaker 4: Poverty is profitable. And then when you look at who
Speaker 4: we're pulling out of the river, they look like you
Speaker 4: and I. People are making paper off of the dysfunctionality
Speaker 4: of government, and there's no real desire to change stuff.
Speaker 4: There's no really you look across the country and see
Speaker 4: black and brown people who are reading that grade level.
Speaker 4: Look at the unemployment level, look at the incarceration level.
Speaker 4: It's the same across the country. So either we born
Speaker 4: with some biological dysfunctionality, or there's a profit in making
Speaker 4: sure we don't change these issues.
Speaker 1: I want to hold both sides accountable.
Speaker 2: Yes, I want to look at both sides and say,
Speaker 2: you know what, it's been a bindary system for decades.
Speaker 2: Both you parties have been in charge of our government.
Speaker 2: And look at the regression that has taken place within
Speaker 2: our nation.
Speaker 1: But then it took a step further.
Speaker 2: Because when we get back to your point about how
Speaker 2: you never left the Democratic Party, you felt like the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party left you. I voted for Kamala Harris. I
Speaker 2: wasn't excited about it. I'll be the first to admit it.
Speaker 2: I just didn't like the divisiveness and the chaos that
Speaker 2: Trump had in his first administration, and I didn't want
Speaker 2: to repeat of that in round two. So my thinking was,
Speaker 2: if you got a Democrat in the White House, but
Speaker 2: you got Republicans in the House and the Senate, somehow
Speaker 2: people would be forced to compromise and things could get done.
Speaker 2: And I look at it in the aftermath of it all,
Speaker 2: and I'm saying to myself, wait a minute, we saw
Speaker 2: a president that clearly, I'll say it. There was slippage.
Speaker 2: You knew that, but you put them. You're avoided the primaries.
Speaker 2: You made sure he showed up on a debate stage
Speaker 2: on June twenty seventh.
Speaker 1: He wasn't ready. It was too late for anybody else.
Speaker 2: So Kamala Harris gets inserted in there. And on judgment Day,
Speaker 2: which was election day, the voter said, we didn't.
Speaker 1: Fall for it. We didn't fall for it.
Speaker 2: And the Democratic Party to me, is still chirping as
Speaker 2: if it's the campaign trail, not recognizing that this man
Speaker 2: is in office and you're going to have to deal
Speaker 2: with them. How could we expect anybody to deal with
Speaker 2: Donald Trump if as a Democrat, folks are still out
Speaker 2: there spewing the same old rhetoric.
Speaker 4: In a way, we need to start talking about governing
Speaker 4: right now. And then you look at a mayor of
Speaker 4: the largest city in America that makes a determination I'm
Speaker 4: going to sit down and not war.
Speaker 3: With the president, but work with the president.
Speaker 4: And people are trying to figure out why I have
Speaker 4: a city to run with real issues around affordability and housing.
Speaker 3: And we have been successful in spite of what we're
Speaker 3: going through. Brother.
Speaker 4: In year one and year two, we broke records in
Speaker 4: individual years on how much housing we build. We brought
Speaker 4: record on how many broke records on how many people
Speaker 4: we moved from homelessness into permanent housing, of how many
Speaker 4: people using subsidized of vouchers for housing. We've been breaking
Speaker 4: records after records after records, and with the help of
Speaker 4: Washington d C, we can go even further What.
Speaker 2: About people who say, mister Mayor, you're engaging in an
Speaker 2: exercise of futility because look at.
Speaker 1: This man, he doesn't really care.
Speaker 3: This is what I'm just told.
Speaker 1: Their attitude is he doesn't really care. Look at him.
Speaker 2: He immediately got rid of it, you know, trying to
Speaker 2: get rid of DEI programs.
Speaker 1: Look at him.
Speaker 2: Look at who he surrounded himself with, these black folks,
Speaker 2: these minorities that have supported him. How many does he
Speaker 2: actually have in his cabinet?
Speaker 1: Look at him.
Speaker 2: It's Elon Musk for X, it's Fred's Mark Zuckerberg for
Speaker 2: Facebook and Matter and.
Speaker 1: All of this other stuff. It's TikTok now.
Speaker 2: So he's insulated himself with media arms or information disseminating
Speaker 2: arms that can insulate him from the level of scrutiny.
Speaker 2: Mister Mayor, aren't you just wasting your time even trying to.
Speaker 4: Communicate with First of First of all, I'm Elon Musk,
Speaker 4: got I love the technology.
Speaker 3: I love what he's doing.
Speaker 4: I think this cat is gonna put us on Mars
Speaker 4: before we know it, and all the secrets that are
Speaker 4: in our universe.
Speaker 3: So I believe in what he's doing.
Speaker 4: But think about it, we're saying, look at him, and
Speaker 4: what he's doing is surrounding himself with But then you
Speaker 4: get a straight up South Jamaica Queen's street cat that's
Speaker 4: able to sit down, that he's willing to pick up
Speaker 4: the phone and say, let's sit down and talk, and
Speaker 4: you want to demonize that action.
Speaker 3: So we can't have it both ways.
Speaker 4: You can't look at well, he surrounding himself with a
Speaker 4: lot of billionaires, and now you get this straight up
Speaker 4: blue collar mayor that he's saying, Eric, let's sit down
Speaker 4: and let's have a conversation, and you want to demonize that. Also,
Speaker 4: some people enjoy the emotions that's attached with misery, and
Speaker 4: no matter what they see brother, they going to say,
Speaker 4: woe is me. I could have said woe is me
Speaker 4: when I was arrested as a child, but I became
Speaker 4: a cop. I could have said woe is me because
Speaker 4: I have a learning disability I learned about in college,
Speaker 4: but I pushed through and became the mayor of the
Speaker 4: City of New York. So you can easily sit back
Speaker 4: and look at your circumstances and say I will never
Speaker 4: do it, or you could use your circumstances to build
Speaker 4: your character.
Speaker 3: And make it happen.
Speaker 1: Do you believe Donald Trump is interested in helping New
Speaker 1: York City citizens?
Speaker 3: Yes? I do.
Speaker 4: The President loves New York. He made his prosperity here
Speaker 4: in this city. I believe he understands how important New
Speaker 4: York is for the country with an economic engine for
Speaker 4: the entire country. And I think that this is a
Speaker 4: great opportunity to look at some of the things that
Speaker 4: we need to do here in the city. And I'm
Speaker 4: going to continue to engage with him. I'm going to
Speaker 4: try and this is not unique. Let's understand something. When
Speaker 4: President Biden won, I went to see him before being
Speaker 4: elected mayor, and I talked with him about the crime
Speaker 4: issues we were seeing in our city.
Speaker 3: He was able to appoint in the eighteen and.
Speaker 2: He loved talking to you until you're highlight at the
Speaker 2: migrant crisis and how it was the ability New York terms.
Speaker 4: It took ten trips to Washington, d C. So it
Speaker 4: wasn't as though when he got elected. The same thing
Speaker 4: I'm doing with this president I did with President Biden.
Speaker 4: He came to the city to sit down with me
Speaker 4: in the police department to talk about the issue of
Speaker 4: the day, which was public safety.
Speaker 3: So this is not new. You know.
Speaker 4: I have sat down with gang leaders. I've sat down
Speaker 4: with people who are my staunch critic. If we don't communicate,
Speaker 4: how the hell are we going to ever hear the
Speaker 4: other side of issues.
Speaker 1: I'm desperate. Does New York need the federal government's assistance?
Speaker 3: Brother?
Speaker 4: It's unbelievable what we need from the federal government. All
Speaker 4: that you see the billions of dollars we send back
Speaker 4: to the federal government, there's a lot we don't get back,
Speaker 4: and it's imperative.
Speaker 3: Everything from our educational funding.
Speaker 4: You look at many of the grants that allow us
Speaker 4: to do infrastructure building, when you look at of our
Speaker 4: law enforcement issues, of the laws that are coming out
Speaker 4: of Washington, we need.
Speaker 3: The federal government.
Speaker 4: If you don't have a real partner in the federal government,
Speaker 4: it is going to make it challenging for you to
Speaker 4: carry out the functionalities of running the city.
Speaker 3: Like New York.
Speaker 2: One of the things that Donald Trump is making a
Speaker 2: lot of noise about is the executive orders that he
Speaker 2: handed down, the inordinate amount of executive orders that he's
Speaker 2: handed down just this first couple of days in office.
Speaker 1: Which one has stood out to you, The.
Speaker 3: Most or all of them. We have to still study.
Speaker 4: You know, people are questioning me on executive order or
Speaker 4: is it? And I say, damn it, the ink is
Speaker 4: not even dry.
Speaker 3: Let me read it.
Speaker 2: Because he can sign an executive order. But that don't
Speaker 2: mean it's gonna hold water. That doesn't mean you're not
Speaker 2: going to have to deal with the government in Congress,
Speaker 2: for example.
Speaker 1: They got a lot of stuff to work through.
Speaker 4: And some may come with lawsuits, some may come with challenges.
Speaker 4: But I think the spirit of what he's saying. And
Speaker 4: you know this, and I've been saying this over and
Speaker 4: over again, this is the greatest country on the globe.
Speaker 4: You know, all the country has dream attached to his name,
Speaker 4: but America, the American dream.
Speaker 3: Doing the migrants and asylum seeker crisis.
Speaker 4: I went to South America and watched people walk thousands
Speaker 4: of miles through the dairy and gap, putting their life
Speaker 4: on the line, all because they wanted to come here.
Speaker 4: And many and overwhelming number wanted to come to New York.
Speaker 4: And so when you look at how we have all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, all of a sudden, become ashamed of
Speaker 4: being the greatest country in the globe. Our children are
Speaker 4: being radicalized. I hate the country. Some of the Ivy
Speaker 4: League institutions are talking about, you know, the destruction of
Speaker 4: America and just mantellent in America. As students, we no
Speaker 4: longer appreciate our product. And I think that out of
Speaker 4: everything he's doing to hear people chanting USA, USA, of
Speaker 4: this country is the greatest country on the globe.
Speaker 3: Is it perfect? Hell? No, it's not.
Speaker 4: But if you were to tell those who criticize this country,
Speaker 4: here's a map, pick where you want to go, a
Speaker 4: whole lot of people won't be going anywhere.
Speaker 2: The one thing that one could argue in favor of
Speaker 2: the right and against the left is that the right
Speaker 2: has been preaching about how America's degree is country in
Speaker 2: the world. Yes, and they've accused the left of doing
Speaker 2: the exact opposite of that, which is the protest that
Speaker 2: you pointed to, along with various other things. Is there
Speaker 2: any legitimacy to that year, I.
Speaker 4: Think it's extremely legitimate. We have a the are various
Speaker 4: systems of government. You have communism, you have socialism, you
Speaker 4: have capitalism. We never say that we were not a
Speaker 4: capitalist country. It's about compassionate capitalism. It's about coming here
Speaker 4: as a dishwasher and one day owning a chain of restaurants.
Speaker 4: It's about growing up in Hollis, Queens and now I'm
Speaker 4: becoming one of the premiere of.
Speaker 3: Talk show hosts. Where else are you going to be
Speaker 3: able to accomplish that.
Speaker 4: It's about being dyslexic and arrested, and now I'm elected
Speaker 4: to be the mayor of the greatest city on the globe.
Speaker 4: The possibilities are endless in this country.
Speaker 2: Sitting next to somebody that was I had undiagnosed dyslexia
Speaker 2: that they found out about and ultimately, you know, this
Speaker 2: is the kind of stuff I'm sitting here today. I
Speaker 2: ask you this because when I think about diversity, equity,
Speaker 2: and inclusion, that has nothing to do with we were
Speaker 2: just talking about getting back to d I would like
Speaker 2: you to define a definition of DEI.
Speaker 1: What it should mean when you hear de EI.
Speaker 2: What should that mean to the average American citizen and
Speaker 2: the employers out here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we cannot We cannot ignore the fact that there
Speaker 4: are many people who were passed over based on their ethnicity,
Speaker 4: and based on their gender, and based on their lives.
Speaker 4: You know, many of you I would talk to some
Speaker 4: of my Muslim brothers and sisters, and they would denyed
Speaker 4: jobs because they had the job. I would talk to
Speaker 4: some of my Jewish brothers and sisters, and they were
Speaker 4: law firms and other jobs they could not have.
Speaker 3: And African Americans.
Speaker 4: I can think about my sister, my oldest sister, how
Speaker 4: many jobs she would train someone who was junior to
Speaker 4: her and constantly watch them pass over.
Speaker 3: So we know there were some historical problems.
Speaker 4: Now the goal is how do you give opportunities to people,
Speaker 4: regardless of the ethnicity, their gender, their lifestyle. That's what
Speaker 4: I believe. It should be qualified people getting the given opportunity.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the problems that people have when
Speaker 2: they look at the Trump administration or they look at
Speaker 2: the Republicans and the Conservatives, because every time you hear DEI,
Speaker 2: whether it's in the media on the right or from politicians,
Speaker 2: when you hear DEI, it implicates or insinuates these are
Speaker 2: unqualified individuals that got jobs because of DEI. They're not
Speaker 2: looking at the fact that DEI was necessary because there
Speaker 2: were plenty of qualified individuals who didn't look like you
Speaker 2: share your cultural identity or background that.
Speaker 1: You didn't give a chance to show you what they
Speaker 1: could do without it.
Speaker 2: They're not doing that, and that's something that the Right
Speaker 2: to Me needs to get their act together about.
Speaker 1: When they talk about DEEI to that, you say, well, listen,
Speaker 1: well said.
Speaker 3: And I speak with folks of color who are very.
Speaker 4: Much associated with the party, and they said, listen, there's
Speaker 4: areas we have to improve upon.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things.
Speaker 4: That I could disagree with people on, but I want
Speaker 4: to find places on where I agree on. And the
Speaker 4: only way you could get it at the table and
Speaker 4: talk about allowing that pathway to success is you have
Speaker 4: to be at the table if and talk to people
Speaker 4: and not yell at people.
Speaker 3: And that's what folks are.
Speaker 4: If we're constantly yelling at each other, we would never
Speaker 4: hear each other. And that is my role as the
Speaker 4: mayor of the most important city on the globe.
Speaker 1: Before I let you get on out of here, there
Speaker 1: just a couple of questions.
Speaker 2: I know this man, I really appreciated September fifteenth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, you awarded media moguls showing Diddy Combs with
Speaker 2: the key to the city and.
Speaker 1: The cleared the day Diddy Day.
Speaker 2: Rest of all, I want to know I'm curious what
Speaker 2: goes into determining who gets the key to the city.
Speaker 1: I just want to know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Asked, you know what's interesting, I'm glad you said that
Speaker 4: took about DEI. When we did an analysis of who
Speaker 4: were getting the keys, it didn't look like us, it
Speaker 4: didn't look like hose.
Speaker 3: To somebody that.
Speaker 1: Looked like us, And what the hell has you got himself?
Speaker 1: So man, come on, man, come on, but go ahead,
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 4: You can't live life by what's in the front. You
Speaker 4: gotta know, you know, you go based on what people
Speaker 4: have done. And so there's a whole paneling committee and
Speaker 4: what we did we broke it up into entertainers as
Speaker 4: well as those who contribute to the city, and people
Speaker 4: looked at his contribution of what what he has done
Speaker 4: and others that we on it. We knew that we
Speaker 4: should give him that award. And listen, my heart goes
Speaker 4: out to him, you know, as he.
Speaker 3: Goes through his legal struggles.
Speaker 4: You know, my heart goes out right exactly, you know,
Speaker 4: and I you know, there by the grace of God
Speaker 4: goes out. We're all going through something. And so Mahart
Speaker 4: goes out to him.
Speaker 1: The key was returned last year.
Speaker 3: Did you ask for the team the committee? Did the committee?
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not the individual person determined.
Speaker 4: There's a whole committee that sits down and they made
Speaker 4: the determination because of the highlight of the case, and
Speaker 4: this team was They were cool. They said, well, listen,
Speaker 4: we understand what's going on. We respect that. They didn't
Speaker 4: give any pushback. This is the big boys, big girls club.
Speaker 4: We all know that you have to uh deal with
Speaker 4: the issues that are in front of in front of.
Speaker 2: The Only reason not asked is because you know, when
Speaker 2: when Luigi Mangioni, you know, allegedly killed the United Healthcare
Speaker 2: CEO Ryan Thompson, you were right there when he.
Speaker 1: Arrived in New York. I'm asking because.
Speaker 3: You were right there.
Speaker 2: You know you will be sive, front and center when
Speaker 2: it comes to issues such as that, no doubt.
Speaker 3: Listen. I'm on the ground, man.
Speaker 4: I was on the ground when Officer Moron Rivera two
Speaker 4: young officers was shot and killed, assassinated. I was on
Speaker 4: the ground when eleven year old eleven month old baby
Speaker 4: was shot in the head. I was in the hospital
Speaker 4: with the family members. I believe that being mayor is
Speaker 4: both substantive and his symbolism. Uh, and we have done
Speaker 4: a great job and a substantive part of it. But
Speaker 4: the symbolism of a person who's allegedly committed an assassination
Speaker 4: and our city with a silencer watching him come back
Speaker 4: in the city.
Speaker 3: I needed to look him in the eye.
Speaker 4: And many New Yorkers said thank you for being there
Speaker 4: because people were traumatized. And if I lose my CEOs
Speaker 4: in the city, I'm losing employees, I'm losing tax dollars,
Speaker 4: and I'm using the economic stability of the city.
Speaker 2: So you sound like a conservative. You understand that some
Speaker 2: people don't look at you say you sound like a conservative.
Speaker 4: No, but think about us for a moment. You know,
Speaker 4: you know, I went to the Church of Christ in
Speaker 4: South Jamaica. Queens our philosophy in the family we grew
Speaker 4: up in. You know, I'm not sure what your dad did,
Speaker 4: but I'm sure.
Speaker 2: It was silver hard blue Calker brother, mother, register, nurse,
Speaker 2: Queen General Hospital.
Speaker 3: Think about it.
Speaker 4: Think about the core values and principles that they're from.
Speaker 4: You know, your family, I believe it's the Caribbean come
Speaker 4: in here. May have left family members behind, aching out
Speaker 4: their way, not ever looking for a handout, just giving
Speaker 4: the opportunity to work, you know, for their families, and
Speaker 4: their families just six six children that they were raising.
Speaker 3: And so those are the principles that I live by.
Speaker 2: What about people who look at the level say they
Speaker 2: want to give too many handouts? They look at the
Speaker 2: right and say they don't want to give you a
Speaker 2: damn thing.
Speaker 1: Which way do you go? How does the mayor of
Speaker 1: the largest city in the United States answer that quest?
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 4: I love that because what happens all the time people
Speaker 4: want you to be on one side or the other,
Speaker 4: and it takes a lot of discipline to say, you're
Speaker 4: not going to pigeonhole me.
Speaker 3: I may be have a I may have a conservative
Speaker 3: view on the.
Speaker 4: Topic, and I may have a liberal view on the topic,
Speaker 4: and I'm going to address that based on where I
Speaker 4: am on the topic.
Speaker 2: But devoid of being pigeonholed, devoid of you know, taking
Speaker 2: a side per se, because I'm right with you. I
Speaker 2: believe exactly how you do. I'm not a politician, though.
Speaker 2: They say you need that support. In order in order
Speaker 2: to get support, you need to take a side.
Speaker 1: How do you answer that?
Speaker 3: And I think they're wrong.
Speaker 4: I think the numerical minority are at the streams. The
Speaker 4: overwhelming majority is in the middle. We have to encourage
Speaker 4: them to come out and vote. I think they are
Speaker 4: more Americans like you and I that are concerned about affordability,
Speaker 4: public safety, and making sure they could house their children
Speaker 4: and have a safe place families in this city.
Speaker 3: But we've allowed the extremes to hijack the narrative.
Speaker 4: But I think the overwhelming number of New Yorkers are
Speaker 4: just like you and I want to provide for our
Speaker 4: family and make sure they have a future.
Speaker 2: Last couple of questions when I think about you, now,
Speaker 2: let's think positive.
Speaker 3: Yes, Let's say.
Speaker 1: These allegations are gonna go away.
Speaker 2: Your issues campaign, you know, fraud and campaign finance, all
Speaker 2: of this stuff, we're gonna throw away.
Speaker 1: With all of that.
Speaker 2: It's you against Andrew Cuomo for the mayor of New York.
Speaker 2: I'm a sports guy, like competician. I mean, what kind
Speaker 2: of prediction would you put forth if you got if
Speaker 2: you had yourself, if you found yourself in a position
Speaker 2: where you were going up against Andrew Cuomo for the mayor,
Speaker 2: for the mayor's position, for the his honors position in
Speaker 2: the city of New York.
Speaker 4: Well, listen, I think that to me, and this is
Speaker 4: how I run my life. I'm not running against Andrew
Speaker 4: Cuomo or any of the other candidates. I'm running against
Speaker 4: myself play my best game. If I play my best game,
Speaker 4: it doesn't matter who's in the race, because there's other
Speaker 4: candidates in the race. And what I've learned in electoral
Speaker 4: politics right now, we're in the preseason. You know, we're
Speaker 4: not in the playoffs. When you're in the playoffs, your
Speaker 4: game has to be different. You could be great, you know,
Speaker 4: in the season, but when you get in the playoffs,
Speaker 4: let's see what you're made of.
Speaker 1: He's a former governor that may be running for mayor.
Speaker 2: Yes, you're a mayor. All of this stuff goes away.
Speaker 2: Gubernatorial aspirations, No.
Speaker 3: Not, not of this?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 4: I am focused on running this city and listen, of
Speaker 4: this is the second second most important job in America,
Speaker 4: And you know, it's a blessing every day being mayor
Speaker 4: of the City of New York. And so no matter
Speaker 4: what's on the next journey, no one can take away
Speaker 4: the number one tenth. I was one hundred and tenth
Speaker 4: mayor of the greatest city on the globe.
Speaker 3: Think about that for a moment.
Speaker 2: You said second most important job was the first president
Speaker 2: of the United States.
Speaker 3: You know, but everyone knows.
Speaker 4: When I meet the mayor's from across the globe during
Speaker 4: you n week, they all argue about who's number two
Speaker 4: and number three and then look over at me and
Speaker 4: their smile they say, we know who's number one.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: YEA last question, sir, as we sit here talking right
Speaker 2: now as two individuals from the streets of Queens, New York,
Speaker 2: and we hear the climate that is out there. It's
Speaker 2: subsided to some degree, although there's obvious concerns because the
Speaker 2: election is over and the people have spoken. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: won the popular vote, he won the electoral college vote,
Speaker 2: the right one won the House, they got the Senate.
Speaker 1: It is what it is is what message would you say.
Speaker 2: Particularly specifically to Black Americans out there who have this
Speaker 2: fear of what he's going to do and the kind
Speaker 2: of effect that's going to have on our community moving forward.
Speaker 2: And it's not to alienate any other minority. It's not
Speaker 2: to alienate White America. It's nothing about that, right, and
Speaker 2: a black man from Quez, you're a black man from
Speaker 2: Queis we're hearing the rhetoric and we see people overreacting
Speaker 2: to the slightest syllable that comes out of his mouth,
Speaker 2: and that of the right. If anybody from our community
Speaker 2: supports it in any way, what message do you have?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I like that, And I think your success
Speaker 4: has been because you may be of African ancestry, of
Speaker 4: you speak to everyone. The guy that's sitting inside the
Speaker 4: bar that's Italian still can connect with you.
Speaker 3: The heartbroken person who may be.
Speaker 4: A janitor can see how you combine sports and politics.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I think that is the gift that you have have
Speaker 4: of that you're able to connect with people. And so
Speaker 4: I say that African Americans who feel specifically that this
Speaker 4: is going to impact their lives.
Speaker 3: No matter who's the mayor, the governor, the president.
Speaker 4: If you truly believe God is in charge, then God
Speaker 4: is not gonna let anything harmful happen to you. And
Speaker 4: so we have to draw on our religious beliefs and
Speaker 4: we have to really fortify how we feel about the
Speaker 4: success of the children and families of our city. Stay focused,
Speaker 4: don't be distracted. You have your dreams, you have your mission,
Speaker 4: and no president or mayor governor.
Speaker 3: Is going to be able to impact that because.
Speaker 4: You and I both know we've lived through several mayors
Speaker 4: and governors, and many times they may have been elected,
Speaker 4: and people have forecasts doomsday and we're still here today.
Speaker 3: You're running the show, I'm running the city.
Speaker 1: There you go, and we got resolved.
Speaker 2: It was all minds, a pleasure, resolute us, the Mayor
Speaker 2: of New York himself, the one and the only Eric Adams.
Speaker 2: I hope you all enjoyed that conversation. I know I did,
Speaker 2: and if you listened, no doubt you learned a few things.