Speaker 1: Joining me now to discuss the new Trump administration in
Speaker 1: New York City, along with a bevy of other things,
Speaker 1: is the Mayor of New York City himself, mister Eric Adams,
Speaker 1: an honor and a privileged How you're doing, It's good to.
Speaker 2: See you south side outside. That's just telling you we
Speaker 2: used to come out to Hollands and take y'all short.
Speaker 1: Well. You know what they didn't tell you is that
Speaker 1: we really didn't want them because we loved the ladies
Speaker 1: in Cabria Heights and Lawington. It was other areas the Hollands.
Speaker 1: So he's like, okay, you do what you do.
Speaker 2: You got some nice catscaders, without question, a lot of
Speaker 2: quality came out.
Speaker 1: I grew up with run dmc ll cool J was
Speaker 1: right down the Black Fire, you know, five minutes away
Speaker 1: Farmers Boulevard, and you know, you know, John rul Fitty
Speaker 1: said that a whole bunch of cats came from from
Speaker 1: from the house.
Speaker 2: You know, you know what brother, working class people brooking
Speaker 2: class values. You know, mom bro daycare center be up
Speaker 2: every day, led by example homeowners. You know our you know,
Speaker 2: many of our values come from what we saw and
Speaker 2: the community raised us right. It wasn't just appearance as
Speaker 2: a community. So we're going to get into all of that,
Speaker 2: mister Mayor.
Speaker 1: But my first order of businesses is that today, of
Speaker 1: all days, you are the talk of New York City.
Speaker 1: Right now, everybody's talking about you. You're stealing headlines on
Speaker 1: what have you because you talked about how you haven't
Speaker 1: left the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: Has left you.
Speaker 1: That's the court everybody's been parading around all over the place.
Speaker 1: Right now as we sit here today, how are you
Speaker 1: feeling about your administration, what you've accomplished, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: the support or lack thereof you've received from the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's out of the theme of the working
Speaker 3: class people.
Speaker 2: And when you stop talking about working class issues and
Speaker 2: people are hurting, and you having this intellectual conversation and
Speaker 2: have a philosophical approach of just addressing what are people
Speaker 2: feeling every day? And I have never left the streets
Speaker 2: on the subways. I was stopping the middle of the
Speaker 2: night when barbershops close down. I would go inside and
Speaker 2: sit down, smoke a cigar, drink a little hendessy with
Speaker 2: the people inside and just feel them. And they're saying
Speaker 2: that the party is not talking to us. And when
Speaker 2: I say the party, I'm not talking about people who
Speaker 2: are registered Democrats. I'm talking about those who are putting
Speaker 2: out the messages of what is important to the Democratic Party,
Speaker 2: and they have left the average broking class person and individuals.
Speaker 2: And that is what I'm trying to say to the
Speaker 2: party that you know, it's not like I abandoned the party.
Speaker 2: The party has abandoned of what broking class people have
Speaker 2: been fighting for.
Speaker 1: You know, you deal with this and you will continue
Speaker 1: to deal with this a hell of a lot more
Speaker 1: than me. I'm just your friendly neighborhood sports reporter that
Speaker 1: adventures in the other areas of discussion. But I've been
Speaker 1: taking a lot of heat because of my willingness to
Speaker 1: call out some of the things that I've seen from
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. And it's almost like this supposed to
Speaker 1: be this onus, this level of obligation as black men
Speaker 1: that we're supposed to have to the Democratic Party, And
Speaker 1: clearly you're being challenged on that now because of the
Speaker 1: positions and the stances that you have been willing to
Speaker 1: take as a black man, not just the mayor of
Speaker 1: New York City. How do you feel when you hear
Speaker 1: people come to you with that kind of attitude.
Speaker 3: List, brother, this is going to be one hell of
Speaker 3: a conversation.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: People don't even realize what it is to be a
Speaker 2: man of color, to be in charge of the most
Speaker 2: important city on the globe. We need to really understand
Speaker 2: that I'm the mayor of the most important city on
Speaker 2: the globe only the second mayor of color. Mayor Dinkin's
Speaker 2: was the first, and I'm the second. I inherited a
Speaker 2: city that was engulfed in COVID twenty and twenty thousand
Speaker 2: microsohen asylum seekers. Crime was through the roof. Unemployment with
Speaker 2: black and brown people.
Speaker 3: Was high.
Speaker 2: You were looking at our children were not learning. I've
Speaker 2: been on Riker's Island more than any other mayor in
Speaker 2: the history of the city, speaking to inmates and correction officer,
Speaker 2: who both are overwhelmingly black and brown. And so when
Speaker 2: you look at what I inherited, and then you fast
Speaker 2: forward to today, with all that we've gone through, we
Speaker 2: have more jobs in the city's history, More small businesses
Speaker 2: are open. Black and brown businesses have received billions of
Speaker 2: dollars in contracts from the city. We have outpaced the
Speaker 2: state and read it and math. We're doing dyslexia screening
Speaker 2: so that we won't have thirty percent of our prison
Speaker 2: population being dyslexic. Like I am of what we have
Speaker 2: done in the city, paying for college soution for forced
Speaker 2: to care children. Bond raiders looked at the city and said,
Speaker 2: we're going to increase your bond because the way you're
Speaker 2: managing the crisis. With two hundred and twenty thousand micros
Speaker 2: and asylum seekers dropped in our city without any support,
Speaker 2: We've turned around this city and there are a lot
Speaker 2: of it is out there that don't want to acknowledge
Speaker 2: what this administration have done. Why do you think that
Speaker 2: is Well, I think it's a combination of things. I
Speaker 2: was never the chosen candidate. I'm a bald headed earring
Speaker 2: where in Maya that's saying that you don't have to
Speaker 2: have this one stereotypical look to.
Speaker 3: Be successful in the city.
Speaker 2: And I think that there's a lot of people that
Speaker 2: want to send this signal that Okay, you can't run
Speaker 2: the city. I'm running the city, and I'm running and
Speaker 2: navigating us out of crisis, and I'm independent in doing so.
Speaker 2: You know, there are days at a wake up feeling
Speaker 2: one way in another way, and we need to be
Speaker 2: clear on taking these big cities to the next level.
Speaker 1: Is that part of the problem, though, mister Mayor, in
Speaker 1: terms of the you know, the conflict, the confrontations, the
Speaker 1: resistance that you may ultimately encounter. Is it the fact
Speaker 1: that you wake up with independent voice as opposed to
Speaker 1: being a slave to this binary system that we live in.
Speaker 1: And it is either take one side or the other.
Speaker 1: It's all one way or the thing another way. That's
Speaker 1: what basically folks have been saying for the longest time,
Speaker 1: and people like yourself seem to be given the impression. Nah,
Speaker 1: I'm not down for that anymore.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, you look at those who want to check
Speaker 2: off a box and if you don't fit into all
Speaker 2: of these items in the box, then you can't be
Speaker 2: classified as.
Speaker 3: This group or another group.
Speaker 2: And that's not who we are as individuals and as
Speaker 2: human beings. We have different beliefs and belief systems, and
Speaker 2: I focus on that all the time.
Speaker 3: And this is not new.
Speaker 2: People fell and realized go back thirty something years when
Speaker 2: I was winning the police department and one hundred blacks
Speaker 2: and law enforcement who cared I didn't want.
Speaker 3: To be a cop.
Speaker 2: I was arrested and beat by police officers at fifteen
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 3: REVN.
Speaker 2: Herbert Daughtry told me, you are going into the police
Speaker 2: department to fight from within. Wow, you know. And when
Speaker 2: we went in, people call me uncle Tom, sellout, nigro.
Speaker 2: But we went in and started one of the most
Speaker 2: important human rights and civil rights organization as black police officers.
Speaker 2: And so there's a long record of looking at my
Speaker 2: assignment and fulfilling my assignment.
Speaker 3: Brother, I can't even tell you how painful.
Speaker 2: It was to say I put on that uniform of
Speaker 2: those who take me and my groin over and over again.
Speaker 2: My brother and I we were pissing blood for weeks
Speaker 2: after being assaulted by those cops in the basement of
Speaker 2: one hundred and third Precinct.
Speaker 1: And before you became a captain, if I remember correctly
Speaker 1: based on my research, before you became a captain within
Speaker 1: the police department, you were an officer literally speaking out
Speaker 1: against racism and prejudice all the time, which I might
Speaker 1: imagine didn't endear you to your colleagues and contemporaries and
Speaker 1: boys and blue.
Speaker 2: You know, and know, it was interesting that many people
Speaker 2: didn't realize that many of those officers would come to
Speaker 2: me and say, you know, thank you for what you're doing,
Speaker 2: because they wanted to go home to their families, and
Speaker 2: they knew that there was a number of cops that
Speaker 2: were overly aggressive and abusive, and by us talking out
Speaker 2: it allowed them to not have to get caught up
Speaker 2: in that whole web that.
Speaker 3: We were dealing with.
Speaker 2: And that's the same I took into the state centate,
Speaker 2: took it to the being the first person of color
Speaker 2: to be ball president and too now to become the mayor.
Speaker 3: I'm the same cat, brother.
Speaker 1: Listen, listen, well, listen. If you're the same, more power
Speaker 1: to you, because, to be honest with you, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you need to be the same. I think
Speaker 1: you've already proven who you are. You don't really really
Speaker 1: need to be the same. You can mix it up
Speaker 1: a little bit. But I'm just looking at some of
Speaker 1: the things. I'm thinking about crime, I'm thinking about the
Speaker 1: local economy. I'm thinking about joblessness, all of these issues
Speaker 1: that have been addressed during your administration. What things have
Speaker 1: been like for you since COVID and how basically so
Speaker 1: many jobs have been restored et cetera, et cetera. What's
Speaker 1: been the greatest challenge for you sitting in that seat
Speaker 1: as mayor of New York City, particularly over the last come.
Speaker 3: I love that. That's a great question.
Speaker 2: The failure to acknowledge the success and our media. That's
Speaker 2: why this show is so important, our media in the
Speaker 2: city of the failure every day, if you go back
Speaker 2: and look at from the time to office, we've been
Speaker 2: under fire, and the failure to acknowledge the recovery of jobs,
Speaker 2: cycling us out of COVID, managing two hundred twenty thousand
Speaker 2: micros and asylum seekers and one hundred and se hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty thousand on their way of what we're doing
Speaker 2: around recovering the economy of this city. You don't read
Speaker 2: about any of that, do you know, even when.
Speaker 3: You talk about it. In our transit system.
Speaker 2: When I go into rooms and I say tell me
Speaker 2: how many crimes you think we have in the subway
Speaker 2: every day, people say two hundred and.
Speaker 3: Three hundred and four hundred. We have four point.
Speaker 2: Six million riders a day. We have six crime felony
Speaker 2: crimes a day. But when you read this city from
Speaker 2: abroad or in another state, you say this is a
Speaker 2: city out of control. This is the safest big city
Speaker 2: in America. I just acknowledge today with the police commissioner.
Speaker 2: We removed twenty thousand illegal guns off our street, fourteen
Speaker 2: hundred ghost guns of our streets. Shootings and homicides are down,
Speaker 2: Crime is down. This city's the safest big city.
Speaker 1: Let me throw this at you. You know what doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense to me? What doesn't make sense to me
Speaker 1: based on what you just articulated. There was an election
Speaker 1: that was coming about this past November. We know who won,
Speaker 1: we know what happened prior to that election.
Speaker 3: The media has been accused of being the liberal media.
Speaker 1: For the longest time. So one would think when you
Speaker 1: considered the imagery that was emanating from the right as
Speaker 1: they talked about crime in the streets and pestilence and
Speaker 1: homelessness and migrant crisis and all of these different things,
Speaker 1: those kind of things that you just articulated, one would
Speaker 1: think that the liberal media would jump, would pounce at
Speaker 1: the opportunity to articulate that message to the masses, because
Speaker 1: it would have served their purpose in support of somebody
Speaker 1: on a left, in this case, Kamala Harris winning the election.
Speaker 1: Yet you're sitting here saying that did not happen. How
Speaker 1: do you explain it.
Speaker 2: They didn't highlight their message. They didn't highlight the largest
Speaker 2: city in America. They didn't highlight a person of color
Speaker 2: as mayor lifting up this city. There was sess story
Speaker 2: that should have been the talking point for the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: A working class mayor, thirty billion dollars back in the
Speaker 2: pockets of everyday working class people.
Speaker 1: Kindling two billion in medical debts.
Speaker 3: You are think about that, unred thousand New Yorkers, think
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 2: Okay, five hundred thousand New Yorkers, We're going to cancel
Speaker 2: their medical debt. That's the number one course of bankruptcy,
Speaker 2: and particularly for black and brown people. So there was
Speaker 2: a narrative here in the city that we could have
Speaker 2: talked about instead of that. There was a lot of
Speaker 2: anger because I was saying to them, you got two
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty thousand micros and asylum seekers coming to
Speaker 2: the city, and you guys are not being responsible about
Speaker 2: securing our borders.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about what you just said. I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: the fact that when ultimately you indicted by the federal
Speaker 1: government on fraud or fraudulent affraud chargers, along with other things.
Speaker 1: You were the first mayor to be criminally charged while
Speaker 1: in office in the history of New York City. Much
Speaker 1: of a role do you believe that played in what
Speaker 1: wasn't disseminated as it pertains to your administrations?
Speaker 2: I think a lot, brother, And you know, many people
Speaker 2: never read the indictment. Please, and if you read the indictment,
Speaker 2: you're going to see that, you know, at the heart
Speaker 2: of this is that I was doing my job of
Speaker 2: telling the Fight Apartment, can you do an inspection on
Speaker 2: the building. This is something when I sit down with
Speaker 2: my colleagues, they say, Eric, are you kidding me? You know,
Speaker 2: because this is what we do as governmental officials. And
Speaker 2: I was saying the other day on the other talk
Speaker 2: show of you know, brother, how hard as it is
Speaker 2: to just sit back and watch me, I have to
Speaker 2: take all these body blows right now and can't defend
Speaker 2: myself something that I've always.
Speaker 1: Lawyers tell you to be quiet, don't say anything.
Speaker 2: It's sick, you know, And so it's imperative for me
Speaker 2: when you're doing analysis of not only would I said
Speaker 2: have said, Biden said his Justice Apartment is political webinars,
Speaker 2: websized weapons, wepiniws, politicized, it's all the same size, right.
Speaker 3: Trump said it.
Speaker 2: And when I saw A Biden's speech and why he
Speaker 2: impeached his family members, he talked about him, many people
Speaker 2: didn't read that that. When you go through prosecutions like this,
Speaker 2: it's not only your guilty and innocence, it's the it's
Speaker 2: the financial impact on it. It's just the embarrassment. I
Speaker 2: spent two million dollars. Brother, I'm a civil service. What
Speaker 2: does a civil service get two million dollars from?
Speaker 3: You? Know? You have to you have to be able
Speaker 3: to have people who believe.
Speaker 2: In you enough to donate to your public support exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And so I'm looking at it and listen, pardon clements.
Speaker 1: Granted clemency to a few folks. Don't know those kinds
Speaker 1: of things. That's what President Biden has done. And we'll
Speaker 1: get into that in just a couple of minutes or so.
Speaker 1: But in light of that, along with campaign finance charges,
Speaker 1: that's what they're throwing at you as well. You still
Speaker 1: have been to determined to run for re election in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, like that cases coming up in April
Speaker 1: re election, you know, you know, right, wow, what kind
Speaker 1: of message you said about it by continuing to stay
Speaker 1: in this.
Speaker 3: And I love that. Man.
Speaker 2: That's a powerful question because many people are in dark
Speaker 2: places in their personal lives. And you know, Mommy used
Speaker 2: to say, a dark place is not a burial, it's
Speaker 2: a planted And you know, brother, you know, as you
Speaker 2: know with your parents, you know your dad, and you know,
Speaker 2: raising the family, a family of six, I'm the same
Speaker 2: right right, you know, And Mommy loved all of us,
Speaker 2: but she adored me, you know, same here and brother,
Speaker 2: I used to walk past Mommy's door and raising us
Speaker 2: on our own. I would hear in that that that
Speaker 2: room at night crying, you know, not knowing that she
Speaker 2: was going to be feed up, to feed us, to
Speaker 2: keep a roof on her head. But you know what,
Speaker 2: every morning she got up, she got And so in
Speaker 2: the first two weeks of that indictment, people that I
Speaker 2: had sleep on my couches when they were thrown out
Speaker 2: of their homes, people who their children were arrested, and
Speaker 2: I went down and stood with them, people who I
Speaker 2: stood in the hospitals.
Speaker 3: With when they were going through terrible times.
Speaker 2: They were tripping over themselves saying you need to step down,
Speaker 2: you need to step down. It broke my heart. I'm
Speaker 2: not even gonna lie to you, but I said to
Speaker 2: myself and I thought of Mommy. She died and during
Speaker 2: my election, I said, you know, Mommy never stepped down.
Speaker 3: She stepped up.
Speaker 2: And with all that we were going through, we still
Speaker 2: moved the city forward and we knew that had the
Speaker 2: right team to get it done. And I'm hoping that
Speaker 2: people who are in dark places right now, if you're
Speaker 2: a young man that's sending in ryk As Island in
Speaker 2: jail cell, you're gonna say, listen, my mayor was arrested.
Speaker 3: If you're a young.
Speaker 2: Person, would learn the disability my mayor has dyslexia. I
Speaker 2: want people to look and see my life and say,
Speaker 2: don't ever give up, and don't let anyone defy who
Speaker 2: you are what you are. I know who I am,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna fight like hell to make sure people
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna fight like hell or make sure your
Speaker 1: you win the case or that you are proven to
Speaker 1: be innocent because there's a difference with the voters.
Speaker 2: Right there's I think the pathway to justice come in
Speaker 2: many different ways, and one should not allow anyone to
Speaker 2: block their pathway to justice. It's the role of my attorney,
Speaker 2: Alex Spiro, to ensure that we pursue every pathway to justice.
Speaker 3: I did nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: I should not have been charged, and his his his
Speaker 2: job to pursue my justice. My job is that I
Speaker 2: was elected to represent the city of New York and
Speaker 2: on every area I have never abandoned that responsibility.
Speaker 1: You reportedly went to visit President Donald Trump at Mara
Speaker 1: a Lago prior prior to the inauguration. What can you
Speaker 1: tell us about that and is it really about what
Speaker 1: people are saying. It's about you're hoping that in the
Speaker 1: event something goes down and you find yourself being convicted
Speaker 1: of this of these allegations, that he's going to parton you.
Speaker 2: And think about that four twelve moment. This is the
Speaker 2: president of the United States. I'm the mayor of the
Speaker 2: largest city in America that lost six point five billion
Speaker 2: dollars due to the previous administration inability to finance a
Speaker 2: micro crisis. Why are people asking, is the mayor of
Speaker 2: the largest city in America going down to meet with
Speaker 2: the president to talk about how do we recoup some
Speaker 2: of those losses and how do we ensure that we
Speaker 2: move our city forward. It would be irresponsible for me
Speaker 2: not to go down and speak with the president. And
Speaker 2: hats off to him. He met with me days before
Speaker 2: his inaugeration. You know that says a lot about his
Speaker 2: love for the city, and that says a lot of
Speaker 2: how much respect he had for this administration on what
Speaker 2: we are doing. I had to go down to Washington,
Speaker 2: I mean to Florida to speak with the president.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it makes a whole lot of sense
Speaker 1: to me, and I don't have any issue with it.
Speaker 1: But you're going to have critics out there of Mayor
Speaker 1: Eric Adams of New York City's primary reason you went
Speaker 1: down there is because of your legal your personal legal issues,
Speaker 1: and that that is the priority over the other issues
Speaker 1: that you just brought up, mainly six point five billion
Speaker 1: dollars that you're trying to recoup. To that, you say, what.
Speaker 2: Let's I say the same thing I say in New
Speaker 2: York often time, and I'm speaking to the media. I
Speaker 2: have eight point three New Yorkers, I have thirty five
Speaker 2: million opinions.
Speaker 3: It's that's what it is.
Speaker 2: You're not doing anything if you don't have people who
Speaker 2: are going to be attacking you. So the numerical minority
Speaker 2: with the largest voices that are constantly consistently from the
Speaker 2: day I took office, have consistently talked about everything I
Speaker 2: am not, even though we showed the success. Though the
Speaker 2: same people who are saying or your critics say, you
Speaker 2: know what, that's noise.
Speaker 3: Brother.
Speaker 2: You know I say all the time the graduates, let
Speaker 2: your haters be your waiters.
Speaker 3: When you sit down at the table of success.
Speaker 1: But let's get specific and talk about the migrant crisis.
Speaker 1: In this regard, about two hundred and twenty nine thousand
Speaker 1: migrants came to the city, the city streets of New York.
Speaker 1: You had to find shelter for them. You articulate, I
Speaker 1: believe during the Tucker cars and interview, of the lack
Speaker 1: of support that you had received, et cetera. Nevertheless, you
Speaker 1: found a way to maneuver your way through this and
Speaker 1: find yourself in a position where there were so many
Speaker 1: other things about your administration there was to deploy it
Speaker 1: crystallize for the viewers out there and the listeners on
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio as well, the kind of potential damage inflicted upon
Speaker 1: New York City in light of migrants coming to the
Speaker 1: city and New York obviously being considered the.
Speaker 3: Sanctuary, right and you know, well said, and that's a
Speaker 3: great question. So let's look at it for a moment.
Speaker 2: Tunia, twenty thousand, microco and asybeum seekers came to the
Speaker 2: city one point five the size of Aubany, So a
Speaker 2: whole city was dropped in our cities.
Speaker 3: We were getting thousands a week, all times of the night.
Speaker 2: We had to provide every service that you would provide
Speaker 2: to an individual person. We had to do housing, we
Speaker 2: had to clean clothing, we had to provide food. We
Speaker 2: had to educate forty thousand women and forty thousand children.
Speaker 2: And we were told this, it's illegal for you to
Speaker 2: allow them to work. You can't allow the busses to come.
Speaker 2: You can't stop the buses from coming in. You can't
Speaker 2: even allow them to volunteer to remove graffiti, deliver food
Speaker 2: and services. You couldn't do any of that. All of
Speaker 2: that was against the against against the law. And out
Speaker 2: of the six point five billion dollars, the federal government
Speaker 2: wanted to give US two hundred million and only gave
Speaker 2: about one hundred and twenty five a million to provide
Speaker 2: for this service, which is a national problem, it's not
Speaker 2: a local problem. And so what it did was, in
Speaker 2: addition to the countless number of people who were pursuing
Speaker 2: the American Dream, it brought in a lot of It
Speaker 2: brought in a small number of a criminal element that
Speaker 2: did a disproportionate amount of crime. So we had a
Speaker 2: public safety issue that we were facing our city, and
Speaker 2: we had an infrastructure issue because those six point five
Speaker 2: billion dollars. People tell me all the time, Okay, Veric,
Speaker 2: you got through it. Wow, congratulations, you transitioned one hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy thousand to go on to the next step
Speaker 2: of the American Dream. But what is the damage? The
Speaker 2: long term damage. I couldn't go after children who are
Speaker 2: chronically absent from school because we didn't have the money,
Speaker 2: my older adults dealing with my housing infrastructure. That's six
Speaker 2: point five billion now way up to seven six point
Speaker 2: nine billion, that were removed from dealing with the real
Speaker 2: issues that we wanted to invest into our into our city.
Speaker 2: The long term impact to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver,
Speaker 2: we have not witnessed a long term impact yet to discrisis.
Speaker 1: So with that being said, are you still still supportive
Speaker 1: of the City of New York being considered the sanctuary city, and.
Speaker 2: So that's that's so important. These are good questions. Brother,
Speaker 2: people conflate what centuary city is.
Speaker 1: Please explain.
Speaker 3: A sanctuary city is.
Speaker 2: Saying that if you are in New York and you
Speaker 2: are paying your taxes, then those tax dollars provide your services,
Speaker 2: your police services, your hospital service, your educational services. And
Speaker 2: so right here, if you in New York, we're not
Speaker 2: gonna deny you those services. Because you buy a loaf
Speaker 2: of bread paying taxes, you buy gas, you're paying taxes.
Speaker 2: So with those tax dollars, you're paying for the goods
Speaker 2: and services of the city. That's what the sanctuary city means.
Speaker 2: What we have been saying, what American people have said it.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump got the popular vote and the electoric and
Speaker 2: so the people of the city said, we got to
Speaker 2: fix out borders. You can't allow people to come in
Speaker 2: the country with no destination, not knowing where they're going,
Speaker 2: and then you're telling.
Speaker 3: Them you're not allowed to work. Imagine that for six
Speaker 3: But what about somebody that's looking at you. Because I
Speaker 3: got to be honest with.
Speaker 1: You, mister mayor, Yes I have been on this show.
Speaker 1: I've been on the airwaves, and I mean, with all
Speaker 1: of these bills, billions you're talking about, I think I
Speaker 1: was the loudest critic of the fifty three million dollar
Speaker 1: prepaid credit ca I'm losing my mind. I'm like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute. I've been black all my life. I've been
Speaker 1: in New York City for the better part of my life.
Speaker 1: I'd be damn if I ever saw some damn prepaid
Speaker 1: credit cards coming to the black community, and I was
Speaker 1: born here. I'm like, I'm looking at it, and I'm saying,
Speaker 1: how could that be?
Speaker 3: Support it?
Speaker 2: I love that, And that is why it's important to
Speaker 2: be able to tell your own narrative.
Speaker 3: So let's look at those credit cards. Please, those cards.
Speaker 2: We were required by law to feed every migrant and
Speaker 2: asylum secret that was in our care. They were being
Speaker 2: food was being delivered that people were not eating, and
Speaker 2: a lot of it was being thrown out.
Speaker 3: We were wasting money.
Speaker 2: And so my former deputy Mayor, Schener Wright, first deputy man,
Speaker 2: came in and said, listen, this is this minority company
Speaker 2: called Muchafi. We give people food card with eleven dollars
Speaker 2: around eleven dollars a day that they can spend for food,
Speaker 2: and they're going to go to the local bodega's shops
Speaker 2: and restaurants within the area.
Speaker 3: So we're going to recycle the.
Speaker 2: Money back into the community instead of a large conglomerate
Speaker 2: that we spend it. It saved us money and we
Speaker 2: were able to put money back to the local communities
Speaker 2: and it's stopped the food waste that we were.
Speaker 3: Seeing of taxpayers dollars.
Speaker 2: So we did a pilot to say, let's see how
Speaker 2: successful this is, and so on first brush, when you
Speaker 2: see people do it, you say, wait a minute, when
Speaker 2: you're giving these guys crowd out lost my.
Speaker 1: Mind was fifty three million prepaid credit cards prepaid Oh
Speaker 1: I was hot. I was hot about that.
Speaker 2: So even the editorial boys who responded at first, like
Speaker 2: the Daily News, here the whole piece and say, listen,
Speaker 2: this is a smart approach to government.
Speaker 3: Because because what many people don't realize.
Speaker 2: People know of my law enforcement background, they know what
Speaker 2: I'm doing around health in the in the city, but
Speaker 2: really people don't appreciate the fiscal management that independent bond
Speaker 2: raiders who determine how successful you are managing the city,
Speaker 2: have raised my bonds. They say, this cat has managed
Speaker 2: us through COVID, They've managed us through He's managed us
Speaker 2: through the sylum seekers. He's managing the city and been
Speaker 2: fiscally responsible.
Speaker 1: I want to transition to the issue of crime, all right,
Speaker 1: because on May first, twenty twenty three, thirty thirty year
Speaker 1: old homeless man Jordan Neely was killed after being putting
Speaker 1: a choke hold by Daniel Penny, a twenty four year
Speaker 1: United States Marine Corps veteran, while riding the New York
Speaker 1: City subway. He was found not guilty this past December
Speaker 1: of woman was set on fire and she was sleeping
Speaker 1: on the f train. When you think about those incidents,
Speaker 1: is those kind of things that you happen, Like you said,
Speaker 1: the number is considerably lower than people even recognized. But
Speaker 1: you know, the visual is what it's all about it,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you see a woman on fire
Speaker 1: ski you don't want your daughter on there. You don't
Speaker 1: want your wife on there, you don't want your mom
Speaker 1: on there. You're gonna get scared. You're gonna be a
Speaker 1: panic mode because you worried about what them it could
Speaker 1: it be you? When you talk about addressing crime, how
Speaker 1: do you believe your administration is going about doing it
Speaker 1: and how has it been successful?
Speaker 3: A crime is perceived.
Speaker 2: And actual, and where I'll failure, I tell the team.
Speaker 3: We lost the perception.
Speaker 2: Because when you have incidents that overshadow your success, no
Speaker 2: matter how impressive your numbers are, it overshadows when you
Speaker 2: have three people's by a person with severe mental health, illness,
Speaker 2: we have someone set on fire.
Speaker 3: Those visualizations are real, and I respect how people feel. Now.
Speaker 2: I don't want to come to people and tell them listen,
Speaker 2: here my numbers, this is our well we're doing.
Speaker 3: How you feel is important to me.
Speaker 2: My success in this city has been overshadowed by three things.
Speaker 3: Random acts of violence.
Speaker 2: Slashing people, pushing people to the subway system, putting people
Speaker 2: on fire. Those small numbers have a major impact on
Speaker 2: how people feel.
Speaker 3: Second is recidivism. We have a lot of cats that.
Speaker 1: Were in out going, coming out, going, going unbelievable, getting
Speaker 1: arrested and coming right back out in the streets, sometimes
Speaker 1: the same.
Speaker 3: Day, right right, right right.
Speaker 2: We have five about five hundred and seventy five people
Speaker 2: that were arrested over seventy five hundred times for shoplifted.
Speaker 2: We have thirty six people who are arrested over eleven
Speaker 2: hundred times for in crime.
Speaker 1: That's just asking police officers not to do their job.
Speaker 1: You know what one purpose is certain saying.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you the third issue that overshadows
Speaker 2: severe mental health illness.
Speaker 3: We have people with severe mental health illness.
Speaker 2: When I first got elected, I went into the streets
Speaker 2: January and February and visited people in encampments. I saw
Speaker 2: human waste, drug path fernalia, schizophrenic, bipolar, and I told
Speaker 2: the team, we can't live like this. And many people
Speaker 2: were saying for years, even you know, when we were
Speaker 2: growing up, when people were sleeping on the street, our
Speaker 2: family said, listen, just leaving them alone.
Speaker 3: They're crazy or what have you.
Speaker 2: We closed psychiatric wars like Creepmore and others and didn't
Speaker 2: give people a landing place.
Speaker 3: And now you see them on the streets.
Speaker 2: They're doing these They part of the random acts of violence,
Speaker 2: a small number of them. And so when I said
Speaker 2: we're gonna tackle this, my team said, man, you out
Speaker 2: of your mind, and nobody dealt with this stuff. And
Speaker 2: I said, no, this is inhumane. We got to stop this.
Speaker 2: And when I was out on the street, I met
Speaker 2: a guy that was living in an encampment who was
Speaker 2: a retired police officer that just slipped through the cracks,
Speaker 2: And I said, we're not going to continue to do that.
Speaker 3: That has overshadowed our success.
Speaker 2: Crime is down, shooters, homicides are down, our economy is back,
Speaker 2: but it has been overshadowed by those random acts of.
Speaker 1: Well, we gonna talk a little bit more because we're
Speaker 1: going to work to not have those things overshadowed with
Speaker 1: all the good things that you're doing right now. And
Speaker 1: I just want to throw this out, you know, and
Speaker 1: it'll please your team, because I man, everybody make sure
Speaker 1: I have my information. I have to give them their
Speaker 1: proper where it's do. Okay, you're talking about a plan
Speaker 1: to acts, you know, taxes for the working class family.
Speaker 1: You're planning to literally eliminate and cut city personal income
Speaker 1: taxes to for five hundred and eighty two thousand of
Speaker 1: the poorest New Yorkers. Any time you cut taxes, I
Speaker 1: love that.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: I love stuff like that. You're planning to build eighty
Speaker 1: thousand new homes across five boroughs through small changes and
Speaker 1: bring the cost of housing down. You've got an initiative
Speaker 1: that has saved New Yorkers more than thirty billion through city, state,
Speaker 1: and federal program since the start of the administration. Major,
Speaker 1: major stuff going on, broken class speed have it. That's right.
Speaker 1: Having said that, some would say that you still got
Speaker 1: a lot to worry about because former New York Governor
Speaker 1: Andrew Cuomo is contemplating competing with you for the mayor
Speaker 1: see in New York City, and according to the recent polls,
Speaker 1: he's up about twenty three percentage points on you. What
Speaker 1: do you have to say about that?
Speaker 2: Deja vu? Go back to February of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: There was another Andrew, Andrew Yang. He got in the race.
Speaker 2: He was measuring the drapes in City Hall.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. He never had a chance to
Speaker 1: get you. I don't know had a chance to get you.
Speaker 2: Poles had him up double digit. Some wrong with the
Speaker 2: post double digit, the post right, And what I told
Speaker 2: the team Poles don't elect people elect mayors people do.
Speaker 2: We need to say consistent, and that's what we did.
Speaker 2: And so I'm going to tell my story and I'm
Speaker 2: going to let people see exactly what we have accomplished,
Speaker 2: and we're looking forward to that.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tell you what we're gonna talk about next.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna surprise you. I'm gonna take a little break,
Speaker 1: but I promise you where this discussion is going next
Speaker 1: is right in your wheelhouse, and you'll enjoy it immensely.
Speaker 2: Mhm