Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: We're sitting down with the mayor here in Gracie Mansion,
Speaker 2: and the first thing we want to talk about with
Speaker 2: the mayor is the National Guard. You know, Donald Trump
Speaker 2: said just yesterday, if these mayors can't control their streets,
Speaker 2: we will, and he listed New York among the cities
Speaker 2: under review for National Guard deployment. Do you believe this
Speaker 2: is a real threat to New York?
Speaker 3: Well, the partnership between the federal government and the city
Speaker 3: and state government, it's extremely important, and I think there's
Speaker 3: a role we need. My role is to make sure
Speaker 3: New York are safe, and the numbers are shown. We're
Speaker 3: doing that, and the partnership of making sure guns don't
Speaker 3: come into our city, and that's what we want to
Speaker 3: continue to do with the federal government. We are ready
Speaker 3: collaborate with the federal government every morning ten am with
Speaker 3: the height of city, state and federal authorities to go
Speaker 3: after shooters and those who bring guns into our cities.
Speaker 2: When he talks about the National Guard coming here to
Speaker 2: New York and in the event that happens, is there
Speaker 2: anything you do to counteract that? I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: what would it look like if National Guards members you
Speaker 2: saw in DC two thousand of them on the streets
Speaker 2: of Washington, if they were here, you know, on ninetieth Street.
Speaker 3: Well, the goal is the relationship between the federal government
Speaker 3: and DC is different than the relationship between New York
Speaker 3: City and the federal government. And again, our communications with
Speaker 3: the federal government is we got this. We moved over
Speaker 3: twenty three thousand legal guns off our streets. We see
Speaker 3: it well, witnessing records levels of decreasing crimes, homicides and
Speaker 3: shootings in the first six months and shooting victims in
Speaker 3: the first seven months. And so we are very clear,
Speaker 3: always have been, I have never moved away from the
Speaker 3: public safety. That's the prerequisite to our prosperity. And we're
Speaker 3: going to continue to do an amazing job. And if
Speaker 3: the federal government wants to communicate with us and ask
Speaker 3: us to go to other municipalities and help them see
Speaker 3: what we're doing, we're willing to do that because they're safe.
Speaker 3: America is a safe New York City and we want
Speaker 3: to help any way we can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to ask you about November election as
Speaker 2: it relates to that. You know, one of your opponents,
Speaker 2: Andrew Cuomo has said, if Mom Donnie gets in office,
Speaker 2: then Trump takes control of New York City, then Trump
Speaker 2: does put the National Guard here. Do you think that
Speaker 2: could happen?
Speaker 3: Andrew will say anything to anyone to get elected. He
Speaker 3: created this, He passed the cannabis laws. I had to
Speaker 3: close down fifteen hundred cannabis shops because of the failed
Speaker 3: law he passed.
Speaker 1: He did the bill reform.
Speaker 3: That's the revolving door criminal justice system that we're looking at.
Speaker 3: He closed psychiatric beds. So every time you see someone
Speaker 3: put someone on the subway track because of severe mental
Speaker 3: health illness or stab three yearnits in New Yorkers, you
Speaker 3: have to ask yourself, why do we close those beds?
Speaker 3: Raise the age we're seeing young people are victims of
Speaker 3: crimes more and more, and their shooters as well.
Speaker 1: These so all of his bills, I had to.
Speaker 3: Fix, his mess and so Madonni's call to defund police,
Speaker 3: his calls to legalized prostitution, his clothes to calls to
Speaker 3: empty right As Island. They are two of the same people.
Speaker 3: New York has come too far to go backwards with
Speaker 3: either one of them.
Speaker 2: When I heard the President talk yesterday about cash list bail.
Speaker 2: You know, I immediately thought of you because you have
Speaker 2: been one of the people who has talked about bail reform.
Speaker 2: Your police commissioner talked about bill reform. On Friday with
Speaker 2: the friendly fire incident involving the officer, the President signing
Speaker 2: an executive order directing DOJ to look at these jurisdictions
Speaker 2: that have done cashless bail.
Speaker 1: What's your take on that.
Speaker 3: Well, I've been clear and I don't believe if someone
Speaker 3: steals in Apple that we should hold them in jail
Speaker 3: because they can't afford to get out. But if you
Speaker 3: are possessing an illegal weapon, you commit one of the
Speaker 3: seven major crime categories, and I'll sit you are.
Speaker 1: Repeatedly an offender.
Speaker 3: We need to look at the criminal justice system that
Speaker 3: allows you to continue to go back and you repeat
Speaker 3: the crime. We saw what happened with the Custom Border
Speaker 3: Patrol agent. These were repeated offenders. We just had a
Speaker 3: shooting over the weekend of the individuals in job involved.
Speaker 3: They had several gun arrests that just can't continue to happen,
Speaker 3: and so using bail appropriately, I think it would help
Speaker 3: us deal with the public safety issue we're facing in
Speaker 3: the city.
Speaker 2: The President said, you know, crimes continue to rise when
Speaker 2: they have castles spail. Is that something that's happened here
Speaker 2: in the city.
Speaker 3: When you remove bail on those who commit serious crimes,
Speaker 3: it will impact your public safety. We are witnessing that
Speaker 3: over and over again.
Speaker 2: The school system comes back next week. Should parents fear
Speaker 2: for ICE to be in their schools? You know in
Speaker 2: Washington that was a big fear as they went back
Speaker 2: to school yesterday with ICE saying that they may come
Speaker 2: to some schools of students. We saw a student in
Speaker 2: Queens six years old deported by ICE with our mother.
Speaker 3: With a family, and so we wanted to be clear
Speaker 3: ICE has not been in our schools. Ice the only
Speaker 3: way they could come into the schools with clear judicial
Speaker 3: warrants or if they are looking at a condition with
Speaker 3: someone that's fleeing running into the school a dangerous person.
Speaker 3: But that's the role of our police officers to do so,
Speaker 3: and we have been extremely consistent around this.
Speaker 1: Children should go to school.
Speaker 3: They're not going to be fearful of having ICE come
Speaker 3: into their schools. Their directives indicate that as well. People
Speaker 3: should go to the hospital if they need medical care.
Speaker 3: They should call the police if they need police assistant,
Speaker 3: and I know personally what happens when you fail to
Speaker 3: do that. My rookie years as a police officer had
Speaker 3: a Chinese immigrant that was afraid to call the police
Speaker 3: when he was being robbed. I took actions while I
Speaker 3: was off duty, but he was extremely fearful. People can't
Speaker 3: live in the shadows. That creates disorder, and we don't
Speaker 3: want that.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to your career in a transit police
Speaker 2: that's where you met Ingrid Lewis Martin's husband, obviously someone
Speaker 2: you've known a long time. I just you know, we
Speaker 2: heard from you on Friday. But what did when you
Speaker 2: hear some of the allegations in the indictment and you know,
Speaker 2: indictments just show a piece of what is being alleged.
Speaker 2: And what did you make of of the some of
Speaker 2: the allegations you heard?
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, let's think about this for a moment. Uh.
Speaker 3: Like I said, Ingrid's like a sister to me, and uh,
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure you have close relationships in your life
Speaker 3: and the worst thing you want to do is not
Speaker 3: allow people their due process. And when you're dealing with
Speaker 3: criminal cases, every road you say could harm that person
Speaker 3: who's dealing with that case, and I'm not going to
Speaker 3: do anything to harm someone that like a sister to me.
Speaker 3: I'm very clear she's in my prayers. She has an attorney,
Speaker 3: and anything that's dealing with that case should be brought
Speaker 3: to her attorney. I would not do anything that's going
Speaker 3: to be harmful to someone that's alect a sister to.
Speaker 2: How would you say your week was last week because
Speaker 2: you had the situation with Ingrid Jesse Jesse Hamilton as well,
Speaker 2: and then you also had the situation with Winnie Greco.
Speaker 2: Just what your thoughts on what happened with Winny Greco?
Speaker 2: And then also you know it was you know, I
Speaker 2: saw it by Friday, it.
Speaker 1: Was it was a week. Yeah, No, not to me.
Speaker 3: I had tunire thirty seven thousand MicroC and assignment seekers.
Speaker 3: I inherited COVID, I inherited the city that was imaging jobs.
Speaker 1: I had thousands of illegal guns.
Speaker 3: On our streets, ghost cars on our streets, cannabis shops
Speaker 3: are open, people rode off New york Is. Not only
Speaker 3: was I dealing with those who were committing crimes, had
Speaker 3: to deal with rats everywhere. But look everywhere that we
Speaker 3: dealt with, we got up every day and we did
Speaker 3: the job.
Speaker 2: But the more jobs, the red envelope in and a
Speaker 2: potato chip bag, I mean, when you heard about so,
Speaker 2: what do you think of it?
Speaker 1: First? I want to go back.
Speaker 3: More jobs in our city history, twelve months of tourism,
Speaker 3: twelve months of Broadway the best in the city's history,
Speaker 3: unemployment drop crime, drop illegal vehicles off our street, all
Speaker 3: of those things. I'm not gonna be judged by a
Speaker 3: red envelope in a paper bag. I'm gonna be judged
Speaker 3: by how how I improve the lives of New Yorkers.
Speaker 3: It was a stupid thing to do. I don't understand
Speaker 3: the conversations she had with the reporter. I don't have
Speaker 3: the history of it. It's not something that we would
Speaker 3: do in our campaign. I made that clear. I don't
Speaker 3: know what that was about. And now she's no longer volunteering,
Speaker 3: or she was never employee of the campaign, and she
Speaker 3: was long time, no longer in a city hall, So
Speaker 3: only the reporter and Winnie can explain to us exactly
Speaker 3: what that was about. I don't know what it was about,
Speaker 3: and it's not acceptable behavior on my part.
Speaker 2: Let's talk campaign, because we've talked about the campaign plenty
Speaker 2: of times, private meetings, public meetings, you know, where have you?
Speaker 2: You're polling in the single digits behind Mamdani. You know,
Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about, you know, the state of
Speaker 2: the race when you were running last time, but that
Speaker 2: was sort of during the primary. Now we're in the
Speaker 2: general election. Just tell me sort of what your strategies
Speaker 2: to win in November and how you think you could
Speaker 2: pull through.
Speaker 3: Well, a couple of things, As I said over and
Speaker 3: over again, when you look at this distance from the
Speaker 3: primary to the election, this same time period, Madonnie was
Speaker 3: at one percent. No one called for him to step
Speaker 3: out of the race, and if we did, we would
Speaker 3: have been premature because he won the primary. And we
Speaker 3: need to be clear that that seemed to be a
Speaker 3: fact that everyone is missing. We also missing the fact
Speaker 3: that I was in third place in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: behind Andrew Yang who was beating me by double digits.
Speaker 3: Some Poles have me in double digits, some poles have
Speaker 3: me single digits. Poles had Andrew up, Andrew Cuomo up
Speaker 3: by ten percent before the election, he lost by twelve percent.
Speaker 3: He was up thirty six percent. So when you start
Speaker 3: to talk about the polls. The only poll that matter
Speaker 3: is on election day, who's going to have the most votes.
Speaker 1: I must do what I'm good at doing.
Speaker 3: Campaigning, get my information out to the public so they
Speaker 3: can see the success of where we were and where
Speaker 3: we are. This city has turned around. I mean, if
Speaker 3: we want to be honest about it or not. And
Speaker 3: I have to explain that to the voters.
Speaker 2: So the messages. Eric Adams is staying in no matter what, Yes,
Speaker 2: you're not signing any pledge.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm saying in no matter what. Who created the pledge? Andrew?
Speaker 3: You know, one candidate that was at one percent in
Speaker 3: the poll all of a sudden said whoever's up by
Speaker 3: a certain number in September should win.
Speaker 1: That's all Andrew's creation.
Speaker 3: Trust me when I tell you he creates these scenarios
Speaker 3: so that people can believe he's doing the right thing.
Speaker 3: Was he lost the race thirty five million dollars up
Speaker 3: by double digits, didn't get out in campaign, and he
Speaker 3: lost the race.
Speaker 1: People heard his message already.
Speaker 2: Let's get to some bloomberg topics here. You know, one
Speaker 2: of your biggest accomplishments that you've stated has been city
Speaker 2: of Yes, just tell me you know what it took
Speaker 2: to get that through. Housing a big issue for you know,
Speaker 2: voters and for people who own homes here, who want
Speaker 2: to own homes here, you have a lack of places
Speaker 2: to put homes. For City of Yes change that just
Speaker 2: you know, explain how that's worked out.
Speaker 1: In so many ways.
Speaker 3: You know, many people talk about affordability but never used
Speaker 3: their offices to actually produce affordability. Like I said, five
Speaker 3: people running for office, Three people don't have a record.
Speaker 1: One person is running from his record. I have a record.
Speaker 3: A City of Yes is going to produce housing throughout
Speaker 3: the city because housing New York is is not just
Speaker 3: a Manhattan or Brooklyn or areas that were juentrified gentrified.
Speaker 1: It's the entire city.
Speaker 3: Never before have we witnessed this most comprehensive of housing
Speaker 3: and rezoning policy in the history of our city. We
Speaker 3: have built, renovated, and planned rezoning for four hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty six thousand units of housing in the next decade.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is unbelievable when you think about it.
Speaker 3: We did it in three and a half years. That
Speaker 3: number is larger than twelve years of Bloomberg, eight years
Speaker 3: of the Blasio combined in three and a half years.
Speaker 3: We are the most housing forward administration in the history
Speaker 3: of this city. And we got projects off the ground
Speaker 3: that many have tried, like Willia's point, twenty four hundred
Speaker 3: units of affordable housing Flushing Airport of hundreds of using
Speaker 3: of units of affordable housing, Union built. And so City
Speaker 3: of Yes is part of the overall package that we're
Speaker 3: doing five rezonings in each Budy borough, fifty fifty thousand
Speaker 3: units of housing that's coming out of that. So we
Speaker 3: know New Yorkers must be housed, but you got to
Speaker 3: match housing with using the resources of city to make
Speaker 3: the city affordable, decreasing the course of childcare, universal childcare,
Speaker 3: no income tax for low income New Yorkers, none at
Speaker 3: all of what we have done.
Speaker 2: Well, that sounds that sounds like, you know, like no
Speaker 2: income tax for low income New Yorkers, sounds a lot
Speaker 2: like a Mom Donnie proposal. And you know that that
Speaker 2: requires going to Albany to get that done. People may say,
Speaker 2: you know, you've been in office for you know, nearly
Speaker 2: four years. You know, how can you haven't been able
Speaker 2: to get that done? You know, just make the case
Speaker 2: for how you could get that done, you know, with
Speaker 2: four more years.
Speaker 3: Well, no, where he got it done. There is no
Speaker 3: income tax for low income New Yorkers. And then what
Speaker 3: you do is each year you go to Albany. They
Speaker 3: call it a ten cup day for you go up
Speaker 3: there to bag for your proposal. But look at each year,
Speaker 3: each year we got exactly the things we ask for.
Speaker 3: Mail control, we got the new income tax, we got
Speaker 3: housing reform of renovating our office spaces into permanent housing
Speaker 3: and low income housing. We got the public safety initiative,
Speaker 3: we got the involuntary removal. So you're seeing each year
Speaker 3: we brought back what we needed from the city.
Speaker 1: And so in three years and eight months we've.
Speaker 3: Done a great job of ponding with our Albany lawmakers.
Speaker 2: And that's Mayor Eric Adams talking directly to Bloomberg terminal
Speaker 2: customers and listeners all around the world.