Speaker 1: What's up, everybody. Welcome to this edition of The Stephen A.
Speaker 1: Smith Show, coming at you over the digital airways. With
Speaker 1: YouTube and our Heart Radio, we've now eclipsed over one
Speaker 1: point zero six million subscribers. Can't thank y'all for the
Speaker 1: love and support enough just on that alone, let it
Speaker 1: on the millions of downloads that we received over the
Speaker 1: last few months off of our Heart Radio as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Got a lot of stuff to
Speaker 1: get into, so I'm gonna get into it real quickly.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get started with the world of politics. Where
Speaker 1: the world has changed over the last two days. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was inaugurated as the forty seventh president of the
Speaker 1: United States of America and went straight to work. Within
Speaker 1: hours of his swearing in ceremony, Trump signed at least
Speaker 1: forty six executive orders and presidential actions one day that
Speaker 1: addressed the number of campaign pledges. The executive orders included
Speaker 1: the end of Biden era border policies and pardoning more
Speaker 1: than fifteen hundred people from the January sixth Capital riots.
Speaker 1: Trump also ordered all federal employees in diversity, equity and
Speaker 1: inclusion roles placed on paid leave by tonight Wednesday, January
Speaker 1: twenty Second, in addition to all of that, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization, a
Speaker 1: significant move that drew criticism from public health experts. A
Speaker 1: couple of things get to my mind, and that's what I.
Speaker 2: Want to start first.
Speaker 1: Okay, first things first, in terms of pardoning folks from
Speaker 1: the riots capital, you know, in the US Capital, January sixth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, I do not agree with that decision
Speaker 1: by the President of the United States. I do believe
Speaker 1: that a lot of folks should have been pardoned, etc.
Speaker 1: But when you bring up Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers
Speaker 1: and considering the charges that were leveled against them, anybody,
Speaker 1: and I'm just using that as an example, anybody that
Speaker 1: engaged in violence. To me, that should have been different.
Speaker 1: If you're the commander in chief of the United States
Speaker 1: of America, if you preach about the importance of law
Speaker 1: and order, and someone has flagrantly engaged in lawlessness, but
Speaker 1: you give them a pass just because they supported you,
Speaker 1: You're not supporting the lawd you're supporting you. Again, the
Speaker 1: vast majority of people who found themselves really under the
Speaker 1: eyes and the microscopic focus of the federal government particularly
Speaker 1: on the left, when it came to arresting them, indicting them,
Speaker 1: and ultimately convicting them of charges. The vast majority of
Speaker 1: people who may have been sent to jail or was
Speaker 1: scheduled to go to prison, those folks, everybody doesn't deserve that.
Speaker 1: But anybody who's engaged in violence, I'm sorry, you know
Speaker 1: that that's lawless. You know, walking in to the rotunda,
Speaker 1: walking into the US capital and taking pictures and storming
Speaker 1: the gates or whatever, that might not have been something
Speaker 1: they should still be incarcerated for. But if you committed
Speaker 1: violence against people, if you committed violence against law enforcement
Speaker 1: officials and you got let off, that's bad, especially when
Speaker 1: you're being let off by an individual who's supposed to
Speaker 1: be our chief law enforcement officers. Essentially, you're the commander
Speaker 1: in chief. That's how I look at it, and the
Speaker 1: attorney General and all this stuff. You're commanded in chief period.
Speaker 1: That should not have happened. Just on that front, I'll
Speaker 1: leave it at that. We'll discuss that at a later date.
Speaker 1: I want to say something about diversity, equity, and inclusion
Speaker 1: because I've been noticing something on the right that's getting
Speaker 1: on my damn nerves and I've appeared on numerous occasions
Speaker 1: on Fox News or I've appeared in numerous occasions on
Speaker 1: News Nation, CNN, a couple of times on MSNBC. I'm
Speaker 1: not ducking, I'm not hot, and just recently got an
Speaker 1: interviewed by Dave Rubin.
Speaker 2: I'm friends with Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. I know
Speaker 2: these people. Okay, let me be very very.
Speaker 1: Clear about what I want to say about when it
Speaker 1: comes to diversity, equity, inclusion.
Speaker 2: That's making me very very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I'm sick and tired of folks on the right, and
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about those individuals.
Speaker 2: I'm just talking about the right period in general.
Speaker 1: I'm sick and tired of folks bringing up DEI as
Speaker 1: if it's a bad thing to bring up, Like everybody
Speaker 1: who got a job under DEI must not have been qualified.
Speaker 1: They got it because of diversity, equity and inclusion policies
Speaker 1: implemented at a corporate American beyond stop stop. The reason
Speaker 1: DEI existed to begin with was because there were an
Speaker 1: abundance of qualified individuals from minority communities throughout this country
Speaker 1: you didn't give a second look to because they didn't
Speaker 1: look like you.
Speaker 2: I can come with it from a world of sports.
Speaker 1: When you look at the Rooney Rule, there were black
Speaker 1: coaches that were interviewed and ultimately got jobs. Why was
Speaker 1: the Rooney rule necessary? Because they were qualified black coaches
Speaker 1: that were being ignored. And if you're being ignored, then
Speaker 1: not the opportunity to prove that you're worthy, if possibly
Speaker 1: more qualified and more competent than a white counterpart, then
Speaker 1: rules and legislation need to be implemented to ensure fairness.
Speaker 1: So why you want to right preaching and speaking about
Speaker 1: DEI in a negative way. You might actually be right
Speaker 1: in some cases, but could you at least remember why
Speaker 1: it came into existence to begin with, because you weren't
Speaker 1: interested in being fair before.
Speaker 2: Not a left might have came about and handled it
Speaker 2: all wrong.
Speaker 1: And been a bit excessive in their behavior and elevated
Speaker 1: the level of cynicism that comes attached with DEI. But
Speaker 1: you don't get to forget what role was played that
Speaker 1: provoked the existence of DEI to begin with.
Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm an independent, as we have articulated on this show
Speaker 1: on numerous occasions, I'm not sided with any side definitively.
Speaker 2: I just want to make the point that fair is fair.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of problems that I have with and
Speaker 1: we'll continue to have and will continue to express and
Speaker 1: articulate about what we witness from the left. But I
Speaker 1: don't let you off on the right. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: those of you with mal intent. You've denied plenty of
Speaker 1: opportunities throughout history to people that come from minority communities
Speaker 1: throughout this country.
Speaker 2: That's why DEI came into existence. That's why stuff like
Speaker 2: the Rooney Rule is in existence.
Speaker 1: That's why you had affirmative action that was in existence.
Speaker 1: A lot of things are changing in this world. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff to discuss, but you don't get
Speaker 1: to forget your role in forcing that stuff to come
Speaker 1: about to begin with. You can try to gloss over history.
Speaker 1: It ain't gonna be that easy. Remember I said that,
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that in the very near future
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Coming up much more on the Trump administration with my
Speaker 2: next guest.
Speaker 1: He is the mayor of New York City who recently
Speaker 1: spent time with President Trump.
Speaker 2: At Maro Lago. That one and only Eric Adams joins
Speaker 2: me right here in studio face to face with your boy,
Speaker 2: stephen A. Trust me when I say you don't want
Speaker 2: to miss this all right, y'all, listen up.
Speaker 1: Do you know that the NFL Championship games are right
Speaker 1: around the corner and that we're smack in the middle
Speaker 1: of the NBA season. So with all this action going on,
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Speaker 1: run your game. Now, let's look at my picks for today.
Speaker 1: I'll be making picks for the NFC Championship game, y'all,
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Eagles versus the Washington Commanders. First up, we
Speaker 1: have Commander's quarterback Jaden and Daniels facing the Eagles secondary
Speaker 1: more or less than zero point five passing yards. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's more well, he ain't gonna complete the pass less
Speaker 1: he gets heard on the first player the game, what
Speaker 1: the hell's gonna do?
Speaker 2: Of course he's gonna have more. That's the easy one
Speaker 2: right there.
Speaker 1: Next up, Command is wide receiver Terry McLaurin more.
Speaker 2: Or less than sixty four and a half receiving yards.
Speaker 1: That's a brother, that's that brother special. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: with more on this one as well, make no mistake
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: He's that kind of dude.
Speaker 1: Next up, you have Eagles running back sain Kwon Barkley
Speaker 1: more or less than one hundred and twenty seven and
Speaker 1: a half rushing yards less.
Speaker 2: What y'all for once, I'm gonna go with less.
Speaker 1: See, I think the Washington command is gonna key on
Speaker 1: this brother. They can't let this man run for two
Speaker 1: hundred yards. They can't let this man run for four
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty yards over two games the way he
Speaker 1: did against the Los Angeles Rams this season. They got
Speaker 1: to make sure that sain Kwon Barkley rushed for two
Speaker 1: thousand and five yards this season. Okay was a candidate
Speaker 1: for League MVP on us could have wanted if he
Speaker 1: played that.
Speaker 2: Last game of the regular season against.
Speaker 1: His old team in New York Times, if coach Nick
Speaker 1: Sirianni had let him play that same Saint Kwon Barkley
Speaker 1: is going to be the key. You know why, because
Speaker 1: the Washington a Mans is gonna say, make Jalen Hurts
Speaker 1: beat us. We know aj Brown is that do. We
Speaker 1: know Devonte's smith and can ball. We know Dallas gotta
Speaker 1: can get his stuff done. But the end, if you
Speaker 1: make Jalen Hurts throw the football, that's our best chance
Speaker 1: to beat the Philadelphia Eagles because we can't.
Speaker 2: Lets say Kwon Barkley continue to run that ball. That's
Speaker 2: gonna be their strategy. They're gonna load the box.
Speaker 1: They're gonna make the Philadelphia Eagles throw, and Jalen Hurts
Speaker 1: is gonna have to beat you. Finally, we have Eagles
Speaker 1: wide out AJ Brown up against the Commanders more or
Speaker 1: less than sixty and a half receiving yards. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go with more because I think Jalen Hurts is gonna
Speaker 1: have to throw the football. If you go and throw
Speaker 1: the football, you got to get it to that brother,
Speaker 1: that stud AJ Brown. You dropped a couple of passes
Speaker 1: last week. AJ Brown, I saw you. I saw you.
Speaker 1: You can't be talking and talking trprey trivia or being
Speaker 1: quiet while reading books on the damn sideline and then
Speaker 1: go on.
Speaker 2: The football field and drop passes. You gotta do better
Speaker 2: than that, bro, which I think he will.
Speaker 1: And I think because he's gonna be a focal point
Speaker 1: because Jalen Hurt's gonna look to get him football because
Speaker 1: he's a receiver that can run in between the numbers,
Speaker 1: not just outside the numbers.
Speaker 2: I think he's definitely.
Speaker 1: Gonna have more than sixty and a half receiving yards
Speaker 1: in this game. So let's review it right here, right now.
Speaker 1: More on Jayden Daniels, more on Terry McLaurin, less on
Speaker 1: sa Kwon Barkley, more on AJ Brown. We ended with
Speaker 1: more because we like more associated with prizepects.
Speaker 2: It's what they do, It's what we love to do.
Speaker 2: Give more as in as much as we can. Welcome
Speaker 2: back to the Stephen A. Smith Show.
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 doing, how it's good.
Speaker 3: To see you south side outside?
Speaker 4: That's just telling you. We used to come out to
Speaker 4: Hollis and take y'all short.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: You know what they didn't tell you is that we
Speaker 1: really didn't want them because we loved the ladies in
Speaker 1: Cabria Heights and Lawington. It was other areas the Hollands.
Speaker 2: So he's like, okay, you do what you do.
Speaker 3: You got some nice catscaders, without question, a lot of
Speaker 3: quality came out.
Speaker 2: I grew up with run dmc ll cool.
Speaker 1: J was right down the I followed, you know, five
Speaker 1: minutes away on Farmers Boulevard and you know, you know,
Speaker 1: joh Rule Fitty.
Speaker 2: Said that a whole bunch of gas came from from
Speaker 2: from the house.
Speaker 3: You know, you know what, brother, working class people, working
Speaker 3: class values. You know, mom work in the daycare center
Speaker 3: should be up every day, led by example homeowners. You
Speaker 3: know our you know, many of our values come.
Speaker 1: From what we saw and the community raised us.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just appearance as a community. So we're going
Speaker 1: to get into all of that, mister Mayor. But my
Speaker 1: first order of businesses is that today, of all days,
Speaker 1: you are the talk of New York City. Right now,
Speaker 1: everybody's talking about you. You're stealing headlines and what have you.
Speaker 1: Because you talked about how you haven't left the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: The Democratic Party has left you. That's the court everybody's
Speaker 1: been parading around all over the place. Right now as
Speaker 1: we sit here today, how are you feeling about your administration,
Speaker 1: what you've accomplished, and most importantly, the support or lack
Speaker 1: thereof you've received from the Democratic Party.
Speaker 4: Well, and it's out of the theme of the working
Speaker 4: class people.
Speaker 3: And when you stop talking about working class issues and
Speaker 3: people are hurting, and you having this intellectual conversation and
Speaker 3: have a philosophical approach of just addressing what are people.
Speaker 4: Feeling every day?
Speaker 3: And I have never left the streets on the subways.
Speaker 3: I was stopping the middle of the night when barbershops
Speaker 3: close down, I would go inside and sit down, smoke
Speaker 3: a cigar, drink a little hendessy with the people inside
Speaker 3: and just feel them. And they're saying that the party
Speaker 3: is not talking to us. And when I say the party,
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about people who are registered Democrats. I'm
Speaker 3: talking about those who are putting out the messages of
Speaker 3: what is important to the Democratic Party and they have
Speaker 3: left the average broking class person and individuals. And that
Speaker 3: is what I'm trying to say to the party that
Speaker 3: you know, it's not like I abandoned the party. The
Speaker 3: party has abandoned of what working class people have been
Speaker 3: 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 the
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 4: Brother, this is gonna be one hell of a conversation. Man.
Speaker 3: People don't even realize what it is to be a
Speaker 3: man of color, to be in charge of the most
Speaker 3: important city on the globe. We need to really understand
Speaker 3: that I'm the mayor of the most important city on
Speaker 3: the globe, only the second may of color. May Dinkin's
Speaker 3: was the first, and I'm the second. I inherited a
Speaker 3: city that was engulfed in COVID twenty and twenty thousand
Speaker 3: microso and asylum seekers. Crime was through the roof. Unemployment
Speaker 3: with black and brown people was high. You were looking
Speaker 3: at our children were not learning. I've been on Rikers
Speaker 3: Island more than any other mayor in the history of
Speaker 3: the city, speaking to inmates and correction officer, who both
Speaker 3: are overwhelmingly black and brown. And so when you look
Speaker 3: at what I inherited, and then you fast forward to today,
Speaker 3: with all that we've gone through, we have more jobs
Speaker 3: in the city's history.
Speaker 4: More more businesses are open.
Speaker 3: Black and brown businesses have received billions of dollars in
Speaker 3: contracts from the city.
Speaker 4: We have outpaced the state and read it in math.
Speaker 3: We're doing dyslexia screening so that we won't have thirty
Speaker 3: percent of our prison population being dyslexic. Like I am
Speaker 3: of what we have done in the city, paying for
Speaker 3: college soution for forced to care children. Bond raiders looked
Speaker 3: at the city and said, we're gonna increase your bond
Speaker 3: because the way you're managing the crisis. With two hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty thousand microson asylum seekers dropped in our city
Speaker 3: without any support.
Speaker 4: We've turned around.
Speaker 3: This city and there are a lot of haters out
Speaker 3: there that don't want to acknowledge what this administration have done.
Speaker 3: But why do you think that is Well, I think
Speaker 3: it's a combination of things. I was never the chosen candidate.
Speaker 3: I'm a bald headed airring where in Maya. That's saying
Speaker 3: that you don't have to have this one stereotypical look to.
Speaker 4: Be successful in the city.
Speaker 3: And I think that there's a lot of people that
Speaker 3: want to send the signal that okay, you can't run
Speaker 3: the city. I'm running the city, and I'm running and
Speaker 3: navigating us out of crisis, and I'm independent in doing so.
Speaker 3: You know, there are days at a wake up feeling
Speaker 3: one way in another way, and we need to be
Speaker 3: clear on taking these big cities to the next level.
Speaker 1: Is that part of the problem, though, mister Mayer, in
Speaker 1: terms of the you know, the the conflict, the confrontations,
Speaker 1: the resistance that you may ultimately encounter. Is it the
Speaker 1: fact that you wake up with independent voice as opposed
Speaker 1: to being a slave to this binary system that we
Speaker 1: live in, and it's you either take one side or
Speaker 1: the other. It's all one way or 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 4: Right.
Speaker 3: You know, you look at those who want to check
Speaker 3: off a box, and if you don't fit into all
Speaker 3: of these items in the box, then you can't be
Speaker 3: classified as this group or another group. And that's not
Speaker 3: who we are as individuals and as human beings. We
Speaker 3: have different beliefs and belief systems, and I focus on
Speaker 3: that all the time.
Speaker 4: And this is not new people fall or realize.
Speaker 3: Go back thirty something years when I was winning the
Speaker 3: police department and one hundred blacks and law enforcement who care.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to be a cop.
Speaker 3: I was arrested and beat by police officers at fifteen
Speaker 3: years old. Revn Herbert Daughtry told me, you are going
Speaker 3: into the police department to fight from within.
Speaker 4: Wow, you know.
Speaker 3: And when we went in, people call me uncle Tom,
Speaker 3: sellout nigro. But we went in and started one of
Speaker 3: the most important human rights and civil rights organization as
Speaker 3: black police officers. And so there's a long record of
Speaker 3: looking at my assignment and fulfilling my assignment. Brother, I
Speaker 3: can't even tell you how painful it was to say
Speaker 3: I put on that uniform of those who take me
Speaker 3: and my groin.
Speaker 4: Over and over again.
Speaker 3: My brother and I we were pissing blood for weeks
Speaker 3: after being assaulted by those cops in the basement of
Speaker 3: the 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 4: You know, and know.
Speaker 3: It was interesting that many people didn't realize that many
Speaker 3: of those officers would come to me and say, you know,
Speaker 3: thank you for what you're because they wanted to go
Speaker 3: home to their families, and they knew that there was
Speaker 3: a number of cops that were overly aggressive and abusive,
Speaker 3: and by us talking out it allowed them to not
Speaker 3: have to get caught up in that whole web that
Speaker 3: we were dealing with. And that's the same energy I
Speaker 3: took into the state centate, took it to the being
Speaker 3: the first person of color to be ball president and
Speaker 3: to now to become the mayor.
Speaker 4: I'm the same, cap brother.
Speaker 2: Listen, listen, well, listen.
Speaker 1: If you're the same, more power to you, because to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, I don't know if you need
Speaker 1: to be the same. I think you've already proven who
Speaker 1: you are. You don't really really need to be the same.
Speaker 1: You can mix it up a little bit. But I'm
Speaker 1: just looking at some of the things. I'm thinking about crime,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the local economy, I'm thinking about joblessness,
Speaker 1: all of these issues that have been addressed during your administration.
Speaker 1: What things have been like for you since COVID and
Speaker 1: how basically so many.
Speaker 2: Jobs have been restored, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: What's been the greatest challenge for you sitting in that
Speaker 1: seat as mayor of New York City, particularly over the last.
Speaker 4: I love that. That's a great question.
Speaker 3: The failure to acknowledge the success and our media. That's
Speaker 3: why this show is so important, our media in the
Speaker 3: city of the failure every day, if you go back
Speaker 3: and look at from the time I took office, we've
Speaker 3: been under fire, and the failure to acknowledge the recovery
Speaker 3: of jobs, cycling us out of COVID, managing two hundred
Speaker 3: twenty thousand micros and asylum seekers and one hundred and
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty thousand on their way of what we're
Speaker 3: doing around recovering the economy of this city. You don't
Speaker 3: read about any of that, do you know, even when you.
Speaker 4: Talk about it. In our transit system.
Speaker 3: When I go into rooms and I say tell me
Speaker 3: how many crimes you think we have in the subway
Speaker 3: every day, people say two hundred, three hundred, four hundred.
Speaker 4: We have four point.
Speaker 3: Six million riders a day. We have six crime fail
Speaker 3: any crimes a day. But when you read this city
Speaker 3: from abroad or in another state, you say this is
Speaker 3: a city out of control. This is the safest big
Speaker 3: city in America. I just acknowledge today with the police commissioner,
Speaker 3: we removed twenty thousand illegal guns off our street, fourteen
Speaker 3: hundred ghost guns of our streets. Shootings in homicides are down,
Speaker 3: crime is down. This city's the safest big city.
Speaker 2: Let me throw this at you. You know what doesn't
Speaker 2: make sense to me? What doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: To me based on what you just articulated. There was
Speaker 1: an election that was coming about this past November. We
Speaker 1: know who won, we know what happened.
Speaker 2: Prior to that election.
Speaker 1: The media has been accused of being the liberal media.
Speaker 2: For the longest time.
Speaker 1: So one would think when you consider the imagery that
Speaker 1: was emanating from the right as they talked about crime
Speaker 1: in the streets and pestilence and homelessness and migrant crisis
Speaker 1: and all of these different things, those kind of things
Speaker 1: that you just articulated, one would think that the liberal media.
Speaker 2: Would jump, would pounce at the opportunity to.
Speaker 1: Articulate that message to the masses because it would have
Speaker 1: served their purpose in support of somebody on a left,
Speaker 1: in this case, Kamala Harris winning the election. Yet you're
Speaker 1: sitting here saying that did not happen. How do you
Speaker 1: explain it.
Speaker 3: They didn't highlight their message. They didn't highlight the largest
Speaker 3: city in America. They didn't highlight a person of color
Speaker 3: as mayor lifting up this city. There was a success
Speaker 3: story that should have been the talking point for the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party, a working class mayor, thirty billion dollars back
Speaker 3: in the pockets of everyday working class people.
Speaker 2: King two billion in medical debts are think about that?
Speaker 4: Thousand New Yorkers think about that?
Speaker 3: Okay, five hundred thousand New Yorkers, We're going to cancel
Speaker 3: their medical debt. That's the number one course of bankruptcy,
Speaker 3: and particularly for black and brown people. So there was
Speaker 3: a narrative here in the city that we could have
Speaker 3: talked about instead of that. There was a lot of
Speaker 3: anger because I was saying to them, you got two
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty thousand micros and asylum seekers coming to
Speaker 3: the city, and you guys are not being responsible about
Speaker 3: securing our borders.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about what you just said.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the fact that when ultimately you indicted
Speaker 1: by the federal government on fraud and or fraudulently or
Speaker 1: fraud charges along with other things, you were the first
Speaker 1: mayor to be criminally charged while in office and the
Speaker 1: history of New York City.
Speaker 2: How much of a role do you believe that played
Speaker 2: in what.
Speaker 1: Wasn't disseminated as it pertains to your administrations.
Speaker 3: I think a lot, brother, And you know, many people
Speaker 3: never read the indictment. Please, and if you read the indictment,
Speaker 3: you're going to see that, you know, at the heart
Speaker 3: of this is that I was doing my job of
Speaker 3: telling the Fight Department, can you do an inspection on
Speaker 3: the building. This is something when I sit down with
Speaker 3: my colleagues, they say, Eric, are you kidding me? You know,
Speaker 3: because this is what we do as governmental officials. And
Speaker 3: I was saying any other day on other talk show
Speaker 3: of you know, brother, how hard as it is to
Speaker 3: just sit back and watch me have to take all
Speaker 3: these body blows right now and can't defend myself something
Speaker 3: that I've always.
Speaker 1: Tell you to be quiet, don't say anything.
Speaker 3: It's sick, you know, And so it's imperative for me
Speaker 3: when you're do an analysis of not only would I
Speaker 3: said have said? Biden said his Justice apartment is political, webinars, webize, weapons,
Speaker 3: wepinis politicized.
Speaker 4: It's all the same size. Trump said it.
Speaker 3: And when I saw a Biden's speech and why he
Speaker 3: impeached his family members, he talked about him, many people
Speaker 3: didn't read that that when you go through prosecutions like this,
Speaker 3: it's not only your guilty and innocence, it's the it's
Speaker 3: the financial impact on it. It's just the embarrassment. I
Speaker 3: spend two million dollars. Brother, I'm a civil service. What
Speaker 3: does a civil service get two million dollars from?
Speaker 4: You? Know?
Speaker 3: You have to you have to be able to have
Speaker 3: people who believe in you enough to donate to your
Speaker 3: public support exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And so I'm looking at it and listen, pardon clements,
Speaker 1: granted clemency. A few folks don't know those kind of things.
Speaker 1: That's what President Biden has done. And we'll get into
Speaker 1: that in just a couple of minutes or so. But
Speaker 1: in light of that, along with campaign finance charges, that
Speaker 1: that's what they're throwing at you as well, you still
Speaker 1: have been determined to run for re election in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, like that cases coming up in April re election.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, right, wow, what kind of message
Speaker 1: you said about it by continuing to stay in this
Speaker 1: And I love that.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: That's a powerful question because many people are in dark
Speaker 3: places in their personal lives. And you know, Mommy used
Speaker 3: to say a dog place is not a burial, it's supplanted.
Speaker 3: And you know, brother, you know as you know with
Speaker 3: your parents, you know your dad, and you know, raising
Speaker 3: the family of family of six, the same family right right,
Speaker 3: you know, and Mommy loved all of us, but she
Speaker 3: adored me, you know, same here and brother, I used
Speaker 3: to walk past Mommy's door and raising us on our own.
Speaker 3: I would hear in that room at night crying, you know,
Speaker 3: not knowing that she was going to be feed, to
Speaker 3: feed us, to keep a roof on her head. But
Speaker 3: you know what, every morning she got up, she got up.
Speaker 3: And so in the first two weeks of that indictment,
Speaker 3: people that I had sleep on my couches when they
Speaker 3: were thrown out of their homes, people who their children
Speaker 3: were arrested, and I went down and stood with them,
Speaker 3: people who I stood in the hospitals with when they
Speaker 3: were going through terrible times. They were tripping over themselves
Speaker 3: saying you need to step down, you need to step down.
Speaker 4: It broke my heart.
Speaker 3: I'm not even gonna lie to you, but I said
Speaker 3: to myself and I thought of Mommy. She died and
Speaker 3: during my election, I said, you know, Mommy never stepped down.
Speaker 4: She stepped up.
Speaker 3: And with all that we were going through, we still
Speaker 3: moved the city forward and we knew that had the
Speaker 3: right team to get it done. And I'm hoping that
Speaker 3: people who are in dark places right now, if you're
Speaker 3: a young man and that's sending ryk Is Island in jail, sale,
Speaker 3: you're gonna say, listen, my mayor was arrested. If you
Speaker 3: are a young person with learning disability, my mayor has dyslexia.
Speaker 3: I want people to look and see my life and say,
Speaker 3: don't ever give up, and don't let anyone defy who
Speaker 3: you are and what you are. I know who I
Speaker 3: am and I'm gonna fight like hell to make sure
Speaker 3: people 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.
Speaker 2: Because there's a difference with the voters.
Speaker 3: Right there's I think the pathway to justice come in
Speaker 3: many different ways, and one should not allow anyone to
Speaker 3: block their pathway to justice. It's the role of my attorney,
Speaker 3: Alexpiro to ensure that we pursue every pathway to justice.
Speaker 3: I did nothing wrong. I should not have been charged,
Speaker 3: and his his his job to pursue my justice. My
Speaker 3: job is that I was elected to represent the city
Speaker 3: of New York and on every area I have never
Speaker 3: abandoned that responsibility.
Speaker 1: You reportedly went to visit President Donald Trump at Mara
Speaker 1: Lago prior to the inauguration.
Speaker 2: What can you tell us about that?
Speaker 1: And is it really about what people are saying. It's
Speaker 1: about you're hoping that in the event something goes down
Speaker 1: and you find yourself being convicted of this of these allegations,
Speaker 1: that he's going to parton you.
Speaker 4: And think about that twelve moment. This is the president
Speaker 4: of the United States.
Speaker 3: I'm the mayor of the largest city in America that
Speaker 3: lost six point five billion dollars due to the previous
Speaker 3: administration inability to finance the micro crisis. Why are people
Speaker 3: asking is the mayor of the largest city in America
Speaker 3: going down to meet with the president to talk about
Speaker 3: how do we recoup some of those losses, and how
Speaker 3: do we ensure that we move our city forward. It
Speaker 3: would be irresponsible for me not to go down and
Speaker 3: speak with the president. And hats off to him. He
Speaker 3: met with me days before his inauguration. You know, that
Speaker 3: says a lot about his love for the city, and
Speaker 3: that says a lot of how much we respon fact
Speaker 3: he had for this administration on what we are doing.
Speaker 3: I had to go down to Washington, d I mean
Speaker 3: of 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 gonna have critics out there of Mayor Eric
Speaker 1: Adams of New York City saying, the primary reason you
Speaker 1: went down there is because of your legal your personal
Speaker 1: legal issues, and that that is the priority over the
Speaker 1: other issues that you just brought up, mainly six point
Speaker 1: five billion dollars that you're trying to recoup.
Speaker 3: To that, you say, what, Let's I say the same
Speaker 3: thing I say in New York often time, you know,
Speaker 3: speaking to the media. I have eight point three New Yorkers,
Speaker 3: I have thirty five million opinions.
Speaker 4: That's what it is.
Speaker 3: You're not doing anything if you don't have people who
Speaker 3: are going to be attacking you. So the numerical minority
Speaker 3: with the largest voices that are constantly consistently from the
Speaker 3: day I took office, have consistently talked about everything I
Speaker 3: am not, even though we showed the success. Though the
Speaker 3: same people who are saying or your critics say, you
Speaker 3: know what, that's noise, Rather you know, I say all
Speaker 3: the time the graduates, let your haters be your waiters
Speaker 3: when you sit down at the table of success.
Speaker 1: Let's get specific and talk about the migrant crisis. In
Speaker 1: this regard, about two hundred and twenty nine thousand migrants
Speaker 1: came to the city, the city streets of New York.
Speaker 2: You had to find shelter for them.
Speaker 1: You articulate, I believe during the Tucker Cars, and then
Speaker 1: if you were the lack of support that you had received,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Nevertheless, you found a way to maneuver your
Speaker 1: way through this and find yourself in a position where
Speaker 1: there were so many other things about your administration there
Speaker 1: was to employ crystallize for the viewers out there and
Speaker 1: the listeners on iHeartRadio as well, the kind of potential
Speaker 1: damage inflicted upon New York City in light of migrants
Speaker 1: coming to the city and New York obviously being considered
Speaker 1: the sanctuary.
Speaker 3: Right right, And you know, well said, and that's a
Speaker 3: great question. So let's look at it for a moment. Tunia,
Speaker 3: twenty thousand migrancy and asybum seekers came to the city,
Speaker 3: one point five the size of Aubany, So a whole
Speaker 3: city was dropped in our cities. We were getting thousands
Speaker 3: a week, all times of the night. We had to
Speaker 3: provide every service that you would provide to an individual person.
Speaker 3: We had to do housing, we had to clean clothing,
Speaker 3: we had to provide food. We had to educate forty
Speaker 3: thousand women and forty thousand children. And we were told this,
Speaker 3: it's illegal for you to allow them to work. You
Speaker 3: can't allow the busses to come. You can't stop the
Speaker 3: buses from coming in. You can't even allow them to
Speaker 3: volunteer to remove graffiti, deliver food and services. You couldn't
Speaker 3: do any of that. All of that was against against,
Speaker 3: against the law. And out of the six point five
Speaker 3: billion dollars the federal government wanted to give us two
Speaker 3: hundred million and only gave about one hundred and twenty
Speaker 3: five a million to provide for this service, which is
Speaker 3: a national problem, it's not a local problem. And so
Speaker 3: what it did was, in addition to the countless number
Speaker 3: of people who were pursuing the American Dream, it brought
Speaker 3: in a lot of It brought in a small number
Speaker 3: of a criminal element that did a disproportionate amount of crime.
Speaker 3: So we had a public safety issue that we were
Speaker 3: face sitting in our city, and we had an infrastructure
Speaker 3: issue because those six point five billion dollars. People tell
Speaker 3: me all the time, Okay, everage you got through it, Wow, congratulations,
Speaker 3: you transition one hundred and seventy thousand to go on
Speaker 3: to the next step of the American Dream.
Speaker 4: But what is the damage? The long term damage.
Speaker 3: I couldn't go after children who are chronically absent from
Speaker 3: school because we didn't have the money, my older adults
Speaker 3: dealing with my housing infrastructure. That's six point five billion
Speaker 3: now way up to seven six point nine billion, that
Speaker 3: were removed from dealing with the real issues that we
Speaker 3: wanted to invest into our city. The long term impact
Speaker 3: to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, we have not
Speaker 3: witnessed the.
Speaker 4: Long term impact yet. To discress.
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?
Speaker 3: And so that's so important. These are good questions. Brother,
Speaker 3: people conflate what centuary city is.
Speaker 2: Please explain.
Speaker 3: A sanctuary city is saying that if you are in
Speaker 3: New York and you are paying your taxes, then those
Speaker 3: tax dollars provide your services, your police services, your hospital service,
Speaker 3: your educational services, and so right here, if you in
Speaker 3: New York, we're not going to deny you those services.
Speaker 3: Because you buy a lot of breads, you're paying taxes,
Speaker 3: You buy gas, your paying taxes. So with those tax dollars,
Speaker 3: you're paying for the goods and services of the city.
Speaker 3: That's what the sanctuary city means. What we have been saying,
Speaker 3: what American people have sayd it. Donald Trump got the
Speaker 3: popular vote and the electoral votes, and so the people
Speaker 3: of the city said, we got to fix out borders.
Speaker 3: You can't allow people to come in the country with
Speaker 3: no destination, not knowing where they're going, and then you're
Speaker 3: telling them you're.
Speaker 1: Not allowed to work. Imagine that for six But what
Speaker 1: about somebody that's looking at you? Because I got to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, mister Mayor. Yes, I have been
Speaker 1: on this show.
Speaker 2: I've been on the airwaves, and I mean, with.
Speaker 5: All of these bills, billions you're talking about, I think
Speaker 5: I was the loudest critic of the fifty three million
Speaker 5: dollar prepaid credit card.
Speaker 2: I'm losing my mind. I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker 5: I've been black all my life. I've been in New
Speaker 5: York City for the better part. I'm like, I'd be
Speaker 5: damn if I ever saw some damn prepaid credit cards
Speaker 5: coming to the black community then.
Speaker 2: And I was bored here.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, I'm looking at it, and I'm saying,
Speaker 1: how could that be?
Speaker 4: Support it?
Speaker 3: I love that, and that is why it's important to
Speaker 3: be able to tell your own narrative.
Speaker 4: So let's look at those credit cards. Please. Those cards.
Speaker 3: We were required by law to feed every migrant and
Speaker 3: asylum secret that was in our care. Okay, they were
Speaker 3: being food was being delivered that people were not eating,
Speaker 3: and a lot of it was being thrown out.
Speaker 4: We were wasting money.
Speaker 3: And so my former deputy Man, Sheena Wright, first deputy man,
Speaker 3: came in and said, listen, this is this minority company
Speaker 3: called Mulchafi. We give people food card with eleven dollars
Speaker 3: around eleven dollars a day that they can spend for food,
Speaker 3: and they're going to go to the local bodega's shops
Speaker 3: and restaurants within the area. So we're gonna recycle the
Speaker 3: money back into the community instead of a large conglomerate
Speaker 3: that we spend it. It saved us money and we
Speaker 3: were able to put money backed into the local communities
Speaker 3: and it stopped the food waste that we were.
Speaker 4: Seeing of taxpayers dollars.
Speaker 3: So we did a pilot to say, let's see how
Speaker 3: successful this is, and so on first brush, when you
Speaker 3: see people do it, you say, wait.
Speaker 4: Minute, when you're giving these guys crowd outs.
Speaker 1: Fifty million prepaid credit cards prepaid Oh, I was hot.
Speaker 2: I was hot about that.
Speaker 3: So even the editorial boys who responded at first, like
Speaker 3: the Daily News, here the whole piece and say, listen,
Speaker 3: this is a smart approach to government because because what
Speaker 3: many people don't realize. People know of my law enforcement background,
Speaker 3: they know what I'm doing around health in the in
Speaker 3: the city, but really people don't appreciate the fiscal management
Speaker 3: that independent bond raiders who determine how successful you are
Speaker 3: a manager in the city.
Speaker 4: Have raised my bonds.
Speaker 3: They say this cat has managed us through COVID, They've
Speaker 3: managed us through He's managed us through the sylum seekers.
Speaker 3: He's managing the city and been 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.
Speaker 2: Fire and she was sleeping on the f train.
Speaker 1: When you think about those incidents as those kind of
Speaker 1: things that you happen, like you said, the number is
Speaker 1: considerably lower than people even recognized.
Speaker 2: But you know, the visual is what it's all about,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you see a woman on fire ski you
Speaker 1: don't want your daughter on there.
Speaker 2: You don't want your wife on there, you don't want
Speaker 2: your mom on there. You're gonna get scared.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be a panic mode because you worried about
Speaker 1: what them it could it be?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 1: When you talk about addressing crime, How do you believe
Speaker 1: your administration is going about doing it?
Speaker 2: And how has it been successful?
Speaker 3: A crime is for and actual and where our failure.
Speaker 3: I tell the team we lost the perception because when
Speaker 3: you have incidents that overshadow your success, no matter how
Speaker 3: impressive your numbers are, it overshadows when you have three
Speaker 3: people stabbed by a person with severe mental health illness,
Speaker 3: when you have someone set on fire. Those visualizations are real,
Speaker 3: and I respect how people feel. Now. I don't want
Speaker 3: to come to people and tell them listen to here,
Speaker 3: my numbers, this is all well we're doing.
Speaker 4: How you feel is important to me.
Speaker 3: My success in this city has been overshadowed by three things.
Speaker 3: Random acts of vinnce, slashing people, pushing people to the
Speaker 3: subway system, putting people on fire. Those small numbers have
Speaker 3: a major impact on how people feel.
Speaker 4: Second is recidivism.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of cats that out coming out,
Speaker 1: going unbelievable, getting arrested and coming right back out in
Speaker 1: the streets, sometimes the same.
Speaker 4: Day, right right, right right.
Speaker 3: We have five about five hundred and seventy five people
Speaker 3: that were arrested over seventy five hundred times for shopping.
Speaker 3: We have thirty six people who were arrested over eleven
Speaker 3: hundred times for a crime.
Speaker 1: That's just asking police officers not to do their job
Speaker 1: on purpose, is certain I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you the third issue that overshadows
Speaker 3: severe mental health illness. We have people with severe mental
Speaker 3: health illness. When I first got elected, I went into
Speaker 3: the streets January and February and visited people in encampments.
Speaker 3: I saw human waste, drug path fnlia, schizophrenic, bipolar, and
Speaker 3: I told.
Speaker 4: The team, we can't live like this.
Speaker 3: And many people were saying for years, even you know,
Speaker 3: when we were growing up, when people were sleeping on
Speaker 3: the street, our families said, listen, just leaving them, Alane,
Speaker 3: they're crazy or.
Speaker 4: What have you.
Speaker 3: We closed psychiatric wars like Creepmore and others and didn't
Speaker 3: give people a landing place.
Speaker 4: And now you see them on the streets.
Speaker 3: They're doing these these they part of the random acts
Speaker 3: of violence, a small number of them. And so when
Speaker 3: I said we're gonna tackle this, my team said, man,
Speaker 3: you out of your mind, and nobody dealt with this stuff.
Speaker 4: No, this is inhumane. We got to stop this.
Speaker 3: And when I was out on the street, I met
Speaker 3: a guy that was living in an encampment who was
Speaker 3: a retired police officer that just slipped through the cracks,
Speaker 3: and I said, we're not going to continue to do that.
Speaker 4: That has overshadowed our success.
Speaker 3: Crime is down, shooters, homicides are down, our economy is back,
Speaker 3: but it has been overshadowed by those random acts.
Speaker 1: Of Well, we gonna talk a little bit more because
Speaker 1: we're gonna 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.
Speaker 2: I have to give them their proper where it's do.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're talking about a plan to acts, you know,
Speaker 1: taxes for the working class family. You're planning to literally
Speaker 1: eliminate and cut city personal income taxes to for five
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty two thousand of the poorest New Yorkers.
Speaker 2: Anytime you cut taxes, I love that.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 2: I love stuff like that.
Speaker 1: You're planning to build eighty thousand new homes across five
Speaker 1: boroughs through small changes and bring the cost of housing down.
Speaker 2: You've got an initial that.
Speaker 1: Has saved New York as 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 Coless, people have it.
Speaker 2: 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: seed in New York City, and according to the recent polls,
Speaker 1: he's up about twenty three percentage points on you.
Speaker 2: What do you have to say about that?
Speaker 4: Deja vu? Go back to February.
Speaker 3: Of twenty twenty one, there was another Andrew, Andrew Yang
Speaker 3: he got in the race.
Speaker 4: He was measuring the drapes in City Hall.
Speaker 2: I don't know why he never had a chance to
Speaker 2: get you. I don't know who had a chance to
Speaker 2: get you.
Speaker 3: Poles polls had him up double digit croll with the
Speaker 3: post double digit post right, And what I told the team,
Speaker 3: polls don't elect people, elect mayors people do.
Speaker 4: We need to stay consistent and that's what we did.
Speaker 3: And so I'm going to tell my story and I'm
Speaker 3: going to let people see exactly what we have accomplished.
Speaker 4: And we're looking forward to.
Speaker 2: That I'm not gonna tell you what we're gonna talk
Speaker 2: about next. I'm gonna surprise you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a little break, but I promise you
Speaker 1: where this discussion is going next is right in your
Speaker 1: wheelhouse and you'll enjoy it immensely. More to Stephen A.
Speaker 2: Smith Show with the Mayor himself from New York City
Speaker 2: one only Eriic Adams back for more.
Speaker 1: Mean all right, everybody, listen up with all the big
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the CEPN Smiths Joe here with his
Speaker 1: honor himself, the Mayor of New York City, Steric Adams.
Speaker 2: I want to get into a subject and I want
Speaker 2: to be very.
Speaker 1: Very unapologetic and transparent about where I'm going. Black man,
Speaker 1: a black man, MM about the state of our two
Speaker 1: party system and what kind of impact you believe that
Speaker 1: has had on the black community, particularly in recent memory,
Speaker 1: even compared to a few years ago, to a decade ago,
Speaker 1: to before that.
Speaker 4: Right. Well, the first of all, we should be after
Speaker 4: the election.
Speaker 3: It should be about building up our communities and our
Speaker 3: cities in our country. You know when people say, well,
Speaker 3: while you sitting down with Donald Trump, doctor King said,
Speaker 3: wanted to sit.
Speaker 4: Down with Nixon. Y.
Speaker 3: You know, uh, when you pulled into purchase something for
Speaker 3: your family, they don't ask if you're a Democrat or Republican.
Speaker 3: When a bullet car of a highway of death in
Speaker 3: your community and it hits someone, it's not a Democrat
Speaker 3: or Republican of Obama said it right after the election.
Speaker 4: We must transform into the United States. The election is
Speaker 4: an intramural.
Speaker 3: There's no reason we're holding these grudges every four year
Speaker 3: years we say who's.
Speaker 4: The one up?
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna take my ball and go home.
Speaker 3: No, I am very consistent on who I am and
Speaker 3: making sure that I'm willing to sit down and communicate
Speaker 3: with anyone.
Speaker 4: And I'm an open book.
Speaker 3: Brothers, I don't There's never a time, even when you
Speaker 3: talk to my team, they never would say you can't
Speaker 3: touch that subject area. I'm an open book. I have
Speaker 3: an authentic life, and I think as black men, we
Speaker 3: need to look into who is understanding our issues.
Speaker 1: And the gy Just recently, I spoke up on behalf
Speaker 1: of Snoop Dogg and Soldier Boy and Nelly as well,
Speaker 1: And the only reason I spoke up for them was
Speaker 1: on this level. People were going off about them performing
Speaker 1: at the Crypto Ball and it was supposed to be
Speaker 1: a part of the inauguration celebration and Donald Trump was
Speaker 1: supposed to be there, but he wasn't there, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: so what at the end of the day, you know what,
Speaker 1: you're making a little paper. Somebody's gonna ain't gonna pay
Speaker 1: you six figures for one night's work. Everybody says, it's
Speaker 1: not just about the money. It's not just about the money.
Speaker 1: But I'm thinking along these lines, this is our problem.
Speaker 1: We have politicians alluding to him being a racist, comparing
Speaker 1: him the Nazis and stuff like that. Right, but then
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to expect you to go out and do
Speaker 1: business with this man and to legislate policy within this country.
Speaker 1: And then I'm thinking about people in the media. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say any names about them right now,
Speaker 1: but they call them everything but the child of God.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, they're going to Mari
Speaker 1: lango to kiss the ring, and I'm like, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have had to do that if you didn't go that fall,
Speaker 1: and you just judge on the issue instead of personalizing
Speaker 1: and engaging in incendiary content. For some reason, we don't
Speaker 1: seem to get that message nearly enough, especially as a community.
Speaker 2: Am I wrong in feeling now right?
Speaker 4: You are dead on?
Speaker 3: And that is why we have to find our own
Speaker 3: space and not allow people to identify our space. And
Speaker 3: we need to really look at and do something that's
Speaker 3: really revolutionary. We need to start reading, look at the
Speaker 3: real data. Don't just look at the headline, don't just
Speaker 3: flip through the Instagram, the TikTok or the quick Twitter post.
Speaker 3: Sit down and say, let me do some real research
Speaker 3: on the issues that are impacting us. Because you can't
Speaker 3: have generation after generation of different administrations but we're still
Speaker 3: going through the same hell. Why aren't we going through
Speaker 3: the same hell? Archbishop Desmond Tutu head a quote that
Speaker 3: lives with me. We spend a lifetime pulling people out
Speaker 3: of the river. No one goes upstream and prevent them
Speaker 3: from falling in in the first place. Poverty is profitable.
Speaker 3: And then when you look at who we're pulling out
Speaker 3: of the river.
Speaker 4: They look like you and I.
Speaker 3: People are making paper off of the dysfunctionality of government,
Speaker 3: and there's no real desire to change stuff.
Speaker 4: There's no really.
Speaker 3: You look across the country and see black and brown
Speaker 3: people who are reading that grade level. Look at the
Speaker 3: unemployment level, look at the incarceration levels. It's the same
Speaker 3: across the country. So either we worn with some biological
Speaker 3: dysfunctionality or there's a profit in making sure we don't
Speaker 3: change these issues.
Speaker 2: I want to hold both sides accountable.
Speaker 1: I want to look at both sides and say, you
Speaker 1: know what has been a bindary system for decades. Both
Speaker 1: you parties have been in charge of our government, and
Speaker 1: look at the regression that has taken place within our nation.
Speaker 1: But then it took a step further, because when we
Speaker 1: get back to your point about how you never left
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, you felt like the Democratic Party left you.
Speaker 1: I voted for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2: I wasn't excited about it. I'll be the first to
Speaker 2: admit it.
Speaker 1: I just didn't like the divisiveness and the chaos that
Speaker 1: Trump had in his first administration, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to repeat of that in round two. So my thinking was,
Speaker 1: if you got a Democrat in the White House, but
Speaker 1: you got Republicans in the House and the Senate, somehow
Speaker 1: people would be forced to compromise and things could get done.
Speaker 1: And I look at it in the aftermath of it all,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying to myself, wait a minute, we saw
Speaker 1: a president that.
Speaker 2: Clearly, I'll say it, there was slippage.
Speaker 1: You knew that, but you put them, You avoided the primaries,
Speaker 1: you made sure he showed up on a debate stage
Speaker 1: June twenty seventh. He wasn't ready. It was too late
Speaker 1: for anybody else. So Kamala Harris gets inserted in there.
Speaker 1: And on judgment Day, which was election day, the voter said,
Speaker 1: we didn't fall for it.
Speaker 2: We didn't fall for it.
Speaker 1: And the Democratic Party, to me, is still chirping as
Speaker 1: if it's the campaign trail, not recognizing that this man
Speaker 1: is in office and you're going to have to deal
Speaker 1: with them. How could we expect anybody to deal with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump if as a Democrat, folks are still out
Speaker 1: there spewing the same old rhetoric.
Speaker 4: In a way, we need to start talking about governing
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 3: And then you look at a mayor of the largest
Speaker 3: city in America that makes a determination I'm going to
Speaker 3: sit down and not war with the president, but work
Speaker 3: with the president. And people are trying to figure out
Speaker 3: why I have a city to run with real issues
Speaker 3: around affordability and housing.
Speaker 4: And we have been successful in spite of what we're
Speaker 4: going through. Brother.
Speaker 3: In year one and year two, we broke records in
Speaker 3: individual years on how much housing we built, We brought
Speaker 3: record on how many brought records on how many people
Speaker 3: we moved from homelessness into permanent housing, of how many
Speaker 3: people use this vouchers for housing. We've been breaking records
Speaker 3: after records after records, and with the help of Washington
Speaker 3: d C, we can go even further.
Speaker 1: What about people who say, mister Mayor, you're engaging in
Speaker 1: an exercise of futility because look at.
Speaker 2: This man, he doesn't really care. This is what I'm
Speaker 2: just saying, not me told their attitude is he doesn't
Speaker 2: really care. Look at him. He immediately got rid of it,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to get rid of DEI programs. Look
Speaker 2: at him.
Speaker 1: Look at who he surrounded himself with, these black folks,
Speaker 1: these minorities that have supported him.
Speaker 2: How many does he actually have in his cabinet. Look
Speaker 2: at him.
Speaker 1: It's Elon Musk for X, it's Fred, it is Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg for Facebook and Matter and all of this other stuff.
Speaker 2: It's TikTok now.
Speaker 1: So he's insulated himself with media arms or information disseminating
Speaker 1: arms that can insulate him from the level of scrutiny.
Speaker 1: Mister mayor, aren't you just wasting your time even trying.
Speaker 4: To communicate with this first first of the I'm a
Speaker 4: Elon Musk got I love the technology, love what he's doing.
Speaker 3: I think this cat is gonna put us on Mars
Speaker 3: before we know it, and all the secrets that are
Speaker 3: in our universe.
Speaker 4: So I believe in what he's doing.
Speaker 3: But think about it with saying look at him, and
Speaker 3: what he's doing is surrounding himself with But then you
Speaker 3: get a straight up South Jamaica Queen's street cat that's
Speaker 3: able to sit down, that he's willing to pick up
Speaker 3: the phone and say let's sit down and talk, and
Speaker 3: you want to demonize that action. So we can't have
Speaker 3: it both ways. You can't look at well, he's surrounding
Speaker 3: himself with a lot of billionaires, and now you get
Speaker 3: this straight up blue collar mayor. He's saying, Eric, let's
Speaker 3: sit down and let's have a conversation. And you want
Speaker 3: to demonize that. Also, some people enjoy the emotions that's
Speaker 3: attached with misery, and no matter what they see, brother,
Speaker 3: they going to say, woe is me. You know, I
Speaker 3: could have said woe is me when I was arrested
Speaker 3: as a child, but I became a cop. I could
Speaker 3: have said woe is me because I have a learning
Speaker 3: disability I learned about in college. But I pushed through
Speaker 3: and became the mayor of the City of New York.
Speaker 3: So you can easily sit back and look at your
Speaker 3: circumstances and say I would never do it, or you
Speaker 3: could use your circumstances to build your character and make
Speaker 3: it happen.
Speaker 2: Do you believe Donald Trump is interested in helping New
Speaker 2: York City citizens?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: The President loves New York. He made his prosperity here
Speaker 3: in this city. I believe he understands how important New
Speaker 3: York is for the country with an economic engine for
Speaker 3: the entire country. And I think that this is a
Speaker 3: great opportunity to look at some of the things that
Speaker 3: we need to do here in the city. And I'm
Speaker 3: going to continue to engage with him. I'm going to try,
Speaker 3: and this is how unique. Let's understand something. When President
Speaker 3: Biden won, I went to see him before being elected mayor,
Speaker 3: and I talked with him about the crime issues we
Speaker 3: were seeing in our city.
Speaker 1: He was able to appoint in the eighteen and he
Speaker 1: loved talking to you until your highlight at the migrant
Speaker 1: crisis and how it was the biliting of New York.
Speaker 3: It took ten trips to Washington, d c. So it
Speaker 3: wasn't as though when he got elected. The same thing
Speaker 3: I'm doing with this president I did with President Biden.
Speaker 3: He came to the city to sit down with me
Speaker 3: in the police department to talk about the issue of
Speaker 3: the day, which is public safety.
Speaker 4: So this is not new. You know.
Speaker 3: I have sat down with gang leaders. I've sat down
Speaker 3: with people who are my staunch critic. If we don't communicate,
Speaker 3: how the hell are we going to ever hear the
Speaker 3: other side of issues?
Speaker 2: Ho I'm desperate. Does New York need the federal government's assistance?
Speaker 3: Brother, It's unbelievable what we need from the federal government.
Speaker 3: All that you see the billions of dollars we send
Speaker 3: back to the federal government. There's a lot we don't
Speaker 3: get back, and it's imperative everything from our educational funding.
Speaker 4: You look at many of the grants that allow us.
Speaker 3: To do infrastructure building, when you look at our law
Speaker 3: enforcement issues, of the laws that are coming out of Washington.
Speaker 4: We need the federal government.
Speaker 3: If you don't have a real partner in the federal government,
Speaker 3: it is going to make it challenging for you to
Speaker 3: carry out the functionalities of running the city like New York.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Donald Trump is making a
Speaker 1: lot of noise about out is the executive orders that
Speaker 1: he handed down. The inordinate amount of executive orders that
Speaker 1: he's handed down just this first couple of days in office.
Speaker 1: Which one has stood out to you the most?
Speaker 4: All of them we have to still study.
Speaker 3: You know, people are questioning me on executive orders or
Speaker 3: is it And I say, damn it, the ink is
Speaker 3: not even dry.
Speaker 4: Let me read it.
Speaker 1: You know, he can sign an executive order, but that
Speaker 1: don't mean it's gonna hold water. That doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: not gonna have to deal with the government in Congress.
Speaker 1: For example.
Speaker 3: They got a lot of stuff to work through, and
Speaker 3: some may come with lawsuits, some may may come with challenges.
Speaker 4: But I think the spirit of what he's saying.
Speaker 3: And you know this, and I've been saying this over
Speaker 3: and over again, this is the greatest country on the globe.
Speaker 3: You know, all the country has dream attached to his name,
Speaker 3: but America, the American dream. During the migrants and silence
Speaker 3: seeker crisis, I went to South America and watched people
Speaker 3: walk thousands of miles through the dairy and gap, putting
Speaker 3: their life on the line, or because they wanted to
Speaker 3: come here, and many, an overwhelming number, wanted to come
Speaker 3: to New York. And so when you look at how
Speaker 3: we have all of a sudden, all of us and
Speaker 3: become ashamed of being the greatest country in the globe.
Speaker 3: Our children are being radicalized or hate the country. Some
Speaker 3: of the Ivy League institutions are talking about, you know,
Speaker 3: the destruction of America, and just mantellent in America. As students,
Speaker 3: we no longer appreciate our product. And I think that
Speaker 3: out of everything he's doing, to hear people chanting USA, USA,
Speaker 3: of this country is the greatest country on the globe.
Speaker 4: Is it perfect? Hell, No, it's not.
Speaker 3: But if you were to tell those who criticize this country.
Speaker 3: Here's a map, pick where you want to go. A
Speaker 3: whole lot of people won't be going anywhere.
Speaker 1: The one thing that one could argue in favor of
Speaker 1: the right and against the left is that the right
Speaker 1: has been preaching about how America is the greatest country.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 1: Yes, and they've accused the left of doing the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of that, which is the protest that you pointed to,
Speaker 1: along with various other things.
Speaker 2: Is there any legitimacy to that year.
Speaker 3: I think it's extremely legitimate. We have a there are
Speaker 3: various systems of government. You have communism, you have socialism,
Speaker 3: you have capitalism. We never say that we were not
Speaker 3: a capitalist country. It's about compassionate capitalism. It's about coming
Speaker 3: here as a dishwasher and one day owning a chain
Speaker 3: of restaurants. It's about growing up in Hollis, Queens and
Speaker 3: now I'm becoming one of the premiere.
Speaker 4: Of talk show hosts. Where else are you going to
Speaker 4: be able to accomplish that.
Speaker 3: It's about being dyslexic and arrested, and now I'm elected
Speaker 3: to be the mayor of the greatest city on the globe.
Speaker 4: The possibilities are endless in this country.
Speaker 1: Sitting next to somebody that was I had undiagnosed dyslexia
Speaker 1: that they found out about and ultimately, you know, this
Speaker 1: is the kind of stuff I'm sitting here today. I
Speaker 1: ask you this because when I think about diversity, equity,
Speaker 1: and inclusion, that has nothing to do with what we're
Speaker 1: just talking about. Getting back to DEI, I would like
Speaker 1: you to define the definition of DEI what it should
Speaker 1: mean when you hear DEI. What should that mean to
Speaker 1: the average American citizen and the employers out here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we cannot we cannot ignore the.
Speaker 3: Fact that there are many people who were passed over
Speaker 3: based on their ethnicity, and based on their gender, and
Speaker 3: based on their lives.
Speaker 4: You know many of you.
Speaker 3: I would talk to some of my Muslim brothers and
Speaker 3: sisters and they would deny jobs because they had the job.
Speaker 3: I would talk to some of my Jewish brothers and sisters,
Speaker 3: and they were law firms and other jobs they could
Speaker 3: not have.
Speaker 4: And African Americans.
Speaker 3: I can think about my sister, my oldest sister, how
Speaker 3: many jobs she would train someone who was junior to
Speaker 3: her and constantly.
Speaker 4: Watch them past over. So we know there were some
Speaker 4: historical problems.
Speaker 3: Now, the goal is how do you give opportunities to
Speaker 3: people regardless of the ethnicity, their gender, their lifestyle. That's
Speaker 3: what I believe it should be qualified people getting a
Speaker 3: given opportunity.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the problems that people have when
Speaker 1: they look at the Trump administration or they look at
Speaker 1: the Republicans and the Conservatives, because every time you hear DEI,
Speaker 1: whether it's in the media on the right or from politicians,
Speaker 1: when you hear DEI, it implicates or insinuates these are
Speaker 1: unqualified individuals that got jobs because of DEI. They're not
Speaker 1: looking at the fact that dee I was necessary because
Speaker 1: there were plenty of qualified individuals who didn't look like
Speaker 1: you share your cultural identity or background that you didn't
Speaker 1: give a chance to show you what they could do
Speaker 1: without it. They're not doing that, and that's something that
Speaker 1: the Right to Me needs to get their act together about.
Speaker 2: When they talk about DEEI.
Speaker 3: To that, you say, well, listen, well said, And I
Speaker 3: speak with folks of color who are very much associated
Speaker 3: with the party, and they say, listen, there's areas.
Speaker 4: We have to improve upon.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things that I could disagree with
Speaker 3: people on, but I want to find places on where
Speaker 3: I agree on and the only way you could get
Speaker 3: it at the table and talk about allowing that pathway
Speaker 3: to success is you have to be at the table
Speaker 3: and talk to people and not yell at people. And
Speaker 3: that's where folks are. If we're constantly yelling at each other,
Speaker 3: we would never hear each other. And that is my
Speaker 3: role as the mayor of the most important city on
Speaker 3: the clobe.
Speaker 1: Before I let you get on out here, just a
Speaker 1: couple questions. I know this, man, I really appreciate this.
Speaker 1: September fifteenth, twenty twenty three, you awarded media moguls showing
Speaker 1: Diddy Combs with the key to the city and.
Speaker 2: The clear to day Diddy Day. Rest of all, I want.
Speaker 1: To know, I'm curious what goes into determining who gets
Speaker 1: the key to the city.
Speaker 2: I just want to know just what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: No, no, you know what's interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you said that took my DEI when we
Speaker 3: did an analysis of who were getting the keys, it
Speaker 3: didn't look like us, it didn't look like hose.
Speaker 2: To somebody that looked like us, And what the hell
Speaker 2: has he got him? So man, come on, man, come on,
Speaker 2: but go ahead, go ahead, up.
Speaker 3: You can't live life by what's in the front, you
Speaker 3: gotta know, you know, you go based on what people
Speaker 3: have done.
Speaker 4: And so there's a whole panel committee and what we did.
Speaker 3: We broke it up into entertainers as well as those
Speaker 3: who contribute to the city, and people looked at his contribution,
Speaker 3: what what he has done and others that we on it. Uh,
Speaker 3: we knew that we should give him that award. And listen,
Speaker 3: my heart goes out to him, you know, as he
Speaker 3: goes through.
Speaker 4: His legal struggles.
Speaker 3: You know, my heart goes out right exactly, you know,
Speaker 3: and I you know, there by the grace of God
Speaker 3: goes out we we we're all going through something.
Speaker 4: And so Mahart goes out to him.
Speaker 2: The keys returned last year.
Speaker 4: Did you ask for it? Back?
Speaker 2: The team, the committee, the committee, you know, I'm not.
Speaker 4: The individual person determined.
Speaker 3: There's a whole committee that sits down and they made
Speaker 3: the determination because of the highlight of the case and
Speaker 3: his team was they were cool. They said, listen, we
Speaker 3: understand what's going on. We respect that. They didn't give
Speaker 3: any pushback. This is the big boys, Big Girls club.
Speaker 3: We all know that you have to uh deal with
Speaker 3: the issues that are in front of in front of
Speaker 3: the one.
Speaker 1: He's not asked because you know, when when Luigi Mangioni,
Speaker 1: you know, allegedly killed the United Healthcare CEO Ryan Thompson,
Speaker 1: you were right there when he arrived in New York.
Speaker 1: I'm asking because you were right there. You know you
Speaker 1: will be sive, front and center when it comes to
Speaker 1: issues such as that, no doubt.
Speaker 4: Listen, I'm on the ground, man.
Speaker 3: I was on the ground when Officer Marin Rivera, two
Speaker 3: young officers were shot and are killed, assassinated. I was
Speaker 3: on the ground when eleven year old eleven month old
Speaker 3: baby was shot in the head.
Speaker 2: I was in the hospital with the family members.
Speaker 3: I believe that being mayor is both substantive and this symbolism,
Speaker 3: and we have done a great job and a substantive
Speaker 3: part of it. But the symbolism of a person who's
Speaker 3: allegedly committed an assassination and our city with a silencer
Speaker 3: watching him come back.
Speaker 4: In the city.
Speaker 3: I needed to look in the eye and many New
Speaker 3: Yorkers said thank you for being there, because people were traumatized.
Speaker 3: And if I lose my CEOs in the city, I'm
Speaker 3: losing employees. I'm losing tax dollars and I'm using the
Speaker 3: economic stability of the city.
Speaker 2: So you sound like a conservative. You understand that, right.
Speaker 2: Some people don't look at you say you sound like
Speaker 2: a conservative.
Speaker 3: No, but think about us for a moment. You know,
Speaker 3: you know, I went to the Church of Christ in
Speaker 3: South Jamaica. Queens our philosophy in the family we grew
Speaker 3: up in. You know, I'm not sure what your dad did,
Speaker 3: but I'm sure.
Speaker 1: It was hard Way Silver, hard blue ker brother, mother,
Speaker 1: register nurse, Queen General Hospital.
Speaker 4: Think about it.
Speaker 3: Think about the core values and principles that they're from.
Speaker 3: You know, your family, I believe it's the Caribbean come
Speaker 3: in here. May have left family members behind, aching out
Speaker 3: their way, not ever looking for a handout, just giving
Speaker 3: the opportunity to work, you know, for their families and
Speaker 3: their families just six six children that they were raising.
Speaker 4: And so those are the principles that I live by.
Speaker 1: What about people who look at the level say they
Speaker 1: want to give too many handouts? They look at the
Speaker 1: right and say they don't want to give you a
Speaker 1: damn thing.
Speaker 2: Which way do you go? How does the mayor of
Speaker 2: the largest city in the United States answer that question?
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 3: I love that because what happens all the time people
Speaker 3: want you to be on one side or the other,
Speaker 3: and it takes a lot of discipline to say, you're
Speaker 3: not going to pigeonhole me.
Speaker 4: I may be have a I may have a conservative.
Speaker 3: View on a topic, and I may have a liberal
Speaker 3: view on a topic, and I'm going to address that
Speaker 3: based on where I am on the topic.
Speaker 1: But devoid of being pigeonhole, devoid of, you know, taking
Speaker 1: a side per se, because I'm right with you.
Speaker 2: I 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. How
Speaker 2: do you answer that?
Speaker 4: And I think they're wrong.
Speaker 3: I think the numerical minority are at the streams. The
Speaker 3: overwhelming majority is in the middle. We have to encourage
Speaker 3: them to come out and vote.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: I think they are more Americans like you and I
Speaker 3: that are concerned about affordability, public safety, and making sure
Speaker 3: they can house their children and have a safe place
Speaker 3: families in this city. But we've allowed the extremes to
Speaker 3: hijack the narrative. But I think the overwhelming number of
Speaker 3: new Yorkers are just like you, and I want to
Speaker 3: provide for our 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. Yes, let's say these allegations are gonna
Speaker 2: go away.
Speaker 1: Your issues campaign, you know, fraud and campaign finance, all
Speaker 1: of this stuff, were gonna throw away. With all of that,
Speaker 1: it's you against Andrew Cuomo for the mayor of New York.
Speaker 1: I'm a sports guy like competition. I mean, what kind
Speaker 1: of prediction would you put forth if you got if
Speaker 1: you had yourself, if you found yourself in a position
Speaker 1: where you were going up against Andrew Cromo for the mayor,
Speaker 1: for the mayor's position, for the his honors position in
Speaker 1: the city of New York.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, I think that to me, and this is
Speaker 3: how I run my life. I'm not running against Andrew
Speaker 3: Cuomo or any of the other candidates. I'm running against
Speaker 3: myself play.
Speaker 4: My best game.
Speaker 3: If I play my best game, it doesn't matter who's
Speaker 3: in the race, because there's other CANi is in the race.
Speaker 3: And what I've learned in electoral politics right now, we're
Speaker 3: in the preseason.
Speaker 4: You know, we're not in the playoffs. When you're in
Speaker 4: the playoffs, your game has to be different.
Speaker 3: You could be great, you know, in the season, but
Speaker 3: when you get in the playoffs, let's see what you're
Speaker 3: made of.
Speaker 1: He's a former governor that may be running for mayor. Yes,
Speaker 1: you're a mayor. All of this stuff goes away. Gubernatorial aspirations. No,
Speaker 1: not not at this Why not?
Speaker 3: I am focused on running this city and listen of
Speaker 3: this is the second second most important job in America,
Speaker 3: and you know, it's a blessing every day being a
Speaker 3: mayor of the City of New York. And so no
Speaker 3: matter what's on the next journey, no one can take
Speaker 3: away the number one tenth. I was one hundred and
Speaker 3: tenth mayor of the greatest city on the globe. Think
Speaker 3: about that for a moment. You said second most important
Speaker 3: job was the first president of the United States, you know,
Speaker 3: but everyone knows. When I meet the mayor's from across
Speaker 3: the globe during you and we they all argue about
Speaker 3: who's number two and number three, and then look over
Speaker 3: at me and their smile they say, we know who's
Speaker 3: number one.
Speaker 1: Did you.
Speaker 2: Last question, sir?
Speaker 1: As we sit here talking right now, as two individuals
Speaker 1: from the streets of Queens, New York, and we.
Speaker 2: Hear the climate that is out there.
Speaker 1: It's subsided to some degree, although there's obvious concerns because
Speaker 1: the election is over and the people have spoken. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump won the popular vote, he won the electoral college vote,
Speaker 1: The Right won the House, they got the Senate.
Speaker 4: It is what it is?
Speaker 1: What message would you say, particularly specifically to Black Americans
Speaker 1: out there who have this fear of what he's going
Speaker 1: to do and the kind of effect that's going to
Speaker 1: have on our community moving forward. And it's not to
Speaker 1: alienate any other minority. It's not to alienate White America.
Speaker 1: It's nothing about that right on a black man from Quez.
Speaker 1: You're a black man from Quez. We're hearing the rhetoric
Speaker 1: and we see people overreacting to the slightest syllable that
Speaker 1: comes out of his mouth, and that of the right.
Speaker 1: If anybody from our community supports it in any way,
Speaker 1: what message do you have?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I like that, And I think your success has
Speaker 3: been because you may be of African ancestry, of you
Speaker 3: speak to everyone. The guy that's sitting inside the bar
Speaker 3: that's Italian still can connect with you. The heartbroken person
Speaker 3: who may be a janitor. Can see how you combine
Speaker 3: sports and politics. You know, I think that is the
Speaker 3: gift that you have of that you're able to connect
Speaker 3: with people. And so I say that African Americans who
Speaker 3: feel specifically that this is going to impact their lives
Speaker 3: no matter who's the mayor, the governor, the president. If
Speaker 3: you truly believe God is in charge, then God is
Speaker 3: not gonna let anything harmful happen to you. And so
Speaker 3: we have to draw on our religious uh beliefs, and
Speaker 3: we have to really fortify how we feel about the
Speaker 3: success of our ch the children and families of our city.
Speaker 3: Stay focused, uh not, don't be distracted. You have your dreams,
Speaker 3: you have your mission, and uh no president or mayor
Speaker 3: governor is going to be able to impact that cause.
Speaker 3: You and I both know we will live through several
Speaker 3: mayors and governors, and many times they may have been
Speaker 3: elected and people have forecast doomsday and we're still here today.
Speaker 4: You running the show, I'm running the city.
Speaker 2: There you go, and we got resolved and honor. It
Speaker 2: was all mind.
Speaker 1: So my pleasure, resolute PRUSSI the Mayor of New York himself,
Speaker 1: the one and only Eric Adams, I hope y'all enjoyed
Speaker 1: that conversation. I know I did, and if you listened,
Speaker 1: no doubt you learned a few things. Until next time,
Speaker 1: This is Stephen, a son and all. Peace of love everybody,