Speaker 1: Do you have a list that you look at every
Speaker 1: single day? Your list must be about ten pages long.
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting about this role as mayor, it's
Speaker 1: not that as hot, it's the value. Eric Adams is
Speaker 1: the mayor of New York City. He spent more than
Speaker 1: twenty years as a New York City police officer before
Speaker 1: entering politics. Mayor Adams has the monumental task and I
Speaker 1: want to emphasize monumental task of guiding the largest and
Speaker 1: some say the greatest, and I say the greatest city
Speaker 1: in the United States, and I say in the world.
Speaker 1: I thought it would be great to sit down with
Speaker 1: the man who wields so much power and learn more
Speaker 1: about his plans for our great New York City. And
Speaker 1: who is he outside the office? We want to know.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to welcome the one hundred and tenth
Speaker 1: Mayor of the City of New York my podcast here
Speaker 1: at Newstands Studios at Rockefeller Center. Welcome, mister Mayor. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. It is such a pleasure to sit
Speaker 1: down with you and talk business. Yes, yes, business of
Speaker 1: operating and guiding and improving and beautifying this great, great city.
Speaker 1: You have, as I said, a monumenttions. Yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: how do you feel right now? After what? How a year?
Speaker 1: And here in three months we were entering March. But
Speaker 1: I think that to fully understand the fullness of the
Speaker 1: moment is, as you stated in your opening, oftentimes we
Speaker 1: see the glory. You see the former captain, former state senator,
Speaker 1: first black bell president, now the mayor of this city.
Speaker 1: That's the glory. That's not my story. And to be
Speaker 1: able to understand why at this moment I could take
Speaker 1: the weight of this awesome task is to really understand
Speaker 1: the story. And we you know, that's why I like
Speaker 1: about your podcast. You get into the story, who's the person,
Speaker 1: and then you have a better appreciation of the journey. Yes,
Speaker 1: and we all want to know the story. We want
Speaker 1: to know what motivated you to become mayor of the
Speaker 1: most powerful city in the world. And you've never been
Speaker 1: a miryor before. CEO, this is a This is a corporation, yeah, major,
Speaker 1: and a very large corporation. Your yearly budget, you know,
Speaker 1: one hundred the last budget was one hundred and one
Speaker 1: billion dollars. You know, we balloon over any of the
Speaker 1: location California probably as a budget larger, but this is
Speaker 1: a major financial institution. But you know, it's amazing how
Speaker 1: the lessons you learn from your parents come in a
Speaker 1: real useful way. Mom used to start the week, she
Speaker 1: would show how much money was coming into the house,
Speaker 1: and she'll sit down with all six of us and
Speaker 1: she said, this is this is how much is coming
Speaker 1: in the house. These are all the bills. So when
Speaker 1: you start saying that you want a new past sneakers,
Speaker 1: tell me what item might takeoff? Do I turn off
Speaker 1: the gas? So I turn off the heat? Do I
Speaker 1: turn off the water? Do I don't buy food for
Speaker 1: the week. So we had a full understanding of her
Speaker 1: candid approach to well, a real budget, a real budget
Speaker 1: minded mother, right. Yeah, and she was a single mother,
Speaker 1: single mom of six kids. Yeah, amazing woman, never surrender,
Speaker 1: never gave up. You know. Third grade education took us
Speaker 1: from Brownsville, Brooklyn, where she just knew that she wanted
Speaker 1: her children to be raised in the house. And I
Speaker 1: think she was a damn good housekeeper. That was her
Speaker 1: occupation too, right, Yes, she cleaned houses for people and
Speaker 1: then she was she was able to find a union
Speaker 1: job at Ampstead Daycare Center. I knew what the students
Speaker 1: were eating every day because she would put it in
Speaker 1: the type of where and bring it home file leftovers. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's nice to remember your parents. It's really nice
Speaker 1: to be guided by your parents. Yes, I'm one of six. Also,
Speaker 1: oh are you? Yes? I am that. Where Where are
Speaker 1: you belt Lee, New Jersey in the middle of second
Speaker 1: oldest okay okay, okay uh And we too. We lived
Speaker 1: on a very very strict budget, but we supplemented with
Speaker 1: a garden and we grew. We grew everything in the garden.
Speaker 1: It was only a fifth of an acre, but we
Speaker 1: grew stuff. We can stuff. We went to our cousin's
Speaker 1: farm down in southern New Jersey and brought food back.
Speaker 1: So I know about budget, right right, think about that. Also,
Speaker 1: look how creative you are. You know when you do
Speaker 1: some of your food shows, your cannon show. All of
Speaker 1: that came from the foundation of what you knew of
Speaker 1: Grandma and Buffalo taught me all kinds of mother and
Speaker 1: homemaker tasks. Really great. So a mayor, I was driving
Speaker 1: around the city today, so I asked the storekeeper. This
Speaker 1: is a store that's been on Madison Avenue for one
Speaker 1: hundred and ten years, Perez, It's called the seventies, upper seventies.
Speaker 1: What a beautiful store. A lovely elderly couple run the store.
Speaker 1: And I asked, what do you want me to ask
Speaker 1: me or Adams? And she said, all I want me
Speaker 1: or Adams to do for us is to make this
Speaker 1: city safe. Love it. No, So that's one. And then
Speaker 1: another person I asked, she said, all I want to
Speaker 1: know is what is he doing about the rat population? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if you heard, but I
Speaker 1: hate rats, and there's ways of doing that. We give
Speaker 1: me to announce our rats are. That's going to focus.
Speaker 1: It was a disjointed system previously and we're now going
Speaker 1: to focus on one person overseeing the entire operation. Okay,
Speaker 1: So eliminating the rat population which occurred, which really enlarged
Speaker 1: because why one number one, the pandemic, A lot of
Speaker 1: food was put out trash on our streets. We have
Speaker 1: to move away from AUTHA. We have to move away
Speaker 1: from plastic bags that came during the sixties during the
Speaker 1: sanitation strike. We kept it. That is a failure process.
Speaker 1: We have to put our garbage and containers, okay, containers,
Speaker 1: garbage pails, yes, yes, again. So the other thing about
Speaker 1: the pandemic. I mean, I was the restaurants that are
Speaker 1: in the streets, all those exterior restaurants. Right our city
Speaker 1: is starting to look like Moonbaie. You know, this is
Speaker 1: a really scary situation because sometimes I can't even drive
Speaker 1: down some streets because there's a restaurant on this side.
Speaker 1: In restaurant. What's happening with the sidewalk restaurants. You know,
Speaker 1: we have to take our hat off to the previous
Speaker 1: administration as they instituted what we call the COVID sheds
Speaker 1: because our restaurants were closing and it really was a lifeline. Yes,
Speaker 1: now that COVID is in our rear view mirror for
Speaker 1: the most part, we have to re acknowledge and re
Speaker 1: examine the use of them. Counsel, when MAJII Velast squads
Speaker 1: is coming up with a new plan, you're going to
Speaker 1: see a smaller number and they're going to be uniform
Speaker 1: and presentation you know nice. Yes, I mean to have
Speaker 1: four or five of them on one street, which really
Speaker 1: restricts traffic, restricts us moving from one place to another,
Speaker 1: really is very debilitating. We have to rethink it. It
Speaker 1: did his job, and now it's time to what do
Speaker 1: the restaurant toursday, do they want to keep them? Some
Speaker 1: like eating out doors, it's more eating out doors. So
Speaker 1: we should look at how we're going to use our
Speaker 1: names for half a sidewalk right, Yes, So it's exciting,
Speaker 1: But I want to go back to the crime because
Speaker 1: that's important. I say public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity.
Speaker 1: And we're hitting the result of our public safety plan.
Speaker 1: And people must not only be safe based on the stats,
Speaker 1: say must feels safe. That's crucioot. So we see we
Speaker 1: have witness in this year and the end of last year,
Speaker 1: decreasing homicide, decreasing shootings. We're watching our major seven crime
Speaker 1: categories also decrease. The customer satisfactory subway. In our subway system,
Speaker 1: the numbers are extremely impressive, major riout. People are seeing
Speaker 1: a difference. Many of the employees who work with me,
Speaker 1: my colleagues take the subway, yes, and they are very
Speaker 1: distraught about the number of homeless on the subways. They
Speaker 1: see a lot of policemen, but they don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of improvement in the subway. There's also still scary
Speaker 1: crime on the subways. So, and I think part of
Speaker 1: it is is that we highlight in our daily tabloids
Speaker 1: the worst thing that has ever happened in the city
Speaker 1: every day. I mean, if if it bleeds, it leads.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the business. But we look at the number.
Speaker 1: We have an average of six felonies a day on
Speaker 1: our subway system, six with three point six million riders.
Speaker 1: So that's okay, No, it's not. We want to give
Speaker 1: it all six But when you look at how many
Speaker 1: riders we get get to and from their place, million
Speaker 1: riders a day, three point six million million riders a day.
Speaker 1: People listen to this, three point six million million writers.
Speaker 1: So if you go to the average commuter, I write
Speaker 1: the trains the line and say have you had a
Speaker 1: negative encounter? It isn't all. But I feel unsafe because
Speaker 1: you feel unsafe because you get on the plane, train,
Speaker 1: you pick up the paper, and you hear about something
Speaker 1: offered that happened on the system. So the police presence
Speaker 1: is to deal with the safety. Then we removed the
Speaker 1: encampments on our subway system. You don't see encampments anymore.
Speaker 1: Four thousand people that were homeless we took off the system,
Speaker 1: brought them aside. A stentire number of a thousand state
Speaker 1: in care with rappermund services. Now we're zeroing in on
Speaker 1: those few that refuse to leave. So you were in
Speaker 1: the headlines this morning in our famous, fabulous New York posts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get the New York Posts just because I have
Speaker 1: to see the other side of the story. Murdoch listened
Speaker 1: to me, So I see you being mind for suggesting
Speaker 1: tuition for the migrant workers that are appearing in our
Speaker 1: city now. But tell Us says the gas stoves. Right,
Speaker 1: That was misleading. Right, taken from a person that had
Speaker 1: to pay two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for his
Speaker 1: son's student loan. College is expensive. Yes, we are not
Speaker 1: giving people tuition to get their degrees in college. What
Speaker 1: we are saying is how do we take migrants and
Speaker 1: make them self sustaining. We're teaching them English with teaching
Speaker 1: them some skills, with a hundred of them to see
Speaker 1: how this would work on a suiting campus, and say
Speaker 1: we want to make you self sustaining. We don't want
Speaker 1: you dependent on governmental subsidies. This is a small thing
Speaker 1: to do. It's not taking people to college paying for
Speaker 1: their college tuition. That is just untrue. So it's guiding
Speaker 1: them to certain coursework that they can take to help
Speaker 1: them improve their job ability to take a job because
Speaker 1: many of them cannot they cannot apply for jobs. What
Speaker 1: about the community colleges? Are they willing to do this?
Speaker 1: That's what we're looking at. This is this is a
Speaker 1: pilot project. I'm saying, we want to teach English some
Speaker 1: soft skills to make to make sure that they are
Speaker 1: self sustaining. You don't want people depending on society. Totally misleading, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean imagine if you are miss Jones
Speaker 1: and you are saving up all your money to pay
Speaker 1: your child soony tuition. It gives the impression that the
Speaker 1: mayor is treating us unfairly, and that is not the
Speaker 1: case at all. The other thing that really irks me
Speaker 1: and many other people in the city are the numbers
Speaker 1: of buildings under construction or in you know, in construction
Speaker 1: or being repaired with all the scaffolding. That's so dangerous.
Speaker 1: I look up all the time, wondering must be in
Speaker 1: my in my briefings, and here's the problem. He's the
Speaker 1: problem market that I looked into. You didn't give the permits.
Speaker 1: I know that because there was another mayor before you
Speaker 1: that gave the permits for all the stuff that was
Speaker 1: going on. How can we improve the permit process so
Speaker 1: that not too many brickets are given at the same time.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem. We haven't we have an antiquated mindset.
Speaker 1: So the reason you see of those scoffoldings up is
Speaker 1: because they're loose bricks somewhere in the building instruction. For
Speaker 1: the most part, some of the new constructions. What we're
Speaker 1: saying to building owners that you have to cover the
Speaker 1: entire footprint of the building. What I am saying, let's
Speaker 1: use drones. There's new technology out there that will allow
Speaker 1: a drone to go in to a scan of the
Speaker 1: entire building with infrared and determine where a loose brick is.
Speaker 1: Spirit right, you don't have to have that expensive scaffolding,
Speaker 1: which is dangerous. I know, years and years until the
Speaker 1: building can fix a brick exactly. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: how to fix bricks. I know I know how to
Speaker 1: dig out the old mortar and put in the new mortar.
Speaker 1: Believe you know, that's what we're looking to move towards.
Speaker 1: And you're going to see instantly a substantial decrease of
Speaker 1: the sheds that are And I know during COVID, it
Speaker 1: was very hard to build. It was very hard to
Speaker 1: do the construction on fifty sixth and Park. There's a
Speaker 1: building that has been building for years. I know, the
Speaker 1: one on the right hand side going up check and
Speaker 1: my Cairo projectress. She has lived with ear deafening sounds
Speaker 1: and noise for three years. Awful. How does the mayor
Speaker 1: fix that? It's about expediting the process. The Department of
Speaker 1: Buildings good work is, but the processes were horrific and
Speaker 1: so we are really expediting getting your permit files and
Speaker 1: then we're looking at use new technology. We I'm a
Speaker 1: strong believer that many of the things we were doing
Speaker 1: is just using eight track methods. In the iPhone age,
Speaker 1: we need to think about government and agencies are running differently. Remember,
Speaker 1: cities are run by agencies, and if those agencies are misaligned, disjointed,
Speaker 1: or not using new methods, then you'll never get the
Speaker 1: product that tax pass deserves well in your agencies that
Speaker 1: are that are now working for you as a mayor,
Speaker 1: has there been a lot of turnover? Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And do you feel that you're putting more and more
Speaker 1: educated people in those jobs? Three twenty thousand employees be
Speaker 1: the largest employer in the city, and COVID has changed
Speaker 1: the mindset of workers. We get ready to hold a
Speaker 1: major conference with behavior scientists to examine what has COVID
Speaker 1: don has done to you know, what employees want to do.
Speaker 1: Just in our office, I mean three day a week
Speaker 1: work week, it's ridiculous. A city can't run on three days. No,
Speaker 1: you can't. I can't. Are you on a three day
Speaker 1: work week? No, we're have five days sold, you know.
Speaker 1: But what we want to seven days mayor what we
Speaker 1: want to do is to look at how do you
Speaker 1: modify work days. Some people want to do twelve hour days,
Speaker 1: you know, and then didn't take off the friday. Some
Speaker 1: people want to come and do that work hours overnight.
Speaker 1: So we want to be more flexible and what a
Speaker 1: work environment looks like. Yeah, I think that's the only
Speaker 1: way to go. We have to accommodate the workers and
Speaker 1: make sure that they're making their salaries, but they have
Speaker 1: to be working for thoselves. I think people want to
Speaker 1: do that. And what people don't understand when I tell
Speaker 1: my younger employees, I need you. I need you because
Speaker 1: things are changing, not need you to be around me
Speaker 1: to keep me abreast of the changes that mentoring and
Speaker 1: learning from each other, the cross pollination of ideas, that
Speaker 1: is what work environments should be about. That's why I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to you today, Mayor, because I like
Speaker 1: to hear those words coming out of you. I think
Speaker 1: it's very important to encourage and to get people to
Speaker 1: really continue to act like human beings we are. We
Speaker 1: are a collaborative race and we can help each other.
Speaker 1: And if we don't get people to do it, we're
Speaker 1: never going to clean up the act to this city. No,
Speaker 1: it's all right, and it's about, you know, creating a healthy,
Speaker 1: trusted environments where people can get the emotional intelligence that
Speaker 1: they need. We often focus on people being academically smart,
Speaker 1: but we need to really lean into the emotional intelligence
Speaker 1: of creating healthy environments for children, families and workplaces. Oh
Speaker 1: now this is something dear to my heart. What about
Speaker 1: the composting system that you're envisioning, Oh, love it, love it.
Speaker 1: You know, we did an experiment in Queens. Two things
Speaker 1: came out of that experiment. We've reached unbelievable goals with
Speaker 1: people composting. But many people thought South Jamaica, Queens, the
Speaker 1: African American Caribbean community would not participate. They led the
Speaker 1: entire borough in compost rate. Yes, yes, it's a real one.
Speaker 1: We're going to expand it citywy. We're really excited about
Speaker 1: how many tons of garbage does New York produce a year.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I can't give you that number.
Speaker 1: I lose that question on a huge amount. And most
Speaker 1: of that goes into land waste, landfill, it goes into
Speaker 1: the ocean probably, that's probably doing a lot of damage
Speaker 1: to a lot of areas. But if we could encourage
Speaker 1: half that trash is compostable, yes, and it could easily
Speaker 1: be turned back into something useful. What we turn our
Speaker 1: compost in at the farm and where I live, I
Speaker 1: call it black gold. It is so valuable and it
Speaker 1: doesn't take very long to happen. No, and that's the goal,
Speaker 1: the goal we want to We're going to have a
Speaker 1: citywide composting a program. I was composting in harm when
Speaker 1: I was about president. And you know, my parents come
Speaker 1: from the South Side. Are people Are people really gonna
Speaker 1: go for the composting? Yes, yes, we see it, we
Speaker 1: see We witnessed what happened in Queens. It was success
Speaker 1: beyond believe. We have an amazing commissioner over at the
Speaker 1: Department of Sanitation, Jessica Tih. She is bringing a level
Speaker 1: of ingenuity and get stuff done atmosphere. Ood I like
Speaker 1: to hear that. Back to the crime issue, because again
Speaker 1: that's every single day, on every front page of every
Speaker 1: tabloid or news alert or whatever else we get. Major
Speaker 1: crimes are down, including assaults and robberies, but in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, they rose like twenty three percent in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, and now they are you say, coming down, Oh,
Speaker 1: without a doubt, we're trending in the right direction. February
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, we were seeing a forty percent
Speaker 1: increase in many of our major crimes, thirty percent in
Speaker 1: some areas. We started trending down. Police Commissioner Kishan sul
Speaker 1: put in place with a new team there of Chief
Speaker 1: Magi and his team, and you're really seeing not only
Speaker 1: the actual major crime, but you're seeing some of the
Speaker 1: other issues. Motorcycles in three wheels on our streets, illegal plates,
Speaker 1: just the quality of life issue that really impacts our city.
Speaker 1: What about shoplifting, I hear, I hear that that's becoming
Speaker 1: a major problem. That's why I said take off the masks. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's why I said take off the masks. Pull it
Speaker 1: down for three seconds before into the shop. To me,
Speaker 1: repeated offenders committing crimes using COVID as a reason, this
Speaker 1: is a good way to have public health and public
Speaker 1: safety together into your store. When you when you expose
Speaker 1: the face of someone that committed the crime, you would
Speaker 1: cut the time that person is apprehended in half, if
Speaker 1: not even more. Do you feel What do you think
Speaker 1: about the police department right now? Oh? I love these
Speaker 1: guys and ladies. They when you look at the record
Speaker 1: number of closing cases, arrests, really the city is able
Speaker 1: to handle a protest or parade. They are just you know,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. I'm so happy I was part of that profession.
Speaker 1: Would you say that they like you? I like them.
Speaker 1: I think if you if you go around to the
Speaker 1: average police officer, he'll tell you we have a mayor
Speaker 1: that he has our back. I'm not going to send
Speaker 1: my troops into the field of battle and abandon them.
Speaker 1: I'm want to lead them into battle. They had a
Speaker 1: tough job and in spite of what they went through,
Speaker 1: they remained true to protecting our city. I want you
Speaker 1: to know that I actually employ several retired policemen who
Speaker 1: are fantastic gentlemen and uh and it's really nice to
Speaker 1: hear some of their stories. They are well trained, polite,
Speaker 1: nice and I certainly hope that the that the force
Speaker 1: remains loyal and urge working because we need a good police.
Speaker 1: You do as I stated, the our prosperity lies in
Speaker 1: public safety, and we're prospering of our jobs. Recap covid
Speaker 1: A back Broadway last week had one of the one
Speaker 1: of the greatest showings. We we we have one of
Speaker 1: the highest bond ratings, in increasing our bond ratings because
Speaker 1: of our fiscal responses. What about rents? Our rents, Our
Speaker 1: building is becoming more occupied list and I have to
Speaker 1: borrow from the person who ran for governor once then
Speaker 1: it's too damn high. It is expensive to live in
Speaker 1: this city. Of that's why we need to build more
Speaker 1: affordable housing. And so we need our local electors to
Speaker 1: allow housing to be built in that community. And we
Speaker 1: had some major projects, well it's point projects over two
Speaker 1: thousand affordable units Bronx out in innovation Queen. So we're
Speaker 1: going to keep pushing. But we need to find pathways
Speaker 1: to home ownership like we had in the past with
Speaker 1: the Mitchell Lama type program, right, that would be very useful.
Speaker 1: So what's your relationship with our new governor? Oh? Love
Speaker 1: cafter you going the whole cool? You know she is
Speaker 1: a steady hand at the at the helm art Y. Yes,
Speaker 1: she is. We did when I when I went to
Speaker 1: her last year around February and stated that we need
Speaker 1: to do something with the subway. She helped me with
Speaker 1: the subway safety plan. That's how we got to decreases
Speaker 1: we're witnessing. When I told her we need to do
Speaker 1: something with mental health, severe mental health illnesses on the street,
Speaker 1: she came and helped with opening news like theatric bads.
Speaker 1: She has been just a real partner. And I think
Speaker 1: the state is happy to see the governor and the
Speaker 1: mayor that actually likes each other. And tourism, is it
Speaker 1: on the increase red hot fifty six million tourists last year.
Speaker 1: We think we're gonna get somewhere about sixty five million
Speaker 1: this year. Once fully occupied. Yes, yes, we we are
Speaker 1: top in the major twelve hotel markets. We're doing very well.
Speaker 1: That's why we're fighting to get the d and C,
Speaker 1: the Democratic National Convention here. What was the last time
Speaker 1: we had a convention? Two Clinton one, that's right, I
Speaker 1: went to that. I went to that convention. That was
Speaker 1: some big convention. Yea. Tourists bring so much they spend,
Speaker 1: they go to our restaurants, our theater. Is we're going
Speaker 1: to encourage them to visit the outer boroughs. Now you
Speaker 1: live where personally, well, some people say in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they believe that. Right now, May's
Speaker 1: living great mansion. I still have my home and Bethi Stuyveson.
Speaker 1: I'll never leave there. I love it, but I mean
Speaker 1: Gracie Mansion and don't let anyone for you Gracie mansions
Speaker 1: they have it has goals, you know. The first time
Speaker 1: I went there with Mayor Lindsay. Wow. Mayor Lindsay worked
Speaker 1: for a law firm in Race here in Rockefeller Center.
Speaker 1: He worked for Webster Sheffield and my husband wasn't an
Speaker 1: associate at the time. Wow. So I have pictures of
Speaker 1: me with Mayor Lindsay at Gracie Mansion, which was beautiful,
Speaker 1: and we were gowns and we were dancing and eating
Speaker 1: delicious food at Gracy Mansion. It's a beautiful place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then Mayor Bloomberg didn't want to live there. But
Speaker 1: why because of the ghosts? You thing? And you know
Speaker 1: it's the best about greasy Man. What. Oh isn't it
Speaker 1: beautiful looking over the Yeah it is. And I don't
Speaker 1: know why Mike didn't like living there because it was inland. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love the water. Have you done anything to the mansion.
Speaker 1: It's slight renovation which ryan to raise money so that
Speaker 1: we can come in and have a mock to Stewart
Speaker 1: type renovation. It's like it's like a museum. It is,
Speaker 1: and it's and it's a beautiful, beautiful house. That's actually
Speaker 1: that's actually Palks property. Yes, I know. It deserves to
Speaker 1: be taken care of and every will maintain. So you're
Speaker 1: you're lacking funds. Yeah, So we want to raise funds
Speaker 1: privately to do a complete renovation. And we opened it up.
Speaker 1: I call it to people's house. We encourage the White House, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: We encourage people to holy events there to come visit.
Speaker 1: Have a big tent we put in the backyard during
Speaker 1: the summer. It's used far more often than it has
Speaker 1: ever been used. Good. Good, Maybe I'll have an event
Speaker 1: from my Center for Living at Mount SINAI. I would
Speaker 1: love that. So you're dealing with the migrants in terms
Speaker 1: of helping them get jobs, but how are we housing them?
Speaker 1: How are we thinking about real, real, real challenge? You know,
Speaker 1: think about this amount. In January first, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: when I became mayor, we had thirty five thousand people
Speaker 1: in our homeless system. Thirty five thousand for all the
Speaker 1: years in one year. We received close to that amount
Speaker 1: in one year when now up to fifty thousand people
Speaker 1: went to our system. Wow, So that's the fifty thousand
Speaker 1: homeless people plus the thirty five thousand that was there.
Speaker 1: We had thirty five thousand I was there already. On
Speaker 1: top of that, we have fifty thousand migrants, thousand people.
Speaker 1: Never had that number, looking for an end in the cold,
Speaker 1: running the web, looking for places to stay. That's why
Speaker 1: we see them sleeping on cardboard over the events, the
Speaker 1: heating events from the subways and stuff. But many of
Speaker 1: them are not asylum seekers. Of what we have done
Speaker 1: for our asylum seekers, no other city or state has
Speaker 1: done anything like this. Not only do we get them
Speaker 1: place to sleep, we make sure they have health kid
Speaker 1: we hit. Almost thirteen thousand child went into our school system,
Speaker 1: mental healthcare, food laundry service. So we are anybody starving
Speaker 1: on our streets they should not have to because there's
Speaker 1: access to food, pantries, food soup kitchers, volunteers, local community.
Speaker 1: Based on there a numbers about people who like die
Speaker 1: overnight sleeping, we're not we're not seeing numbers like that.
Speaker 1: That's a rarity. That's a rarity. Okay, that's encouraging. And
Speaker 1: what is it costing the city to help all almost
Speaker 1: five people? Almost We spent from last year to this
Speaker 1: year six hundred and fifty million dollars. We think we're
Speaker 1: going to spend about one point four billion dollars of
Speaker 1: this year close to that number. And we're not getting
Speaker 1: the help that we deserve from the federal government. We
Speaker 1: need help from the federal government and the state government.
Speaker 1: The governor has included resources in her budget. We want
Speaker 1: to we want to make sure it gets passed through
Speaker 1: in this budgetary cycle. Do you have a list that
Speaker 1: you look at every angle day? Your list must be
Speaker 1: about ten pages long. You know what's interesting about this
Speaker 1: role as man, it's not that as hard, it's the
Speaker 1: volume every day Martha. All day something is happening in
Speaker 1: your phone is ringing, it never stops, and I can
Speaker 1: It's amazing that you arrive at a place in life
Speaker 1: without realizing the things you did before that prepared you
Speaker 1: for it. Little did I know that meditation and breathing
Speaker 1: exercise it will pay such a place, such a role
Speaker 1: for me right now to allow me to have that
Speaker 1: that tranquility, that peaceful You can zone out and recenter right,
Speaker 1: recenter and just understand that you know, be present in
Speaker 1: the moment. Don't try to hope for days that's free
Speaker 1: from crisis. Pray and meditate on having the ability to
Speaker 1: deal with those crisis as they come up. And your staff,
Speaker 1: how many people work just very closely with you and
Speaker 1: in and around your office. We have three and twenty
Speaker 1: thousand employs, but righting in city Hall you have probably
Speaker 1: roughly anywhere from seventy to eighty that are there with
Speaker 1: me and I have an amazing team. We have done
Speaker 1: things that have never been give a daily meeting every
Speaker 1: morning eight am. Um. First time in history we have
Speaker 1: an African American woman who's the first deputy mayor. First
Speaker 1: time we have a woman as a police commissioner of
Speaker 1: women as a fire commissioner. And we're good, aren't we? Oh?
Speaker 1: What Yeah, women know how to run multitask No, they
Speaker 1: know how to get stuff done. Yep, we are I
Speaker 1: love my team. How can you run a family and
Speaker 1: and have a job and be married to a difficult
Speaker 1: man and uh and try to make a pretty home
Speaker 1: if you're not like that? Right, once you have a
Speaker 1: family and once you married, you're a difficult man, and
Speaker 1: then you can work for me. Well, you know, because
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm an optimistic third grader. Well that is something.
Speaker 1: So the typical day starts at eight am. Oh that's
Speaker 1: the time of the media at the meeting. Okay, when
Speaker 1: do you get to the office. I'm up at five
Speaker 1: normally I'll do my meditation, my exercise, make my green smoothie.
Speaker 1: What's your exercise combination? Calistatics, little lightweight train and stretching,
Speaker 1: you know, and then I'll just go into a breathing
Speaker 1: I'll say my prayers, I'll read some positive affirmations, you know.
Speaker 1: Then I'll do a quick google and see what good
Speaker 1: drinks Matha Stewart has online. Dan, you have a green
Speaker 1: smoothie every morning? Everybody what's in your green smoothie combination? Blueberry, spinach,
Speaker 1: kale maka powder, some ginger, ginger, little celery. It's a
Speaker 1: nice good makes it for you. I'll do it myself.
Speaker 1: So and you should put some collagen in it, marine
Speaker 1: collagen powder. It's tasteless and it really helps. I start
Speaker 1: my day with a green juice. Also, okay, okay, that's
Speaker 1: why you look fabulous. I try. But it's it's energizing,
Speaker 1: Yes it is. It is instead of that heavy on
Speaker 1: the road with bacon. I forget that. Once you break
Speaker 1: that habit. It's unbelievable. Your energy level when you do
Speaker 1: a healthy man in the morning. Oh yes, this morning,
Speaker 1: I was already at pilates at six fifteen. And uh.
Speaker 1: And then I go home and I take care of
Speaker 1: the chickens, and then I have my green juice. I
Speaker 1: have one cappuccino. That's my cappuccino. And so then after
Speaker 1: you have your juice, what do you do? Then? I
Speaker 1: read all my papers, you know, in my way on
Speaker 1: my way into the office. Sometimes I take the train
Speaker 1: to throw up over the New York you know. Actually
Speaker 1: like the pose. I know. I read sports are great, right,
Speaker 1: Page six is great? I have to read page six
Speaker 1: to see what's going on. No, but I'll you know,
Speaker 1: zip through the papers, find out what's going on in
Speaker 1: the city, listen to some of the talk shows that
Speaker 1: are coming on, and then uh, you know, by then
Speaker 1: it's eight am, and I'm being to breathe by the
Speaker 1: team on what the day looks like. And you know
Speaker 1: what we have on our plate? Yeah, a lot on
Speaker 1: that plate. I hope it's like a great big charger play.
Speaker 1: They make him, they make him sixteen inches now. But
Speaker 1: it's it's exciting, you know. And and I say all
Speaker 1: the time to the team, like, how could I complain?
Speaker 1: I'm the mayor of New York. This is the greatest
Speaker 1: city on the globe. And and you know, twenty eight
Speaker 1: years ago, MARKA, when I stayed in January for his
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two I'm going to be the mayor. People
Speaker 1: used to say, what's wrong with this guy? You know, well,
Speaker 1: you're here, you're here, and you're doing it. People who
Speaker 1: lead such busy lives that I don't think there's anybody
Speaker 1: around here that leads a busier life than New mayor.
Speaker 1: But I don't feel it. I don't feel it good.
Speaker 1: You look very You look so well. The mayor looks rested,
Speaker 1: he's smiling, he's laughing, you can hear him laughing. But
Speaker 1: he is um and fit. You look very fit. So
Speaker 1: diet is very important, and h and just being not
Speaker 1: always not always been like that. We'll talk about your transformation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it was a couple of years ago. Woke up
Speaker 1: Martha and I couldn't see the alarm clock. I thought
Speaker 1: it was sleep in my eyes and it was a
Speaker 1: very frightening experience. And at the same time, was having
Speaker 1: pains in my stomach. I thought it was colon cancer
Speaker 1: because I just lost a good friend of colon cancer.
Speaker 1: My my hands and feet were tingling. I went to
Speaker 1: the doctor. He checked my stomach and my colon. He
Speaker 1: said I had an ulcer. That was the pain I
Speaker 1: was feeling. But that also saved my life because he said, Eric,
Speaker 1: your real problem, the reason you have vision laws is
Speaker 1: that you have late stage diabetes and you're gonna lose
Speaker 1: your sight. Was that an hereditary thing for you. That's
Speaker 1: very interesting that you say that, because that's what I thought.
Speaker 1: And he says that you know that tingling you're feeling
Speaker 1: your fingers and toes is you have permanent nerve damage.
Speaker 1: You're gonna lose some fingers and toes. Right. And I
Speaker 1: met a doctor, doctor Esselton. He wrote a book of
Speaker 1: preventing reversing heart disease. I called him up Cleveland Clinton.
Speaker 1: He treated Bill Clinton for his heart disease. And he
Speaker 1: told me your food. He said, you changed your you
Speaker 1: could put this in remission, changed my diet. Three weeks
Speaker 1: after going plant base, my vision came back. Wow, a
Speaker 1: nerve damage went away. The altar went away in three
Speaker 1: And you heard a lot of rumors. And let me
Speaker 1: put those rumors to rest. Cops like donuts. We were
Speaker 1: eating every type of doughnuts, sweet and so what I
Speaker 1: learned it's not your DNA, your dinner. Mom and I
Speaker 1: shared the same dinner, not that we shared the same DNA.
Speaker 1: That food impacts our health. And it just put me
Speaker 1: on an amazing journey of health as well. What has
Speaker 1: been your most difficult day as mayor? When office of
Speaker 1: Mara and Rivera they were assassinated. You know, that was
Speaker 1: just really hard, you know, and went went families, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and being in the hospital watching the pain. It was hard.
Speaker 1: These were young men, they were you know, first generation
Speaker 1: New Yorkers. They can into the police department to make
Speaker 1: a difference. It was just a very very painful moment
Speaker 1: for me. How are the families still strong? Strong? I
Speaker 1: really take my hat off to them. They dealt with
Speaker 1: the initial pain and now they're very engaged and help
Speaker 1: in any way they can. And you know, you know,
Speaker 1: Mommy told me now I was a little boy, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be in dark places. You know, it's either either
Speaker 1: going to be a burial or planted. We have to
Speaker 1: turn pain into purpose, and they have turned the painful
Speaker 1: moment into a purposeful moment. What's your biggest perk about
Speaker 1: being mayor? I wish I did, you know, if I
Speaker 1: get it? If I get a perk the New York
Speaker 1: posted right about me, or the New York Times, they
Speaker 1: would say, you know, Eric got a free token, you know.
Speaker 1: But the most joy about it, it's like people. This
Speaker 1: city is made up of amazing people. It's a Shakespearean tragedy.
Speaker 1: If you live only in your own little kakum, you know,
Speaker 1: there's so much advantage, isn't there. This this place is amazing.
Speaker 1: That's why I would never move to another city, right,
Speaker 1: I would never ever, ever, No, that's why I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's just like an incredible place. And
Speaker 1: that's why I want it. I wanted the sparkling, clean,
Speaker 1: infestation free Gotham City again. I am with you. I'm
Speaker 1: going to bring you Okay, Well, I will help you
Speaker 1: in any way I can. Mayor Adams, I think you've
Speaker 1: gotten off to a good start. You have to keep
Speaker 1: that chin up, that's right, and uh, and keep fighting
Speaker 1: because it is a big fight every day, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It is? It is, but it's an enjoyable one, okay,
Speaker 1: and I enjoy just I'm a blue collar guy, and
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, your parents and families, this
Speaker 1: is a blue collar city, no matter, no matter how
Speaker 1: prosperous we are individually. If you look at our lineage,
Speaker 1: there's someone that made it for us. And their hands
Speaker 1: were dirty from the rope that they did. I don't
Speaker 1: even call it dirty, just they were just used. So
Speaker 1: that's that's right, well said, right, Well, use hands. Well,
Speaker 1: good luck. I don't want to keep you from your
Speaker 1: office too much because I know you have so so
Speaker 1: much work to do. Um. Eric Adams is a very
Speaker 1: busy man. As you can hear, he seems to be
Speaker 1: on top of it all, doesn't he. He's talking really well,
Speaker 1: and he seems to have those numbers and those challenges
Speaker 1: and everything pretty clear in his head. Keep that list going,
Speaker 1: keep those checklists happening, and check them off as you
Speaker 1: as you accomplish your very daunting tasks. Adams, Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Good to see you. Thank you,