July 18, 2025 • 46 mins
Incumbent NYC Mayor Eric Adams didn't run in the Democratic primary. But he'll be on the ballot in November, running as an independent against Zohran Mamdani and probably a couple of other candidates as well. So what is his vision for addressing affordability? What can the Mayor do about crime, trash, and other quality of life issues. On this episode, we're joined by Eric Adams to talk about the city's future and his plan for securing re-election.
Read more:
Ex-NYPD Commissioner Sues Adams Over ‘Systemic Corruption’
Adams’ Fundraising Doubles Mamdani’s Since Shock NYC Primary
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Oddlots podcast.
I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy, we have
a special episode of the podcast today which needs very
little introduction, but we are speaking to the mayor.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I love our transition to local city reporters.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's really fun learning about our city. Mayor Adams, New
York City, Mayor Adams, thank you so much for coming
on Odd Lots.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
I think this is my second time this week, or
was it last week? Today's go to fast, but it's
way here being at Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you so much. I read an article recently from
the journalist Derek Thompson. Here's talking about the death of
partying in America. People apparently don't party as much as
they used to. New York City people still party, but
you know, there aren't as many twenty four hour clubs
as there used to be. Apparently there's fewer four am
liquor licenses, et cetera. You're a man who appreciates night
(01:08):
life and partying. What happened? Why don't people party as
much as.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
That's a great question, and first of all is why
do I appreciate the night life. It's thirty billion dollar industry,
and we viewed the city often as mayors, we viewed
it as nine to five, but it's not. When I
was a police officer, I work overnights, midnights, and when
I go into a night life a restaurant, I walk
(01:32):
in the kitchen and I talked to the dishwalpsher, I
talked to the busboy or girl. Of those are everyday
working class people. And I knew when I came back
after COVID, I had to turn our night life around, and.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
We did that. You can't get reservations in the city anymore.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Broadway had the best twelve months in the history of
the city. And part of coming back out at night
is what is our signature New York the city.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
That there's no party crisis.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
No, it still still shuts down earlier than it used
to know it does.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
And part of the problem, I believe you have far
too many people on community boys that have been for
a long time, and they're not connecting the economics with
the desire really not to have any night life.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Nightlife is important of the community.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
It is allowed to let off some steam networking, really collaborating. Listen,
you come to New York, You're going to find your
mate here because the diversity of this great city.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I wanted to ask about some other specific policy proposals,
specifically housing, and you know, I went to your website
and I saw the sort of summary of your proposals,
and then I clicked in to learn more and it
took me to your previous accomplishments under your first term.
So I'm really curious if you could maybe broaden out
(02:52):
some of your housing policies, Like what exactly are you
talking about here?
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Well, first of let's look at the fact that when
you look at shovels in ground and what we're proposing
in our rezoning, including the most comprehensive housing reform in
the history of the city sixty years previously, was the
first time we really started looking at housing and some
of the reform. We're going to build more housing in
one term than the twelve years under Bloombirds the eight
(03:19):
years under Deblasio combined in one term and twenty five
billion dollars we put it into our ten year capital plan.
In addition to that, for the first time in history,
we are including Nightscha of housing into the plan. So
we're looking at a couple of different locations. Number One,
we saw the federal Estate government walk away from Nightscha.
(03:41):
Nightscha has an eighty eight billion dollar dollar capital problem.
We had to find new ways of building on Nightsye.
We did the land trust. Many people tried, We got
it done. We're also doing the rat programs. Many people
have attempted to do it. We got it done. The
amazing project that we are getting ready to do in
rees House is where we're going to tear down all buildings,
(04:02):
build new buildings and without zero deplacement of tennants. That's
how we deal with tonight you issue. Then we realized
that we want to build more housing. We have to
build everywhere. It was unbelievable how many elected officials were
stopping that building fifty nine community boards. Ten of those
fifty nine were building more affordable housing than forty nine combined.
(04:23):
So our goal now is to build all over the city.
And that's what City of Yes was about, a little
more housing in every community that we could allow residents
and tendants to stay in the community instead of leaving
the city. So our goal in the future, as we
move forward forward, want to build faster, We want to
build more. Drive by Willis point right now, twenty four
(04:44):
hundred units of affordable housing. That's THEIRS new soccer stadium
that's paid private dollars, a new school, new open space,
and you see the buildings actually going up in the
same term. So our focus is building more and building everywhere.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
The first time I ever heard about controversy at the
Elizabeth Street Garden was in twenty eighteen, I think. And
then now it's twenty twenty five and you've come out
and you said, okay, let's move on. Let's not continue
to fight this. But setting aside whether it was it's
right to use that space for housing or not, like
setting aside these pictures, why does it take seven years
(05:19):
or longer to come to answers on these questions?
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Great question, And if you if you do an analysis
over all the things that we've done, we've land plan
we landed planes that no one else was able to do.
When you read all the noise, take all the noise
out of the administration, and you say, okay, let's look
at the raw numbers. Like you said, your listeners are sophisticated.
You look at the raw numbers. We were able to
(05:44):
land the plane on Governor's Island. We were able to
land the plane in sunset sunset Paarl, were able to
land the plane on these difficult tasks. So what did
we do When we brought in Randy Master as the
first deputy mayor, he was he looked at it. He says,
how can we leverage this space? How could we walk
away with a win?
Speaker 4 (06:02):
We did.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
Elizabeth Street Garden was going to do about one hundred
and twenty five units of housing. One hundred and twenty units.
We're going to get six hundred and twenty five units
of housing.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
And we got.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Elsewheared after years of fighting about it.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Yes, this is New York. Let's let's be clear about
the city. Whatever you try to do, we got eight
point five million people. We have thirty five million opinions.
You know you're always going to have New Yorkers no
matter what you attempt to do. But how do we
leverage the best for the city. So we took the
concerns of Elizabeth Street Garden. People were concerned about that.
(06:37):
They wanted to hold onto the garden, and I said,
you got to give me a plan that I could
deal with the number one crisis I have in the city,
and that is housing, and we were able to leverage
that space and walk away with over six hundred additional
units of affordable housing.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
That said win. No matter how you talk about it.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
What's the broad lesson from that experience, Because when we
were came about nightlife just then, you know it sounds
like community groups and special interest groups are still an
impediment or an obstacle to some of the things that
you seem to want to do. Is there anything you're
thinking about to maybe like encourage more cooperation, build up
that city of yes.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Idea, yes.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
And you know what we witness in the city, particularly
in our elected officials. Elected officials on Monday they say
housing is right, but on Tuesday they say not in
my district.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
We don't want to hear it.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
And if I walked away with anything in the last
three years and seven months, is that you have to
ignore the noise. You have to do what's best long
term for the city. And it's a retrospective appreciation and
if you do an analysis not only in housing, Look
how far I was away from where the noise of
(07:50):
the leadership of Democratic Party when I was talking about
taking severe mental health illness off our streets. I got
an unbelievable pushback when I talk about investing in the
police depart and when others were talking defund the police.
Everyone was pushing back. And now we see record levels
of decrease in crime. When I was talking about the
cannabis fight, that we had to do something about it.
(08:12):
So when you look at where I was, even in housing,
everyone was pushing back on city of Yes, and today
all came to where we were. And when you live
these experiences, you have a different eyesight than others. And
so what I want for my local community groups and
organizations is to understand we're in the city together. And
far too often folks said that listen, I have my backyard,
(08:35):
I have my park, I have all that I want.
I don't want any additional people here. But if you
do that, then you're going to hurt the long term
plan of this city.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So your main opponent in this race has made affordability
the sort of cornerstone, and you talked about obviously the
expansion of affordable housing in New York City under your administration,
which is real. Nonetheless, New York City is a crazy
expensive place to live. Yes, I think it's worth it
because I think it's the best city in the world.
So it's like, you know what, I'll pay the high
(09:04):
cost of housing here because I love New York City.
But do we just have to accept you know, it's
sort of in the same way you said, Okay, you
know New York's always gotta have thirty five million opinions
for eight point five million residents, that's New York City.
Do we just all have to accept that the city
has to be incredibly expensive?
Speaker 5 (09:21):
No, no, we don't. And what government must do is
utilize their powers to help working class people. And when
you think about it, that's what we have done. We
put thirty billion dollars back into working class people, and
we looked at what is driving the course. Number one,
(09:41):
as we talked, affordable housing was one area, and we're
doing that.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
We're building.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
We break breaking records year one, year two, and year three.
We build more affordable housing individual years in any other
administration in history.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
But look at the other areas.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
What's the number one cause of bankruptcy medical day were
excuse in medical debt for low income New Yorkers forced
to care children? Sixty seven hundred age out every year
they slip through the cracks. They don't get to support
that they deserve. We're paying their college tuition and we're
giving them life cultures into their twenty one instead of
aging out at eighteen, so they don't slip through the cracks.
(10:18):
Or what hurts women the most but families, in particular childcare.
We dropped the cost of childcare from two and twenty
dollars a week to a month to less than twenty
dollars a month. We were the first one in twenty
years to drop to earn it. To increase the earned
income tax credit, we're paying for high speed broadband in
low income housing and Nisia and other locale locals in
(10:42):
the process reduce the cost of using our subway system
for low income New Yorkers. So the real message is
I can't handle the price of bread, but I could
put bread back in the pockets of New Yorkers and
we've done it after sum of thirty billion dollars. So
it's easy to talk about pine the sky ideas that
is not within the span of the control of the mayor,
(11:05):
like free busses. Free busses is a three billion dollar
price tag, and if you're stating that the foundation of
your plan is based on increasing taxes on the high
one percent earnest when in fact you don't have the
authority to do that. You know who has the authority, Assemblyment.
My opponent is an assemblyment. If he couldn't get it
(11:27):
done as the assemblyman, how is he going to get
it done as a mayor, particularly when the governor who
signs off on it sayd that she's not raising income taxes.
New York City is the highest income tax in the country,
The state is the highest in the country. And so
what I did put money back in the pockets. Do
you know there's no income tax for low income New
(11:48):
Yorkers in the city because of my ax attack. That
is how you look at the power of the mayor's
office and say, how do I help working class people.
I'm blown away that he has hijacked the narrative of
being a broking class mayor and putting money back in
affordability issue when I've done it. That's my record is
clear on putting money back in the pockets of working
(12:09):
class people.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Since we're talking about your opponent's policies, zorn Mum, Donnie,
you've said that New Yorkers don't understand what socialism is.
Can you give us your definition of socialism? Like, what
is socialism to you?
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Well, first, I would say this, seventy percent of New
York is like the theme and concept of socialism. And
many people, if you were to ask, they will tell
you they've never been to a socialist country. I've been
to a communist and socialist country. I've been to Venezuela.
I've been to Cuba. I know what rational books are.
I think it is the concept that you're going to
(12:43):
take money from one area of the population and equal
it out across the board. And many government run locales
and facilities such as supermarkets. Now, when you do that
in concept, it sounds good, but if you open when
the government runs supermarket, you want to kill the bodego industry.
(13:03):
You're going to kill the independent of supermarket industries. So
I think the whole concept of believing as though resources
from the top end that those who believe that we
should not have any billionaires in the city, which I
just don't, it doesn't balance out because when you look
at where the tax dollars come from and spreading the wealth.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
If you want to use that classification across the entire population.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
That doesn't work for me, has never worked anywhere on
the globe. There's not one country we can point to
that says this concept has been successful.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I mean, we do have progressive taxes, though you just
said that lower income New Yorkers don't have to pay
New York tax So there is an element of that here. Like,
is there a point at which is too much? Or like,
what exactly is the issue when you say it's too much?
Explain it to me more, like, is there a point
at which the redistributive.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Effects flips into socialism?
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, flips into socialism.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Well, I think so. I think there's a balance. And
I like to say all the time, I want the
person who drives the limousine to get a fair wage
and be able to provide for his family. And I
want the person assists in the backseat of the limousine
to be able to use his discretionary dollars or her
discretionary dollars. When you look at the billionaires in this
city that everyone wants to demonize, they're the ones who
(14:21):
pay into their philanthropic actions into our museums. They're the
ones that sponsor like the Robinhood Foundation to deal with
where people are slipping through the cracks. They're the ones
and their tax dollars are paying for our teachers and
our firefighters and those who are on the low economic end.
That perfect financial ecosystem is what makes a city like
(14:44):
this great. So if your position is that, particularly in
the atmosphere where you now could run your organizations and
entities outside the city, you can easily go to Connecticut,
New Jersey, of Miami, which we lost a great deal
of high income earners. If your position is we don't
want you here in our city, ideally that's attractive to
people to hear we're getting rid of all the billionaires,
(15:05):
But when you drill down in the numbers, those billionaires
are keeping the lights on. And because we have billionaires,
we're able to do things like as attacks for the
working class.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Going back to something you said earlier, you're talking about
federal funding, federal support for Nitscha, the public housing. Should
any mayor of New York City currently, should the mayor
have a oppositional relationship with Trump. A lot of people
want that. A lot of people want the mayor to
stand as a bulwark to some extent against Trump's policy.
(15:52):
You obviously benefited from the fact that he dropped Charger
or his DOJ dropped charges against you. There's been cooperation
in terms of ice on wrikers. How do you think
about the fact that whether you know, they're sort of
sort of yeah, detrumpifying New York City for both the
citizens and also undocumented residents.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
The most dangerous thing that being a married mayor during
this time is people read headlines and not the fulls,
you know, and that's unfortunate when you think about it.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Sometimes you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
And when you look at the definition of the relationship
I have with the current president, everyone is ignoring the
relationship I have with President Biden.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
I called myself the Biden of Brooklyn Eye.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I watched that video clip. I watched it like ten times.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Yeah, because we had a good relationship and I like
the president. Do I believe there were those in this
administration that participated in law fair He actually said it,
He said his Justice Department was politicized when he partnered
his son, he knew what was happening there. But Biden
came to the city and spent the whole day with me.
When I was dealing with law and enforce Smith issues
(17:01):
and we didn't have an ATF had someone to be
in charge of the alcohol, tobacco and firearms, and he
appointed someone.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
He visited my crisis management teams.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
He sat down and spoke with me about going after violence,
which was my the issue that I ran on, and
so the same goes to for this president. I didn't
know Donald Trump. A lot of people don't realize that.
I didn't know until I met him at the Alfred E.
Smith dinner and he spoke with me. He was on
the campaign trail prior to even meeting me, saying it's
wrong what they doing to this mayor in New York City,
(17:35):
and he saw what was happening. And when he came
into office, the same things I was saying about dangerous
migrants and asylum seekers pre election, I was saying post election.
And when I walked out of the voting booth on
election day and the microphone was in my face and
they said who did you vote for? I said VP Harris.
(17:56):
I was very clear, you know, did I disagree with
what I saw the Democratic Party was doing? Yes, but
I still remained loyal to do was what I thought
was right to do so when you fast forward to today,
we took the ministration to court more than any other
mayor in the country, nor the mayors going to court
(18:16):
as much as I have pushing back on the policies.
But when we needed the President of the United States
to look at a project we had in Sunset Park
or Windfall, billions of dollars investment of five hundred thousand
homes were going to use the energy, fifteen hundred union jobs.
I flew to Washington and sat down with the President
and said, mister President, we can't have this project destroyed.
(18:39):
He lifted the stop work order. That project is now
moving forward. That's what mayors of big cities are supposed
to do. Knock and pout in the corner and just
call the president names and say, well, you know what,
people are upset of the outcome of election.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
But how does that help New York. How does it.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Help New York to communicate and coordinate to go after
dangerous people. We had dangerous Venezuelan gangs in the city.
They were forcing women who are migrants and undocumented into prostitution.
I coordinated with federal authorities. We took down to twenty
seven gang members we were able for gun possession and
(19:17):
other dangerous crimes. So it is my job as the
mayor of the biggest city in America to sit down
and not war with the president, but work with the
president to deliver for the people of this city.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
This is the perfect segue for me to ask something
that might seem slightly random, but actually I think it's
relevant because you've recommended before that New Yorkers should read
Cash Ptel's book All about the Deep State. What do
you think about the Trump administration's refusal to release the
Epstein files.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
I would love to see what's in those Epstein filess.
You know, I think we all do.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
You know.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
I'm eager to look at UFOs. You know, there's so
many history. I'm still trying to figure out who kid
to kill Kennedy.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
You know, well that was another chase.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
There's what's going on here because a lot of people
are really confused because for years this was a yeah,
and then suddenly it's like it's a hoax.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
What do you do?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
You have a you have a you have a guest
for what's going on at all.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
I don't know if his advisor is security personnel advise
otherwise of timing. I don't have no idea. I look
forward to seeing. There's so many deep secrets in America
that I think we all want to know, and it's
imperative that as much as we can find it as possible.
And I'm going to talk about cash Cashier's book, which
I thought was a good book. People laugh at the
(20:34):
terminology of a deep state, Uh, but it is. We
have people in government who have been in government through presidents,
through mayors, through governors, and they're very arrogant. They believe
they are the elected. They believe they answer to no one.
They believe that they are able to hold up projects
(20:55):
that they don't like. And I saw that firsthand as
the mayor. And they're connected to reporters, they're connected to prosecutors,
and they're connected to be able to they write a
letter on you in a minute, they get a story
planted in a minute and leaks. And I saw it
in how it operates. Now think about this fore moment.
Everybody let it go over their head. The Southern District
(21:16):
of New York classified themselves as sovereign.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
I mean, we need to really think about that.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
As soveign, there's no sovereign entities in America, everyone responds
to someone. If you believe you have to report to
no one, even main justice, you could do whatever you want.
That's unacceptable and I should outrage every American that any
entity with that level of prosecutorial power that can really
(21:44):
disrupt your life. You know, peopot in me, mya diamond,
I was indicted for calling the fire Department asking them
to do a building inspection, not to pass what I
ran on. I ran on making the FDNY I respond
to businesses that could not open, and they connected it
(22:05):
to well, you had a bunch of upgrades when you
paid for your tribho and we're going to now turn
that into bribery and we're gonna.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Put you in jail for thirty three years.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Come on, I want to go back to ice for
a second. I take your point absolutely about violent criminals
and the need to address them, whether they're migrants or not.
But obviously, you know there's ice raids happening across the country,
including nonviolent but undocumented migrants. New York City has a
(22:37):
long history of being a self designated sanctuary city. Setting
aside the sort of violent criminal element, what is the
degree to which you know this is going to continue,
presumably going forward at least to the rest of the
Trump administration. What is the degree to which you're inclined
to cooperate with the administration on nonviolent undocumented migrants.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
We don't clear.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
And as you mentioned, of the city's a sanctuary city,
and understand, Centuary City is not a law. It is
a belief that we believe in this city. If you're
in New York and you buy a bottle of water
and you pay taxes on that, those taxes go to
your goods and services.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
So in this city, if.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
You are documented or not, we don't question you on that.
You can go get medical assistances if you need it,
Your child will be able to go to school, You
can call a police. If you're a victim of a crime,
you could make sure that you could walk through the
streets or the city of New York. And that is
what our entire belief system is. We will never cooperate
(23:42):
or collaborate with ICE on civil enforcement. That is against
the law. We never done and we never will. We
will coordinate with them when it comes down to criminal enforcement.
Because we need to be very clear on this, and
I think this has been distorted. ICE is not a
criminal organization. People could dislike. I don't like taking money
out of my pockets, but it's still a federal agency
(24:04):
and it's needed to make sure our tax dollars are collected.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Is spent.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
ICE is not a criminal organization. ICE is a federal
law enforcement agency. Our city has determined that parts of
their duties we are not allowed to collaborate with.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
We respect that and we never will.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
But I'm going to collaborate with law enforcement agencies HSIFBI,
ICE when it comes down to keeping this city safe.
These gangs were extremely dangerous, and you had others who
were committing real crimes in this city. And I don't
care if you're documented or undocumented. After twenty two years
of being in the law enforcement community, I'm going to
(24:45):
keep New Yorker safe.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
But isn't ICE's definition of a crime that includes basically
anyone who entered the country illegally?
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
That's the problem. They're not distinguishing between gang members, filing criminals,
and people. But you know, are just trying to work.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Great question, because it is a crime to enter and remain.
That's a crime.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
We don't collaborate on that, Okay, because it's clear in
our law that of certain even crimes of that nature,
we will not collaborate in. And so when it comes
down to that level of crimes, we would not collaborate.
We're very clear on what we will collaborate. But I
also want to point this out because it's often ignored.
I'm off, someone is always pointing up Mike in my
(25:29):
face and saying, hey, every what do you What are
you going to do about what ICE is doing. That's
a federal agency. I think we're getting were allowing our
federal electors off the hook. I don't control the rules
of the federal agencies. I don't have I have the
city council. That's my job to look at laws, to
(25:49):
sign their laws. You know, we're not asking our federal
partners enough. Hey, guys, what are you doing about this?
That's not my job. The enforcement of immigration is a
federal authority, not a city authority. I'm going to do
my job. I don't control who come across the border.
I control who's in the city when they are across
(26:12):
the border. And I told President Biden this, I said, listen,
we have a porous border. I went down to El Paso,
I went down to the Darien Gap to Ecuador, Columbia, Mexico,
and I saw the flow, and I saw how they
were telling people. The streets are paved with gold in
New York. Why don't we control the flow. We have
(26:32):
serious population issues across our country. We should be allowing
people to come into the country and say, hey, Kentucky
need backstretch workers in the racing industry. Here's where you're
going for three years, and then you could go wherever
you want in the country. This is a win win
if we handled it better. We had no control at
the border. We were allowing anyone to come through. Now
(26:54):
that we see a substantial decrease, we're no longer and
get long again. Four thousand people a week into to
this city, which was just not sustainable.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Speaking of crime, the crime stats have improved a lot
in the last couple of years. The rat I've been
monitoring your war on rats. Impressed.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
He's a single issue voter.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I've been very impressed with the war on rats, and
I've looked at the stats on three to one one
calls for rats, et cetera. On the other hand, the
city is still dirty. When I take my kids to
the park, only half the time. Can I expect to
be able to not even half like find a clean
bathroom elevators at the subway is still like, you know,
it's this is a world class city. Do we just
(27:35):
have again sort of going back to the thing, like
is this inevitable that a city like New York City
has to have it so that we don't even have
clean bathrooms most of the time, Like speaking like from
a family issue like public childcare obviously incredibly important, but
there's all these other things that make it much more difficult,
I would think than it needs to be that. I
feel like everyone has just come to accept, like, you know,
(27:57):
we can't have clean bathrooms in a public park.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
I would never accept a city where there's disorder, there's
carry outs in this dirt. I just don't won't remember
when I came into office. Many people don't realize that
we had encampments in our subw so.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
It was the worst of the COVID pandemic.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
But yeah, all.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
Over we had on a long highways. January and February,
I went out and there's still pictures that someone sent me.
The other day, I went out and visited people that
were living in encampments. And I saw that when I
walked in and crawled in their encampments and their boxes
and the tents, I saw stealth food, human waste, drug
path frenaria. Many of them was dealing with schizophrenic behavior, bipolar.
(28:40):
And I went back to the team and said, we
can't do the city, can't live this way. Go look
at Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portly, but look at these
other cities. You don't see that here. Because I had
a zero tolerance. And once we dealt with the encampments,
once we dealt with the crimes, we moving twenty two
thousand legal guns off our streets, one hundred thousand ghost vehicles,
illegal veh because that were running our streets. Once we
(29:02):
dealt with that, Now we move into the next layer.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
LEYA.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
We immediately went after the road that's in our city,
which was just really an indicator of just total uncleanliness
in the city.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Now we put in place a twelve.
Speaker 5 (29:16):
Hundred person a quality of Life team, our Q team
we call it. That's going after those nagging issues. I
still run right around the streets one am, two am
in the morning, calling my commissioners when I see an
encampment or I see an overflowed trash. They all tell
you about those horrific calls that they give from me,
because we should see it before you see it. You
should deserve a clean bathroom. You deserve to be able
(29:39):
to go to a park where there's no trash on it.
You deserve to not have to worry about a road
and running across your feet. You know, this is what
you deserve. These are the basic things that we deserve.
But we had to deal with the level one issue,
first dealing with getting us out of COVID, dealing with crime,
and then this unexpected crisis of dealing with the min
(30:00):
using a silum seekers.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
You know, people tell us all the.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Time that, okay, Eric, you have to migrant in silum
secrets behind you.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Everything is okay. It's not.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
We spend seven pointy seven billion dollars. Five hundred million
of that should have gone to chronically absent children. A
billion should have gone to building housing for our seniors.
A billion should have gone to making sure that we
boost up our Department of Sanitation. What I'm trying to share,
the long term repercussions of what we experience is going
(30:30):
to have long term impacts on our city.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
On the quality of life issues and crime. I got
to say, practically every time I'm in Broadway and Lafayette
the station, which is pretty often, there are people shooting
up in the corner. I literally went down the stairway
the other day and a guy was standing there shooting
himself up in the arm and I was three inches
away from him. That was uncomfortable. That happens all the time,
(30:54):
and no one seems to be doing anything about it.
What exactly is the obstacle to improving some of the issues.
Is it budget? Is it enforcement?
Speaker 6 (31:03):
What is it?
Speaker 4 (31:04):
You know? And I hate it.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
I hate it when I see someone what we call
not in on the street exactly when I see someone.
We were up at the Hub the other day. It
was just a state of total disrepair until we got
in there and zoomed in. We put in place what
we call our path team and our scout teams, and
I spent a lot of time in the subway system,
(31:27):
and the goal is how do you talk people off
the system. Now, we were able to take eighty five
hundred people off our system that was living on our system.
But I cannot tell you how much a challenge. It
is dealing with people who dealing with severe mental health issues.
They don't know they need care. That is why I
was trying to get off. We need to pass the
Involuntarily remove a bill because they are people who are
(31:49):
harmful to themselves and harmful to others, and we have
to take them inside. We have to bring them inside.
And many people just have a philosophical disagreement with me
on this issue. I want to say that if you
are using drug use, we need to take you inside.
If you are thirty degree, whether you don't have on shoes,
you have soil your clothing, you're yelling and screaming. We
(32:12):
have to talk them off the latch now and hope
that they have to building trust and the Scout team
are doing an amazing job, but it takes longer and
you see those repeated offenders over and over again. But
our goal is to go after this illegal to shoot
up drugs in public. But when you do a real crackdown,
you get a lot of heat that we're criminalizing drugs
(32:34):
because drugs, you know, addiction is a disease. So we're
trying to use the right balance. But we are far
more encountering people than others would like us to do.
We get a lot of complaints because we encounter people
who are injecting themselves with drugs, people who are dealing
with severe mental health illnesses, and I got to really
ignore that noise for the better public overaw public safety
(32:56):
of the city.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Hotel prices in New York City are insane, and part
of it seems to be this sort of opposition to
hotel expansion, both from the owners of existing hotels and
from unions. Also, you can't do airbnb, but whatever, I
care less about that. When you think about like the
vitality of New York City, like, do you have any
(33:33):
vision like how to break this impass or do we
just have to accept that as much as the city
is going to grow, that the number of the capacity
for our ability to take in tourism is just going
to be sort of capped by our inability to build
any new hotels.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
We need to build more, and we're at the pre
pandemic levels. Our hotel industry is doing well, I think,
you know to May. In fact, we have sixty five
million tourists that came in last year. This is still
the hot spot.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
How was New York City is the summer, shipping the
summer from tourism perspective, now, it's not.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
The levels we have.
Speaker 5 (34:05):
I think some of the conversation around tariff, some of
the conversations impacted our tourism, particularly some of our domestic tourists.
We used to get a lot of tourists from Canada
and we never really recovered the way we should have.
Our our Asian market, Chinese were they were a major
part of our tourism.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
But we're gonna We're gonna bounce back. We had it.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
We had to hit during COVID and we were able
to recover after COVID and this is still a good product.
You know, people want to yes, and we we believe
the tourists. The hotel industry is going to continue to growth.
You know, some bumps in the roads. We're looking at
a conversation around what we could do with our hotel tax.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, how do we get more rooms?
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Though that's the goal. We got to build more. We
have to encourage more building. There were certain laws that
were put in place previously about getting and receiving uh
the permits to build. We had to do a real
analysis of how do we encourage to get more rooms
in the city.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
I have one more question. Yes, this is my most
important one, possibly and something I've always wondered, a great
mystery of our times. But in the course of prepping
for this interview, Joe and I watched a lot of
your previous interviews, your previous videos. I was watching your
famous contraband video. Where in the world did you get
a used crack pipe to use as a prop in
(35:24):
that video?
Speaker 4 (35:25):
That was and actually I'm gonna remake that video.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Oh a lot in times when I did that first
video for those not a where it was a video.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Showing how you should look in your child's room for drugs.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
When I did the first video, and still today people say, oh,
you know, how can you do that as hard on children?
You know, many people don't know that if someone is
selling drugs in your home, when the police come, they
come in and do a raid. Everyone goes grandmother, grandfather,
(35:57):
children go to acs. Families are disrupted, and we need
to take control.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Of our homes. Now. It may not be in your home,
you know, in.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Your home this is something that you don't have to
even worry about, or possibly I don't have to worry
about it. With Jordan, my child but when you go
to many of the inner cities where violent is rampant and.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Drugs are pervasive.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
When we did that video, the number of responses people
gave me was like, wow, I didn't know that and.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
So that that broke crack pipe pike.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
Back then when I did it, it was just about everywhere,
like you see in certain communities, you see needles.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Did you just pick one up off the street or
something off the street.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Okay, last question, A bunch of people through gave Andrew
Croma tons of money and it came up totally short
in the primary. You're still running, yes, A would you
consider in September dropping out if you're fourth in the
polls or third in the polls? And be why should
anyone donate to your campaign or your super packed given
how ineffective those dollars seemed to be in the Democratic primary?
Speaker 5 (36:59):
It was it in effective in the last file and
we were raised one point five.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
No, the money given to Cuoma was totally ineffective because
he got trounced. Yeah, so why should anyone feel that
any political giving is going to be useful in this environment.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
And money is important. It's unfortunate.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
I am probably the only elected officials that are stated
over and over again, we need to take money out
of politics completely. We should give a dollar amount to
every candidate. They could only spend that dollar amount and
that's it. There's no reason we should be calling up
individuals asking for money. But that's the nature of the beast.
And so when you look at it, those money, those
dollars are used for important reasons, because television is extremely expensive,
(37:38):
your staff, it's costs money, et cetera. He didn't lose
because of this shortage of dollars. He lost because he
did not want to be mayor of New York City.
Is not a consolation prize. You know, you step down
as governor and then you wake up one day and say, okay,
I want to do a consolation prize and run.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
To be the mayor of the City of New York.
And it was obvious.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
You don't come out on weekends, you don't do this,
don't sit down and speak on podcasts or interviews. You
live in a bubble. He always lived in a bubble.
Governor's son went on to become a g went on
to become governor. And then there's another pattern that a
lot of people are ignoring what he feels about black
men who are elected. Nobody wants to talk about this.
(38:23):
He did it to Carl McCall. When Carl McCall ran
to be the first black governor, Andrew Cuomo got in
the race of sabotage his campaign. He did it to
Charlie King. Charlie King was running to be attorney general,
raised five million dollars, was one of the leading candidates.
He got in, pushed Charlie King out. He did it
to David Patterson. David was gonna run for re election.
(38:44):
He decided to sabotage his campaign and moved him out.
Now he's trying to do the same thing for me.
And like you said, your audience needs to really understand
what happened. I ran for independent. Everyone knew I was
running for independent. Everybody thought I was foolish for doing so,
not understanding that the only mayors that have won on
the independent line we sit at mayors.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
We knew that Mundanni.
Speaker 5 (39:06):
Was going to be on the general election ballot on
the Rooks family line. Why did and you throw his
name into it if he was in the primary. He
did it because he thought he could follow the same
process that he's done for a long time. So let's
look at the polls. The posts had him up for
forty points, forty points. He sent out a poll through
his staffers the day before the election that he was
(39:28):
up ten points. He lost by thirteen points. How could
we trust when you have an unexpected voting environment right now?
This voting, this vote is going to depend on new voters,
and everyone is talking about the energy on the Madonnie camp.
Nine percent of the voters, two point five million Democrats
having voted yet a million independents having voted Jets, several
(39:50):
hundred thousand Republics having voted Jet. Never in my history
of politics have I seen the energy around the stop
Madonnie movement coming from my bodega's owners, coming from my
small property owners, coming from my Jewish community, coming for
my former former Soviet and Socialist block constituents that are
here right now say they don't want to go backwards.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
So I said it before.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
If you look at some of the old tapes, I said,
this is going to be the most exciting male race
in the history of the city. I knew it in
seven eight months ago.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Politics.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
That's right, Where were you actually the night of the
Democratic primary, and what was your reaction when mom Donnie won.
Were you like, oh, I expected this because of all
the reasons you just laid out about quota.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I'm trying to think about it.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
I think I was in the best sleeping I knew
what the outcome was going to be. I said six
months before the primary that Madonnie was going to win,
and all I had to do is wake up to
at an early day I had things to do in
the city, or I think we had a storm that day.
I could have been going around the city looking at
some of the rain sites. You know, you think about
I always use sports as an analogy. You know, I
(40:56):
have the crown, and just the thought that Andrew is
gonna tell the second sitting mayor, second mayor of color,
that I should step aside for him.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
I mean, that's the highest level of arrogance. You know.
Speaker 5 (41:09):
During my difficult moments COVID, my LUSS asylum seeker love Fair,
I just stepped down and stepped up. I said, I
was elected to serve the city. No matter what I
had to face, I was gonna live up to my commitment.
He didn't do that. When it got hot, he left.
He abandoned his obligation for the City of New York.
I would never do that to the city. I didn't
(41:31):
abandon it as a police officer. I'm not going to
abandon it as the mayor.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
You and are Producer care were the only two who
knew six months earlier that I'm down he was gonna win.
Eric Adam, thank you so much for coming on odd lots.
Really appreciate your chance to chat.
Speaker 6 (41:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Can Joe call you if he sees a rat?
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah? Well no, thank you so much.
Speaker 7 (41:52):
I enjoying it, Tracy.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I'm glad we finally got a chance to speak to
the mayor. I've never talked to uh, never talked to
him before.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Uh No, neither have I. I'm enjoying this transition. I
do think it's a really interesting New York is obviously
a really interesting p tree dish in which to experiment
with a lot of economic policies, and it sort of
solidifies a lot of the trends we've been talking about
over the years, including affordable housing, taxation and things like that.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
I liked your question about when is there some magic
line from which progressive taxation becomes socialism?
Speaker 4 (42:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
And I actually think like this is a question for
a lot of people, including Mom, Donnie, etc. Is there
like what actually like constitutes like an acceptable or an
ideal level of redistribution because obviously, you know Mayor Adams
was talking about you know, yeah, socialism has failed everywhere,
as he asserted, and yet an important element of New
(43:00):
York City is the money that is raised from wealthy
New Yorkers do as you put it, you know, put
a put money back into people's pockets to make the
city more affordable.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Right, So at the moment that's optional. Billionaires can choose
to do it. But I mean, if you think it's
a good thing, then why not make it you know,
I mean potentially maybe mandatory at some higher level.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, right, And why does it have to just be billionaires,
because also there are a lot of people who are
not billionaires who are also very wealthy, and that everyone
just talks about billionaires, which I think is an important
element of this conversation. You know, I do think that
like there is a certain degree to which some of
the pathologies of the city or just take it as
(43:43):
like it's New York City and deal with it. And
this is like what you do. So it's like and
this is like, these are the costs. So of course
it is going to take years to figure out whether
we're going to use a specific plot of land that
is contested and turn it into housing. Of course it's
going to do is going to be a certain level
of public drug consumption and rats. Although the rats have
(44:05):
declined and broken bathrooms and stuff like that, it does
feel like in the discourse we just sort of accept
that because it's New York City, that there are certain
things that are just going to be like SuPAR or
actively hostile. Again, like from a family perspective, like, it
really is not good at all that it's so hard
(44:26):
frequently to find a bathroom in a public area.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
I will just say here, I mean, other major cities
in the world do it differently, right, Like you go
to a place like Tokyo, you do not see people
nodding off in the street. And it kind of blows
my mind also that New York still has this extremely
high tax rate and a lot of these quality of
life issues.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
But anyway, there's plenty more to talk about. If you
wins reelection, we'll have them back on. Well, definitely, we'll
definitely have them back on to talk about how all
of these things are going?
Speaker 4 (44:55):
All right?
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Shall we leave it there?
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
This has been another episode of the Authoughts podcast. I'm
Tracy al no Way. You can follow me at Chasey Allaway.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart,
follow mayor Eric Adams, He's at NYC Mayor follow our
producers Kerman rodriguezet Carman Arman, Dashil Bennett at Dashbot and
kill Brooks at Kilbrooks. More odd Lots content, go to
Bloomberg dot com slash odd Lots with the daily newsletter
and all of our episodes, and you can chat about
all of these topics twenty four to seven in our
(45:22):
discord Discord dot gg slash od Lots.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
And if you enjoy odd Lots, if you enjoy our
turn into local New York politics, and please leave us
a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember,
if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to
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and follow the instructions there.
Speaker 6 (45:45):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
In
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Oddlots podcast.
I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy, we have
a special episode of the podcast today which needs very
little introduction, but we are speaking to the mayor.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I love our transition to local city reporters.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's really fun learning about our city. Mayor Adams, New
York City, Mayor Adams, thank you so much for coming
on Odd Lots.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
I think this is my second time this week, or
was it last week? Today's go to fast, but it's
way here being at Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you so much. I read an article recently from
the journalist Derek Thompson. Here's talking about the death of
partying in America. People apparently don't party as much as
they used to. New York City people still party, but
you know, there aren't as many twenty four hour clubs
as there used to be. Apparently there's fewer four am
liquor licenses, et cetera. You're a man who appreciates night
(01:08):
life and partying. What happened? Why don't people party as
much as.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
That's a great question, and first of all is why
do I appreciate the night life. It's thirty billion dollar industry,
and we viewed the city often as mayors, we viewed
it as nine to five, but it's not. When I
was a police officer, I work overnights, midnights, and when
I go into a night life a restaurant, I walk
(01:32):
in the kitchen and I talked to the dishwalpsher, I
talked to the busboy or girl. Of those are everyday
working class people. And I knew when I came back
after COVID, I had to turn our night life around, and.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
We did that. You can't get reservations in the city anymore.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Broadway had the best twelve months in the history of
the city. And part of coming back out at night
is what is our signature New York the city.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
That there's no party crisis.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
No, it still still shuts down earlier than it used
to know it does.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
And part of the problem, I believe you have far
too many people on community boys that have been for
a long time, and they're not connecting the economics with
the desire really not to have any night life.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Nightlife is important of the community.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
It is allowed to let off some steam networking, really collaborating. Listen,
you come to New York, You're going to find your
mate here because the diversity of this great city.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I wanted to ask about some other specific policy proposals,
specifically housing, and you know, I went to your website
and I saw the sort of summary of your proposals,
and then I clicked in to learn more and it
took me to your previous accomplishments under your first term.
So I'm really curious if you could maybe broaden out
(02:52):
some of your housing policies, Like what exactly are you
talking about here?
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Well, first of let's look at the fact that when
you look at shovels in ground and what we're proposing
in our rezoning, including the most comprehensive housing reform in
the history of the city sixty years previously, was the
first time we really started looking at housing and some
of the reform. We're going to build more housing in
one term than the twelve years under Bloombirds the eight
(03:19):
years under Deblasio combined in one term and twenty five
billion dollars we put it into our ten year capital plan.
In addition to that, for the first time in history,
we are including Nightscha of housing into the plan. So
we're looking at a couple of different locations. Number One,
we saw the federal Estate government walk away from Nightscha.
(03:41):
Nightscha has an eighty eight billion dollar dollar capital problem.
We had to find new ways of building on Nightsye.
We did the land trust. Many people tried, We got
it done. We're also doing the rat programs. Many people
have attempted to do it. We got it done. The
amazing project that we are getting ready to do in
rees House is where we're going to tear down all buildings,
(04:02):
build new buildings and without zero deplacement of tennants. That's
how we deal with tonight you issue. Then we realized
that we want to build more housing. We have to
build everywhere. It was unbelievable how many elected officials were
stopping that building fifty nine community boards. Ten of those
fifty nine were building more affordable housing than forty nine combined.
(04:23):
So our goal now is to build all over the city.
And that's what City of Yes was about, a little
more housing in every community that we could allow residents
and tendants to stay in the community instead of leaving
the city. So our goal in the future, as we
move forward forward, want to build faster, We want to
build more. Drive by Willis point right now, twenty four
(04:44):
hundred units of affordable housing. That's THEIRS new soccer stadium
that's paid private dollars, a new school, new open space,
and you see the buildings actually going up in the
same term. So our focus is building more and building everywhere.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
The first time I ever heard about controversy at the
Elizabeth Street Garden was in twenty eighteen, I think. And
then now it's twenty twenty five and you've come out
and you said, okay, let's move on. Let's not continue
to fight this. But setting aside whether it was it's
right to use that space for housing or not, like
setting aside these pictures, why does it take seven years
(05:19):
or longer to come to answers on these questions?
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Great question, And if you if you do an analysis
over all the things that we've done, we've land plan
we landed planes that no one else was able to do.
When you read all the noise, take all the noise
out of the administration, and you say, okay, let's look
at the raw numbers. Like you said, your listeners are sophisticated.
You look at the raw numbers. We were able to
(05:44):
land the plane on Governor's Island. We were able to
land the plane in sunset sunset Paarl, were able to
land the plane on these difficult tasks. So what did
we do When we brought in Randy Master as the
first deputy mayor, he was he looked at it. He says,
how can we leverage this space? How could we walk
away with a win?
Speaker 4 (06:02):
We did.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
Elizabeth Street Garden was going to do about one hundred
and twenty five units of housing. One hundred and twenty units.
We're going to get six hundred and twenty five units
of housing.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
And we got.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Elsewheared after years of fighting about it.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Yes, this is New York. Let's let's be clear about
the city. Whatever you try to do, we got eight
point five million people. We have thirty five million opinions.
You know you're always going to have New Yorkers no
matter what you attempt to do. But how do we
leverage the best for the city. So we took the
concerns of Elizabeth Street Garden. People were concerned about that.
(06:37):
They wanted to hold onto the garden, and I said,
you got to give me a plan that I could
deal with the number one crisis I have in the city,
and that is housing, and we were able to leverage
that space and walk away with over six hundred additional
units of affordable housing.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
That said win. No matter how you talk about it.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
What's the broad lesson from that experience, Because when we
were came about nightlife just then, you know it sounds
like community groups and special interest groups are still an
impediment or an obstacle to some of the things that
you seem to want to do. Is there anything you're
thinking about to maybe like encourage more cooperation, build up
that city of yes.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Idea, yes.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
And you know what we witness in the city, particularly
in our elected officials. Elected officials on Monday they say
housing is right, but on Tuesday they say not in
my district.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
We don't want to hear it.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
And if I walked away with anything in the last
three years and seven months, is that you have to
ignore the noise. You have to do what's best long
term for the city. And it's a retrospective appreciation and
if you do an analysis not only in housing, Look
how far I was away from where the noise of
(07:50):
the leadership of Democratic Party when I was talking about
taking severe mental health illness off our streets. I got
an unbelievable pushback when I talk about investing in the
police depart and when others were talking defund the police.
Everyone was pushing back. And now we see record levels
of decrease in crime. When I was talking about the
cannabis fight, that we had to do something about it.
(08:12):
So when you look at where I was, even in housing,
everyone was pushing back on city of Yes, and today
all came to where we were. And when you live
these experiences, you have a different eyesight than others. And
so what I want for my local community groups and
organizations is to understand we're in the city together. And
far too often folks said that listen, I have my backyard,
(08:35):
I have my park, I have all that I want.
I don't want any additional people here. But if you
do that, then you're going to hurt the long term
plan of this city.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So your main opponent in this race has made affordability
the sort of cornerstone, and you talked about obviously the
expansion of affordable housing in New York City under your administration,
which is real. Nonetheless, New York City is a crazy
expensive place to live. Yes, I think it's worth it
because I think it's the best city in the world.
So it's like, you know what, I'll pay the high
(09:04):
cost of housing here because I love New York City.
But do we just have to accept you know, it's
sort of in the same way you said, Okay, you
know New York's always gotta have thirty five million opinions
for eight point five million residents, that's New York City.
Do we just all have to accept that the city
has to be incredibly expensive?
Speaker 5 (09:21):
No, no, we don't. And what government must do is
utilize their powers to help working class people. And when
you think about it, that's what we have done. We
put thirty billion dollars back into working class people, and
we looked at what is driving the course. Number one,
(09:41):
as we talked, affordable housing was one area, and we're
doing that.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
We're building.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
We break breaking records year one, year two, and year three.
We build more affordable housing individual years in any other
administration in history.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
But look at the other areas.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
What's the number one cause of bankruptcy medical day were
excuse in medical debt for low income New Yorkers forced
to care children? Sixty seven hundred age out every year
they slip through the cracks. They don't get to support
that they deserve. We're paying their college tuition and we're
giving them life cultures into their twenty one instead of
aging out at eighteen, so they don't slip through the cracks.
(10:18):
Or what hurts women the most but families, in particular childcare.
We dropped the cost of childcare from two and twenty
dollars a week to a month to less than twenty
dollars a month. We were the first one in twenty
years to drop to earn it. To increase the earned
income tax credit, we're paying for high speed broadband in
low income housing and Nisia and other locale locals in
(10:42):
the process reduce the cost of using our subway system
for low income New Yorkers. So the real message is
I can't handle the price of bread, but I could
put bread back in the pockets of New Yorkers and
we've done it after sum of thirty billion dollars. So
it's easy to talk about pine the sky ideas that
is not within the span of the control of the mayor,
(11:05):
like free busses. Free busses is a three billion dollar
price tag, and if you're stating that the foundation of
your plan is based on increasing taxes on the high
one percent earnest when in fact you don't have the
authority to do that. You know who has the authority, Assemblyment.
My opponent is an assemblyment. If he couldn't get it
(11:27):
done as the assemblyman, how is he going to get
it done as a mayor, particularly when the governor who
signs off on it sayd that she's not raising income taxes.
New York City is the highest income tax in the country,
The state is the highest in the country. And so
what I did put money back in the pockets. Do
you know there's no income tax for low income New
(11:48):
Yorkers in the city because of my ax attack. That
is how you look at the power of the mayor's
office and say, how do I help working class people.
I'm blown away that he has hijacked the narrative of
being a broking class mayor and putting money back in
affordability issue when I've done it. That's my record is
clear on putting money back in the pockets of working
(12:09):
class people.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Since we're talking about your opponent's policies, zorn Mum, Donnie,
you've said that New Yorkers don't understand what socialism is.
Can you give us your definition of socialism? Like, what
is socialism to you?
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Well, first, I would say this, seventy percent of New
York is like the theme and concept of socialism. And
many people, if you were to ask, they will tell
you they've never been to a socialist country. I've been
to a communist and socialist country. I've been to Venezuela.
I've been to Cuba. I know what rational books are.
I think it is the concept that you're going to
(12:43):
take money from one area of the population and equal
it out across the board. And many government run locales
and facilities such as supermarkets. Now, when you do that
in concept, it sounds good, but if you open when
the government runs supermarket, you want to kill the bodego industry.
(13:03):
You're going to kill the independent of supermarket industries. So
I think the whole concept of believing as though resources
from the top end that those who believe that we
should not have any billionaires in the city, which I
just don't, it doesn't balance out because when you look
at where the tax dollars come from and spreading the wealth.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
If you want to use that classification across the entire population.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
That doesn't work for me, has never worked anywhere on
the globe. There's not one country we can point to
that says this concept has been successful.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I mean, we do have progressive taxes, though you just
said that lower income New Yorkers don't have to pay
New York tax So there is an element of that here. Like,
is there a point at which is too much? Or like,
what exactly is the issue when you say it's too much?
Explain it to me more, like, is there a point
at which the redistributive.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Effects flips into socialism?
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, flips into socialism.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Well, I think so. I think there's a balance. And
I like to say all the time, I want the
person who drives the limousine to get a fair wage
and be able to provide for his family. And I
want the person assists in the backseat of the limousine
to be able to use his discretionary dollars or her
discretionary dollars. When you look at the billionaires in this
city that everyone wants to demonize, they're the ones who
(14:21):
pay into their philanthropic actions into our museums. They're the
ones that sponsor like the Robinhood Foundation to deal with
where people are slipping through the cracks. They're the ones
and their tax dollars are paying for our teachers and
our firefighters and those who are on the low economic end.
That perfect financial ecosystem is what makes a city like
(14:44):
this great. So if your position is that, particularly in
the atmosphere where you now could run your organizations and
entities outside the city, you can easily go to Connecticut,
New Jersey, of Miami, which we lost a great deal
of high income earners. If your position is we don't
want you here in our city, ideally that's attractive to
people to hear we're getting rid of all the billionaires,
(15:05):
But when you drill down in the numbers, those billionaires
are keeping the lights on. And because we have billionaires,
we're able to do things like as attacks for the
working class.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Going back to something you said earlier, you're talking about
federal funding, federal support for Nitscha, the public housing. Should
any mayor of New York City currently, should the mayor
have a oppositional relationship with Trump. A lot of people
want that. A lot of people want the mayor to
stand as a bulwark to some extent against Trump's policy.
(15:52):
You obviously benefited from the fact that he dropped Charger
or his DOJ dropped charges against you. There's been cooperation
in terms of ice on wrikers. How do you think
about the fact that whether you know, they're sort of
sort of yeah, detrumpifying New York City for both the
citizens and also undocumented residents.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
The most dangerous thing that being a married mayor during
this time is people read headlines and not the fulls,
you know, and that's unfortunate when you think about it.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Sometimes you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
And when you look at the definition of the relationship
I have with the current president, everyone is ignoring the
relationship I have with President Biden.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
I called myself the Biden of Brooklyn Eye.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I watched that video clip. I watched it like ten times.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Yeah, because we had a good relationship and I like
the president. Do I believe there were those in this
administration that participated in law fair He actually said it,
He said his Justice Department was politicized when he partnered
his son, he knew what was happening there. But Biden
came to the city and spent the whole day with me.
When I was dealing with law and enforce Smith issues
(17:01):
and we didn't have an ATF had someone to be
in charge of the alcohol, tobacco and firearms, and he
appointed someone.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
He visited my crisis management teams.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
He sat down and spoke with me about going after violence,
which was my the issue that I ran on, and
so the same goes to for this president. I didn't
know Donald Trump. A lot of people don't realize that.
I didn't know until I met him at the Alfred E.
Smith dinner and he spoke with me. He was on
the campaign trail prior to even meeting me, saying it's
wrong what they doing to this mayor in New York City,
(17:35):
and he saw what was happening. And when he came
into office, the same things I was saying about dangerous
migrants and asylum seekers pre election, I was saying post election.
And when I walked out of the voting booth on
election day and the microphone was in my face and
they said who did you vote for? I said VP Harris.
(17:56):
I was very clear, you know, did I disagree with
what I saw the Democratic Party was doing? Yes, but
I still remained loyal to do was what I thought
was right to do so when you fast forward to today,
we took the ministration to court more than any other
mayor in the country, nor the mayors going to court
(18:16):
as much as I have pushing back on the policies.
But when we needed the President of the United States
to look at a project we had in Sunset Park
or Windfall, billions of dollars investment of five hundred thousand
homes were going to use the energy, fifteen hundred union jobs.
I flew to Washington and sat down with the President
and said, mister President, we can't have this project destroyed.
(18:39):
He lifted the stop work order. That project is now
moving forward. That's what mayors of big cities are supposed
to do. Knock and pout in the corner and just
call the president names and say, well, you know what,
people are upset of the outcome of election.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
But how does that help New York. How does it.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Help New York to communicate and coordinate to go after
dangerous people. We had dangerous Venezuelan gangs in the city.
They were forcing women who are migrants and undocumented into prostitution.
I coordinated with federal authorities. We took down to twenty
seven gang members we were able for gun possession and
(19:17):
other dangerous crimes. So it is my job as the
mayor of the biggest city in America to sit down
and not war with the president, but work with the
president to deliver for the people of this city.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
This is the perfect segue for me to ask something
that might seem slightly random, but actually I think it's
relevant because you've recommended before that New Yorkers should read
Cash Ptel's book All about the Deep State. What do
you think about the Trump administration's refusal to release the
Epstein files.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
I would love to see what's in those Epstein filess.
You know, I think we all do.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
You know.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
I'm eager to look at UFOs. You know, there's so
many history. I'm still trying to figure out who kid
to kill Kennedy.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
You know, well that was another chase.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
There's what's going on here because a lot of people
are really confused because for years this was a yeah,
and then suddenly it's like it's a hoax.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
What do you do?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
You have a you have a you have a guest
for what's going on at all.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
I don't know if his advisor is security personnel advise
otherwise of timing. I don't have no idea. I look
forward to seeing. There's so many deep secrets in America
that I think we all want to know, and it's
imperative that as much as we can find it as possible.
And I'm going to talk about cash Cashier's book, which
I thought was a good book. People laugh at the
(20:34):
terminology of a deep state, Uh, but it is. We
have people in government who have been in government through presidents,
through mayors, through governors, and they're very arrogant. They believe
they are the elected. They believe they answer to no one.
They believe that they are able to hold up projects
(20:55):
that they don't like. And I saw that firsthand as
the mayor. And they're connected to reporters, they're connected to prosecutors,
and they're connected to be able to they write a
letter on you in a minute, they get a story
planted in a minute and leaks. And I saw it
in how it operates. Now think about this fore moment.
Everybody let it go over their head. The Southern District
(21:16):
of New York classified themselves as sovereign.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
I mean, we need to really think about that.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
As soveign, there's no sovereign entities in America, everyone responds
to someone. If you believe you have to report to
no one, even main justice, you could do whatever you want.
That's unacceptable and I should outrage every American that any
entity with that level of prosecutorial power that can really
(21:44):
disrupt your life. You know, peopot in me, mya diamond,
I was indicted for calling the fire Department asking them
to do a building inspection, not to pass what I
ran on. I ran on making the FDNY I respond
to businesses that could not open, and they connected it
(22:05):
to well, you had a bunch of upgrades when you
paid for your tribho and we're going to now turn
that into bribery and we're gonna.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Put you in jail for thirty three years.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Come on, I want to go back to ice for
a second. I take your point absolutely about violent criminals
and the need to address them, whether they're migrants or not.
But obviously, you know there's ice raids happening across the country,
including nonviolent but undocumented migrants. New York City has a
(22:37):
long history of being a self designated sanctuary city. Setting
aside the sort of violent criminal element, what is the
degree to which you know this is going to continue,
presumably going forward at least to the rest of the
Trump administration. What is the degree to which you're inclined
to cooperate with the administration on nonviolent undocumented migrants.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
We don't clear.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
And as you mentioned, of the city's a sanctuary city,
and understand, Centuary City is not a law. It is
a belief that we believe in this city. If you're
in New York and you buy a bottle of water
and you pay taxes on that, those taxes go to
your goods and services.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
So in this city, if.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
You are documented or not, we don't question you on that.
You can go get medical assistances if you need it,
Your child will be able to go to school, You
can call a police. If you're a victim of a crime,
you could make sure that you could walk through the
streets or the city of New York. And that is
what our entire belief system is. We will never cooperate
(23:42):
or collaborate with ICE on civil enforcement. That is against
the law. We never done and we never will. We
will coordinate with them when it comes down to criminal enforcement.
Because we need to be very clear on this, and
I think this has been distorted. ICE is not a
criminal organization. People could dislike. I don't like taking money
out of my pockets, but it's still a federal agency
(24:04):
and it's needed to make sure our tax dollars are collected.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Is spent.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
ICE is not a criminal organization. ICE is a federal
law enforcement agency. Our city has determined that parts of
their duties we are not allowed to collaborate with.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
We respect that and we never will.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
But I'm going to collaborate with law enforcement agencies HSIFBI,
ICE when it comes down to keeping this city safe.
These gangs were extremely dangerous, and you had others who
were committing real crimes in this city. And I don't
care if you're documented or undocumented. After twenty two years
of being in the law enforcement community, I'm going to
(24:45):
keep New Yorker safe.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
But isn't ICE's definition of a crime that includes basically
anyone who entered the country illegally?
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
That's the problem. They're not distinguishing between gang members, filing criminals,
and people. But you know, are just trying to work.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Great question, because it is a crime to enter and remain.
That's a crime.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
We don't collaborate on that, Okay, because it's clear in
our law that of certain even crimes of that nature,
we will not collaborate in. And so when it comes
down to that level of crimes, we would not collaborate.
We're very clear on what we will collaborate. But I
also want to point this out because it's often ignored.
I'm off, someone is always pointing up Mike in my
(25:29):
face and saying, hey, every what do you What are
you going to do about what ICE is doing. That's
a federal agency. I think we're getting were allowing our
federal electors off the hook. I don't control the rules
of the federal agencies. I don't have I have the
city council. That's my job to look at laws, to
(25:49):
sign their laws. You know, we're not asking our federal
partners enough. Hey, guys, what are you doing about this?
That's not my job. The enforcement of immigration is a
federal authority, not a city authority. I'm going to do
my job. I don't control who come across the border.
I control who's in the city when they are across
(26:12):
the border. And I told President Biden this, I said, listen,
we have a porous border. I went down to El Paso,
I went down to the Darien Gap to Ecuador, Columbia, Mexico,
and I saw the flow, and I saw how they
were telling people. The streets are paved with gold in
New York. Why don't we control the flow. We have
(26:32):
serious population issues across our country. We should be allowing
people to come into the country and say, hey, Kentucky
need backstretch workers in the racing industry. Here's where you're
going for three years, and then you could go wherever
you want in the country. This is a win win
if we handled it better. We had no control at
the border. We were allowing anyone to come through. Now
(26:54):
that we see a substantial decrease, we're no longer and
get long again. Four thousand people a week into to
this city, which was just not sustainable.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Speaking of crime, the crime stats have improved a lot
in the last couple of years. The rat I've been
monitoring your war on rats. Impressed.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
He's a single issue voter.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I've been very impressed with the war on rats, and
I've looked at the stats on three to one one
calls for rats, et cetera. On the other hand, the
city is still dirty. When I take my kids to
the park, only half the time. Can I expect to
be able to not even half like find a clean
bathroom elevators at the subway is still like, you know,
it's this is a world class city. Do we just
(27:35):
have again sort of going back to the thing, like
is this inevitable that a city like New York City
has to have it so that we don't even have
clean bathrooms most of the time, Like speaking like from
a family issue like public childcare obviously incredibly important, but
there's all these other things that make it much more difficult,
I would think than it needs to be that. I
feel like everyone has just come to accept, like, you know,
(27:57):
we can't have clean bathrooms in a public park.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
I would never accept a city where there's disorder, there's
carry outs in this dirt. I just don't won't remember
when I came into office. Many people don't realize that
we had encampments in our subw so.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
It was the worst of the COVID pandemic.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
But yeah, all.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
Over we had on a long highways. January and February,
I went out and there's still pictures that someone sent me.
The other day, I went out and visited people that
were living in encampments. And I saw that when I
walked in and crawled in their encampments and their boxes
and the tents, I saw stealth food, human waste, drug
path frenaria. Many of them was dealing with schizophrenic behavior, bipolar.
(28:40):
And I went back to the team and said, we
can't do the city, can't live this way. Go look
at Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portly, but look at these
other cities. You don't see that here. Because I had
a zero tolerance. And once we dealt with the encampments,
once we dealt with the crimes, we moving twenty two
thousand legal guns off our streets, one hundred thousand ghost vehicles,
illegal veh because that were running our streets. Once we
(29:02):
dealt with that, Now we move into the next layer.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
LEYA.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
We immediately went after the road that's in our city,
which was just really an indicator of just total uncleanliness
in the city.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Now we put in place a twelve.
Speaker 5 (29:16):
Hundred person a quality of Life team, our Q team
we call it. That's going after those nagging issues. I
still run right around the streets one am, two am
in the morning, calling my commissioners when I see an
encampment or I see an overflowed trash. They all tell
you about those horrific calls that they give from me,
because we should see it before you see it. You
should deserve a clean bathroom. You deserve to be able
(29:39):
to go to a park where there's no trash on it.
You deserve to not have to worry about a road
and running across your feet. You know, this is what
you deserve. These are the basic things that we deserve.
But we had to deal with the level one issue,
first dealing with getting us out of COVID, dealing with crime,
and then this unexpected crisis of dealing with the min
(30:00):
using a silum seekers.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
You know, people tell us all the.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Time that, okay, Eric, you have to migrant in silum
secrets behind you.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Everything is okay. It's not.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
We spend seven pointy seven billion dollars. Five hundred million
of that should have gone to chronically absent children. A
billion should have gone to building housing for our seniors.
A billion should have gone to making sure that we
boost up our Department of Sanitation. What I'm trying to share,
the long term repercussions of what we experience is going
(30:30):
to have long term impacts on our city.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
On the quality of life issues and crime. I got
to say, practically every time I'm in Broadway and Lafayette
the station, which is pretty often, there are people shooting
up in the corner. I literally went down the stairway
the other day and a guy was standing there shooting
himself up in the arm and I was three inches
away from him. That was uncomfortable. That happens all the time,
(30:54):
and no one seems to be doing anything about it.
What exactly is the obstacle to improving some of the issues.
Is it budget? Is it enforcement?
Speaker 6 (31:03):
What is it?
Speaker 4 (31:04):
You know? And I hate it.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
I hate it when I see someone what we call
not in on the street exactly when I see someone.
We were up at the Hub the other day. It
was just a state of total disrepair until we got
in there and zoomed in. We put in place what
we call our path team and our scout teams, and
I spent a lot of time in the subway system,
(31:27):
and the goal is how do you talk people off
the system. Now, we were able to take eighty five
hundred people off our system that was living on our system.
But I cannot tell you how much a challenge. It
is dealing with people who dealing with severe mental health issues.
They don't know they need care. That is why I
was trying to get off. We need to pass the
Involuntarily remove a bill because they are people who are
(31:49):
harmful to themselves and harmful to others, and we have
to take them inside. We have to bring them inside.
And many people just have a philosophical disagreement with me
on this issue. I want to say that if you
are using drug use, we need to take you inside.
If you are thirty degree, whether you don't have on shoes,
you have soil your clothing, you're yelling and screaming. We
(32:12):
have to talk them off the latch now and hope
that they have to building trust and the Scout team
are doing an amazing job, but it takes longer and
you see those repeated offenders over and over again. But
our goal is to go after this illegal to shoot
up drugs in public. But when you do a real crackdown,
you get a lot of heat that we're criminalizing drugs
(32:34):
because drugs, you know, addiction is a disease. So we're
trying to use the right balance. But we are far
more encountering people than others would like us to do.
We get a lot of complaints because we encounter people
who are injecting themselves with drugs, people who are dealing
with severe mental health illnesses, and I got to really
ignore that noise for the better public overaw public safety
(32:56):
of the city.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Hotel prices in New York City are insane, and part
of it seems to be this sort of opposition to
hotel expansion, both from the owners of existing hotels and
from unions. Also, you can't do airbnb, but whatever, I
care less about that. When you think about like the
vitality of New York City, like, do you have any
(33:33):
vision like how to break this impass or do we
just have to accept that as much as the city
is going to grow, that the number of the capacity
for our ability to take in tourism is just going
to be sort of capped by our inability to build
any new hotels.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
We need to build more, and we're at the pre
pandemic levels. Our hotel industry is doing well, I think,
you know to May. In fact, we have sixty five
million tourists that came in last year. This is still
the hot spot.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
How was New York City is the summer, shipping the
summer from tourism perspective, now, it's not.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
The levels we have.
Speaker 5 (34:05):
I think some of the conversation around tariff, some of
the conversations impacted our tourism, particularly some of our domestic tourists.
We used to get a lot of tourists from Canada
and we never really recovered the way we should have.
Our our Asian market, Chinese were they were a major
part of our tourism.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
But we're gonna We're gonna bounce back. We had it.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
We had to hit during COVID and we were able
to recover after COVID and this is still a good product.
You know, people want to yes, and we we believe
the tourists. The hotel industry is going to continue to growth.
You know, some bumps in the roads. We're looking at
a conversation around what we could do with our hotel tax.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, how do we get more rooms?
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Though that's the goal. We got to build more. We
have to encourage more building. There were certain laws that
were put in place previously about getting and receiving uh
the permits to build. We had to do a real
analysis of how do we encourage to get more rooms
in the city.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
I have one more question. Yes, this is my most
important one, possibly and something I've always wondered, a great
mystery of our times. But in the course of prepping
for this interview, Joe and I watched a lot of
your previous interviews, your previous videos. I was watching your
famous contraband video. Where in the world did you get
a used crack pipe to use as a prop in
(35:24):
that video?
Speaker 4 (35:25):
That was and actually I'm gonna remake that video.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Oh a lot in times when I did that first
video for those not a where it was a video.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Showing how you should look in your child's room for drugs.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
When I did the first video, and still today people say, oh,
you know, how can you do that as hard on children?
You know, many people don't know that if someone is
selling drugs in your home, when the police come, they
come in and do a raid. Everyone goes grandmother, grandfather,
(35:57):
children go to acs. Families are disrupted, and we need
to take control.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Of our homes. Now. It may not be in your home,
you know, in.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Your home this is something that you don't have to
even worry about, or possibly I don't have to worry
about it. With Jordan, my child but when you go
to many of the inner cities where violent is rampant and.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Drugs are pervasive.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
When we did that video, the number of responses people
gave me was like, wow, I didn't know that and.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
So that that broke crack pipe pike.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
Back then when I did it, it was just about everywhere,
like you see in certain communities, you see needles.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Did you just pick one up off the street or
something off the street.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Okay, last question, A bunch of people through gave Andrew
Croma tons of money and it came up totally short
in the primary. You're still running, yes, A would you
consider in September dropping out if you're fourth in the
polls or third in the polls? And be why should
anyone donate to your campaign or your super packed given
how ineffective those dollars seemed to be in the Democratic primary?
Speaker 5 (36:59):
It was it in effective in the last file and
we were raised one point five.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
No, the money given to Cuoma was totally ineffective because
he got trounced. Yeah, so why should anyone feel that
any political giving is going to be useful in this environment.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
And money is important. It's unfortunate.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
I am probably the only elected officials that are stated
over and over again, we need to take money out
of politics completely. We should give a dollar amount to
every candidate. They could only spend that dollar amount and
that's it. There's no reason we should be calling up
individuals asking for money. But that's the nature of the beast.
And so when you look at it, those money, those
dollars are used for important reasons, because television is extremely expensive,
(37:38):
your staff, it's costs money, et cetera. He didn't lose
because of this shortage of dollars. He lost because he
did not want to be mayor of New York City.
Is not a consolation prize. You know, you step down
as governor and then you wake up one day and say, okay,
I want to do a consolation prize and run.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
To be the mayor of the City of New York.
And it was obvious.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
You don't come out on weekends, you don't do this,
don't sit down and speak on podcasts or interviews. You
live in a bubble. He always lived in a bubble.
Governor's son went on to become a g went on
to become governor. And then there's another pattern that a
lot of people are ignoring what he feels about black
men who are elected. Nobody wants to talk about this.
(38:23):
He did it to Carl McCall. When Carl McCall ran
to be the first black governor, Andrew Cuomo got in
the race of sabotage his campaign. He did it to
Charlie King. Charlie King was running to be attorney general,
raised five million dollars, was one of the leading candidates.
He got in, pushed Charlie King out. He did it
to David Patterson. David was gonna run for re election.
(38:44):
He decided to sabotage his campaign and moved him out.
Now he's trying to do the same thing for me.
And like you said, your audience needs to really understand
what happened. I ran for independent. Everyone knew I was
running for independent. Everybody thought I was foolish for doing so,
not understanding that the only mayors that have won on
the independent line we sit at mayors.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
We knew that Mundanni.
Speaker 5 (39:06):
Was going to be on the general election ballot on
the Rooks family line. Why did and you throw his
name into it if he was in the primary. He
did it because he thought he could follow the same
process that he's done for a long time. So let's
look at the polls. The posts had him up for
forty points, forty points. He sent out a poll through
his staffers the day before the election that he was
(39:28):
up ten points. He lost by thirteen points. How could
we trust when you have an unexpected voting environment right now?
This voting, this vote is going to depend on new voters,
and everyone is talking about the energy on the Madonnie camp.
Nine percent of the voters, two point five million Democrats
having voted yet a million independents having voted Jets, several
(39:50):
hundred thousand Republics having voted Jet. Never in my history
of politics have I seen the energy around the stop
Madonnie movement coming from my bodega's owners, coming from my
small property owners, coming from my Jewish community, coming for
my former former Soviet and Socialist block constituents that are
here right now say they don't want to go backwards.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
So I said it before.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
If you look at some of the old tapes, I said,
this is going to be the most exciting male race
in the history of the city. I knew it in
seven eight months ago.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Politics.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
That's right, Where were you actually the night of the
Democratic primary, and what was your reaction when mom Donnie won.
Were you like, oh, I expected this because of all
the reasons you just laid out about quota.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I'm trying to think about it.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
I think I was in the best sleeping I knew
what the outcome was going to be. I said six
months before the primary that Madonnie was going to win,
and all I had to do is wake up to
at an early day I had things to do in
the city, or I think we had a storm that day.
I could have been going around the city looking at
some of the rain sites. You know, you think about
I always use sports as an analogy. You know, I
(40:56):
have the crown, and just the thought that Andrew is
gonna tell the second sitting mayor, second mayor of color,
that I should step aside for him.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
I mean, that's the highest level of arrogance. You know.
Speaker 5 (41:09):
During my difficult moments COVID, my LUSS asylum seeker love Fair,
I just stepped down and stepped up. I said, I
was elected to serve the city. No matter what I
had to face, I was gonna live up to my commitment.
He didn't do that. When it got hot, he left.
He abandoned his obligation for the City of New York.
I would never do that to the city. I didn't
(41:31):
abandon it as a police officer. I'm not going to
abandon it as the mayor.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
You and are Producer care were the only two who
knew six months earlier that I'm down he was gonna win.
Eric Adam, thank you so much for coming on odd lots.
Really appreciate your chance to chat.
Speaker 6 (41:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Can Joe call you if he sees a rat?
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah? Well no, thank you so much.
Speaker 7 (41:52):
I enjoying it, Tracy.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I'm glad we finally got a chance to speak to
the mayor. I've never talked to uh, never talked to
him before.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Uh No, neither have I. I'm enjoying this transition. I
do think it's a really interesting New York is obviously
a really interesting p tree dish in which to experiment
with a lot of economic policies, and it sort of
solidifies a lot of the trends we've been talking about
over the years, including affordable housing, taxation and things like that.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
I liked your question about when is there some magic
line from which progressive taxation becomes socialism?
Speaker 4 (42:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
And I actually think like this is a question for
a lot of people, including Mom, Donnie, etc. Is there
like what actually like constitutes like an acceptable or an
ideal level of redistribution because obviously, you know Mayor Adams
was talking about you know, yeah, socialism has failed everywhere,
as he asserted, and yet an important element of New
(43:00):
York City is the money that is raised from wealthy
New Yorkers do as you put it, you know, put
a put money back into people's pockets to make the
city more affordable.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Right, So at the moment that's optional. Billionaires can choose
to do it. But I mean, if you think it's
a good thing, then why not make it you know,
I mean potentially maybe mandatory at some higher level.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, right, And why does it have to just be billionaires,
because also there are a lot of people who are
not billionaires who are also very wealthy, and that everyone
just talks about billionaires, which I think is an important
element of this conversation. You know, I do think that
like there is a certain degree to which some of
the pathologies of the city or just take it as
(43:43):
like it's New York City and deal with it. And
this is like what you do. So it's like and
this is like, these are the costs. So of course
it is going to take years to figure out whether
we're going to use a specific plot of land that
is contested and turn it into housing. Of course it's
going to do is going to be a certain level
of public drug consumption and rats. Although the rats have
(44:05):
declined and broken bathrooms and stuff like that, it does
feel like in the discourse we just sort of accept
that because it's New York City, that there are certain
things that are just going to be like SuPAR or
actively hostile. Again, like from a family perspective, like, it
really is not good at all that it's so hard
(44:26):
frequently to find a bathroom in a public area.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
I will just say here, I mean, other major cities
in the world do it differently, right, Like you go
to a place like Tokyo, you do not see people
nodding off in the street. And it kind of blows
my mind also that New York still has this extremely
high tax rate and a lot of these quality of
life issues.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
But anyway, there's plenty more to talk about. If you
wins reelection, we'll have them back on. Well, definitely, we'll
definitely have them back on to talk about how all
of these things are going?
Speaker 4 (44:55):
All right?
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Shall we leave it there?
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
This has been another episode of the Authoughts podcast. I'm
Tracy al no Way. You can follow me at Chasey Allaway.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart,
follow mayor Eric Adams, He's at NYC Mayor follow our
producers Kerman rodriguezet Carman Arman, Dashil Bennett at Dashbot and
kill Brooks at Kilbrooks. More odd Lots content, go to
Bloomberg dot com slash odd Lots with the daily newsletter
and all of our episodes, and you can chat about
all of these topics twenty four to seven in our
(45:22):
discord Discord dot gg slash od Lots.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
And if you enjoy odd Lots, if you enjoy our
turn into local New York politics, and please leave us
a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember,
if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to
all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need
to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts
and follow the instructions there.
Speaker 6 (45:45):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
In
Hosts And Creators
Joe Weisenthal
Tracy Alloway
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