Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls in for Live Interview on 77 WABC's 'Cats & Crosby'

April 26, 2024

Rita Cosby: Joining us now here on Cats & Cosby is the great mayor of New York City, Mayor Eric Adams. Mr. Mayor, glad to have you here.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you so much, Rita, you and Cats. I get to speak with you all the time.

Cosby: Yes, it's great to have you. Hey, first off, there's so much to talk about. We've been talking about the protest, but let me ask you first about the budget. What do you think? In the state budget you got a lot of things for New York City. Also the executive budget proposal that you put forward for the city. Tell us what you think are some of the highlights that are going to keep New Yorkers safe.

Mayor Adams: I think first starting with the state budget, I just cannot say thank you enough to the governor and to Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and to the Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. They saw what the city went through with the influx of 191,000 migrants and asylum seekers, something that was outside our span of control. We couldn't allow them to work. We couldn't stop buses from coming in.

We were obligated to give them housing and food and other various essentials. They came in and really threw us a lifeline and realized that the city is the economic engine of the state. They allowed us to really get empowered to go after the illegal cannabis shops. So important. Those cannabis shops have become a magnet for violence and really targeting our children as well. They allowed us to deal with our affordable housing issue of giving us the tools needed to build more housing. We're not going to be able to survive with a 1.4 percent vacancy rate. That is a huge win for us as well.

They gave us the extension of mayoral accountability, something that we needed so badly. We're outpacing the state in reading and math. Chancellor Banks, and I've got to tell him to get on this show and share some of the great things he's doing. These were big victories. Lastly, they allowed us to raise our debt cap, ceiling cap, because we have big projects we have to do, and we need the bond rating increase to do so.

Real wins for us on the state level. As you just indicated, we just announced $114.5 billion budget for this year. Because of the good economy and just good management principles, as independent financial experts have stated, we were able to really get to the place that we are right now because we started early when we first took office.

John Catsimatidis: Mr. Mayor, has Speaker Heastie and the state done enough on bail reform and keeping New Yorkers safe? Do you feel good about it?

Mayor Adams: When you think of bail reform, I wasn't jumping for joy when the reform package came, but, we have to follow the rules from Albany.

The two areas of focus that I think we need to look at is, one, discovery. That's a terminology that many people are not aware of. This is when district attorneys have to turn over all the evidence in a particular crime and arrest. At first, blush, you'll say, okay, well, that's a fair thing to do. It is, not when it comes down to mundane things that are really not significant with the arrest.

For example, if someone is arrested at a demonstration and you have 100 cops there, every piece of their body camera should not have to be turned over right away. It's just so time-consuming, and it's really causing a lot of cases from being dismissed. We think we need to modify the discovery rules, or it should be funded through the state to give DAs the support they need to fulfill that. It can't be an unfunded mandate.

Lastly, recidivism, that's a big issue. The person who shot Jonathan Diller, our hero police officer, now detective, he was arrested 20 times. The person who was in the car with him was out on a gun charge, and there was another gun found in the car which could have been his as well.

We keep seeing these cases over and over again. 542 people arrested, over 7,000 times in the city. Those who were arrested for shoplifting, they were arrested over 7,600 times in the city. Thirty-eight people arrested in the subway system for assaulting subway workers only were arrested over 1,100 times. It's the small number of people who are doing bad things to good people in the city.

Cosby: Mr. Mayor, Ed Cox has a quick question for you.

Chairman Ed Cox, New York State Republican Committee: Yes, hi. Mr. Mayor, I agree with you. The legislature, it was a tough fight, I'm sure, but you got the things you wanted from them, especially for Chancellor Banks. I've worked with him on some of his internship programs.

Catsimatidis: He's a very decent person.

Cox: He's a decent person. He's doing a great job there, and you've got mayoralty to control again. Not four years, but two years, but still, you've got it. How are you going to be treated by the City Council? This is your executive budget. It has to go through a process.

Mayor Adams: First of all, I didn't even know you were in the studio. How you doing, man?

Cosby: We've got a full house here.

Catsimatidis: We've got Governor Patterson here, too, but we'll see what he has to say.

Cosby: He's going to say something. I can tell.

Mayor Adams: Governor Patterson will be the first to tell you. I like to do the analogy, throughout the year is the playoffs, I mean it's just the season. Everybody goes back and forth. they throw different things at each other. But we're in a playoff right now. Every year, if you go back, the last two budgets that we managed together, the speaker, Adrienne Adams, and I, all of the ruckus is going to come down to we're going to find a solution. We're going to have a handshake. We're going to deliver for the City of New York.

Things like the project she introduced, Project Reconnect, that allowed CUNY students who were out for a long period of time to go back and get their college degrees. What we're doing around foster care, children paying their college tuition. We have been able to navigate this throughout Covid and the migrants and asylum seekers. Yes, are there three, four things we disagree on? Yes, you're darn right. Are there 100 things we agree on? Yes. That is how we come to a conclusion. I'm looking forward to coming to a final conclusion and shaking hands in June when we finally settle the budget.

Cosby: That's a good analogy, the playoffs. Governor Patterson.

Former Governor David Patterson: Yes. Mr. Mayor, I tried to clarify something today. I wrote an article in Politico about the candidate that you've chosen to be the next corporation counsel, Randy Mastro. Now, he's getting a lot of criticism from the City Council.

I bet that a lot of people who do the criticizing are really reflecting to some of the acrimony in the Giuliani administration. The fact is he's a lifelong Democrat and has always been for, very positive and even some progressive causes. I just think that the reason that you and Mayor Giuliani, who obviously had an interest that was sort of perpendicular, would choose the same person to be in such a high place because of the tremendous work he's done over the years.

Mayor Adams: Well said, and -

Governor Patterson: I didn't mean to make you sneeze.

Cosby: Bless you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: When you're the mayor, your goal is not even to look at party, who's a Democrat, who's a Republican. It's who's the best to do the job because the complexity of the city is something that you have to look at and how you can manage it.

I know that people are looking at some of his clients. They're looking at the clients that they disagree with. They don't look at the clients that he has done amazing things, including protecting the rights of the Black Lives Matter marchers, what he has done on his role in the citizen union.

You have a guy that has done some great things as a lawyer. I just think it's a slippery slope when you judge a lawyer by his clients because the goal is due process, and everyone has the right to have an attorney. That attorney should not be blamed for the actions of the client because then you have to look at those who commit heinous crimes, murders. We don't demonize the attorneys just because they represent someone who carried out a very challenging crime.

I say let it go through the process. If he's the one that we put up, because we haven't put up anyone yet, but if he's the one, let's go through the process of allowing him to interview. what's interesting, governor? Many people who are critiquing him don't even remember. We're talking about Giuliani, what, 20 years ago?

Governor Patterson: Thirty.

Mayor Adams: Exactly.

Cosby: I want to switch gears up, Mr. Mayor, and also ask you about protests, too, because what can we do to clamp down on some of the protests where obviously there's free speech, yet at Columbia the president there has said, okay, we'd like you to be off in 24 hours. They didn't move. Then she extended another 48 hours. They still haven't moved.

What can you do? Especially some of these protests have gotten out of hand at some of the schools where we've seen the videos of themchasing police officers, or in one case, there was an officer who was hit with a bottle and a chair. What can we do to get a handle on this before it gets worse?

Mayor Adams: I'm glad you said that, because there's something that's taking place right now, we have, I don't think we've ever witnessed in our city. The closest thing I think we witnessed was when Reverend Sharpton was stabbed during I think it was the Yusef Hawkins case. We protest in this city, and it's part of our fundamental rights as Americans. That's what makes us really special, is that you have the right to protest the right, as Dr. King once said.

What we're seeing now, I don't ever recall, and maybe you guys can tell me, but I don't ever recall protests where you call for the destruction of a people, where you celebrate terrorists who committed violent, barbaric action. To have people that are protesting with signs and chants of "Destroy Jews," "Kill Jews," "I am Hamas," "I celebrate Hamas." That has never happened in this city before. That is what I find disturbing.

Catsimatidis: Here here, mayor.

Mayor Adams: New York, we're used to protests. People protest everything in this city. I like to say 8.3 million people, 35 million opinions. The hatred we're seeing, and the comfortability of the hatred, that's what's getting me. People are comfortable with being antisemitic and calling out these hateful things.

Then you can't harass students, because if you harass students, and I say to the African-American listeners on this show, just go back and look at Little Rock, Arkansas. See those young children trying to go to school, and we needed the National Guard to protect them.

Let's replace the term Jewish, and put any other group. How would we feel if someone was saying to African-Americans, kill African-Americans, or kill Italians, or kill Sikhs, or any group? Put ourselves in that place. That is why we need to be very clear on what's happening here, and the level of anti-semitism that's going to be, that seem to be pervasive throughout this city and country, if not the globe.
People must understand, yes, we want to go in and clean up those tents. The Police Department wants to do it. They did it for Columbia, when they first asked us to do it, because it's private property, we just can't go on. We did it for NYU. We thought that they were in a place where they wanted us to come in and clean up those camps. They made the determination yesterday that they don't want us to come in right now.

We cannot break the law to carry out the law. It's required that we get permission from the heads of the school to go in. Right now, they have not given us the permission. I don't think they're going to be able to negotiate with these unrealistic and anti-semitic body of people that I think many of them are not even connected to this issue.

They are, those are professional protesters, outsiders, anarchists, who come in and just want to disrupt the good order of this city.

Catsimatidis: Judge Weinberg.

Judge Richard Weinberg: Mr. Mayor, good to talk to you again. First, I want to commend you for your moral leadership in a country that doesn't have moral voices fighting to protect all people. I want to commend you. That makes you a national leader on this issue.

I say to the university presidents, the first time they start springing up these camps, you move quickly and decisively. When the students don't leave, you expel them. As long as the college professors, administrators placate these people, now they're demanding amnesty, Mr. Mayor. Now they're demanding their vestiture from investment in Israel.

That cannot be tolerated. This is a shakedown of our American academy. What say you?

Mayor Adams: Well said, could not have said it better. Israel is a business partner, some of the top startups that are really creating some major products that's helping across the entire country in general, but specifically we get a lot of Israeli startups here in the city.

They call for divestment and really some of the hatred and hateful terminology that are being used. It may not be illegal because the first amendment's right, but it's immoral. It's disgusting. It's despicable. What I believe that we should do is exactly what you stated and what we advise. I had a meeting with all the college presidents and I stated, soon as one tent comes up, take that tent down. Don't allow it to spread because what you will find that it will continue to multiply and spread and bring a level of disorder. It could have the potentiality as we saw at NYU.

We had an officer that had a chair thrown at his head and dented his helmet. Thank God he had a helmet on. They were throwing bottles. You cannot allow that to happen. It's imperative that on these campuses we send the right message of what is expected behavior and what's not. Then we have to stop those who don't attend the schools. If you are suspended or expelled, you should not be back on the college grounds.

Catsimatidis: Mr. Mayor, we got one minute left before we have to take a network break. What would you like to tell all New Yorkers?

Mayor Adams: We're not coming back, folks. We're back. January 1st, 2022, I inherited the city with 40 percent increase in crime. Difficulty getting jobs. Tourism was not here. No one wanted to be on the subway system. Our children were not learning at the level that they were supposed to. Bond raters, those independent observers didn't rate us the way we wanted to.

Two years later, only two years, more jobs in the city and the city history. 62 million tourists, the fourth largest in history. We're outpacing the state in reading and writing. Double digit decrease in homicides and shooters. 4.1 million people back on the subway system. We are really humming and moving in the right direction.

People said we couldn't do it. They said it was going to take five years. We did it in two years. All I can say, if the jury is still out that we've done a good job, somebody needs to bring them back in the courtroom so they can say, job well done, mayor.

Cosby: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Catsimatidis: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We applaud you. Thank you. Keep New Yorkers safe. God bless you. God bless New York.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

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