Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live On WABC 7’s “Eyewitness News At 5:00”

April 24, 2024

Bill Ritter: We're now going to dig deeper into some of the top issues facing the biggest city in the country, New York City, including the budget crisis and the ongoing protests on university campuses. Joining us now, the 110th mayor of the City of New York, Eric Adams. Mr. Mayor, thank you for joining me and Sandra today. Appreciate it.

Mayor Eric Adams: Good to see you both. How are you, Sandra?

Sandra Bookman: I'm great.

Ritter: We are good, but we got a lot of questions.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Ritter: Let's start first with the budget, the biggest in New York City history. You scaled back some of the cuts in the budgets you originally proposed, it's still the biggest budget. Critics in the City Council say you've left $1 billion on the table. I suspect it's about rainy day money, but it's just in case we don't go where you think we're going to go?

Mayor Adams: This is all part of the process. The speaker, Adrienne Adams, and I, we were able to sign two budgets in our time in office, and we were able to do some great things. It's a partnership between our Councilmembers. We present the budget, they vote on the budget, and we look forward to the ongoing conversation. But we have to say hats off as we navigated not only the Covid crisis, but now 191,000 migrants and asylum seekers.

Ritter: All right. One brief follow-up to that part of our questioning today, Mr. Mayor, and that is the - you know about this - the people in the libraries are not happy about this, $58 million cut. Out of $1 billion extra, you couldn't find that money to keep those libraries open?

Mayor Adams: Listen, this is part of the process. We're going to be sitting down with our Councilmembers, and I know it sounds like, "Hey, you guys got $1 billion laying around, why don't we do A, B, C?" That is just not the reality, and that's not how these budgets operate. There's a reason independent fiscal experts have raised our bonds because they know we have shown a level of fiscal restraint, and we have to keep navigating the city forward.

Bookman: Mayor, I want to shift gears to the recent protests on local college campuses. Anti-war protests in New York, in America, not unusual, but the tone of these protests over the last few weeks and days seems to have shifted less about supporting the folks in Gaza and more about - in some cases - it appears to be more about supporting Hamas, a terrorist group, and the vitriol particularly focused on Jewish people here in the city, in New York, not even in Israel. What do you say? Just your take on that and how we sort of shift the narrative.

Mayor Adams: That is so true. Let me just say that I have protested throughout my life. I protested during the South African dismantling of Apartheid, and we stayed focused on what the issues were at the time, and I also know what it is to watch those little girls in Little Rock, Arkansas, and students that attempted to go in because they were intimidated by some of the hate. The disgusting terms that I heard and some of the flyers that we have witnessed is not who we are. There's no room for hate in our city to praise Hamas, which is a terrorist and must be destroyed and dismantled. No one wants to see innocent lives lost in Palestine, but we have to bring home the hostages, and we have to dismantle and destroy Hamas. I've been clear on that, and I'm not going to vacillate from that.

Ritter: Not everyone…

Mayor Adams: Freedom of speech is something that is constitutionally protected, and you can be correct constitutionally, but it's immoral to see some of the terminologies that's being used.

Ritter: No question. Okay. Real quickly, you've seen all these people out there, not everyone is antisemitic in these rallies. What do you tell the people who want peace there, but are not buying into antisemitism?

Mayor Adams: So true, and that's a great question. The same thing we said during the Black Lives Matter march, we had people who came in just to be destructive. There are professional agitators that look for events like this to be destructive. I say to those who want to peacefully raise their voice, police yourselves. Make sure you don't have this hate speech, hate terminology, and we should not be lifting up a terrorist [group] that participated in October 7th and other atrocities.

Bookman: Mayor Eric Adams, thank you for joining us this evening. Got a feeling we'll be talking to you again.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Take care, guys.

Ritter: Take care.

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