Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on WNBC's 'News 4 NY at 6'

November 1, 2023

Natalie Pasquarella: New tonight at six, calls for the city to reconsider its plan to house hundreds of migrant families with children in a massive tent city in Brooklyn. Now, the temporary facility at Floyd Bennett Field can house up to 2,000 people. Today, the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless told News 4 that housing families there is a recipe for disaster. Among their concerns, poor sanitation, fears that children could get lost, and a lack of storage space. The FDNY has also questioned water supply in the case of a fire.

Now, the city has maintained the health and safety of asylum seekers with children as its top priority, and right now to answer those critiques of Floyd Bennett, we bring in Mayor Eric Adams.

Chuck Scarborough: Thank you for joining us, Mr. Mayor. So, what is your response now to the Legal Aid Society's request that plans for using the Floyd Bennett Field facility be scrapped?

Mayor Eric Adams: We're hoping that the Legal Aid Society and many people who are really concerned about this issue really look at this issue for what it is. This is an unsustainable crisis that is man made, and we need to come up with real solutions. And I'm hoping that they would join me and other mayors that are going to Washington D.C. tomorrow to meet with our federal lawmakers as well as the White House, because this is not sustainable.

It's not sustainable what you're seeing in Chicago where children are sleeping in precincts, it's not sustainable what we are attempting to do at Floyd Bennett Field. And we need to all have the same voice that this should not be happening to the City of New York.

Pasquarella: And mayor, speaking of the White House, we know that you've called on the Biden Administration to provide some more help to our city, but what do you think the White House should do to keep the migrants from actually crossing the border?

Mayor Adams: We must secure our borders and ensure that whoever is coming across they go through the proper vetting and ensure that we do a decompression strategy to go to the over 108,000 cities, villages and towns that we have in our country so it does not focus on just a few cities in this country. And that's why we join our fellow mayors in D.C.

Scarborough: You have said that this crisis - the migrant crisis - could destroy the city. Why aren't you putting even more pressure on the White House to do something about the source?

Mayor Adams: Well, I'm happy that now many of my fellow mayors are joining me, and you're hearing from the governor of Illinois, the governor of Massachusetts. You're seeing mayors across the city… Across the country, they're joining me with this. And this is the type of bipartisanship that we need to really address these issues.

And I'm really pleased to see my fellow colleagues, my fellow mayors saying this is not only a New York City issue, this is an issue that's impacting our large cities in America and could impact our entire country.

Scarborough: Okay. Switching topics here, Mr. Mayor. We've all witnessed the shocking rise in antisemitism since the start of the Israeli/Hamas war, and you've called on college presidents to do more. What guidance, if any, is your administration giving the teachers in the city's public school system about the conflict and all the hateful rhetoric?

Mayor Adams: Hats off to Chancellor Banks. He has made it clear that we want to use this as a teaching moment to develop the full personhoods of our children so they can have a full understanding of this conflict and really identify the terrorist behavior of Hamas. What we don't want to do is to, number one, give the impression that the terrible actions of Hamas on October 7th is Islam, because it is not.

And we want to make sure that our children communicate with each other and call on them not to participate in some of the actions you see on our street where people are spewing out hate-filled rhetoric. That is not what our city is. Hate has no place in our city, it has no place on our college campuses.

And we're hoping that the presidents of these institutions use this as a teaching moment to build tolerance and acceptance as we deal with the conflict that's taking place in Israel and Palestine at this time.

Pasquarella: And Mayor Adams, before we let you go, as you mentioned, we know the city is in a heightened state of alert. We've been told there are no specific threats. I know how I feel at times as a parent. But as mayor, you know, what do you think, what keeps you up at night?

Mayor Adams: Well, a lone wolf. You know, just being real candid and honest. We are watching what lone wolves can do across the entire country. We saw it in Buffalo; the radicalization that's taking place through social media. I'm calling on parents to really examine what their children are looking at, really monitoring the behavior, have communications with them. That is a concern that I have.
The Police Department did an amazing job. 120 different protests and rallies and you have not witnessed any real violence in the city because of that, and we need to do that. And if I could just let New Yorkers know that this is a code blue. It is going to be extremely cold. You know, winter's here sooner than we thought, so I want to make sure New Yorkers are safe, but we are designating a code blue at this time.

Pasquarella: Important information, mayor. How did you know that we have weather next? That was our next thing, was to toss to Janice Huff.

Scarborough: Yes you could've introduced her. She's next with the forecast. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Pasquarella: Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you.

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