Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live On FOX5’s “Good Day New York'

April 25, 2024

Curt Menefee: All right, as we get this morning started for New Yorkers, there's a lot of good news. Many of the planned city budget cuts are now being reversed.

Rosanna Scotto: So that's the word from Mayor Adams, who's been crunching the numbers now that Albany finally passed a spending plan. Joining us from Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side, Mayor Adams, nice to have you back on Good Day New York.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Great to be here. When we pass these budgets, you hear many people say what should be done and not be done, and how we should have rolled out things earlier, sooner.

This is a science to this, and we can't get it wrong. We were able to turn around this economy, we were able to coordinate with Albany with the help of the governor and the speaker and the majority leader. This is an important part of our city service, and we look forward to sitting down with the City Council as we move forward.

Scotto: Okay, speaking of the City Council, they're saying that there was a billion dollars that you didn't touch that could have been used to restore cuts to libraries, because you did restore a lot of critical cuts, but not to libraries. Now, is the City Council right that you have a billion dollars that you're not touching?

Mayor Adams: Think about this for a moment. We have a record level of a little over $8 billion that we have in our emergency fund, and that's what it's for. It's for emergencies. At no time did we tell libraries to close their branches on Saturdays and Sundays. We did with every agency and entity that we wanted you to look into your various entities and find savings, and they made the determination that they were going to use those savings as their closing hours. Now, we're going to the table with the City Council to come up with the final budget, just as we have done two budgets in the past.

Scotto: Were you disappointed with the state's budget? I know you were asking for a lot more money for migrant care here in New York City. You did not get it. Were you disappointed?

Mayor Adams: How could I possibly be disappointed? I gave a list to the governor, the majority leader, and the speaker. They delivered on every item on that list and more. They gave me cannabis reform. They gave me the tools to build more housing in our city.

They raised our debt ceiling cap in the process. They gave me mayoral accountability. You go down the list. They delivered for the City of New York. They know what we have gone through with the migrant and asylum seeker crisis, and they gave us additional funding for that. You can always ask for large amounts, and you negotiate down, but I have been extremely pleased with what Albany lawmakers did for the City of New York.

Menefee: All right. They gave you additional funding. They didn't give you as much as you asked for, though. I want to ask you here just to switch topics. The city has been in the spotlight, obviously, nationally the last couple of days because of the protests at Columbia and then NYU, and it spread all over the country.

Yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson stood up at the podium, said that things are so bad that not only should the university president at Columbia be fired, but that maybe the National Guard should be brought in. To me, that's an indictment on the NYPD that you're not covering it properly. One, do it that way? Two, what are your thoughts about that comment that maybe the National Guard should be brought in?

Mayor Adams: First of all, I think he should look at his own home state and talk about whether they need to deploy the National Guard as a movement. New Yorkers will tell you we have the finest police department on the globe. Not only do we deal with - we had to deal with over 500 protesters. Look at what's happening across the entire country, and you'll see how well they handle this situation.

Number one, the constitutional right to protest. I protest as a young man against the South African apartheid. What we're seeing here, and I think it's outside agitators, as we saw with the Black Lives Matter marches where outside agitators, they come and disrupt protests all over the country. We're seeing despicable terminology and words that I think is immoral. It may not be illegal, but it's immoral. We will go on to college campuses, on private college campuses, when the presidents or the institutions call us.

That's what we did when we dismantled the tents a few weeks ago. That's what we did this week at NYU. You're seeing that we are keeping the law and order in this city, and hats off to the New York City Police Department for being able to do so. With so much else that's going on. We have the Trump trial going on. We have protests of other situations. We're fighting crime. They're able to multitask better than any police force in this country.

Menefee: Yes, and they're able to multitask and have been doing it for decades. I think that's one thing the NYPD can do, is handle a bunch of different situations at the same time. I do want to follow up, though, because you brought up the outside agitator aspect. That seems to be going on, and some of the accusations all around the country. Here on Good Day a couple of days ago, a couple of your police commissioners brought that up. What evidence do you have that there are outside agitators, or is that just your belief?

Mayor Adams: I think if you look at, number one, I just finished reading a story in the Wall Street Journal, where there are individuals who are given stipend and paid to carry out various acts. Some of those acts have gone viral. Then I reflect on the time that when we had the Black Lives Matter marches. There was a rightful protest that people were calling for reform. The intelligence division shared with us that there were outside agitators, anarchists that came to the city. They had frozen water bottles, they had bricks and stones.

They were organizing to disrupt the crowd. Think about what happened down at NYU. When you saw individuals throwing bottles, throwing chairs, denting the helmet of a police officer. If police officers did not show great refrain, you could have seen a very volatile situation. We're seeing some familiar faces that are in various marches and protests that we believe that they're continuously to infiltrate these marches and want to because some serious conflicts. We need to stay on top of that.

Scotto: Can we talk a little bit about congestion pricing? Because I feel like you're, you know how I feel about it. I feel like you haven't really taken a definitive stand on it yet. Poll after poll shows most New Yorkers are not in favor of this.

Mayor Adams: No, I've taken a very clear stand. I'm disappointed that, remember this, what many New Yorkers don't know, they stop to see me and they say, hey, mayor, we're angry at you with congestion prices. When you're the mayor, you get all the incoming. This was a state law that gave the authority to the MTA, not the M-A-Y-O-R, the MTA. They made the determinations on how it was going to move forward.

We were able to wrestle out of some agreements, such as shipworkers, $100 million for those communities that were disproportionately impacted. We were able to wrestle some things away. These are our streets, but we did not have the right to determine how this was going to be shaped out. I agree we have to do something with congestion because it's impacting our environment and our economy. There are things we might have done differently if this was turned over to the City Council and the Mayor's Office to determine how this was going to be done. We didn't have that authority.

Scotto: Hey, mayor, I know that you were traveling yesterday and you were on a plane and some person was kind of in your face with the camera and goading you. What happened? How were you able to keep your composure?

Mayor Adams: Listen, when you did 22 years in this city as a police officer and people call your name and do all sorts of things to disrupt you, I'm like one of those guards at the British Embassy or consulate. You just stand there. You realize this person seems to have been intoxicated or out of her mind.

She could have easily been removed based on her actions if I would have gone to the pilot. I was trying to get back to New York City. I didn't have time to deal with that. Stay focused. No distractions and grind. When the behavior of these people with their cell phones, put it in your face. They want to disrupt you. They want you to go to their level. Listen, I'm not stupid to the level of level. I have an entire city to run. I don't have to run after someone that is dealing with some real mental health issues.

Scotto: Let me ask you something. The pilot was going to basically throw that person off the plane, if you asked.

Mayor Adams: If we would have gone to the pilot and show what they what they did, because the passengers were outraged. Many of them were saying, leave the mayor alone, take your seat, stop holding the aisle up. I just wanted to dissipate the situation.

We didn't want a disruption on the plane. It's just sometimes you have to sit back and let people carry out their antics. We're in a generation now where everyone wants to do something as disruptive as possible so they can post online and go viral. I was not going to participate in that. I enjoy circus, but I'm not going to be the clown in someone else's circus.

Menefee: We've got less than 30 seconds here and we have to let you go. So I apologize for throwing this out here. In the state budget, you got the authority to be deputized by the sheriff's department, the NYPD, to close down some of these cannabis shops in town. I know that's been a big cause of yours. First of all, has that program started? Have they been deputized yet? Are you closing down some of the shops or when do you think that might happen?

Mayor Adams: The governor signed a law… signed a bill into law a few days ago. The Police Department was already in preparation. We identified the over 2,800 shops, and we're going to hit the ground running to go after them. Now, we were closing down shops previously, but this gives us a tool to do even far more.

Scotto: Interesting. By the way, I can't believe you're a middle seat person on a plane.

Menefee: Middle seat in the exit row.

Mayor Adams: I hate the middle seat. When I landed, I told the team, don't you ever put me in the middle seat again. I'm an aisle guy, you know? I like to be there in the aisle.

Menefee: But you needed somebody in between you and that woman at the end there, so it helped out.

Mayor Adams: The team did it, but it's funny you picked that out, because I'm an aisle guy. I hate the middle seat.

Menefee: All right. Safe travels to you wherever you go from here.

Mayor Adams: Take care.

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