Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears on Power 105.1's 'Way Up With Angela Yee'

March 22, 2024

Angela Yee: What's up, it's Way Up with Angela Yee. I'm Angela Yee. And finally, our mayor, Eric Adams is here.

Mayor Eric Adams: Yes, yes, yes. Good to see you. You know, first of all, congratulations.

Yee: Thank you.

Mayor Adams: You know, first woman of color to, you know, Black women to do something at this capacity. And I just don't think people know your full scope, what you do around health, my days of Brooklyn borough president, you are just really more than a radio personality. And it's just really a pleasure throughout the years of things that we've been able to do together.

Yee: You know, that is why even when I first got the show, one of the first people I was like, I need to get Mayor Eric Adams in here. There's so many things, and look, I have a laundry list of people who are coming in here, like, make sure you ask the mayor about this.

But what do you do for yourself? Because it is, I mean, New York City, especially right now, there is so much, you know, that's going on, and I feel like…

Mayor Adams: And it's real. You know, and every day there is something, like yesterday, it's painful for me to hear this allegation that was made against me. Someone made an allegation of something that happened 33 years ago. I don't even know who the person is.

Yee: Right.

Mayor Adams: And it's not me. It never happened.

Yee: They're framing it like it's a colleague, a former colleague. But I did see a lot of people come to your defense.

Mayor Adams: Right, right, because people know me. I have dedicated my life to uplifting women in general but Black women specifically. Look at my administration, first time in history, five deputy mayors of color, first woman police commissioner.

Yee: Yes.

Mayor Adams: There's not one relationship I've had in my life that I'm not still best friends with the person. And so, you know, it's painful, but God doesn't put anything on your plate that you cannot carry. And he said that no weapon formed against you will prosper, he did not say there won't be weapons formed against you.

Yee: Mmm. And this is the first time there's been an allegation...

Mayor Adams: Right.

Yee: ...like this, and so this is the same woman when the Adult Survivors Act said... She accused you and then now she's giving specifics.

Mayor Adams: Exactly. Exactly.

Yee: Okay.

Mayor Adams: It came out the day that the Survivors Act was going to expire. So, now the corporation counsel has it. I have to stay focused on running the city, as you said, every day there's another crisis that we're dealing with and I need to be really focused on addressing all of these issues.

Yee: Right now I'm talking to the mayor of New York, Eric Adams. I saw just recently you had a lawsuit against this bus company...

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Yee: ...a charter bus company from Texas that was bringing in asylum seekers. And it is an unmanageable amount, like you...

Mayor Adams: It is.

Yee: ...and I just want to be clear because I also do walk past some of these shelters and sometimes my heart does go out when I see kids outside, they don't have coats on.

Mayor Adams: Right.

Yee: It's a lot of these asylum seekers are families with small children, right? And we're seeing things where people are upset. They're like, well, how come I can't get housing but they're providing housing for people who are not even from this country?

People get upset because they see food vouchers being given out to people who aren't from this country and they're able to eat while some people are unhoused and starving.

And so I just want to address what is really happening with this, because it is a crisis. They're trying to say with these sanctuary cities, this is what y'all wanted. Here it is for you, now handle it.

Mayor Adams: Let's understand this, because there's sensationalism that's in our media: if it bleeds, it leads. So, there's a lot of sensationalism.

So, people say, well, Eric, why don't you stop the buses? I can't, it's against the law for me to stop the buses. They say, why don't you deport the people after they commit crime? It's against the law for me to deport anyone based on City Council law that was passed under the previous administration.

Why don't you don't give them housing? It's against the law. I have to give them housing, food and shelter. That's what the law requires me to do. Well, why don't you let them work on their own? It's against the law. I can't even allow them to volunteer to clean up our streets if they want to and give them a stipend. It's against the law.

So, the national law is telling me what I must do, but they're not giving me any money. It cost us $4 billion. It took them, you know, almost a year to give us $100 million out of the $4 billion. So, we have all of these national laws. We have our borders are open, people are coming in making their way to New York, and the support we're supposed to get, they're not giving it.

Yee: Getting bused to New York, not just making their way to New York...

Mayor Adams: Right, exactly, getting bused to New York.

Yee: ...but purposefully.

Mayor Adams: And so even when the cards came out, I told the team, we have to bring down a cost of, you know, the migrant and asylum seeker crisis. And we have done that. Out of the 180,000 that we received, over 100,000 are now going self-sustained. They're now leaving our shelter system and we're no longer paying for it.

But we also saw how much money we were feeding people and how much food was being wasted, about 10 percent of it. So, what we were able to do is say instead of having them waste food that we're having a large conglomerate give them, let's give them food cards that they can only buy food.

Go to shop in a bodega, a local supermarket. Recycle the money in our community. And the MoCaFi card is MWBE.

Yee: Okay.

Mayor Adams: Over $7 million a year we're saving because we went through these cards instead of using this large dollar amount that we were spending.

Yee: All right. Our Mayor Eric Adams is here. He's talking about some of the challenges in the city, but he also is going to talk about some of the wins and what we can look forward to. You guys can also always weigh in at Way Up With Yee. We have more with Mayor Eric Adams when we come back.

[Music break.]

Yee: What's up? It's Way Up with Angela Yee. I'm Angela Yee, and the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams is here. Now let's talk about the subway. You know my mom works for transit and has been ever since I was in elementary school, and so she still works for a New York City Transit Authority.

But we've seen virally things that have been happening on the subway. We saw a man get shot with his own gun and harassing someone on the train. And so some people, and this is another report I read, some people are feeling like the train is not safe.

Mayor Adams: Right. Think about it for a moment. You have a high-profile incident and you read about it. Then you walk into the subway system and you see someone that's dealing with a mental health issue, they're yelling and screaming, it starts to play on your psyche.

You may have taken thousands of trips and everything is fine, but your psyche is now you don't feel safe. Do you know we have about 4.1 million daily riders? Out of that 1.4 million, we have about six felonies a day. But if you are hearing about somebody being shot on the train, all of those numbers mean nothing to you.

Yee: Right. I saw that.

Mayor Adams: It's like, what do you feel?

Yee: Yes.

Mayor Adams: And my job is to say, yes, I want to show you statistically that you as a rider, you may take thousands of trips and nothing happened to you. I must bring down that six felonies a day, but also must make you feel safe.

And that's why we put a thousand more officers in the system. You tell them to walk around, engage with the passengers, announce on the train, hey, there's a police officer on the platform if you need him. We must make people feel safe.

Yee: Right now, I'm talking to the mayor of New York, Eric Adams. So, you're getting ready for reelection.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Yee: And I see some people also throwing their hat in the ring.

Mayor Adams: Remember how many people were in the last ring.

Yee: Yes, it was a lot.

Mayor Adams: You know that? Right, right, right.

Yee: And it was all over the place.

Mayor Adams: It was.

Yee: At first it was like this person's winning and this person was, yeah.

Mayor Adams: We were focused. Andrew Yang was measuring the curtains at City Hall, he thought he was going to win so much. And I was like, okay.

Look, you know, Angela, I'm just big on what God means for you, no man can take away. What God does not mean for you, no man can give. I'm just supposed to do my job. I'm not even focused on, well, you know, reelection is coming. No, Eric, what are you going to do right now?

Yee: Right. Right. Well, you know, what to do right now does matter, though, for a reelection...

Mayor Adams: Yes, right.

Yee: ...and how things are framed. And one conversation that people have been having is Black men and voting...

Mayor Adams: Mmm, yes.

Yee: ...and them, you know, kind of leaning away from the Democratic Party.

Mayor Adams: Right. Right. Right.

Yee: And so what do you think about getting people energized to even vote, not just locally but also to get out and vote in the national...

Mayor Adams: We've got to vote. And the Democratic Party has a real obligation and responsibility to show why Black men should vote, like the highest unemployment in the city right now is dealing with Black people in general but Black men specifically.

We have to answer the needs of Black men because many of them feel as though their needs are not being heard and they're not being met. All of us have unique items that we need addressed, and I think that for far too long we've ignored the items that have been on the Black men list that are important to them.

Yee: All right. Well, I just want to make sure we keep on, and that's why I wanted to come straight to you with a lot of these questions that we have.

Mayor Adams: Yes, yes.

Yee: And you know, we need more frequent check-in's, though.

Mayor Adams: Yes, I would love that. We're going to make sure we come on as much as possible.

Yee: Yes, because it's important what is getting accomplished, too. Sometimes people overlook those things. I know also recently 80,000 human services workers got a cost of living adjustment as well.

Mayor Adams: Huge. Huge, huge.

Yee: And that's a big deal because that affects women, that affects people of color. So, just real quick, if you…

Mayor Adams: Yes. The human services, when you think about it, childcare workers deliver food to people, social services, almost 50 percent are women of color. We were able to raise their increases so that they can have a meaningful life, and you know, you can't provide services and then you're going to need to same services because you're not getting paid enough. This is a huge victory. I promised it on the campaign trail.

Yee: All right. Well, great. Well, I love to hear it. And you know, let's see if this year for Halloween we have a party promoter Eric Adams costumes in the stores.

Mayor Adams: Let's do it.

Yee: I will say nightlife is important, though, in New York in New York. And as critical as people can be, I like the fact that we can see our mayor out at the places that we go to because a lot of them are small businesses.

Mayor Adams: Without a doubt.

Yee: It means a lot to go to a business and for the owner to be like the mayor was just here.

Mayor Adams: Multi-billion dollar industry that has been ignored under other administrations. I walk into a nightlife establishment, I walk into the kitchen, I speak with the cooks, I speak with waiters, I speak with all those employees and tell them how much I appreciate them. This is not a 9-5 city, this is a city that never sleeps. So the mayor can't be taking a nap. I'm out there speaking to my nurses doing midnight shifts, my TA employees, people who work around the clock. This city never stops. And I'm out there meeting them, greeting them, and they should know their mayor, not just who works corporate hours.

Yee: All right, well next time you see him, shots on the mayor, everybody!

But thank you so much, Mayor Eric Adams. I really appreciate you.

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