John Catsimatidis:
The Mayor of the City of New York.
Rita Cosby:
Absolutely. New York City Mayor Eric Adams joining us now live here on Cats & Cosby. Mr. Mayor, great to have you here. Thank you for joining us.
Mayor Eric Adams:
Thank you. And I think John Cats is my fellow Virgo.
Cosby:
Yes, he is, that's right! You just had a birthday recently, too. That's right.
Mayor Adams:
Happy Birthday, John. Sorry I couldn't get to your event. They had me all over the place.
Catsimatidis:
Well, next...same time next year.
Rudy Washington:
Mayor, this is Rudy Washington. You didn't have a party that you didn't invite me to?
Mayor Adams:
Oh, no. Never. Never. Never. I got one coming up, I'll make sure you're there [chuckles].
Catsimatidis:
Sounds good. Well, we're… As New Yorkers, we've been having discussions all day, and we had Deputy Commissioner, former Deputy Commissioner of Terrorism John Miller — who says hello to you — on just now. And a lot of New Yorkers are speculating that there's so many people coming through that border that they're scared that we're getting some possible terrorist coming through that border and that 9/11 could happen again.
Mayor Adams:
It's clear that on the southern border and even the northern borders we have to make sure that there are proper precautions, you know, custom border control and all of the vetting that's necessary should be in place for terrorism and any other acts of violence. And I think that we have to trust the federal government that that's being done by the time they arrived here. New York City is not part of that process. We have to take the information that we have and make sure we safeguard our city.
Cosby:
You know, how dire of a crisis are we in Mr. Mayor, now, because you made a lot of headlines in the last 24 hours that the migrant crisis that we will face a financial tsunami. And how bad do you think, is there a chance that we could be cutting back even on police and all of this? And what do you say to folks who say, you know, why, should we be putting Americans first before the migrants?
Mayor Adams:
And you know people attempted to take my very candid real talk with New Yorkers as being anti‑immigrant, anti‑immigration, which is really silly. My relationship with the immigrant community throughout this city, from all walks of life, is commendable on so many levels. But I'm not going to be untruthful to New Yorkers. We are dealing with a major crisis.
When you talk about $5 billion this fiscal year when we do our November plan, that's $5 billion, that's the combination of when you look at what we're going to be spending. It is the fire department, Department of Sanitation and parks departments combined ‑‑ combined. That money has to come from somewhere, and taxpayers had really shouldered the burden of this for over a year without any real substantial help.
I take my hat off to the governor and Speaker Heastie and Majority Leader Cousins for the $1 billion they allocated in the last budget. But we need help. You know, Washington gave us $104 million, around $104 million out of a $5 billion price tag. That's just not enough, and the current keep coming.
Rita, we're getting 10,000 a month of migrant and asylum seekers. This is wrong for the migrant and the asylum seekers to be living this way and it's wrong for everyday New Yorkers to be going through this.
Catsimatidis:
Mr. Mayor, I mean, New Yorkers are worried you're in...you're going to be cutting the budgets. What should we do? I mean, right now Manhattan is, people are worried walking around. You know, our stores used to be open until midnight, they're not open until midnight anymore. The cashiers, the stock boys don't want to work until midnight. The restaurants are not open until midnight or 10 o'clock at night. And after dark, people are scared to walk around. What we do?
Well, I think that the reality is we have to take people from how they felt at the beginning, January 1st, 2022, to how they're actually feeling now. We have some real W's that we put on the board, some real points. We decreased crime, as I committed on the campaign trail. Five of our 7 major crimes you see a steady decline. Decrease in shootings, decrease in homicides.
Our subway ridership is back up. People are back on the subway. You remember how it was during those early days, losing someone like Michelle Go [inaudible] to the subway track. We're capping out at four million riders. We're doing probably 3.6, 3.7 million riders a day. 99 percent of our jobs are back. You're seeing people coming back to the office spaces. So, we have W's, but we have more to go. I know what this city can become, and I know what we need to get there.
Catsimatidis:
What can we do… Mr. Mayor, what can we do to back up our police officers, because they are scared to make arrests sometimes because they may get in trouble.
Mayor Adams:
No, not under this administration. You talk to the average police officers and they would tell you this is a mayor that has shown I'm going to send you out on the front line and I'm going to support you while you're out there. We did it by giving them a contract that's respectable. They had over a 97 percent ratification on their contract in some very touchy situations and scenarios where it appears as though the loud but the smallest numbers were going to have us turn against our officers, and I stood with them.
I'm going to make sure they get the support they deserve. All of us remember those chilling photos of watching someone pouring water over the heads of police officers. That's not happening in this administration. We will get the protection and the justice, they go hand in hand.
Catsimatidis:
Mr. Mayor, I love our city. You know I do. And we want to help in any way we can. Every New Yorker wants to help you. In eight weeks we have 51 out of 51 city council seats up. We don't need any more socialists. We don't need people that don't want the right thing for New York City. Will you help create a list of who's good for New York and who's not?
Mayor Adams:
We want to be loud and clear to tell people who have strongly stood for everyday New Yorkers and real partners. You know, I take my hat off to the speaker and the City Council, Adrieanne Adams. You know, we've been able to land two budgets during difficult times. We're in talks now as we do this budget modification. We're going to need real partners as we navigate through this process.
Cosby:
You know, I want to ask you, Mr. Mayor, too. Kind of going back to the migrant issue. Where is the end in sight, because until they plug the hole at the border, we're just going to keep needing more money. I mean, where is the end game?
Mayor Adams:
Rita, and you know I said it at the town hall in a very candid fashion to New Yorkers, that's my concern: I don't see an end in sight. You think about it, 10,000 a month. We are not allowed to turn back buses. We're not allowed to tell people they can't come to the city. We have to comply with the law. But 10,000 a month is not sustainable.
Catsimatidis:
It's not.
Mayor Adams:
Around roughly 2,900 a week. We are now going to have to start thinking about putting women and children into shelters, into congregate sessions. You know, there's some very drastic actions that are going to take place in the next series of weeks and months that, you know, I want to be honest with New Yorkers and prepare them for it.
Catsimatidis:
Mr. Mayor, last question. We had Tom DiNapoli on. The 500,000 wealthy New Yorkers have moved out, and the tax rolls are 30 percent down in income taxes. So, if we're spending $5 billion on migrants and our tax rolls are down, at what point do we blow up?
Mayor Adams:
Well, you know, greater economic minds than my mind know what is the, you know, tipping scale between not getting real estate taxes, taxes in our office buildings, people back into office spaces. But let's be clear on this, what many people need to understand. The migrants want to work, and we have a large number of jobs. You know it in your profession. We have jobs in all these different industries.
So, it is really unfortunate that the greatest symbol we have as a country is your right to work. That's the precursor to sleep to allow you to experience the American dream, is your ability to work, all of us. The difference between the countless number of people that have come through Ellis Island arriving here is that they were able to provide for their families and moved through American society and be absorbed into the society.
Cosby:
And…
Catsimatidis:
Congestion pricing.
Mayor Adams:
Yes.
Catsimatidis:
People are worried that we have one nail in the coffin already of New York City, that we're going to put another nail in the coffin. Can we stop it? Can we wait for New York to make a comeback. Can somebody tell the MTA, wait for New York to make a comeback and we'll give you congestion pricing. Don't put another nail in the coffin.
Mayor Adams:
Well, the state made a decision, the federal government gave the authorization. I think we're beyond that now. The name of the game is how do we do it fairly that it's not going to have a negative impact on the environment and a negative impact on everyday New Yorkers.
Catsimatidis:
Mr. Mayor, we stand by you.
Cosby:
Yep.
Catsimatidis:
And we want you to succeed because we stand by you. But you know, it's… We all have to stand together against what's going on in Washington.
Cosby:
Yes.
Mayor Adams:
Well said. Well said. You know, and I say all the time, Rita and John, that you know, right now I'm the pilot of this plane, and instead of people praying that the plane crashes they should be praying that I can land it, because we're all on this together.
Cosby:
Yes, 1,000 percent. Listen, we do want to...
Catsimatidis:
Mr. Mayor, thank you.
Cosby:
Before I let you go, yes, I want to ask you real quick about 9/11, your thoughts, because what an important day it is, the anniversary, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Adams:
No, so significant. I was sharing earlier that my kid brother was a sergeant in the Police Department at the time and I was a lieutenant in the 88 Precinct. And we could not reach each other for some time because remember, the telephone lines and our mobiles were down. And finally, I was able to reach him, but you couldn't really exhale because we knew we lost hundreds of first responders.
And it was a significant day, but as we acknowledge today and those we lost, let's not forget that September 12th we got up and we showed the terrorists that we were not going to run, we were not going to flee. And when we got up, the entire country got up. New York City's America's city; and so we were Ground Zero for the terrorism, and we were Ground Zero for how to rise above it.
Catsimatidis:
Mayor Eric Adams, thank you for coming on.
Cosby:
Thank you.
Catsimatidis:
And thank you, and we want to have you on again, because New Yorkers need leadership and they need you to provide it right now because New Yorkers are worried.
Mayor Adams:
Thank you. Take care, Rita.
Catsimatidis:
Thank you so much.
Mayor Adams:
Take care, John.
Cosby:
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.
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