Mayor Eric Adams: The name fits the season. Unusual. This is an unusual time.
McKay: This is an unusual time. And you're facing an unusual election. But first, let's start out with this proposal here. I think everyone can say it's hard to watch people struggling with substance abuse and drug use on the streets. But why commit them against their will?
Mayor Adams: That's so important. Not only is it difficult to look at, it's dangerous. Many people don't remember the individual who stabbed three New Yorkers around the UN area. That person had severe mental health illness, but he also had a drug addiction problem. And those photos that you just showed, they speak volumes.
You can't leave people on the street that don't have the capacity to understand that they are not taking care of themselves. We were successful with the involuntary removal legislation that was passed in Albany for those with severe mental health illness. Now we're saying, hey folks, many of them also have drug addiction problems, and we need to address it.
McKay: Some advocacy groups and some civil liberties groups are against the plan. But they did praise actually one part of it, and that was including the pilot program to reward people who keep to their treatment plan. So you have a carrot and stick approach almost with your plan here. I guess, what would be this reward? And what do you say to these groups who are worried about these people's rights being taken away?
Mayor Adams: Well, first, they need to understand what population we are talking about. We have a large population of people who are dealing with mental health issues. We have a large population of people who are dealing with substance abuse. We're not using this for the entire population. We're using this for a small number of people that no matter what you do, because of their drug addiction problem, they don't realize that they need help.
We're building on our clubhouses. We just talked about the [13] more we're opening. We're doing our Bridge to Home program. We've removed 3,500 people off our streets that were living at 1,000 in our subway system, 2,500 on our streets, that we get– they now have permanent housing.
So we're doing a host of other things for those who understand they need treatment. That small number that refuses to come off our streets, those photos you just saw, you should not come out of your house and see someone injecting themselves with drugs or nodding out on the street corners.
Or your children should not go to their schools and see in the school grounds people who are sleeping or unconscious there. These are the populations we're talking about and nothing is not an option.
McKay: As a former state senator, you know that you have to have a partner up in Albany to introduce this bill. Do you guys have anybody that is interested in joining on with you?
Mayor Adams: Yes, we have a number of state lawmakers, both in the assembly and in the senate, that we're going to find a partner to introduce the bill and get it through. We know that at first view, people are saying, wait a minute, what are we doing here? But police are not gonna make this decision. Clinical professionals will make this decision and the judge will have to sign off on it.
McKay: Any names you can give us now?
Mayor Adams: No.
McKay: Not yet, okay. So turning to your campaign, you're pulling fourth in pretty much every poll. I know there are plans to ramp up your campaign after Labor Day, but what are you planning as your breakout moment? I know it's hard to say right now, but what are you thinking?
Mayor Adams: Well, first of all, I don't focus on the polls. I was 14 points behind Andrew Yang. We saw at this time in the primary, Mamdani was at 1 percent, 1 percent. And so we're not waiting till after Labor Day. We're building our foundation, starting our communication. And people say all the time, they say, “Well, Eric, voters already know you.” No, they know my name. They don't know what we have done in this city.
Every time I'm at a town hall, people– and I tell them what we have done, people say, “Wow, we didn't know that.” [We] built more affordable housing in year one, two, and three, in individual years. Low-income New Yorkers pay no income tax. People talk about affordability. We put $3 billion back into the pockets of New Yorkers.
I must peel back all my successes, how we turned this city around in three years. Lowest number of homicides and shootings in the first six months of this year. And in the seventh month, lowest number of shooting victims.
All of these successes that New Yorkers are not aware of. And that's what I'm excited about. My breakout moment is when New Yorkers are going to be able to say, I know this guy's record, and I know he's a working class New Yorker.
McKay: But incumbent mayors, historically, have an advantage, usually, during reelection bids. So why do you feel like you're in this position where you have to prove yourself, that you have to retell your story, almost? Did you feel like you made, maybe, mistakes in your first few years? Did you hire the wrong people?
Mayor Adams: I think I made a lot of mistakes. I mean, in my first two years, or what have you. Yes, I made mistakes. Yes, I trusted people I should not have trusted. Yes, some people had jobs that they should not have had. But remember what I inherited when I became mayor. I had COVID. Our city was just about locked down. We were not sure if our children were going to school.
We had [237,000] migrants and asylum seekers. We were having a crime. No one wanted to be on our subway system. When you are in that position, you're in the field, anyone can sit in the bleachers and tell you what a quarterback should do. But when you're in that field, and it's coming in so many different directions, then I had lawfare.
Being indicted, I should not have been indicted for calling the Fire Department and telling someone to do a building inspection. With all of that, I want you to look at the day that I was indicted, and then look at what I did in the city while going through the migrants, asylum seekers, and everything else.
I continued to move the city forward. I continued to pass the most comprehensive housing reform in the history of the city. I continued to build housing. I continued to say we would have universal afterschool programs and Pre-K. And so, the real sign here is every New Yorker that's going through difficult moments, how do you respond in those difficult moments? I led the city well in some very difficult times.
McKay: Now, speaking of one of your former staffers, your former staffer, Mohamed Bahi, he pled guilty this week for his role in a scheme to funnel illegal donations to your campaign in order to get public matching funds, and those are taxpayer dollars. Did you know that he was doing this?
Mayor Adams: No. And you know what's interesting here is that people cover that story. What they didn't cover is that at no time did he say Eric told me to do it. At no time did he say that I did it because Eric created this. He never said that because he was a volunteer on the campaign like other volunteers. I did hundreds of fundraisers. I had thousands of volunteers, and my paid staff was clear.
We will always follow the rules, and there are text messages of me telling people that, follow the rules, and so when people covered the story, no one is covering the fact in his guilty plea he never said the mayor told me to do this. He never did that.
Now, some people think they're helping the campaign. They do things that technically they should not have done. I think that they make mistakes, but no time did we coordinate with anyone that told them to do something inappropriate, and he never said that. He never said in his guilty plea that the mayor told me to do that because that's something I would never tell anyone to do.
McKay: But he was named as a co-conspirator in your now-dropped criminal case. Why was that then?
Mayor Adams: Because they tie it together. When you read through the indictment, they tie it together with the communications he had with the donor, but the donor never said I told him to do it. He never stated that I told him to do it. That's where we need to go. We need to go where the facts are, and that is why it's so important.
This country believes in due process. You are innocent until proven guilty. The judge even said that, Judge Ho. And so look at the indictment, nowhere in the indictment did it state that they said, Eric told them to do this.
McKay: Now the Campaign Finance Board is right now refusing to give you public matching funds as a result of your now-dropped criminal case. I know that your team is fighting this in court right now, but how are you going to get money? Are you guys looking at maybe Republican donors? Are you going to be going to the Hamptons like Andrew Cuomo this weekend?
Mayor Adams: You know, I think it was, I don't know if it was Dillinger who said, why do you rob banks? He said, that's where the money is. You know, so you have to go to the places where donors are. My donors come from public housing. My donors come from working class people, come from the Hamptons who are New Yorkers that go to the Hamptons, that go to Deal, New York.
These are still New Yorkers and they're still able to donate. And so keep in mind, we believe we have a right to the matching funds, but we didn't stop there. You know, mommy always said, boy, you better have a plan A and plan B. We've been raising our money. We still have about $4 million on hand that we can execute a plan to communicate with voters.
We're going to fight for our matching funds because we believe we have a right to it. But I'm not sitting back as any New Yorker, as any parent, any family, you don't sit back and just cross your fingers and hope things happen. You go out and make them happen. And that's what we're doing. We still have an aggressive campaign.
I was finished raising all my money. I could have just focused on voters, but we did not get the money. So I have to continue campaigning. And let me share this with you also. I'm the only elected official in the state, if not the country, that has been saying over and over again, let's take money out of campaigning. I don't want to have to raise money. I don't want to call people.
Let's have the city say, here's $2 million after you qualify, and this is all you can spend on the race or whatever dollar amount. But having people call individuals to raise money, that is the wrong way if we want to take money out of politics. I don't want to have to raise money, and I've been successful in doing it. But I think it's time for us to turn the corner and take money completely out of politics.
McKay: I want to also just touch really briefly on, I think arguably one of your biggest accomplishments this term, and that's been the decline we're seeing in shootings. Record lows. And just recently you guys were touting that with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. But there are some other areas, like felony assaults, that maybe need a little bit more work on. What are you looking at, and how are you going to maybe tackle some of these other areas of crime?
Mayor Adams: Well, first, you know, I think that decreasing crime was important to me because I ran on that. But we have some other successes. I mean, think about it. No income tax for low-income New Yorkers. Dropped the cost of child care by 90 percent. Paying off medical debt, billions of dollars. We already did $80 million, and it keeps growing. What we're doing with NYCHA, free high-speed broadband, paying the college tuition of foster care children.
I mean, there's some huge successes. Dyslexia screening, so we don't have 30 percent of our inmates in jail because they have a learning disability. So when you look at what we've done in crime, subway system. This year, last month, was the lowest amount of crime in the recorded history on our subway system when you take out the two years of COVID.
So when you look at all of those areas, we know that we want to go further on the felony assaults. We know we've been having a nagging problem with rapes. But when you look at those major indicators, shootings and homicides, those are major indicators of how safe the city is. And we're the safest big city in America.
McKay: And President Donald Trump has hinted that he's potentially gonna do what he's doing right now in Washington, D.C. with the National Guard here in New York City because of the crime. What would you say to the president if you got a chance, and do you feel like you're in maybe a better position than some of your competitors to discuss this issue with the president?
Mayor Adams: Yeah, I'll never critique mayors across the country. This job, being a mayor, no matter how large a city is or how small it is, it is an enormous responsibility. But when you do an analysis of these high profile cases, I mean when someone drives across the country with an AR-15 and shoots and kills four innocent people, that strikes at the heart.
And the large incidents, it sort of gives the tendency that, okay, wait a minute, what's going on in these cities. But when you peel back the numbers and you look at what we have done from 2022 to now, clearly, if I were to speak with the president, I would just tell him three things. We got this. I mean, what we are doing, we train other cities, of the 23,000 illegal guns we removed off our streets, decrease in shoplifting, not like [what] other cities are experiencing.
You're not seeing disorder on our streets from encampments. And so my word is we have this under control. Now we can use help with the federal government, and I would speak with the president, our national leaders. We need your help [to] go after these semi-automatic and automatic weapons. That's what we need. We need help in making sure that we can coordinate when it comes down to dangerous gang members like we have been doing.
So there's a place for the federal government to help cities, but we don't need anyone to take over our Police Department. We have an excellent police commissioner, an excellent chief of patrol, my deputy mayor of Public Safety. We have crime under control here in the city.
McKay: Well, I could talk about this all day with you. So please come back very soon.
Mayor Adams: Yes, looking forward to it.
McKay: I really appreciate it, mayor. Thank you so much.
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