RaaShaun “DJ Envy” Casey: DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious. Charlamagne tha God. We are the Breakfast Club. Loren LoRosa is here as well. We got a special guest in the building.
Lenard “Charlamagne tha God” McKelvey: Yes, indeed.
Casey: The mayor of New York City, Mayor Eric Adams. Welcome.
Mayor Eric Adams: Good to be here. It's nice to be here and talk about the city.
Casey: How are you feeling, brother?
Mayor Adams: Good, you know, vibing. I took my hand off the steering wheel a long time. Let go, let God. And on my GPS, my God positioned satellite. Got me here. It's going to take me to the next level.
McKelvey: You know the question everybody keeps asking is, are you dropping out of the mayoral race?
Mayor Adams: And you know what, I answered that 101 times. And no matter how I answer it, they come back with the same. Seven weeks ago, when they first raised that, I had something at Gracie Mansion. I said, listen, I'm here to the end. They wrote that he's dropping out. They said, then he's going to Saudi Arabia. I said, no, I'm not. Then they wrote, I was going to be HUD. No, I'm not. I was going to meet Donald Trump at Yankee Stadium. No, I did not.
What people don't understand, when you run for mayor, one of the most important aspects of running for mayor is raising the money. People couldn't beat me at the polling site. And so they orchestrated and organized to really undermine my campaign. When you hear that the mayor's dropping out over and over again, your funders are gone. Now I'm in court with the Campaign Finance Board. They owe me $4 million. They don't want to give it to me. I spent $8 million the last time I ran. I'm down to now half of that now.
So they have undermined my ability to get my message out by making sure that they cut off all the ways I could raise money to get it done. So now, I'm in a point now where I'm meeting with my funders. They say, “Eric, they keep telling me you're dropping out.” So our goal is to finish this race, but we have to win this case that's in court right now to get our $4 million.
Casey: I do have a question. When you first came in office, it seemed like the city loved Mayor Adams, right? They loved you. Loved the fact that you were touching the people. You were outside. You were doing things that a lot of mayors wouldn't, like you were on 42nd Street giving away food. You were doing a lot for the city. You were popping up in Harlem, in Brooklyn, in Queens.
And then it became a turning point where people started to not like Mayor Adams or started to dislike. Why did that happen? Do you think it was an orchestrated thing? Why do you think people started?
Mayor Adams: That's a great question. Think about it for a moment. Where do people get their opinions from? They pick up the papers. They start reading the papers. And they start saying, OK, this is what's happening in the city. When I go to town halls, when I'm at 40 Projects, when I go out to Astoria, and I start sharing what we have done, people say, “What? I didn't know that.”
When I won mayor, here's the inner story that a lot of people don't know. When I won mayor, you can't win citywide in this city without winning what's called the New York Times belt. Upper West Side, Park Slope, Kew Gardens, Brooklyn Heights. I lost all of that. The everyday person in the street says, “This guy is one of us.”
And from day one, go look at how I was covered. People don't know I built more housing in the city than any mayor in the history of the city in my individual years. They don't know that low-income New Yorkers no longer pay income tax because of me. $19 billion in Black and minority-owned businesses that I put in. They don't know what I'm doing for foster care children, paying their college tuition, giving them life coaches until they're 21. They don't know what we're doing about homelessness, putting people into permanent housing. Nobody knows my story.
McKelvey: So, let me ask a question. If they don't know, then is it really getting done? Because the people should be the ones that's impacted by what you're doing. So why wouldn't they know?
Mayor Adams: Right. There's a couple of things. People who go through it knows it all the time. They write to me, they stop me in the street, they tell me about the housing they got, my universal after-school program, what we're doing about dyslexia. Folks on Rikers, I've been on Rikers Island more than any mayor in the history of the city, speaking with the inmates, giving them the services they need.
So those who are recipients of it, they know. But when you pick up the paper, the average day person that's sitting down reading, all they know is that, hey, this guy is out all the time partying. No, I revitalized our nightlife industry.
McKelvey: By yourself?
Mayor Adams: A multi-billion-dollar industry. Before I became mayor, they were closing down these industries where Black and brown people were opening their own businesses. They were closing them down. That stopped under me. I said, we're no longer going to go in and close down the heart and soul of how these businesses start and how they employ 100,000 people who are getting jobs through it.
So, what you do now during a campaign, you take your campaign money and you're able to go over the media and speak directly to people. I don't have the money.
McKelvey: You know, over the past weekend, you didn't attend any public events while a lot of your rivals were out campaigning. And people use that to fuel more speculation that you're preparing to drop out. So how do you respond to that?
Mayor Adams: Take the money, Charlamagne. No matter what I said, they did it anyway. We were sitting down behind the scenes, sitting down with funders, sitting down with the campaign team, figuring out our strategies to go. I could be out. I'm outside all the time, brother. You know, I could be outside running around the city all the time. But anyone that knows how to build their institutions knows there's a time for you to meet with your team and strategize what the next steps are. Just running around the city is not how you win a campaign.
And they don't have day jobs. I do. I still got a day job. I had the UN coming, a major security issue that we had to make sure was correct. I had the High Holidays. I had the Rosh Hashanah coming, making sure we dealt with threats. So I still have to run the city. It's not just about running around, shaking hands. I had a job to do and I got to build my strong campaign.
McKelvey: I give you credit for that because, you know, they were giving you flack for not being at the African-American Day Parade. But I've seen you at events like the Heaven Up in Harlem event that OG Daniel did. That wasn't like a scheduled thing. You were just there.
Mayor Adams: Right, right. And listen, there's never been a man in the history of the city that's been among the people like I have. You know, I'll drive through Brownsville and all of a sudden I see a closed barbershop or a closed hair salon. People sitting in the back smoking a cigar. I'm popping in there talking to them. How are you feeling on the ground, folks? What's happening on the ground? I can walk through any community in this city and you see from the Upper West Side to Harlem to Brooklyn. People see that, you know, Eric is among us and I've never stopped being among.
There's nothing special about me. You know, I've never come across that. Listen, I'm the mayor, I’m special. No, I'm the same dyslexic, South Jamaica, Queens, holding your sneakers, carboards in the bottom, the same person, brother. Same person. And they never had a man like me and they never want to see that man do it again.
What we did for Black and brown people in the city is amazing. Think about this for a moment. A lot of people don't realize this. So who are the victims of shootings in the city? Black and brown. Twenty three thousand illegal guns off the street. The lowest numbers of shootings and homicides. The first seven months of this year in the history of the city. Who is street homeless? Black and brown.
We removed thirty five hundred people off our streets into permanent housing, permanent housing. Who's in our Department of Education? Black and brown. You know, other ethnic groups are in, but predominantly black and brown. And we have improved education in our city. Outpaced the state in reading and math. Universal after school programs.
One hundred and fifty thousand children into Pre-K. Who was summer youth employment? Black and brown. Hundred thousand summer youth employment that we've done. Never been done before. So what I'm saying is when you pick apart my success and my policies, you have to say to yourself, this guy has gone after those who ignore for years.
Casey: I agree with you. But, you know, the thing that we talk about all the time is we hear all these numbers and stats, right?
And we talk about we hear about crime coming down. But a lot of times it doesn't feel like that. And maybe that's what we hear in the stories like, you know, I'm driving in today. A police officer punched in the face and knocked onto the train tracks and pulled out. You know, shooting here, shooting there, shooting it there. It doesn't feel as safe as the numbers would say it was. Why do you say that?
Mayor Adams: And that's a great question, brother. Think about this for a moment. 5.6 million people ride our subway every day. 5.6 million. We have five average of five felonies a day on our system. We're 5.6 million. I mean, those numbers are astronomical. And so when you city of 8.5 million people, when you take the worst thing that happens in that city that day and you plastered on the front pages, how are you going to fail?
People when I inherited the subway system, when I became mayor, no one wanted to be on the subway system. We put police officers on there. We went down to make sure we got people with severe mental health off our issues, off our system. We removed the encampments. People were living on the side of highways. They were living in boxes and tents on our streets. And so, no, people don't feel that way because it takes a lot of time before your perception viewed in reality. Sometimes people are living in the past of what they felt before.
Casey: We got more with Mayor Eric Adams when we come back. Don't move. It's the Breakfast Club.
[Commercial Break.]
Casey: Good morning. We're still kicking it with the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. Charlemagne.
McKelvey: So when you put more police presence on the subways, it bought the crime.
Mayor Adams: It was a combination of things we did when we did an analysis. We saw that a lot of people say we want the police walking through our trains. That's not where the crimes were happening. The crimes were happening on the platforms. And so when we did a combination, number one, put our visible presence on a platform, number two, going after those with severe mental health issues and giving them the care that they need, a thousand people we took off the streets. And so you're right, brother, when you say, okay, you're giving us the numbers.
But when you run a city, you have to run it based on indicators. You have to run it based on something to determine if you're moving in the right direction, because when bond rate is determined, are we going to tell people to invest in your city? We need to see these indicators. The bond raters raised my bond. They said this guy has gone through COVID two hundred thirty seven thousand migrants and asylum seekers, lawfare where they hit him with some bogus federal charges. Out of all of that, this guy has still moved the city forward. Unprecedented levels. You know, so the numbers don't lie. You know, I can say whatever I want.
But when you analyze, here's where the city was. Here's where the city is. We have more jobs in New York in the history of the city. I broke the record 11 times. Most small businesses in the history of the city. When I came into an office, Black unemployment was four times the rates of white unemployment. We dropped it by 20 percent in the Black and brown community.
We we turned this city around. Now, when people are [] off, look who I did it with. First Black woman to be a first deputy mayor. First Black woman police commissioner. A first Hispanic male to run the Department of Correction. First Black to be a chief advisor. First Dominican in the history of the city to be a deputy mayor. First Filipina to be a deputy mayor. First Indian to be a deputy mayor. I changed the landscape of the city.
Casey: Do you feel like that's the way that's the reason why you're being attacked so much because you've done so much? I think so many minorities on what?
Mayor Adams: No, I think it's a combination. Someone told me one time they said, “Listen, you don't have enough gray hair, white men around you.” You looked at my administration, brother. My administration looked like us. And so what do they do? They say, you know what? Let's start just tackling him and his community.
It's the same thing that happened with David Dinkins. Go back and look at the stories of David Dinkins and see how they had the community start saying, “Well, you know, David Dinkins is always dressing up in a suit. He's not, you know, he's not one of us anymore.” And they eroded his base of support. So our folks just stayed home. They just did it just enough to have him have our folks stay home.
This is, you know, I'm the second Black mayor in over 30 years. We have not had a Black mayor in 30 years. And I learned from David, Mayor Dinkins who tutored me and told me. And I said, I'm going to go in with a clear agenda of how do we help those who have been underserved for years? And we did it. The record is clear.
McKelvey: But a lot of your criticism comes from Black people.
Mayor Adams: Yeah. But why? Tell me, tell me why Charlamagne. Where do they get their opinions from? I think we're underestimating the power of the media in this city. Where do they get their opinions from?
McKelvey: You think you think it's white media shaping narratives negatively about you?
Mayor Adams: Well, no. I don't think, you know, you can't say only the white media.
McKelvey: Just media, in general.
Mayor Adams: Right. Look across the country. Look across the country. Look at the Black mayors across the country and look at what they're doing. They’re bringing down crime across the country.
McKelvey: And I give you credit, too. You were the first person that at least put that on my radar. Last time you were here, you said there was an attack on Black mayors.
Mayor Adams: On Black mayors. So look under the previous administration, a lot of people want to talk about it. Under the previous administration, the migrants and asylum seekers went to Chicago, went to Los Angeles, went to Houston, went to New York. What was what was the same in all of those cities? They were all Black mayors.
And check this out. This is the thing that a lot of people don't realize. They say, “Okay, Eric, the migrants and asylum seeker issue is over. Everything is fine.” No, it's not. It cost us $7.2 billion.
That is $7.2 billion that I could not put into $500 million into chronically absent children, a billion dollars into senior housing, $500 million into more programs for our youth formerly incarcerated. That money is going to have a long term impact on our city. We're going to see the byproduct of what that previous administration did to us. We’re going to see the byproduct of that for years to come.
McKelvey: A lot of that is the Democratic messaging’s fault because, you know, you created sanctuary cities and you said that those people were welcome here. So what a lot of those Republican governors did was put those people on planes and buses and send them to those so-called sanctuary cities. And then when y'all got overwhelmed, y'all was like, “Whoa, this isn’t what we want.”
Mayor Adams: Let me give you my version of it. Let's understand what sanctuary city is, because a lot of people conflate sanctuary cities. What we say is sanctuary cities is, when somebody buys this bottle of water, they pay taxes on this bottle of water. Those taxes allow you services.
So if your child needs to be educated, they should be allowed to go to school. If you're a victim of a crime, you should be allowed to call the police. If you need medical care, you should be allowed to go to the hospital because you're paying taxes. You don't walk into a grocery store and someone say you're undocumented. So I'm not going to give you the tax. No, you are allowed to get those taxes.
When we tell people, if you come here, we're going to treat you with respect. We want to make sure you get the services that your tax dollars are paying for. And we're going to make sure you're treated with dignity and respect. It was a federal government responsibility to seal the border.
So, people can say what they want about the current administration. When they seal the border, we stop getting a flow. I was getting 4,000 a week and federal. The federal law said you can't stop the buses from coming in. Eric, you can't even allow them to work. You can't even allow them to volunteer and give them a stipend. And the city law said you're going to feed, house, clothe and educate the children.
So, I'm following the law when they came into the city. I don't control who comes into this country, but I have to make sure while you're here, your children are in school. If not, they're going to be the victims of abuse by staying home. I got to make sure if you need medical care, you can go to the hospital. If not, you're going to overrun my emergency room. And people will prey on you, knowing that you can't call the police if you're a victim of a crime.
So it wasn't that we said, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was always saying, well, control your control of borders. Don't put this on cities. The cities are having to fulfill the obligations of the federal government. And in spite of that, we moved the city forward. The people will tell you, you know what, that guy did move the city. The guy did turn around the city. The guy did improve unemployment, improve housing. Had the city safe. We got it, we got it. You know, but you know what? He's too close to Trump.
But nobody tells you. I took this administration to court, more than any mayor in the country. They sued me, you know, more than any mayor. And when we needed the administration, we were able to call them to get the things done. So it's not like I'm not under anyone's thumb. I'm running my city. I'm fighting for my city.
[Commercial break.]
Casey: We're still kicking it with the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. There's things that always pop up in the press that make you look a certain way, even if it's not right. So that's why I love that you're here. So one of the biggest thing was when Donald Trump, they dismissed your federal corruption charges, right? And they did it without prejudice because they said they leave it open that they can file charges later on, right?
And the press put it as, well, that makes him, excuse my French “Donald Trump's puppet.” Well, you know, he can be used any which way. What do you say to those people in that media, people that really believe that you're lining up with Trump and that might not be what people align to, especially in this election?
Mayor Adams: So think about this one moment. It was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can't come back. It was dismissed with prejudice.
Casey: Oh, they said without prejudice.
Mayor Adams: No, that's what they wanted. But the judge said it's dismissed with prejudice. So, many people never read my indictment. And I keep saying that over and over. People need to read the indictment. I was indicted for calling the Fire Department and asking them to do a building inspection. And all the text messages are there. I said, if you can't do it, let me know and I'll manage their expectations. This is done every day.
They took that and said, “Well, you know what? You got free upgrades. You paid for your flights, but you got upgrades when you flew.” Flying as the borough president, I was allowed to get upgrades. They said you got free upgrades, which was not a gift. They said “We're going to tie that and say it was a bribery. It was bribery.” And so I'm facing 33 years in prison for this, you know?
And so people say, well, if you didn't do anything wrong, why would they come at you? Ask Brian Benjamin. I think all your callers should Google Brian Benjamin. Highest ranking Black in the state. They indicted him also. The judge dismissed his charges also when he looked at that. They saw how bogus it was.
Biden said the Justice Department was politicized when he pardoned his son. You know, Trump said it. So the president on the campaign trail, I never knew the president. I never met the president. He was on the campaign trail saying, “Look at what they're doing to that mayor in New York, you know. That's wrong with the mayor in New York.” So when he got in, he told his Justice Department, “You need to look at that case.”
When they looked at the case and they saw some of the emails and text messages that the prosecutors were doing, they said, “We're going to dismiss this case.” That's part of the justice system. The DOJ, the DOJ, they do it all the time. This is not new. This was not special for Eric. They do it all the time. They look at cases and they make a determination of do we want to proceed forward? That was the determination they made.
And my attorney sat down and said, look at this case, folks and what they're doing to this mayor. They got pissed off because I was not a good Democrat and I started voicing this is wrong, what you’re doing to our city, that this is costing us too much money. This is hurting our folks. They basically said, “You need to be a good Democrat.”
McKelvey: They put you in your place.
Mayor Adams: There you go.
McKelvey: So you're pulling in fourth place right now. What makes you think you can still win?
Mayor Adams: As I stated, where was Mamdani? What was Zohran this distance out from the race?
McKelvey: He was polling at one percent.
Mayor Adams: No, Andrew was beating him by 20 something percent.
McKelvey: Oh, in the primary.
Mayor Adams: Yeah. In the primary. And during the primary, the day before the primary, there was a poll out. Andrew was up by 12 percent the day before the primary. He lost by [13] percent. And so what I must do in these campaigns, because I've done it before. Remember, the only one that's running for mayor that has ever won mayor is me. I beat an impressive field the last time. Andrew Yang was beating me by 14 points.
What I must do is I need my money. I have to be able to have folks come home, open up their mail and see my story. I have to be able to have my field team on the street that I have to pay for and my volunteers so they can talk about my story. I need to be able to do my radio ad. All the things that go with telling your story. Right now, I'm dependent on my print media to tell my story, which they made clear they're not going to tell my story.
McKelvey: And your social media, which is terrible, by the way. I don't know who the hell is on your social media.
Loren LoRosa: They do go and get ready with me.
Mayor Adams: I’m sorry.
LoRosa: There was a video that was going viral of you, like getting ready to go out to like an event or something like that. And I mean, I think it gets younger people wondering who you are and why you're doing it, but it just doesn't add well to the conversation. Yeah, it just doesn't add well to the conversation. I've always wondered what's the strategy behind that? Like, why do you do that?
Mayor Adams: Yeah. And this is very interesting that, you know, I'm not a social media expert. I don't know. I'm the first to tell you I know nothing about social media. But a lot of people are talking about the role of young people in the election. The only consistent voter in the city are 55+ older people. They're consistent.
Everybody thought that young people were the ones who got Obama elected. You see the more and more engagement of young people. But Obama was, you know, Obama got 65 percent of the young people vote, but it was only 18 percent of the total vote. Your grandmother and your mom, they are the ones that come out all the time and they're not on X. They are on probably Facebook and they still get that old fashioned television ad mailing, et cetera. And that's who we want to focus on.
McKelvey: So with that said, why do you be doing those ridiculous videos on social media?
Mayor Adams: Listen, like I said, I don't know social media, brother. We have a team of folks that we put on. They create what the social media is. I don't know it. I know what I know and I know what I don't know, you know, and I would love to, you know, you want to come on board.
McKelvey: I think you just stream because you'd be outside. But the narrative is, if you stay in the race, then you and Cuomo will be taking votes away from each other. And that'll make it easier for Mamdani to win.
Mayor Adams: So let's look at the facts of that. The ballot is the ballot right now. You can't change the ballot, you know, so no matter what happens, you can't change the ballot. There's going to be five people or even one of the candidates, Jim Walden, tried to get off. The court said, no, you can't. So the ballot is the ballot.
What people need to focus on and ask themselves is what direction do they want the city to go? That's what we have to ask ourselves. We've come so far. Do we want to go back? Do they want people who want to destabilize our local supermarkets by saying you’re having government run supermarkets? I've been to Venezuela and Cuba. I don't want those types of supermarkets here.
And I don't want to hurt my bodegas, my Dominicans, my Koreans, my Chinese supermarkets. Do you want to legalize prostitution in our city and go back to people standing on our street corner?
McKelvey: Diddy says, yes.
Casey: No, shut up, man.
McKelvey: Diddy says, yes. Diddy [inaudible] prostitution legalized.
[Crosstalk.]
Mayor Adams: So it's just a quality of life. You know who hurts the most from our communities? Our communities can't hire private security. Our communities can't go into making sure that some homeless person is not defecating on the street corners or sitting in their schoolyard. Our communities will be impacted by these policies that idealism collides with realism.
McKelvey: What is Mamdani doing better than you?
Mayor Adams: Selling a lie, you know, selling the lies, you know. He was an assemblyman for four years. He missed 50 percent of his votes. Like, where's his record? The reason you're able to critique me is because I have a record of over 40 years, over 40 years of doing this. You can't critique him, you know, and he's just selling the lies.
When he was asked the other day, what is your policy on decriminalization, decriminalized prostitution? “I haven't figured it out yet.” He's going to sell a lie until he gets into office. If he were to win. So the reason you could sit me on this show and say, “Okay, here's what you've done.” You know, you can't do that with him. You don't know who we don't know who we have. You know, we have a person that's a good actor, good communicator and knows how to tell people whatever they want to hear to get elected.
Casey: Alright. Well, ladies and gentlemen, Mayor Eric Adams, we appreciate you for joining us. Thank you so much
McKelvey: How do you donate to your campaign?
Mayor Adams: Eric Adams, 2025. Make a donation to make sure I can communicate with you.
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