Transcript: Mayor Adams Holds In-Person Media Availability

March 17, 2025

Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEWbCDbs364

Mayor Eric Adams: Good afternoon. It is great seeing some of you, and– Where's everyone? At the parade? This place is…That's right, Mondays. I forgot you do, you know, breaks. Good to be here. And good to– [Crosstalk.] Okay.

You know, making New York the best place to raise a family. We say that over and over again, and we're excited about some of the things we're doing. Again, for tenth time, we broke the job records, the largest number of jobs in the history of this city. And when you add that with the decrease in unemployment among Black and Hispanic communities in general, specifically, but in general, all demographics have witnessed a decrease.

The Department of Labor released new and revised data that shows, once again, we broke the job records. Over 4,861,000 jobs in the city, more jobs at any point in the city's history, including, and that number's an all-time high, private sector job record as well, you know, with 4.2 million jobs. And hats off to the entire team, our going out and doing hiring halls, reaching out to people who have long-term unemployment, and just really improving in those numbers.

And New York population has grown to almost 8.5 million, so I can no longer say 8.3 million with 35 million opinions. I gotta increase that number, because we're now up to close to 8.5 million, and we're excited about that. I mean, young people, families, job seekers, all want to be here in New York. We're one of the top destinations for college grads with our tech industry that we're growing here, and we're going to continue to do that.

Public safety, that's a prerequisite to our prosperity. I want to thank Commissioner Tucker, what he's doing about fire prevention year, and he's just continued to show how we need to zero in on those areas where we're having historical problems with fire. This year is the 100th anniversary of National Fire Prevention Week, and to celebrate, the FDNY will be increasing their already robust education efforts. Additionally, they have released community risk assessments for all 59 community boards in the city, providing a detailed analysis of each, each neighborhood's emergency preparedness and vulnerability to fire incidents.

And really, the key message for every New Yorker, install and maintain a smoke detector and a carbon monoxide detector. It helps to early detection of a fire, and you should have an escape plan. Don't take it for granted. Have an escape plan how to get out of your house if there is a fire. FDNY ongoing fire and life safety education efforts have already made a significant impact, driving down fire deaths by 24 percent in 2024, and reducing fire deaths caused by lithium-ion batteries by 67 percent. We really led the way on the lithium-ion battery initiative.

And today, I was really pleased to join with the president of the union as we stood with the recruits, the incoming probies, as they carried 343 flags to remember every member of the department who was killed on September 11th. And that number continued to increase by those who are finding themselves dealing with 9/11-related illnesses and the numbers of those who have died since 9/11 from those illnesses. So it's always keeping our hearts out to those who were impacted by 9/11.

And finally, affordability. Some of you were out to cover the good news, the announcement that we did at Woodhull Hospital, or New York City Health and Hospital, new housing right on the ground, making sure that individuals could get the housing they need. I thought it was a powerful story by Elvis, who was there, one of the recipients of the housing. He talked about how he found himself in a homeless state. We often think people are born into this state, but no, things happen in one's life that can cause you to have to deal with this.

And I just wanna, and this is the finally, finally, finally of this week is Mental Health Week. And we will be sharing the many ways our administration is helping New Yorkers to deal with mental health. And today, we released the 2024 Behavioral Health Annual Progress Report. And so it will make some good reading. And I know you guys like to read all of our good reports, so feel free to do so. Why don't we open up to a few questions.

[Crosstalk.]

Question: Mr. Mayor, I have two questions. First question, did you meet with Tom Homan again? And is the New York City Department of Corrections gonna honor the request to release the migrant who allegedly burned a woman alive in a New York City subway station? That's my first question.

Mayor Adams: The first, no. The team is going to continue to work with all of our law enforcement agencies, including ICE, to deal with dangerous individuals who are committing crimes like the one you just mentioned. And that person is still going through the criminal justice process. And detainees, the detainee holds, is for holding people longer than their release date. This person doesn't have a release date. He's still incarcerated. And so I shared a frustration from the HSI secretary that dangerous people like this needs to be held accountable, and they should be held accountable, and he's going through our criminal justice system.

Question: Okay, and the second question, Mr. Mayor. There recently have been tragic fires, and during those fires we learned that there's many people who are parking on the hydrants that they shouldn't be doing, of course.

But do you think this may be a side effect of just that there is absolutely no parking space in some of these boroughs, and these people, after driving for hours at night to just go home, are just parking on fire hydrants? Although no excuse, I'm just wondering if you thought that this may be the reason, because this is what I'm hearing sometimes.

Mayor Adams: No, no, and we should never give anyone an excuse for parking on a hydrant. Hydrants, having access to the hydrants allow the firefighters to save lives. And if you open the door and say, okay, you can't find parking, so you should be able to park on a hydrant, no, that's not acceptable. You can't park on a hydrant.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Good, two questions. The first one is about a story that my colleague wrote about the city removed 3,500 people in homeless encampments. Only 114 went into shelter. No one was placed in permanent housing. I wanted you to talk about, that seems like pretty dismal outcomes.

And then secondly, I wanted you to talk about your opponent, Andrew Cuomo. He's repeatedly said the city is in crisis, and he said New Yorkers can feel it. At one point he said, you don't need to look at a report. You don't need to look at statistics. But the crime stats are showing, as you've repeatedly said, that most crime categories is showing that crime is falling.

But at the same time, you yourself have talked about feelings versus facts. I'd be interested in asking you whether you feel feelings are more important than the statistics, or are they equally important? Do you regret maybe giving in so much to the way people feel versus what the numbers are showing?

Mayor Adams: First, I don't know why you say I gave in to the way they feel. Perception is reality to many people. And I think that's very important, that you never just dismiss how people are feeling. I think that's wrong to do. I used to have this uncle, I used to say he must have been eight feet tall, and he would shake my hand and he'll squeeze it. And I would say, "Uncle Elliot, you're hurting my hand". He said, "Boy, that doesn't hurt you." I'm like, why are you gonna tell me what I'm feeling? And so I would never dismiss New Yorkers, but I can see why the former governor don't wanna look at reports, because you have to look at the reports of what he did when he was governor.

To Tier 6, the laws he passed that made some of our streets unsafe, what was done around mental health, there's a whole lot of things that you can look at. And so it's best to say, don't even look at reports. No, I said look at reports, because reports, if you use your report to write your stories, that tells us where we're moving forward. And so those numbers are significant of what we've done, over 20,000 illegal guns, we moved up our streets, almost 80,000 illegal vehicles moved up our streets.

And so there's been some real success in what we've accomplished in this city. And what I tell the commissioner team all the time, we have to play a major role on making people feel safe as well. And it's interesting, what does that [mean]? Like just interacting with the public. They walk inside the subway station, hey, how are you, sir? How are you, ma'am? Is everything all right? Making that announcement. We have a police officer on board. We put a cop on every train during the overnight hours. And so there's some real successful things that we are doing and what we accomplished. And we're gonna continue to do that.

Now with the homelessness, it really blows my mind that people don't see the difference between our city and other cities. We don't have those shanty towns over our cities. I remember when I came into office, people were sleeping in the subway system, under stairs, inside the tunnels, along the highways. When I drive around the city now, it was not difficult for me to find when people were sleeping all over the place. I can't find them now. When I do my late night ride around to try to catch, are we doing our job?

And so if people don't see the success we've had and not having our cities look like other cities, people cooking on the sidewalk, using the sidewalks as bathrooms, all of these things that were being done in encampments and tents, we've done a great job, that the team has done an amazing job in bringing back normality.

Now, the report that is used by the City Council is not fairly accounting for what happens. They're saying, did the person take shelter immediately after you took down their encampment? That's just not the reality. Anyone who has done this work would tell you it takes a while to build up their trust. Sometimes people do the next day. Sometimes people get to notice that it was going to come down and they go get the help and they go into shelter.

We took 8,000 people off our subway system that was sleeping and using our subway system as a place of reference. And so when you look at the investment, $650 million we're going to invest, we should be patting ourselves on the back. I go to these other cities and you can just Google these other cities. You don't have it here in New York.

And so we're proud of what we have done and we've done it in a humane way. There's nothing that is dignified about sleeping on the streets. I've said that before and I'm going to continue to say it. And some of the people who are critiquing this, they were pushing back on us when we did our initiative to get people off our streets. And so that's all part of the noise. We know how good this job has been.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: I'm doing well, thank you. Two questions. I wanted to ask first, there's a lot of anxiety right now among teachers and school leaders that the Trump administration may cut funding to New York City schools. As I'm sure you know, they currently receive about two billion from the federal government. That's about 5 percent of the school system's budget. Do you have concerns about that? How does that impact how you're approaching the budget process for next fiscal year?

And also, second question, have you settled on your next first deputy mayor appointment? When should we expect an announcement?

Mayor Adams: Yes, yes, yes. We have, and I want to thank acting interim first Deputy Mayor, Camille Joseph-Varlack, for just willing to step up and do the job. That's all, that's all. You know, I gotta take my hat off to her. She's just like, where do I [] do the job? What needs to be done? And we have an incoming, we're doing vetting now, and when it's ready to announce, we will announce it.

The apprehension that teachers are receiving, listen, we've always been able to address whatever happens in Washington D.C. to ensure our children are at the top of the list and getting what they need to be educated. And that includes with our summer youth, Summer Rising Program, our Summer Youth Employment Program, our Pre-K, our 3K. We've always stepped up. The real apprehension is not in what may happen. The real apprehension is what happened.

$7 billion from the previous administration. And all of these people who are saying, why aren't we criticizing this president now? Why weren't they criticizing the Democratic president who saw $7 billion leave our city? No one was critiquing. No one was arguing. I was the lone voice of arguing about this. And so we're gonna manage the budget based on what we have in front of us, and we're gonna land a plane, like we've always said. I say this every year. We're gonna land a plane. Everybody tells me it's not going to happen. We do it every year, and we're gonna do it this year.

How you doing?

Question: Good, how are you, sir?

Mayor Adams: Happy to see you.

Question: Good, good, same to you. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: You see I'm rocking my green, right?

Question: I like that. City Council in February, passed legislation basically creating a program for free bins, the mandatory bin program. Some homeowners will be able to get those bins free now. What is your position on that legislation, and when will your administration implement a similar program?

Mayor Adams: Well, sometimes the council is like the person that's that spouse. He spends, spends, spends, spends, spends. We don't have an endless pocket. It's easy to say, let's just spend, let's just spend. We would love that. We would love to just spend whatever we can spend, but we were able to have record numbers of reserves.

We were able to get bond raters to increase our bond and then dig down into it, double down into it, because we were fiscally responsible. We would love to give the bins out free to everyone, but everything comes with a price tag, and so this is the budget negotiation season, and we would sit down and figure out how to do it correctly, and some people don't need us to buy them bins.

Some people could afford to buy their bin. I bought my bins, so the goal is to see what the best we can do for working class people in the city. We put $30 billion back in the pockets of working class people and finding creative ways to do so, and we're gonna continue to do so, so this is the budget process. We would sit down and negotiate the budget.

Question: Hi Mayor Adams

Mayor Adams: What's going on, Katie?

Question: Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Question: I wanted to ask you about the Wollman Rink bid. My colleague Greg Smith wrote a story this weekend about it. Why would your administration turn down a $120 million gift from the Central Park Conservancy to operate this rink in favor of considering a bid from the Trump Organization, which has been convicted of both civil and criminal fraud, and I'm just curious, don't those convictions automatically preclude the Trump Organization from even getting involved in the bid process?

Mayor Adams: You know, the way your colleague wrote the story, a little journalistic creativity. Journalistic integrity. Listen, he incorrectly wrote the story. Okay, let's be honest there. This bid, RFP, was put out long before the president was the president, so let's be honest about that. I have nothing to do with that. Let's be honest about that. Let's be honest about that, anyone could put in for the RFP. So we should be honest about that.

So, CCP can put in for the RFP. An independent body looks at it and determines what's the best deal for the city. Now, I would be concerned if someone came along and said that… I would be concerned if someone came along and said that, hey, we did a backroom deal and let Central Park Conservancy give us X number of dollars and we gave it to them and bypassed the process. Then, you'd be writing about it. You'd be saying, Eric, you went around the process.

RFP, anyone could put in for it. And when you have two elected officials that are saying don't give someone an RFP because they are not part of our, whatever terminology they use, think about that. That is just not how this is done. Politics should not determine policies and what's best for our city, for New York. So, when I read the story, the first thing I thought about, I thought about you, because you use the term, the word lie all the time when people lie on something. So, I said that, you know what? I hope you're talking to your colleague and telling him, stop lying.

Question: So, you're back to reading the news. That's good, [inaudible]. But I'm curious, why did your press office, he asked multiple times for requests for comment. They didn't comment. You could have said, this is the RFP process, this is the process of the bid. So, just so you know, you can't ignore us. We're still gonna publish a story. You can call us liars. I stand by my colleague in the reporting.

[Crosstalk.]

Question: Hi, Mayor. I know your green is for St. Paddy's Day, so respect there, but I gotta ask you about the green, because all the other candidates running for mayor are reporting their financing. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about how much money you've raised and, if related, if you think it's unfair at this point for the Campaign Finance Board to be withholding your matching funds, with your case seeming to be any day now on the verge of being dropped. And that was the one thing they cited as sort of the holdup here. So, is that fair that they're holding you up now? And can you tell us anything about what you've fundraised?

Mayor Adams: Everyone is catching up to me. You know, everyone is catching up to me. I started raising early and I was pleased with the team. So, they're catching up to me. Not only are they catching up to me on fundraising, they're catching up to me on policies. You know, how do you have defund Brad Lander, defund the police Brad Lander, now saying you wanna keep my police commissioner? I keep asking y'all, look at their policies. All of their policies are Eric Adams policies. You know, these are Eric-like candidates. Don't go with Eric-like people when you've got Eric, you know?

And so, we're gonna do what we have to do. You know, this is like that ice cube show where the kids in the cars keep saying, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? You know, this is a long ride. This is gonna change so much during the next couple of months. You're going to be shocked how much this is going to change. And so, I'm just not gonna keep answering, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? No, just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Question: What about on the Campaign Finance Board question?

Mayor Adams: My compliance counsel is looking at all of our options to get the justice that we deserve.

Question: Eric Umansky from ProPublica. I published a story last week on an NYPD unit that you've supported called Community Response Team. One of the things we detailed was the aggressiveness of the units, including an instance in 2023 when a motorcyclist named Sammy Williams was hit by an NYPD driver, driven into on purpose, and we have video of that. Do you have any concerns about the aggressiveness of that unit? And I'll also note that Commissioner Tisch gave comments last week at a City Council hearing, suggesting that the NYPD was going to move away from the unit. I'm wondering whether you have any thoughts on that as well.

Mayor Adams: No, thank you. I don't know what the suggestion is, CRT is here. When you look at the number of actions that they've done, removing guns off our streets, and I support all of my units, and they're gonna all stand up and do the job the way they're supposed to do. And those who don't will be held accountable. And that's the foundation of it all.

Question: So, real fast, I'd like to circle back on the question you got earlier. If you met with Tom Homan last week, was there like a phone call? Was there any sort of conversation you had with him? And then second, there was a report that came out Friday that said you're considering running as an independent. Wondering if that was something you're considering right now?

Mayor Adams: We did not meet last week. I look forward to continuing to speak with the border czar, HSI, all of our partners, part of HITDA. You know, I said this last week, and I'm going to say it again. ICE is a law enforcement entity. And I don't know why we all of a sudden believe, because of our political beliefs, that we are to ignore a law enforcement entity. I'm not. I'm not going to ignore any law enforcement entity that's going to help me take dangerous people off the streets.

We don't deal with civil enforcement. It's clear the law says we can't. But in the areas that I could partner and coordinate with ICE, I'm going to do so. I'm taking dangerous people off our streets. And you know what? 80 percent of New Yorkers agree with me. And so we did not speak last week. But at any time, the border czar would like to speak with me. I'm open to speak with him and communicate with him. What was your second?

Question: If you're considering running as an independent?

Mayor Adams: When I'm ready to roll out my official re-announcement and my plan, I will do so. And you, I'm going to make sure all of you are invited to it. You can stand in the back with me if you want, and just be part of my support group, like others who support. But when that comes, I will do so.

Question: I wanted to ask you, over the weekend, yesterday, Rodneyse Bichotte, one of your closest allies and supporters, endorsed Andrew Cuomo. But you've said in the past that you felt like the Democratic Party abandoned you. I'm wondering, do you feel like the Brooklyn Democratic Party now has abandoned you in your re-election bid?

And then, it's interesting you mentioned about law enforcement and immigration. I wanted to ask you, the Trump administration right now has invoked the Alien Enemies Act that allows the president to detain and remove foreigners that they believe will be dangerous to the country. Would you comply if the president did something like that here in New York City that would take your, quote-unquote, dangerous individuals off the streets?

Mayor Adams: First, I didn't say the Democratic Party abandoned me. I said the Democratic Party left me, like many other working class people. I believe some of the policies and thought processes, like 80 percent of New Yorkers believe, that dangerous migrants and asylum seekers should be deported after they're convicted and served their time. And those are the types of things that are important.

Listen, Rodneyse and I speak on the regular, love her dearly, she is a very dear friend, and you don't take any of this personal. Politics is not personal. That was something that Mayor Bloomberg said, when we were talking once. None of this is personal. People are doing what they believe is the best equation for them. And we keep it moving. We move forward. And you don't personalize this stuff. Your question about the...

Question: The Alien Enemies Act.

Mayor Adams: Yeah, listen, I'm gonna say this again, and this is the last time I'm gonna say it. Federal government deals with immigration, folks, not me. Federal government deals with immigration. So you can go in the White House briefing room, and you could ask any deportation, immigration, any of those questions. Federal government deals with immigration. I don't, as the mayor.

Question: I'm wondering, given, if you were to run as an independent, would you be concerned that that would maybe make way for someone really far left to come into the spectrum because of, or have a better chance of winning because it would split votes on either side, but obviously...

Mayor Adams: New Yorkers, be careful what you ask for. I know how well we have done, and I know how well we're going to continue to do for the next five years.

Question: Following back up on Henry's question from before regarding your fundraising, I mean, just hoping you could give us a little snapshot because nothing's hit the CFB site yet. I haven't heard from Vito Pitta, but we reached out to him.

And then separately, last week, at least one hotel housing migrants was subpoenaed by the federal government, and there have been calls from some of your rivals that your administration should be legally supporting these hotels. How do you feel about that, considering the city has contracted these hotels to shelter migrants?

Mayor Adams: CFB announces contributions, but again, they're catching up to me. I keep saying that over and over again. We were finished with all of our fundraising, so everybody's catching up to me, not only in fundraising, but in policies. And we do the job we're supposed to do when it comes down to housing migrants, and anything other than that goes beyond our span of control. We don't get into federal investigations.

Question: Just to tap on a question that was asked earlier.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: Cuomo picked up the endorsement earlier this, well, this weekend for the Brooklyn Democratic leader. She's someone who's supported you in the past, and she's not the first to jump ship. What is your reaction to that, and how does that affect you running for or seeking re-election?

Mayor Adams: No, no reaction. I don't, again, none of this is personal. She's one of my dearest friends, and she was extremely supportive of me for these last 15 months. I can't even tell you just how supportive she has been, reaching out to me, caring about my well-being, asking how's my son doing. My relationship with Rodneyse is not political, it's personal. And she is among one of my dearest friends. And so when she makes decisions, that doesn't bother me.

The name of the game is, I always say this, I'm not running against candidates. I'm running against myself. And there's only going to be one person that's gonna come through the primary. All those eight, nine, 10 people, I forgot, what's the numbers now, Katie? Nine people. They're all running around, calling me names, and all of that. I'm focused on one thing, focused on running the City of New York. And I can't get into the political stuff like this, but in the next few days, I'm gonna be out in the street, you could ask me all these political questions you want. Yes, you can.

Question: If you do lose the Democratic primary, again, pardon, asking again, will you run as an independent?

Mayor Adams: Hypotheticals is not what I'm answering.

Question: So, Mayor Adams, you've answered a lot of the questions already today, but I wanted to touch on Mental Health Week. You know, you rolled out this initiative the [inaudible] services last year. Could you update New Yorkers on some of the strides you have made so far?

Mayor Adams: On which particular one? We've done amazing things with our children, with Teenspace. I'm really surprised, I'm really pleased about the numbers of how many young people, particularly teens of color, you know, are logging on. There's a lot of stigma that is in communities of color when it comes down to getting mental health assistance. And so we have been extremely successful in that area. And today we released a 2024 Behavioral Health Annual Progress Report. I'm really, I would encourage everyone to take a look at that.

In year one, we have added hundreds of additional psychiatric beds. After COVID-19, we lost so many beds and many people were not getting the care that they deserve. We renovated behavioral health's units, improved training for social workers, trained health and hospital staff. We put in our subway system two great initiatives. SCOUT, where we go down into the subway system, partner with law enforcement and other mental health professionals. And we invested in mental health clinics, providing free therapy to students, giving families the support they need and helping connect those with severe mental health illness with vital health services.

And so we've been hands-on on this. This has been a big issue. I saw this day one when I came into office, you know, going back, closing the psychiatric institutions without giving people a landing place has caused severe problems on our streets and people are now living on the streets because of that. And so we have over, you know, going back to the Teenspace, we have 16,000 of our young people that signed up for that.

But not only that, what I believe is one of the greatest impacts, J.R., to the mental health crisis is what's happening on social media. The numbers are clear, suicide ideations, depression, how this has impacted our young people that we announced, one of the first big cities in the country, we announced a lawsuit to go after that. And so there's a host of things, but if you look at that report, I think you can see a lot of the stuff that we've done.

Question: So my question is, does the city have a plan if the pro-Palestinian protests block roads, bridges or interrupts events?

Mayor Adams: A plan to do what again?

Question: If the pro-Palestinian protests end up like blocking roads or bridges or disrupts events, just what the city is planning?

Mayor Adams: They're not allowed to. And we're gonna do what we would do with any protest. Peaceful protest is allowed in the city. We believe in that. And we've had thousands of peaceful protests. But when you start to block roads and bridges and emergency vehicles from taking care of other New Yorkers, that's not acceptable. And we're not gonna allow that to happen. And we're gonna take the appropriate actions whenever that takes place. Okay.