Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on Spectrum NY1's "Mornings on 1"

April 4, 2025

Pat Kiernan: NYPD and Mayor Adams have been celebrating this week with the latest crime statistics. Looking back at the last month and at the first quarter of the year, improvements in major categories, including significant declines in the number of murders, shootings, and shooting victims. These are first quarter statistics compared to the same period last year. 

Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch are with us this morning to talk about this. Good morning to both of you in an eventful week. Thank you for spending some time with us. Mayor Adams, I'd like to begin with you as we look at those crime numbers. That is part of what you will present to voters as a reason to look toward you for a second term in office.

Mayor Eric Adams: Well, it's so true, and I tell voters all the time, go to the items I ran on and then go look at what we have accomplished. Public safety was the foundation, it's the prerequisite to our prosperity, and the numbers are extremely impressive. We have witnessed, when we say a quarter, that's a three-month period to your viewers. We have witnessed five straight quarters of decreasing crime in this city, and we're seeing a success. A lot of the new initiative that the police commissioner has brought in is showing that continued success.

Kiernan: But Mr. Mayor, are the voters going to buy what you're selling now after all of the distractions of the past few months?

Mayor Adams: Listen, voters would tell you, and they tell me all the time, Eric, I have distracted the distractions in my life, but I have to still move forward, I have to have my children educated, I have to deal with the affordability. 

I think people underestimate how voters realize that things happen in life, and so you can't just reward yourself on what you have done, but what you have overcome. And that has been my life story throughout my entire life. I had to overcome dyslexia, I had to overcome living in poverty, I had to overcome almost being homeless. That is life, and they're seeing the strength and resiliency of their mayor. We have the lowest shootings this quarter in recorded history of this city.

Kiernan: Commissioner Tisch, you spoke about this yesterday, and one of the things that you believe has made a difference is just pure visibility of officers, especially on the subways. Tell me more about that strategy.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch: Absolutely. It's so important to find the pockets of crime, where the crime is occurring, and put our cops there. And that's been the strategy that we've been using both above ground and below ground, which is really delivering unbelievable results. 

Subway crime is below pre-pandemic levels. As the mayor said, our shootings are the lowest in recorded history. Murders second lowest. It's unbelievable results that the men and women of the New York City Police Department are delivering for New Yorkers under the mayor's leadership.

Kiernan: Commissioner, while I have you here, I do want to ask you about this incident that came out of the news yesterday, that the day before that, there had been a collision in Inwood that initially nobody knew why the vehicle had crashed, but it came out later that two officers had engaged in a chase and not reported that chase to their supervisors. Tell me about the suspension of those officers and what you have communicated to officers who might find themselves in a similar situation.

Police Commissioner Tisch: Those two officers were immediately suspended when the incident was brought to our attention. I believe that was on Wednesday. And the matter is currently under investigation by our force investigation division and is being reviewed by the attorney general's office.

Kiernan: Mayor Adams, I do want to get into some campaign related questions here with your announcement yesterday that you are not going to compete in the Democratic primary. You'd been asked about this by reporters in every way possible. When did you come to that decision that you'll go direct to the November election as an independent?

Mayor Adams: It was days away. We gathered over 25,000 signatures from New Yorkers. We were going to present our signatures. The team sat down and we thought this decision from the judge would have come sooner, but it didn't. You have to adjust. 

You know, running a campaign is a chess match, not a checkers match, and you must be willing to adjust. And once we saw how close the decision came, the team said, let's move to still a Democrat, running on an independent line, and we'll move and give us some time to move and speak with voters and then be ready for the November election.

Kiernan: So I'm a little confused by your statement, still a Democrat, because you're standing there at Gracie Mansion two days ago, waving the Kash Patel book, and you're taking a meeting with Sean Duffy, who has not been receptive to the messages in New York City. Are you a Democrat who is leaning to the right?

Mayor Adams: This is what is happening in politics. Stop being partisan. Find solutions wherever they are. Just as the governor went and sat down with the president several times, we didn't call her being a non-Democrat. 

We need to move from the election to executions for working class people. And I'm very clear on that. I've never moved away from that in over 40 years of public life. I'm not partisan. I am producing for the people of the city. That is how I got more jobs in the city and the city's history. That is how we're bringing down crime. 

That is how we are ensuring that we decrease unemployment. So when people want to push me into a partisan corner, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do what's best for the people of the City of New York. And Democrats, independents, and Republicans, conservatives are all New Yorkers, and I will represent all of them.

Kiernan: When you sit down with Sean Duffy this afternoon, will you tell him that congestion pricing has been working well and that it should stay in place? What will your message to him be?

Mayor Adams: Well, I'm going to show him the BQE. We're seeing erosive infrastructure. I'm going to talk about our success in the subway system that the commissioner just mentioned. I'm going to tell him we're going to keep analyzing congestion prices to make sure this is good for New Yorkers and what dollars we need and what we should do to make sure that we can ensure firefighters and police officers and TA workers, as they're doing their job, can get the support that they need. 

That's what I'm going to communicate with him. But I can't communicate with him if I just ball up my fists and say, I'm not going to speak with you because you're a Republican. No, I'm going to open my hand, extend it, and shake his hand and say, I want to produce for the city that I love.

Kiernan: Yeah, fair enough. We could use more of that in politics, that people are just talking to each other. But on congestion pricing specifically, are you still supportive of that?

Mayor Adams: I support the governor's initiative of implementing congestion pricing. And I said that before. I've [inaudible] of saying the governor has been a partner around these issues. And I support her call on how to implement congestion pricing. It's the governor and the MTA that must decide on congestion pricing and how it was done. And she has been fighting for it by going to Washington and sitting down with the president and speaking about it. And I spoke with her last night about it as well.

Kiernan: Mayor Adams, it is looking now like if the polls in the Democratic primary hold, it could be you up against Andrew Cuomo in the general election. How does that play out if that's the matchup in November?

Mayor Adams: Well, let's be clear. I'm running on my record. He's running from his record. He was the architect and part of the bail reform. We saw what he did in the nursing home situation. We saw the unfairness around COVID and not getting testing sites in communities of color. I'm not running from my record. I'm running on my record. And it is a darn good record when you look at it.

Kiernan: Mr. Mayor, the judge in dismissing your case earlier this week wrote this, everything here smacks of a bargain, dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions. Are you at this point free of the obligations that Tom Homan said that you had to him? Has this changed the situation with you being beholden to the Trump administration?

Mayor Adams: You know, just the mere shaping of that question is unfair. You covered me a long time. You know I don't do quid pro quos. I'm not under the bargaining of anyone. I think the two parts of that judge's ruling, that's important. Eric is innocent until proven guilty. And the indictment was dismissed with cause. That means it does not come back. Those are the words that are important. And now that's behind me. Now I'm going to do what I've done for 15 months. Look at since the indictment, we've dropped crime. We increased jobs. We passed City of Yes. We're seeing a mayor that no matter what has happened, the people of this city, they have been my north star and every morning I got up and I produced for them. That's the resiliency of a New Yorker and I am a New Yorker.

Kiernan: Commissioner Tisch, the mayor says it's time to move on and put this chapter behind him. How are you feeling going into the final few months of this first term administration?

Police Commissioner Tisch: Well, one thing the mayor didn't mention is that rat complaints are also down double digits, something that is near and dear to both of our hearts, but I will say that I have worked in city government for 17 years and the past three and a half years working for the mayor, both as sanitation commissioner and police commissioner, we have had the opportunity to do some of the most extraordinary things and it has been my pleasure and my honor to do that and I hope to keep doing it.

Kiernan: Thank you both for making some time for us this morning. We appreciate it. 

Mayor Adams: Alright, Pat, take care.

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