Transcript: Mayor Adams Holds Media Briefing Ahead of House Judiciary Field Hearing

April 17, 2023

Watch the video here at https://youtu.be/h3vWGDSKfwU

Congressman Jerry Nadler: Thank you all for coming. And I want to thank Mayor Adams and our gun violence prevention advocates for joining us here today. In a few minutes, the House Judiciary Committee will convene what the chairman calls a field hearing.

It may have some of the trappings of a hearing. We will have opening statements and witnesses and the members who will ask questions, but don't be fooled, this is not a serious exercise. This is a political stunt.

I was the chairman of the committee for four years and I took that solemn responsibility seriously. I know what a real hearing and real oversight looks like. That is not what we are going to see today.

This hearing is being called for one reason and one reason only: to protect Donald Trump. Jim Jordan and his Republican accomplices are acting as an extension of the Trump defense team, trying to intimidate and deter the duly elected district attorney of Manhattan from doing the work his constituents elected him to do.

They're using their public offices and the resources of our committee to protect their political patron, Donald Trump. That is an outrageous abuse of power. It is, to use Chairman Jordan's favorite term, a weaponization of the Judiciary Committee.

The chairman says this hearing is about the victims of violent crime in Manhattan. Nevermind the fact that New York is one of the safest big cities in America. Nevermind the fact that under the leadership of Mayor Adams and District Attorney Bragg, over the last year, crime in Manhattan has dropped nearly every major category, including murders down 14 percent, shootings down 17 percent, burglaries down 21 percent and robberies down 8 percent. And nevermind that homicide rates are 73 percent higher in Mr. Jordan's Ohio than in Manhattan. And nevermind that House Republicans have voted consistently to make New York and other cities across the country less safe.

Since when did my Republican colleagues become so concerned about the life and safety of New Yorkers? Certainly not when they voted against billions of dollars in money for law enforcement in the American Rescue Plan. Certainly not when they refused to condemn Donald Trump's call to defund the FBI and the Department of Justice. And certainly not when they worked to block democratic efforts to pass sensible gun legislation.

We all grieve for the victims of violent crime here in Manhattan and everywhere. But if Jim Jordan and his Republican members really cared about protecting New Yorkers, they would join Democrats in addressing the iron pipeline that floods our streets with illegal guns from states with less strict gun laws.

They would join our efforts to ban assault weapons, to enact extreme risk protection laws and to crack down on ghost guns. But instead, they have only worked to put more guns on the streets and to put us all at greater risk.

Democrats have consistently advanced policy solutions that make all of our communities, including New York, safer places to live, work, and go to school, and we will make that clear today. But that's not why Republicans have called this hearing.

This is just part of their efforts to protect Donald Trump by any means necessary. Alvin Bragg is the duly elected district attorney in New York County. He has brought significant evidence before a grand jury, which has seen fit to indict Donald Trump.

Donald Trump will have an opportunity to defend himself against the charges. That process will now play out in the courts, and it is not the place of Congress, Republicans or Democrats, to interfere with any judicial proceeding.

Jim Jordan engages in a lot of political theater in Washington, but he should know better than to take his tired act to Broadway. New Yorkers see through this transparent attempt to defend Donald Trump at all costs while ignoring the real public safety needs of our community.

Before I recognize the mayor, I want to introduce the three outstanding advocates joining us today who will share their thoughts and stories today. David Pucino is the Deputy Chief Counsel of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Diane Rinaldo is a mother and advocate with Moms Demand Action, and Mark House is the principal at Bronx Technical and Arts Academy and a Brady Campaign Advocate.
Now I want to turn it over to Mayor Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thanks so much, Congressman. And I want to add my strong support for your words, both in saying to the congressional delegation that's here, welcome to the safest big city in America. And the numbers are clear. 

[Applause.] 

The numbers are clear. And when I first heard about this hearing, I thought Jim Jordan was coming here to sit down with the police commissioner to find out exactly what we have done to decrease shootings in double digits, decrease crime, homicides in double digits, made our subway system safe, removed thousands of guns off our streets that have basically come here from the southern part of the country.

We need to be sharing good ideas, particularly off the heels of another mass shooting in our country at a sweet 16 birthday party is making us face the bitter reality of the over-proliferation of guns, something that the Republican Party is failing to properly acknowledge and move forward. It is really troubling that American taxpayer dollars are being used to come here on this junket to do an examination of the safest big city in America instead of focusing on the real over-proliferation of guns that we have witnessed.

As Congressman Nadler has stated, it's the Republican Party that is stopping sensible gun laws. It's the Republican Party that is preventing the proper support and ensuring that police agencies across this country are receiving the necessary support that they deserve. It was the party that held up our ATF appointment to ensure we could have a coordinated effort in leadership. It's the party, the Republican Party, that's preventing the proper sharing of information and data so that we can ensure we can go after those who are putting and placing illegal guns on our streets.

This should not be the focus of today, of attempting to move away the attention of what DA Bragg is doing in this current indictment on the former president. We need to focus on how do we deal with the gun violence that is suffocating America and let the DA do his job, and that is the job that he's doing.

And I am just pleased to have the congressional delegation from the Democratic Party that's here to make sure that we keep the focus on the violence that we are seeing sweeping our country, particular in gun violence. That is where our focus should be, and I am proud to be standing here with Congressman Nadler and the remaining congressional delegation, not only from New York City, but part of the Judiciary Committee to keep the focus where we should be keeping the focus. Again, thank you, Congressman.

Congressman Nadler: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Up next is Diane Rinaldo with Moms Demand Action.

Diane Rinaldo, Volunteer, Moms Demand Action: Thank you, especially to Representative Nadler, my representative, Mayor Adams and the other representatives here today. And thank you to Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action and our partners in gun violence prevention across New York City.

My name is Diane Rinaldo. I'm a little bit nervous. I live in Manhattan and I raised my children here, and I'm a volunteer with the New York chapter of Moms Demand Action. Raising kids in the age of mass shootings, live shooter drills, and for too many under the threat of daily gun violence has created a sort of collective trauma across this country.

My daughter's public school was built in a former warehouse where the classrooms were situated in the middle of the building and the walls were made of glass. She came home one day after one of those horrible active shooter drills and she said, "Mom, it's crazy. I don't stand a chance. There is no place to hide." But you know where she was actually the least safe? When she left New York to go to college in South Carolina.

I will never forget the day she texted me while in a lockdown in a store near campus, while up the street an armed assailant held someone hostage and then shot and killed his former employer. My son went to school. He's in Indiana where there have been multiple armed suspects on campus, too many off-campus shootings to recount here. And tragically, two of his peers were shot and killed in separate incidents the same week of October 2020 during fall break.

After the Uvalde School shooting last year, my son called me. He said, "Mom, it has happened again. What am I going to do when I have kids? Do I have to homeschool them just to keep them safe?" Do you know that in college hallways across this country, officials hang signs with instructions for our kids to “Run, Hide, Fight.” What are we doing?

Our country was still reeling from mass shootings in Nashville and Louisville when we had another shooting Saturday night at a birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama, where four young people were killed and 28 people injured. Five teenagers remain in critical condition.

A pastor from the community said, "The shooting has rocked the small town where serious crime is rare." Collective trauma no matter where we live. And what is the single common denominator? Easy access to guns.

Americans are fed up and sickened with this epidemic of gun violence across this country and want to see action from our government. But instead of staying in DC and doing their jobs, the Republicans, the gun lobby allies on the Judiciary Committee come to New York simply to score political points.

If they actually cared about combating violent crime, they would do something about it. They would have to acknowledge that weak federal and state laws are responsible for the majority of crime guns trafficked into New York. If they actually cared about combating violent crime, they would support sensible gun laws, popular laws like background checks on all gun sales, a federal red flag law to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a serious threat to themselves or others. And if they were serious about combating violent crime, they would ban assault weapons.

We say to Republicans playing games with our lives and our children's lives, we see you, and as long as your agenda remains to put more guns in more hands in more places, we will not give up the fight. That's why I am grateful to Representative Nadler, a gun sense champion from the beginning, and our other gun safety champions here today. And I am proud to stand with the many people across this great city dedicated to making our communities safer. Thank you.

Congressman Nadler: Thank you. Now we'll hear from David Pucino, Deputy Chief Counsel of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

David Pucino, Deputy Chief Counsel, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence: Thank you very much, Congressman Nadler and thank you Mr. Mayor. I'm very pleased to be here today with my fellow advocates to join you in noting what I think should be obvious, which is that gun crime is a gun problem. And I want to speak specifically about where the guns in New York City come from.

We know that fewer than 8 percent of the guns that are used in crime in New York City came from New York. They come from Georgia, they come from Virginia, they come from Pennsylvania, they come from South Carolina, they come from North Carolina. 92 percent of the crime guns used in New York are coming from out of state.

The problem of gun violence in New York is because of guns that come from elsewhere in America. New York is doing its part. It has strong gun laws, and those strong gun laws protect New York residents. What we need is we need other states to do their part, and more importantly than that, we need the federal government to do their part.

But congressional Republicans have blocked every effort that could prevent gun trafficking, that could address gun trafficking, that could stop the flow of illegal guns from states with bad gun laws into states like New York with good gun laws. And until we do that, until we address the problem of illegal guns flowing into our safer cities, we will not address the problem of gun violence, we will not address the problem of violent crime. Because our violent crime problem is a gun problem.

The tool, the mechanism that turns an assault into homicide is a firearm. The increase in violent crime that we experienced from 2019 into 2020 and the pandemic years was driven overwhelmingly by guns. 35 percent increase in gun homicides.

So we know the root of the problem, we know the source of the problem, and we know the solutions. What we need are politicians who will take the steps to make those happen, who will put those ideas into law, and the current congressional Republican Party has not been living up to that.

These should not be partisan issues. They should be nonpartisan, common sense solutions, and we know what they are and they should be implemented. So I'm very grateful to be here today to say that, to share that information, and thank you again to the congressman.

Congressman Nadler: Finally, we have Mark House, Principal of Bronx Technical and Arts Academy who is representing the Brady Campaign.

Mark House, Principal, Bronx Technical and Arts Academy: Good morning and thank you. Mayor Adams, Chairman Nadler, distinguished members of Congress, thank you for having me here this morning.

My name is Mark House and I'm the principal of Bronx Engineering and Technology Academy. I serve as that principal and have for some time. I also sit on Brady's New York Regional Leadership Council. That's why I'm here today.

But I'm also a parent. I send my girl to public school. I speak for them too. I told my students I was going to miss the first period today to come down here and try to speak a little truth on their behalf. Let's take our visiting politicians at their word today. Let's assume that they want to talk about violence in New York City, my city. Well, then let's talk.

What makes violence in our city, their cities, their state, so violent? Simple, guns. But they're not going to talk about that today. Unregulated guns, unrestricted sales, no background checks. Nine out of 10 of the guns that show up in our city on our streets for crimes, they don't come from New York.

American gun violence is a public health epidemic, and it's impacting our kids. They're the ones bearing the cost. Because of the failure in Congress to act to strengthen our laws, my students, my own child, have to regularly partake in school lockdown drills that I administer, I direct.

I have to teach our kids how to hide, how to secure the doors in their classrooms, how to stay quiet so somebody with a gun doesn't hunt them down in their own schools. Enough. It's traumatizing for me. It's traumatizing for them. It's traumatizing for their teachers.

Why don't we spend our time and energy doing something more productive? Why don't we craft some common sense gun laws, ones that most of us agree on, folks that own guns and folks that don't? That would make more sense of our time today, I would think.

New York law is strong and it works, but without federal action, we will always be at the mercy of states with weaker gun laws, states like Ohio, Louisiana, and Florida. And today, lawmakers from those states who all have far more gun crime as a percentage than New York have come here to criticize my city.

We have taken strong action to prevent violence here in the city from guns. Why haven't they? Enough. Enough of the hypocrisy, enough of the politics, enough of the excuses, enough of the thoughts and prayers, enough of the lockdown drills, enough of the shootings. The time for action is now. Let's stop this epidemic of gun violence. Thank you.

Congressman Nadler: Thank you all for coming this morning. Thank you again to the mayor for his leadership on this important issue and for his work keeping New Yorkers safe. And thanks again to David, Diane, and Mark for sharing their ideas, their stories, I should say.

Over the next couple of hours, you'll hear my Republican colleagues weave an intricate tale full of lies, misinformation, and conspiracy theories. Keep in mind what you heard here today. Republicans claim to care about violent crime, but their record of preventing us from doing anything to end this gun violence epidemic says otherwise. Thank you.

Question: Congressman, talk about the cost that this is to taxpayers by bringing essentially this Washington hearing to New York City with the security and all that effort, and if that money would be better spent, say, coming up with other ideas to combat gun violence across the country.

Congressman Nadler: Well, I don't know off the top of my head how much it costs to bring this hearing here with all the attendant costs to bring the people here, to bring the security here, to bring the staff here, to rent the hotel rooms. It's got to cost several tens of thousands of dollars, I should imagine. I'm not in charge of it, so I don't know, but it's got to cost several tens of thousands of dollars. And obviously, we could spend that much more productively on law enforcement.

Question: Thanks. Thank you. Question for you, Congressman Nadler or Mr. Mayor. We've seen in the past few weeks here, Marjorie Taylor Greene coming here, Jim Jordan, other House Republicans, they're all beating the same drum saying that it's basically a crime-ridden hell hole. You guys just pointed out that it's actually their districts that have higher crime rates. Is it time for Democrats to host a field hearing in their districts and point out the discrepancy there?

Congressman Nadler: Well, we'll have to consider that. I will point out that it's very difficult because the Republicans control the appropriations for the committee.

Question: Question for Mayor Adams. Mayor, were you asked to testify at today's hearing? And if so, what was your response? And the second question, if I may, is are you putting on extra NYPD officers today and what might be the cost to the city as a result of today's exercise?

Mayor Adams: No, we were not asked to testify. I was not requested and none of the City Hall employees or staffers were asked to participate. Of course, the New York City Police Department is going to be here to make sure that everything is done in a peaceful manner, and there's always a cost that's attached to that. That exact dollar amount is not clear right now. We don't anticipate any disruptions, but if it is a form of disruption, that is also going to have additional costs attached to it.

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