Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live On "The Beat 139" Podcast

May 21, 2025

Vernon “Don Veto” Boisseau: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. How are you today, sir? 

Mayor Eric Adams: Quite well, quite well. Great speaking with you. 

Boisseau: Good to see you. It's been a while. So I know you're a busy man, so let me ask you a question. So I've been, you know, watching a lot of your television interviews and stuff like that you do in the community, and one thing that stands out to me is you keep saying that numbers don't lie. Can you touch on that? 

Mayor Adams: Well, I would say that when you look at the success of an administration, you have to look at certain indicators that you're judged by. You're judged by housing, how safe the city is, unemployment level, what the professional bond rating say about how to protect the city, what are you doing about making the city safer, not only in crimes, but also in things like trafficking and others, and how do you lift up low-income, working-class people. And so if you view that as an analysis, number one, that's with the public safety. We have seen in the last five quarters, one quarter's three months. We have seen in the last five quarters decreasing crime.  

The last quarter, the lowest number of students reported history. The second lowest number of homicides reported history. We removed over 21,000 projects. The illegal guns off our streets. We're watching decrease to seven major crime categories, which you judge the safety of the city. And then when you look at the economy, we turned around the economy coming from COVID. We have more jobs in New York than the history of our city. We actually broke the record 11 times.  

We decreased unemployment among all New Yorkers. But specifically, we decreased it by 20 percent for Black and brown New Yorkers. And when you look at housing, we have developed, financed more affordable housing in individual areas than the history of the city. We passed the most comprehensive housing reform, called City of Yes. When you look at moving people from homeless to permanent housing, we broke the record doing that.  

We have a program that subsidizes housing that's called Federal House Vouchers. We've had more people use those vouchers at home than the history of the program. Then you look at how we lifted up low-income New Yorkers. NYCHA, they were having problems getting access to high-speed broadband.  

We have provided free high-speed broadband for every NYCHA resident. We included NYCHA in our housing plan that has never been done before. Look at our young people. 100,000 summer jobs, never done before. 110,000 in our Summer Rising year-round program, never done before.  

A steady nightlife program to keep our children safe during the summer months and on the weekends. Invested in forcing kids to attend their college tuition and giving them a stipend and a life cost to their 21. And one of the things I'm so proud about is our Money in Your Pocket.  

We're putting $30 billion back in the pockets of [inaudible] people. Everything from paying off medical debt, which is the number one cause of bankruptcy, to reduce their MetroCards, lowering the cost of childcare from $220 a month to less than $20 a month. And so there's just so many numbers that says the noise is not showing what the numbers are. We turned this city around, and I'm really proud of what we've accomplished. 

Boisseau: And the reason why I ask you that question is because the people in the community need to hear these numbers, and they need to hear you talk about it, because a lot of people in the community don't hear this stuff. And we wanted to get you on the show so the people in our communities can hear this stuff, so they can know the great job that you're doing as a man. 

Mayor Adams: Well, said, brother, and [inaudible] for a moment. You would pick up the papers, and you would think that this city is out of control. You would think the crime rate, the subways aren’t safe, that nothing good has happened in the city. And it's not like they started attacking this administration after I was two years or something like that.  

Go look at the first stories. January 2nd, January 3rd, January 4th, in 2022, when I first became mayor. They never thought we could turn around this city, and they attacked us from the beginning. There was a clear mission that this man could never be re-elected, and we're going to constantly come after him. They came at me through COVID. They came at me with 230,000 migrants and asylum seekers that came in. And then they came after me with that bogus indictment that they charged me with. And so, you know, someone stepped in the other day, and they said, Eric, if you didn't do anything wrong, tell that to the Young Lords, our Puerto Rican brothers. 

There's a long community, but you don't even have to go back that far. Tell that to Brian Benjamin, who's the highest Black in the state. And they brought him up on bogus charges, destroyed his career, then dropped the charges after they spared his name. We need to be honest about ourselves. The federal government has a long history of going after Black and brown [people]. And Brian and I, it's the latest, too. And so, we know we have to be always ready for the attacks. But in spite of the attacks, I'm still moving the city forward. 

Boisseau: So, as far as the election that's coming up, a lot of people are saying they don't see the mayor campaigning and stuff like that. What's your take on that?  

Mayor Adams: Think about this for a moment. What is campaigning? Campaigning is going on TV, talking about your success. Campaigning is visiting all the different locations and churches and communicating. Campaigning is showing people why they should vote for you. They bought into the narrative that came from the latest media, and now they're repeating it. That's one thing about Black folks, man. You know, we hear the narrative by others, and then we start repeating it.  

Every day that I work for the people is showing why I should be re-elected. That's what campaigning is. Campaigning is saying, why should you be elected or re-elected? I'm showing that every day. Now, what they're not showing you is that those who they consider to be the [inaudible] of the Democratic Party [inaudible] indeed. He shows up at church on a Sunday, a well-organized environment. He's not among the people. He doesn't talk to reporters. That's what you should be asking.  

Is he campaigning for the job, or he just believes he's supposed to walk into the job? So every day I'm out here among the people working hard for the New Yorkers. So I want to tell our folks, stop repeating the narrative that other people give you. Your mayor is among the people every day, and most importantly, I'm one of the people. I'm just a working-class blue-collar mayor. I was the first, probably, union member ever to become a mayor in the City of New York. And that's what we should be focusing on. Am I delivering every day for the city? And I have been. 

Boisseau: Mr. Mayor, I've been raised in this city all my life, and you are the first mayor that I saw or seen who had boots on the ground on the regular. Let's talk about that. 

Mayor Adams: Because it's important to me. You know, I made a commitment when I ran for office, and I really challenge people to go look at what I ran on. Look at how I talked about I was going to do dyslexia screening in our schools. I did that. So 30 percent of the inmates that write dyslexia won't be dyslexic. I ran on making sure that I brought down crime. I did that.  

We took over 80,000 ghost cars and illegal vehicles off our streets that were being used in crimes. I ran on improving our educational system. Our children are outpacing the state in reading and math. We changed the reading curriculum so our children can learn phonetics and then read it. And so I ran on improving housing. We did that. And so I ran on what I promised I was going to run on, and I also ran on being accessible. And, brother, I'm on the street talking to everyday New Yorkers, going to our beauty salons, our hair salons, our churches, and our daycare centers, our senior centers.  

What I ran on, I'm producing. And I think that what happens, because people are jaded when it comes down to politics, that they don't even realize, hey, this brother is doing exactly what he said, and he's still accessible. You know, when you call me and say, Eric, come hop on the show so we can talk, I'm going to do that. I hop on all these local talk shows and interact with people every day because I am them. I'm very comfortable around everyday working-class people because that's who I am. I'm not the insider. I'm the outsider. A lot of insiders wish I never became mayor because they never voted for me. But the working-class people of this city made me a mayor, and that's who I'll be open to. 

Boisseau: And speaking on the election, I see a lot of these guys are campaigning, and I see promises they're making. But you're actually showing the work of what campaigning is by being out there and doing your job as a great mayor. That's what we see at The Beat 139. 

Mayor Adams: And everyone, when you run for office, everyone promises. You hear Andrew Cuomo say he did something called Tier 6, which hurt the retirement for working-class people. He just ran to say that he's going to reverse what he did. He's going to reverse the criminal justice reform that allowed criminals to come back on our streets. He said he's going to work to reverse that. So I am fixing the problem he created, and now he's running and saying he's going to reverse the problems that he created. And the same with the other candidates.  

They're all talking about what they're going to do, how they're going to spend money. There's a minimum amount of money you have in the city budget. And you can say you want to spend and buy everything, but as any person that runs a household knows, those are all idle promises. Running a city of this complexity and dealing with counties that come up throughout the race of COVID, to migrants, to crime, to funding issues, you have to be able to manage the city. And so don't take my word for it. They are professionals that analyze cities and make a determination of how well cities are doing. They're called bond makers. They either increase or decrease your bond. They increased my bond because of how well I have run this city. So these are the professionals that are matching what I'm saying and matching what the numbers are saying. 

Boisseau: Okay, Mr. Mayor, one more question to you. How do you feel about them New York Knicks tonight?  

Mayor Adams: I love it, brother. You know, I think when they fused the feeling of everything is possible into the spirit of the team, where those two games against Boston, where they came back from 20-point deficits, I think that was something that gave me energy.  

You know, as a sports fan, I know you are aware that the tide can change and the tide can turn based on actions. And I think the tide turned, we're going to go all the way on this one. And I'm excited about it. And this is the resiliency and the spirit of New Yorkers. Don't ever count us up. We never give in. We never surrender. Nothing personifies that more than what I have represented to this city.  

You know, listen, I'm a young man that came up from South Jamaica, Queens, struggling with learning disabilities. I was undiagnosed. Many people counted me out. They counted me out when I had stumbles throughout my childhood. But I went on to become a captain in a Police Department, a state senator, the first person of color to be borough president. And now I'm sitting here as the second person of color to be mayor. I feel the energy of the Knicks. I feel the energy of everyday working-class people in this city. Never count us out. We're going to always succeed with resiliency. Let's go, Knicks. 

Boisseau: Let's go Knicks. Mr. Mayor, I got to ask you one more question. So Police Commissioner Tisch, she's doing a fabulous job. Let's talk about her right quick before you go, please. 

Mayor Adams: So it's important to come in and bring and put your own signature on whatever administration you have. She's putting her signature on it. I think one of the most important initiatives is what she's doing is the quality of life team. 1,500 officers that are going to be focused and dedicated on dealing with quality of life issues. And this is not heavy-handed policing.  

It is treating our communities the way we want all communities. Abandoned vehicles removed. Loud music playing. People injecting themselves with drugs in public. Littering in our communities. You know, if you can't play loud music, inject yourself with drugs, and have abandoned cars in front of Gracie Mansion, then you should not be able to do it on Mother Gaston Boulevard. We want to treat all of our communities the same, and I think that that's what she's looking at as she continues to bring down the large crimes, and those quality of life issues. And that's important to me, and it's important to working-class New Yorkers. 

Boisseau: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We appreciate you coming on the show once again. You know, you got our vote all day, and anything we can do for you at the Beat 139, we're here.  

Mayor Adams: Alright, my brother. Thank you, be well.