Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears On WHCR 90.3FM’s Rhythm And Soul Radio

May 21, 2024

Marko Nobles: Welcome to Rhythm and Soul Radio, I am Marko Nobles and this is an extremely special edition, extremely special interview, extremely special time in our virtual studio because in our virtual studio we have none other than New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for joining us.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you, brother. It's great to be on with you.

Nobles: It's great to talk to you and there's so much to talk about. Let me jump in on a topic that's been discussed for months on end now, but I think there's a different way to talk about it now, certainly something I haven't heard. 

When we talk about the migrant issue in this country and particularly here in New York, you did something really interesting a couple of weeks ago. You went to Italy to talk about the migrant issue and go and meet with the Pope. I haven't heard since you've been back, anyone really ask you about that. If you can share with us a little bit about, one, your reasons for going and gaining insight and then two, what insight have you gained in terms of that meeting and how that could impact how we are dealing with the migrant issue?

Mayor Adams: You're right. The Pope had a meeting of the Human Fraternity and it was about bringing diverse groups, Nobel Laureates and other people who are dealing with crises all over the globe, one of them being the global shifting of human beings. 

Many people didn't realize when they start seeing large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers come to the city, they didn't realize that the mayor had no power to stop the buses from coming in. I had no power to determine who could not get housing and three meals a day. The law required me to do so. Most importantly, I had no power to allow people to work. I was not allowed to give people jobs so that they can fill many of the jobs that are available in the city. 

What we saw in, with some of the other leaders, that they were dealing with the similar problems: Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Paris, London, Italy, all across the globe. I visited some of the locales that are dealing with migrants. One thing I walked away with that one, they immediately immerse individuals back into the communities, gave them the basic languages and they gave them the right to work within a two month period of time, instead of in some cases, it takes up to two years here.

Nobles: You mentioned giving people the right to work. That's something that you were just, you just made statements about last week. These issues are so nuanced and can be taken so many different ways. You talk in terms of the possibilities of migrants being able to fill the lifeguard shortage, for example. A statement you made was taken, I won't say out of context, but was taken in a way that those almost like sometimes you say certain things about, within certain contexts and within certain family conversations. If someone outside hears it, they may hear it the wrong way.

Mayor Adams: No, well said, well said. Actually, I have been saying this for months. What we have, we have a large number of jobs, food service workers, nurses, lifeguards, construction industry. We have a large number of jobs that are vacant and at a dangerous level. One of them is the lifeguard shortage that we have. Because of that, we have to cut beach hours. We don't allow to open up beaches like we want. We were clearly, I was clearly stating that it just doesn't make sense, we have people who know how to swim and can pass the lifeguard test and they’re settling down in the thousands, unable to work in the city. 

People who wanted to make something look negative, they turned into a negative comment. All of the national leaders around this stand united with me. They believe, as I've been saying, we have a shortage of food service workers, a shortage of nurses, a shortage of all of these different professions. I've been saying, why aren't we allowing those jobs that New Yorkers are not filling, why aren't we allowing others to fill? We have people across the country, in other states, who are saying, Eric, we will take the migrants to the asylum seekers from New York, but they got to be able to work. We don't want people coming and sitting around all day. When you go to some of our shelters, you're seeing thousands of people who are just sitting, not doing anything all day. And you know what grandma used to say, idle mind is the devil's workshop.

Nobles: Yes, absolutely. What can become a solution? We have all these jobs that need to be filled in multiple industries in the city. We have these migrants who are coming into the city. It's ironic because this has always been the story of New York City and the United States. This is the place where we have the Statue of Liberty, give me your huddled, your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free. How do we bridge that gap and be able to provide jobs for some of these persons who would probably want to work, who are looking to do something, and it helps the city and it helps our economy? How do we bridge that gap? How do we do that?

Mayor Adams: You're right, because they do want to work. That seems to be clear, because every time I go to our shelters and other locations, it is very clear that the migrants are saying, we didn't come here to sit around, we came here to be part of the American experience. We don't do it at the expense of longtime New Yorkers. As you know, Black unemployment in this city, when I came to office, it was four times that rate of white unemployment. We cut that in half, 24 percent drop of unemployment, and for the first time, Black unemployment is under 8 percent for the first time since 2019. We're seeing some real progress in unemployment of all New Yorkers, but we still see there's a great deal of jobs. 

The federal government can give what's called a Temporary Protected Status that would also give us authorization to allow people to be employed. That is what's needed. It's not within the powers of any of the cities like Chicago, New York, and Denver. It's in the powers of the federal government to give them this authorization so we can transition people into jobs. Everything from dealing with our healthcare shortage, to cleaning graffiti off our streets, to restaurants and constructions, all of these jobs are just waiting to be filled. We're just saying that is the best way to turn a crisis into an opportunity.

Nobles: Absolutely. Rhythm and Soul Radio, we are talking with New York City Mayor Eric Adams here in our virtual studio. Mr. Mayor, I'm going to stay in the international realm, but it is very local. Over the last few weeks, we've been seeing continued protests of the conflict in Gaza and seeing it here in New York City and having to see NYPD get more and more involved. Talk about the challenge of trying to allow for peaceful protests versus having to have the city's police force step in at selected times.

Mayor Adams: Yes, and we've had over… Many people don't realize because how well it has been managed, we've had over 2,000 protests in the city, over 2,000. People have been allowed to peacefully voice their concern, no matter what the issue is, and we've done it productively. We have, from time to time, you go to some of the demonstrations, where it turns from a demonstration about the topic I care about, and for this case, it's the war in Gaza, to an anti-American, destroy American, sort of a burn it down mindset. That's dangerous. You can't allow that to happen. 

What you saw a few days ago in Bay Ridge, where people were rioting on top of buses, throwing property, refusing to adhere to what the policies were in protesting, and it just really became volatile, spitting in the faces of the officers who were there, assaulting the officers. It became a problem, and they had to regain control, and maintain control, and that's exactly what happened.

Nobles: Let me be clear, because a lot of us will see in the media, the lack of restraint, I'll say, from police officers, in terms of whether they're punching protesters, or the image of police officers punching protesters, or slamming protesters on the ground, but you're saying it's almost a because and effect.

Mayor Adams: You're right, because oftentimes these images, brother, and it's after something has happened, and I'm a big believer… As you know I spent my life on the discipline of police officers, making sure that no one crosses the line, and I will continue to do that. it's important that you have to have a level of discipline. You can't just, as a matter of fact, someone yells at you, that's not enough for you to punch or shove someone. But when you look at the videos, and look at some of the action that happened beforehand, you will really see that those snapshots of a particular response, prior to that, there's more that happened. 

And so police officers don't get it right all the time, let's be clear on that, but there are also those who come to these protests with only one goal, and that's to disrupt, and so when you have an action like we saw, where an officer was witnessed punching someone several times, that has to be investigated to see was there appropriate action, and if not, the officer has to be disciplined. But I saw, I slowly went through the videos, and saw very dangerous action that was being carried out by some of the protesters, and the substantial number of people who we arrested did not even come from the area, did not come from Bay Ridge, and many of them did not even come from New York City.

Nobles: Hmm, and unfortunately, that seems to be always the way. I'm going to shift gears a little bit, because I got to make sure we talk about this, because this is something you've made an issue for much of your term as mayor is the rat problem that we've had here in New York City, and of course, we now have the inaugural rat summit coming up. Many folks, many of us are lifelong New Yorkers, rats are just like, it's the thing people talk about, the rats in New York are as big as the cats, and all that, but now is the time for an inaugural rat summit? Why is now the time, and what does an inaugural rat summit look like?

Mayor Adams: I love that, and the reason that we've felt as though rats have been part of our everyday lives is because of one thing for the most part, and that's plastic garbage bags. Plastic garbage bags was introduced in our lives during the 60s after the transit strike. Remember, growing up as kids, you're probably not as old as I am, but growing up as kids, we used to have metal garbage cans, and that's where you put your garbage in. And they were really rodent protected, because rodents were not allowed to get into those cans. But once we saturated our streets with garbage bags, plastic bags, it opened the door for a real rodent problem, and that's what we're up against, that's what we're fighting against. 

And so we have moved to containerize our garbage like other European cities are doing. New York and America is probably the only big cities where large mountains of plastic bags, and they're an all-you-can-eat buffet for the rodents. And so what the summit is going to do, it is going to bring about a combination of things that everyday New Yorkers can do to address the issues of rodents, and we are going to give information on how to deal with, when the rat burrows in your community, a host of other things that we believe one could do to really deal with the rat problem, and just to educate people at this summit on how to keep their communities safe and clean, because cleanliness is the biggest enemy for a rodent.

Nobles: I'm going to shift gears again, and this is going to sound very strange, but I can't find a way to easily move into this, I don't want to have it correlate from talking about a rat summit to then talking about what I'm about to talk about, but there's no way I can get around it easily.

Mayor Adams: Feel free, we're having a good flow, listen, open conversation, man, I'm an open book, brother.

Nobles: I know you are, and I appreciate it, but I'm going to, we're on the precipice of, for the first time I believe ever, someone having a Key to the City given to them revoked. And I'm talking about Diddy, obviously, in light of the video that was released a couple of days ago or over the weekend, and obviously the response and the fallout from it. Your thoughts about that, and the decision to revoke the Key to the City?

Mayor Adams: It's a real analysis, we've never revoked a key before, and the team, the committee that determines who gets a key is looking over and making a determination of what actions we're going to take on P. And so this is new territory, because we've never had to go about this before, and once they make the determination, we will then make that decision on how moving forward. 

And it's really based on not allegations that's made against him, but it's really based on, they're looking at the video, as the video is really alarming, to say the least, and that is what they're looking at, So I don't want in any way people to believe the mere fact that there were allegations made, that is going to that it's going to impact anything, because everyone has the right to have their day of being heard, but the video was a clear troubling display, and that is what the review is based on.

Nobles: I don't think anyone can look at that video and not understand that, so I'm not going to, I'll just leave that at that. You talked earlier about the unemployment rate, the Black unemployment rate going down by 25 percent since you took office, and I think there's two sides to that. One, you have the unemployment rate going down, and two, there's been a larger and stronger commitment from the Mayor's Office to support the MWBEs of our city, and the MWBE program, so do you believe the two go hand in hand, and then two, how do you continue to continue that trend of jobs going down, of unemployment going down rather, and Black and Minority Businesses and Women-Owned Businesses being supported and being able to get more contracts and being able to put more people to work?

Mayor Adams: Yes, that's a great observation on your part, because we do believe it goes hand in hand. When you look at the numbers of unemployment and the certification of Black businesses, almost 1,900 certifications of Women and Minority-Owned Businesses, you look at the decrease in Black unemployment. When you look at the support we're giving the businesses, you're seeing a clear correlation of a combined effort. It's not just a one-size-fits-all. It's a combined effort, a combined approach to addressing the issues that we're facing. 

And we're excited about it, because Black unemployment, as I stated, was four times the rate of white, and in addition to that, you look at how we made it easier to do business in the city. We have more jobs in the history of the city. In the history of the city, we have more jobs. We recovered all the jobs we lost during the pandemic, and we have increased the number of jobs in the city. When you really look at what we've accomplished, it's extremely impressive.

Nobles: We've been talking with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, but before I let you go, Mayor Adams, you talked earlier about spending your life in public service, in the police force, and protecting and serving. You also, in a sense, spent a second life in politics, and quote-unquote, moving up the ranks in politics to now being the second Black mayor of New York City. Is having the experience that you've had in politics and getting to this seat, now that we're closing in on the second half of your first term, is there anything that has surprised you, that has made you look differently at the job of mayor than you had previously?

Mayor Adams: The City of New York is an extremely complicated city. I like to say we have 8.3 million people and 35 million opinions. New Yorkers are very opinionated, and every day there are crises of epic proportions. Think about when I got in office. Crime was surging through the roof. Our children were not learning at the level that they should have. We were dealing with no one wanting to be on our subway systems. There was unemployment, as we stated, was a problem. There are independent financial experts that evaluate your city to determine how fiscally sound you were, and they do it with a grading. Our grading was not a good grading. Tourism was not coming back to the city, and I could just go on and on and on of what we were facing. Forty percent increase in crime was surging. 

Now you look at two years later, just two years, two years later, we have more jobs, as I stated, in the city's history. Double-digit decrease in shootings and homicides. 4.1 million people back on our subway system. Our children are outpacing the state in reading and in math. You look at other cities where they have encampments and people sleeping on the streets. You don't see that in New York. 15,000 guns removed off our streets. Ghost cars off our streets. We've cracked down on illegal mopeds and dirt bikes. Not only have we done the quality of life things, but we've done the substantive things as well. It's a real reflection of how we've governed the city in an effective way. 

After those two years, people thought it was going to take me five years to turn around the economy. We did it in two. Containerizing our garbage. We're going to do a complete containerization of garbage in two years. We are continuing to move forward in the right direction and we're excited about that. I learned a lot because there is no manual or book that tells you how to govern a city like this. No one thought we would be coming out of COVID. No one thought we'd get migrants and asylum seekers. All of these things are part of what makes this city what it is. We will continue to move forward in the right direction and we're excited about the future.

Nobles: Mr. Mayor, we're excited that we were able to spend some time with you and spend a few minutes with the mayor. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know it never stops. You are busy. Many people call you the nightlife mayor, but you're up early in the morning as well. You are definitely busy and we appreciate you taking the time and certainly look forward to being able to update our audience again when you are free to be able to keep everybody abreast of what's going on.

Mayor Adams: Thank you, brother. I wish you well.

Nobles: Wish you well as well. Thank you very much. We've been talking with New York City Mayor Eric Adams. It's Rhythm and Soul Radio.