Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls In For Live Interview On GMGT Live's "The Reset Talk Show"

June 18, 2025

J.R. Giddings: Good morning Mr. Mayor. 

Mayor Eric Adams: Hey brother, how are you? Doing well, I'm really excited about today. You know, every day is a good day. You just have to embrace it.

Giddings: Well, Mr. Mayor, so much is happening in the city. This great city of ours, New York City. First thing I would like to ask you is about the comptroller, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and the mayoral candidate who was arrested yesterday. Do you have any thoughts, any reaction to that?

Mayor Adams: First of all, first, I want to respond to what you said. You said there's a lot going on in the city. I want you to tell me when, wasn't there a lot going on in the city? This is New York, brother. Every time, every day, there's a lot going on in the city from COVID to migrant asylum seekers to shootings, to planes landing on the river. This is New York. And that's why you need a mayor that has the ability to adjust and correct conditions as they come forth. 

And as you talk about Brad Lander, this is not about one individual. This is about how do you deliver services for those who are documented and undocumented? And that's what we have done every day. When you look at the 200,000 migrants and asylum seekers who came here and how they were able to get the housing, the food, the education of their children. 

When you look at what we have done around the temporary protective status from the previous administration, we were able to secure more. When you look at the free legal services and what Commissioner Castro is doing, in the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs. 

You know, I have to deliver services for people in transition. 87 percent of those who are in our care took the next step on their journey. And so if other electeds have ways they want to deliver those services, kudos to them. But I got to deliver. I can't protest. I have to protect and I have to produce. 

So I think Brad's lawyers or whoever's representing him can talk about what he did yesterday and what's the outcome of it and what he was hoping to accomplish. I don't know. He hasn't communicated with me. And I'm not going to do to him what he did to me when I was dealing with federal authorities. He was pretty harmful to me. I'm not going to do the same to him. Let the process play out.

Giddings: Mayor Adams, Governor Hochul announced that the state is dedicating $50 million for immigrant legal services to assist those who might find themselves arrested by ICE agents. What are your thoughts on that?

Mayor Adams: Welcome to the club. We already allocated millions of dollars to those who needed legal services. That's what we have done as well as the Know Your Rights seminars that the commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs has been doing. So I say welcome to the club. 

And I also say while we're doing that, our state lawmakers should give us a billion dollars that we ask for because they need more than legal services. There's other services that are needed. We were expecting a billion dollars in the budget. We did not get any at all. This is still on the backs of New York City residents. 

We already had a total of seven point seven billion dollars. The state should pay their share and assist us in the migration. If everyone is pro immigration, they have to match it with their legislation. And we're not seeing that right now. New York City taxpayers are picking up the overwhelming amount of the cost of doing this. 

And so I say, you know, kudos to the move that was announced yesterday. But we still are a billion, with a B, dollars short of what we need to continue with this problem.

Giddings: Mayor Adams, I must say one thing. You're speaking directly to the people. You’re addressing all the needs. But the trending question is your thoughts on the relationship between New York City and the federal law enforcement as it pertains to the recent immigration raids?

Mayor Adams: You said the recent immigration raids, which I'm not familiar with the raids.

Giddings: Well, basically what's happening is ICE is in and around New York City. According to all the reports that we get, they're disguised in different places, dollar caps, different areas. So everyone is up in arms. Everyone is putting and hollering about what's being done about that.

Mayor Adams: Yeah. And J.R., there comes a level of an intelligent approach to a problem. And so I want to spend a moment to peel this back because I've been saying this over and over again. And I don't know if it resonated. 

The first thing we need to do is separate facts from fiction. Oh, and if something changes in how ICE operates in the city, then we will notify the public. But right now, ICE has not been in our schools. ICE has not been in our hospitals. ICE has not been in our houses of worship. ICE has not raided jobs of people in places of employment of people. So we need to be clear on that. 

So a lot of the anxiety is coming from people who are saying the sky is falling. The sky is falling. The sky is falling. I am saying to people, don't live in fear. Carry out your lives. And if something shifts, I'm going to come to the public and say, listen, there's something new that's happening. That's number one. 

Number two, I am the mayor of the City of New York. My job is when people come into the city to provide them with the services they need. Police protection, housing, educating children. That's my job. The job of federal officials is to address federal agencies. I address city agencies. So people are asking me every day, “Mayor, what are you going to do about a federal problem? Why aren't we asking our federal officials what are they going to do? 

You don't ask federal officials, what are you going to do about a city problem? You ask me about a city problem. I'm not in charge of ICE deployment. I'm not in charge of fixing our border, which we need to fix. I'm not in charge of the laws that govern immigration. That is the job of a federal official. Just as state officials are supposed to get us the billion dollars that we need because that's a state issue. 

So we're looking at the mayor and saying, “Mayor, do something.” And when somebody tells me that, J.R., you know what I say to them? What else do y'all want me to do? Because I've done everything I'm supposed to do as a city leader. So when I ask what else do y'all want me to do, they don't have an answer to that because they know I've done everything that a city leader stated and national immigrant leaders have stated. Eric has done more than any other administration in this country when it comes down to immigrants and undocumented people.

Giddings: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to bring in the panel quickly. The mayor is also super busy this morning. I'd like to welcome in Rabbi Cohen. Rabbi Cohen, welcome to the welcome back to the show. Donnatella, Dr. Rabbi, we have New York City Mayor Eric Adams here. There is so much happening, so much going on in the city.

Mayor Adams: But I want to point out one more thing that just came to my mind. If people are saying, “Eric, go get arrested like Brad Lander to show your outrage.” I was arrested when I stood up and fought for migrants and asylum seekers. You know, don't forget that. That's why they came at me in the first place. 

So I know what it is to be arrested for standing up and fighting on behalf of migrants and asylum seekers. Trust me, every time I look at the $3 million legal fee that I have, I know what it is to get arrested by federal authorities because you're fighting to say it is wrong what you were doing to migrants and asylum seekers. So they just joined the club. They're late to the dance. I was already dancing.

Giddings: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Rabbi Cohen, your question for the mayor this morning.

Rabbi Eli Cohen: There's nothing you can say about the mayor when it comes to his ability to respond on a dime. So it's good. So, mayor, here we are. You know, we have a lot of upheaval on the international scene, and I just want to hear from you. 

What are you hearing in terms of local fallout from international events? And there's a lot going on. And obviously, a lot of people in the city are, you know, connected to this on different sides of the issue. And what are you seeing locally in New York City as a fallout of international events?

Mayor Adams: Yeah. You know, whenever something happens globally, it plays out on the streets of the City of New York. And some of the conflict you're seeing with Iran and Israel right now, some of the things you are seeing that's really playing out across the globe and their conflicts all over the globe. 

We're dealing with the Russia and Ukraine conflict that’s still alive. We have a large Russian population and Ukrainian population in the city. Things that are happening on the continent of Africa are playing out. You know, and I say over and over again, do you look at what's playing out in Haiti? We have a large Haitian population here that are concerned about their loved ones in Haiti. 

We have zero focus on what's playing out in the Middle East. But I say that our population here is so diverse. We need to give the proper attention to what's happening globally and to other folks that are being impacted by conflict. There's a global conflict that is happening. And we need to be zero focused on how do we assist those who are here? Because that's my job. 

I need to assist my Haitian brothers and sisters as they are dealing with their loved ones back in Haiti. I need to assist the brothers and sisters from Ukraine who are dealing with the war in Ukraine. I have to respond to all of my constituencies here. And so, yes, we're dealing with global conflicts, folks. 

And, you know, when I go to one community and ignore the concerns of others, Yemen's war has been going on for a long time. And the Yemeni people have been communicating with me. They're concerned about what's happening to their loved ones there. That is the role of the mayor of the City of New York. So I must make sure those who are here are receiving the support that they deserve as conflicts are taking place in their home countries.

Donnatella Craig: Are we having some difficulty with sound if we are?

Giddings: Not at all. Not at all. I just have to mute for a minute. So let me come to you right now, Donnatella. We're really moving fast this morning. Your question for the mayor.

Craig: Okay, I appreciate the mayor's time as always. And we were speaking about global. I'd like to bring things back to a local standpoint, since we are in the middle of early voting. I did vote on Sunday, and I want to remind people that on a previous show, you explained why you're not currently in the primary.

And besides the fact that you're running as an independent, you are still Democratic. And when we talk about ranked choice voting, people can do like I did. And you can actually write in your choice for first place, which I put you, Mayor Eric Adams, and I rank the remaining people. 

But with that said, with so many New Yorkers saying they no longer feel safe or secure in the city, remember, we're citing mental health, housing instability and public safety as a whole. What specific actions would you take during your second term to rebuild the trust, restore a sense of safety, safety and show that your leadership still reflects the everyday needs of New Yorkers?

Mayor Adams: I love that question because there's one failure I'm clear on in my first three years and six months. It hasn't been four years. It's three years and six months. There's one failure that I take full blame on, and that is I depended on legacy media to tell the true story. I depended on them. 

Of course, critique us. Of course, look at us when we don't do things right. You know, I'm open to criticism, but the lack of reporting how successful this administration has been. And I thought when I got elected, Eric, if you do the job and you produce the results, even when they criticize you, they will show what you have done. 

They'll talk about how we broke records of more jobs in the city's history. They'll talk about how we brought down crime. In fact, in the last five months, we had the lowest number of students in homicide in the history of the city. They'll talk about our investment in foster care children, our dyslexia screening. They'll talk about how we built more affordable housing and refurbish affordable housing in year one, year two. We're going to do it in year three. In the history of the city, we broke the records. 

They'll talk about how, you know, Broadway had the best 12 months in the recorded history of the city. They'll talk about the 22,000 guns we removed off the street, paying for foster care children, free high speed broadband for NYCHA. I thought that they would talk about that 4.6 million people use our subway system, and we only have five average felonies a day. 

But instead of talking about that, they fed into the narrative that, hey, the city is falling apart. The city is chaotic. They didn't even talk about the 8,000 people we took off our subway system. And you don't even see encampments on our streets anymore like you saw when I came into office.

The biggest error I made is that I thought that the legacy media in this city will say, we will critique the mayor when he's wrong, but we're going to talk about the stuff that he has done to cycle us out of COVID, migrants in asylum seeking crime, didn't do that at all. 

You look at the tabloids and you read them every day when you're on the train or you're drinking your morning coffee or you are sitting at your desk and you're going to walk away, when you finish reading the tabloids, you're going to walk away thinking this has been the most incompetent man in the history of the city. Instead of saying that this mayor has navigated us out of it. 

Now, when you go to the independent evaluators like the bond raters that determine how successful the city is being managed, they raised my bonds. They said that in spite of what this mayor had to go through, he navigated the finances of the city. We have the largest reserve in the history of the city. And so people feel unsafe because they read it every day in the Times and in the Daily News. 

People feel that the city is dirty because they read it every day. They don't look at the drops and rat complaints. They don't look at the containerization of garbage. People told me it was going to take me five years, but I did it in three years. They don't look at any of that because that's not being reported. 

We get our beliefs on how well the city is doing from what we read in our papers every day. And that was my biggest mistake. Now I've got to spend the next couple of months going above the media and let New Yorkers know how well we have done as an administration.

Craig: Mayor Adams, I want to say with you showing all of these highlights, there's one highlight specifically that you didn't speak to as it pertains to small businesses. And I don't mean just small businesses that are Black and brown, but I don't see any of the prospective candidates running on a platform that would ensure that the level of percentage designated to minority certified businesses will continue to be the same as you implemented, which is far more than any other person. 

I think that's something any other mayor, that's something like 32 percent equaling billions of dollars that were funneled into our businesses that today are really, really struggling. Do you want to say anything about that with more specifics? Because I don't know the numbers.

Mayor Adams: No, you're right. We have the highest percentage of M/WBE allocation. And you're right with the number, 32 percent. We have the highest number in the country. And that's the interesting part about it. When you do an analysis of what we've accomplished, they’re record setting, we have broken record after record after record. 

And when you look at $19 billion since I've been in office, went to women and minority owned businesses, these are records. This didn't exist before. 

And if you want to sum up this race, Andrew is running from his record. He's running from the record of 15,000 nursing home deaths. He's running from his record of closing psychiatric beds that led to people with psychiatric issues living on the streets. He's running from his record of bail reform and how it became a revolving door of the criminal justice system. 

He's running from his record of what he did to civil service and increasing the number of years they have to work in something called Tier Six. He's running from all this stuff. Mamdani doesn't have a record. So Andrew is running from his record. Mamdani doesn't have a record. I'm able to run on my record. And that's the difference that sums up this entire race..

Giddings: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for your time this morning. We are in the middle of the primary elections. And I hope to have you back on pretty soon because we don't know who is going to win this primary. Do you have a choice, a preferred choice? Who would you want to go up against? Is it Mamdani or Cuomo?

Mayor Adams: Think about this for a moment J.R., think about this. When I announced that I was going to– I'm still on the independent line. Everyone said, well, there's no way you could win. Only a Democrat could win. What has happened since that? Think about this. Andrew announced he's running on an independent line. Mamdani is running on an independent line, the Working Families line. Why did everybody join me? If there was no way I could win, I'm a sitting mayor. 

You know, the reason no one has ever won on the independent line, but Michael Bloomberg and one more other mayor, because we're sitting mayors, normally people run on independent lines that are unknown, a sitting mayor. The two times I'm aware of it is with Bloomberg and the previous mayor, his name escaped me. Every time a sitting mayor ran on an independent line, they won. So I'm a sitting mayor. 

There's a reason Andrew and Zohran both decided to run on an independent line because they got to meet me in November. I will be on the line in November. And when you look at that, you see that there's a reason they're doing the same thing that I'm doing now. 

Everybody thought I was playing checkers. I was playing chess. You know, I was playing chess. It shows the wisdom of an astute, thoughtful person that knows how to govern the city and deal with the crisis. So I’ll see them all in November. It doesn't matter to me.  It doesn't matter to me who my opponent is as long as my campaign manager is God. You know, let him let him work his magic.

Giddings: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I know you have to go. I really appreciate you joining us today.