Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears on Synergy TV Fusion

June 30, 2023

Darry "DJ DLife" Payne: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another edition of Fusion right here on Synergy TV. We have the honor of having the mayor of the biggest city in the world, the honorable Mr. Mayor Eric Adams is here with us tonight. How are you, sir?

Mayor Eric Adams: Good, brother. Good. Good to see you. Good to be with you, and just talking some good music and Synergy energy.

Payne: Synergy energy. I like that. I like that. I like that. Now, I know your time is limited, so I want to get to the giff of it and then we are going to have some fun, of course. This is what Synergy, is and this is broadcasting throughout for the Caribbean community. Now, let me ask you something, Mr. Mayor. The challenges, what is some of the challenges you face as being the mayor of the largest city in the world?

Mayor Adams: And you're right, and challenges are right because every day, all day there's something that is happening in the city and that there's a constant response to those things. You think about it, when I came into office in January 1st, 2022, I had to really encounter with Covid. We was trying to decide if our schools were going to be open. Our economy was in free fall. We had to deal with mass mandates, who was going to come back to work. And we just had to navigate through that. And at the same time, we were dealing with crime. Crime was going in the wrong direction. No one wanted to be on our subway system. We saw encampments everywhere, just about. This problem was something we had to navigate through. And so, we know these problems are going to be here. I don't wake up in the morning saying, "God, please don't give me any problems. Just don't give me the strength to deal with the problems that come in front of me."

Payne: And we congratulate you too, because coming out of the pandemic and inheriting that, and it is something that you took on and you took on in the brunt, and we appreciate you. I'm a fellow New Yorker, for bringing us through that because it was a scary time, man.

Mayor Adams: Yes. So well said. And it was really, leadership is not only actual, but it's symbolic. People want to see a general lead their troops into battle. And you look at your general and you say, "Can we do this or not?" If the general is not steady, is not firm, is not focused, then people don't have a belief that they can make it through the battle.

Payne: Exactly. And you gave us that hope, so thank you. Thank you. Now, let me ask you something, Mr. Mayor. How important is the Caribbean community to your administration and with the creation of the Caribbean Council, which I'm proud to be a member of, thank you. But how important is the Caribbean community to your administration?

Mayor Adams: Well, it's real. And it's not only... One can say anything, but with the presence of the Caribbean community. When you look at my Chief of Staff is from Trinidad. When you look at—

Payne: Thank you,

Mayor Adams: ... my deputy mayor of human services is also a Trinny. You look at my chief advisor, she's from the Caribbean community. When you look at many of my agency's heads, you see the Caribbean diaspora all around us and they are adding to the running of the city based on that knowledge. And let me tell you the uniqueness about the Caribbean community that I believe is really the secret weapon. The desire to work hard, the desire to say, "I don't want anyone giving me anything. I want to work for it. I want to earn it." And then the solid belief in education, family and public safety. That's just a clear natural fit for me when I look at who's around me from the Caribbean community. All of you know your aunties, your grandmas, they didn't take any mess. All of us would've had problems with ACS, the way our grandparents raised us.

Payne: Oh man, every day. I can't even imagine answering back or wording up to this day, saying certain things around my mother.

Mayor Adams: That's right. That's right.

Payne: That Caribbean upbringing, it is so important and it adds so much to my development of as an adult now. It really transpired and you really see that. And what was your inspiration to create the Caribbean Council?

Mayor Adams: Because throughout the years, remember I was a Brooklyn Ball president and a state senator, and I really had the ability to see of what the Caribbean community, the Caribbean diaspora was doing. We have the largest Trinidadian, Jamaican, Haitian, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Barbados. In New York City, you have the largest of all of the Caribbean diaspora and Brooklyn is the center of that, the [inaudible]. And I just noticed the skillset of the coming together. And I knew once I became the mayor, I wanted to make sure we bring all of that energy under one room. We may be from different islands, but is crucial that we come together to have one solid, unified voice about what we want to do, not only here in America, but how do we use city government to benefit back home in the various Caribbean islands?

Payne: And we thank you for that because it's an honor to be a part of that Caribbean Council and your views on it, and you made such an impactful statement when we had the round table when you said the Caribbean community is responsible for you being mayor, the huge part.

Mayor Adams: That's right.

Payne: We appreciate that, man. I mean, to have somebody like you in office now. Let me ask you something, Mr. Mayor. Give me your views on crime in New York City and how does that impact people from the Caribbean?

Mayor Adams: It impacts it a lot, brother. And think about it for a moment. Monday was Juneteenth. It was our day. Well, we were celebrating our liberation.

Payne: Our freedom, yes.

Mayor Adams: And it was the first time that we had it as a city holiday. I was fortunate enough as an African-American mayor to sign it into law. But on Monday we had 10 people shot, six people were the victim of a homicide. The day we are celebrating our liberation, we are watching a lives being terminated through the violence. And it's not the Ku Klux Klan, it's not somebody wearing a white hood. It is someone in black skin that's inflicting that violence. And when you look at what is happening in the communities, the Bronx, Brooklyn, where you have a large Caribbean population, you find that these mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers are losing their loved ones. And they are, as we all are, rarely disturbed by the level of violence, the over proliferation of guns.

And I hear from my Caribbean community leaders, organizations and residents that we must do something about this violence. And we have. We have a double-digit decrease in homicides and shootings. Many of the major crimes are going down, but that is not a consolation for that 16 year old child that was shot execution style in the head on Monday, of during the time that we were celebrating our liberation. We need to make sure we eradicate this violence that too many young people are participating in, and that is really in communities of color and the Caribbean community as well.

Payne: Right. And you recently had the dashboard of reaching out to the Caribbean islands in terms of addressing some of the crime aspects of it. You want to share a little insight on that, if you can?

Mayor Adams: Right. Because what we are finding places like Trinidad, Jamaica, et cetera, we're finding that historically that gun violence was not there. I mean, you were going to have your fights and maybe someone would cuss someone with a machete every once in a while—

Payne: [inaudible] bust your head or something like that.

Mayor Adams: Right but you didn't have this level of just guns. When I was in Trinidad, I was blown away at how many guns were in the country. And so, we must make sure that we bring all of the Caribbean organizations and the heads, our council general, et cetera, as we sit down together and say, "We're going to fight against this over proliferation of guns." Some people who committed crimes here are deported back to their home island and they bring their Yankee eyes and they bring that violence back. But we must do everything possible to create that partnership to prevent it.

Payne: And I commend you on that, sir, because you are the first one to really take that initiative of that kind of outreach, and I definitely hope that it leads to results, because it is something where you love being here in the US, I love being here in New York, but you also want to go back home and enjoy home.

Mayor Adams: Right.

Payne: You definitely want to be able to do that. Now, Mr. Mayor, how to better improve the relationship with law enforcement and the Caribbean community? How is that [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: I like that. And I always tell people, "Think about it for a moment." We don't have to improve the medical institution in the Caribbean community because the Caribbean community, they have become doctors and nurses and medical professionals. Same in education. They have become principals, and educators, and teachers, et cetera. The only place that we discourage and not encourage people to go inside so that we can have the entity be what we want it to be is in law enforcement. If someone comes to us, our sons, our daughters, our mates, our spouses, and say, "I want to go into the police department," we say, "What are you, out of your mind? Don't go into that agency. Yo, what are you? Uncle Tom?" No. Why aren't we using the same energy? If we're going to correct something, let's go be the change we want to see.

If we want to improve the relationship between police and communities, one of the major ways is to recruit. We have these organization, HALAFO, Haitian Officer Society, and some of the Caribbean organizations have society. We need to recruit and bring in the men and women who have the right temperament and the right attitude to be law enforcement officers and come in. And then we need to be really creative, not wait until there's a crisis before we know each other. Far too often we meet a law enforcement person when there's something bad that happens. No one is calling a cop or detective to invite them to a party, they going to call them when the party was shot up. How about being proactive and having these good community engagements and settings so we could develop relationship before crises happened? And that is how we build these good relationships.

Payne: And I really, really like hearing that coming from you. Because yesterday, they had the meeting with the heads of Brooklyn North and Brooklyn South, and a lot of the commanders at [inaudible] College. I was honored to be there along with your Commissioner Lamona, and a couple of other heads, WIADCA, and stuff like that. It was really a great sight to see, to hear people's views and then to hear the response back from law enforcement of what could be done. And they brought up that same fact. Get to know your community affairs officers. Go to the [inaudible]. You don't need a reason. Don't wait until something happens. Go and introduce yourself.

Mayor Adams: Well, and that's what we must encourage. To pop in at a church, pop in at a reception and do something revolutionary. Just say, "Good morning. Hello. How are you? Hey, you have any children in school? Here's a police exam that's about to come up. Here's an exam of a 9/11 operator." We have built these walls between police and the community they serve where my goal is to dismantle that wall and let folks see. Police Officer Jones, he's also concerned about the safety of his children. He's also concerned about being able to pay for his college tuition. We all want the same thing. Because you put on that blue uniform, does not mean all the problems you face have dissipated or disappeared, and we want to continue to encourage that.

Payne: Wow. Thank you. Well said, sir. Well said. And this is going to go a long way. Now, on a lighter note, Mr. Mayor, because I know time is limited. On a lighter note, what's your favorite soca, or dance, or entertainer?

Mayor Adams: Well, I think that's easy, brother. Brother Montana.

Payne: Oh, really?

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Payne: Now, first, let me correct you because this is going to be aired in the Caribbean. A lot of people say Montana is Montano.

Mayor Adams: Well, you know what? I'll go Montano. All I know is I love his music.

Payne: You love Machel's music. Oh, all right.

Mayor Adams: We gave him an award over 40 years of service. I love his music.

Payne: He was at the Barclays Center.

Mayor Adams: I love his sound and I love what he represents. And really, he's in a ambassador of the greatness of the music. And sometimes we fail to realize what it presents. And you come into my gym area and you hear Like A Boss playing over and over again as I exercise.

Payne: I like that. I like that. We definitely know you love Machel Montana, Like A Boss. Soca is your thing. This is really good, man. This is really good. Now, Mr. Mayor, part of my show is I have this quick game segment, and what we choose to do with you today is fill in the blanks. Now, it's pretty simple. We just going to put some questions up there and you are just going to fill them in. That's the fun part of Fusion, man. All right? So, we got the first one here. "Being mayor of New York City is very."

Mayor Adams: Exciting. Every day, it is exciting. Different people. I'm up every day just enjoying every moment, savoring what it is to be the mayor and helping people on a ground level, so it's exciting.

Payne: It's exciting. There it is. I like that. Next one here, "I would change what if it was up to me alone?"

Mayor Adams: Education. Education without our state. I need so much help from the state. We're doing a lot on the city level, but I would change education. That is the precursor to sleep that allows you to experience the American dream. We have to fix education.

Payne: Can I ask just a little piggyback off of that? What specifically in education would you love to see change if you had the ability to do it right away?

Mayor Adams: A proper funding. And we should not have to fight for mayoral control every two years. All mayors from Bloomberg, to de Blasio, they had it for four years. We shouldn't wait until we have a mayor of color, then all of a sudden the rules have changed.

Payne: Wow, I didn't know that.

Mayor Adams: No, right. They had it for four years mayoral control. They only gave it to me for two years. If it was good for those who were not part of our school system, it should be good for someone who came up through our school system.

Payne: Well said, sir. And I'm glad you're bringing light to that. I did not know. And I know a lot of the people, regular constituents don't know that. This here will definitely go out and maybe put a little pressure on for that, because that's not fair.

Mayor Adams: No, it's not.

Payne: That is not fair at all. Next one here, Mr. Mayor. "The favorite part of my job is."

Mayor Adams: The favorite part? Meeting people and solving problems on the ground. When you do something where people have felt government has failed them and you're able to solve their problem, that's a feeling that is unimaginable. I saw how government betrayed my mother and I was committed to remain close to people and solve their daily problems. That is my favorite part. I love people. I love meeting people and finding out what problems they have and knowing that government can work for them.

Payne: Oh man, this is great. Now, the last one here, Mr. Mayor, real quick. "My favorite borough is."

Mayor Adams: Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island.

Payne: I like that. I like that. Well, Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for taking your time out to hang out with me here in Fusion, man. We really appreciate you. We are definitely pushing.Wwe need you more than two terms, but we'll take what we get. But listen, we need you more than two terms, just know that, and we have your back in full fledge.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. And I look forward to continue to being on. Anytime you want me on, I'm here, brother.

Payne: Yes. This platform is open to you, sir, remember that. Anything, any agenda you have or what it is, I am just a phone call away. Just let us know and you are definitely on. We appreciate you so much, man.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. You did not do a life unless you were with DLife.

Payne: I like that. That's my drop right there. [inaudible] nothing else.

Mayor Adams: Take care.

Payne: Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much.

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