Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”

July 7, 2025

Andrew Ross Sorkin: Welcome back to Squawk Box. Joining us right now on the set this morning is New York City Mayor Eric Adams. A national debate playing out since Mamdani won the Democratic nomination. Good morning. We're all trying to figure out where this is all headed. We're looking at Polymarket. He is still up relative to you. 

I want to understand what you were thinking. You know, we all saw him come on, but really only come on hot 72 hours out, maybe a week out. And it sounds like you've been thinking about this a lot longer.

Mayor Eric Adams: And remember, the Polymarket's also days out. It had Andrew above him. Six months ago, I was in a restaurant and I heard two young people talking about Mamdani. And then I was in a store purchasing something, I heard two young college students saying the same thing. 

I went back to my team. I said, “Zohran is going to win this race.” And we strategically knew that we should not be in a crowded Democratic primary. And then I decided I was going to run on an independent line. And everyone thought it was hilarious. They said, “What are you doing? No mayor could win. Who's laughing now?”

Sorkin: So what do you, I'm curious. I don't know if you want to say it. What do you see as your own personal challenges to win this race? I can give you my own list, but I'm curious when you look at this whole situation, your own situation and what you need to persuade New Yorkers to vote for you, what do you see as the thing that you need to overcome?

Mayor Adams: And I like that. Number one, Andrew. Andrew spent $30 million dollars. 

Sorkin: Andrew Cuomo?

Mayor Adams: Yes. Heard his narrative. I always say he didn't have the legs to run in New York. New York is a competitive place. They want to see you. You can't come out on weekends. You have to be firm. And I think he really should do an analysis and say, “Give Eric an opportunity to run against him”

Sorkin: So you would need him to get out for this to work?

Mayor Adams: He should. He should. And the second is that my story has never been told. People don't realize that we broke the record 11 times in jobs, that this is the strongest economy in the recorded history of the city. What we did around housing, the crime, removing 22,000 illegal guns off our street, 100,000 illegal vehicles off our street, 12 months of Broadway has been the best Broadway in the recorded history of the city. 

My story has never been told. It was overshadowed by that lawfare of being prosecuted because I decided to defend the city. And now I'm going to have the opportunity to go to working class New Yorkers and say, “Think about this. We don't want to defund our Police Department. We don't want to empty Rikers Island, have people go back into the communities that prosecuted them. We don't want to have a city where we say we don't want billionaires in the city.” I mean, just think about what we're saying.

Sorkin: What do you tell New Yorkers who say, look, they're anxious about the settlement that you've reached with this president. They say you're being held hostage by this president, that if you continue to be the mayor, you have to listen to whatever this president says, because the moment you don't listen to the president, he can go after you again. 

And what do you say about the team around you? Because the other piece of this is trying to have an amazing team around you. And there have been concerns over the years that some of the team members either now don't want to be there because of the Trump situation. And others would say you had some family members around and other things. What about rebuilding that team?

Mayor Adams: Well, okay let's peel that back for a moment. The deal that I made with the president, you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth. There was never a deal. I didn't even know Donald Trump personally until he was campaigning on a campaign trail. He said, “Look what they're doing to that mayor is unfair.” And so I thank him for acknowledging what happened. 

Second, my team, I just gave you a list of wins. When you look at how we turned around this city and going through COVID, going through [237,000] migrants and asylum seekers dealing with the crime that we were facing, recovering our economy. When you look at that team, that team won. That team was successful. Now look at my team now. 

Randy Mastro is my first deputy mayor. Commissioner Tisch is my police commissioner. Camille Joseph Varlack, my chief of staff. Listen, you learn as you go on. When we started on January 1st, 2022, trying to get people to work. 

They say, “Eric, are you kidding me? I'm getting extended overtime. I'm getting extended unemployment. I'm not coming into the office. You want to work 12 hour days.” And so you couldn't bring in the talent you wanted, even if you wanted to. People got used to working at home. They know how I work, and have to deliver for the city. And I did it in spite of what we had to go through.

Sorkin: What about the affordability message that Mamdani has put out there? Now, look, the truth is, there's a lot of things he said that he can't actually do. Things that you have said, I think, described. But the question is, how do you reach those voters who say, “Yeah, there's an affordability issue.” And what are you going to do and what are you going to tell those people that you can fix? 

Mayor Adams: Great question. Legitimate concerns about affordability, not only in the city, in the country, everyone could talk about the prices that we're dealing with, purchasing basic things. And we got that. We heard that message. I know we're living in poverty. He knows we're living in luxury actually. I know living on the verge of homelessness. I know I'm struggling every day, going to school with a garbage bag full of clothing, afraid you're going to be thrown out. That's my story. That is not his story. 

He's an academic elitist that comes with these philosophies and principles that don't work out on ground. The foundation of him paying for free buses. He wants to tax one percent of high income New Yorkers. Mayors don't have that authority. You know who has that authority? Assemblyman. He's an assemblyman. 

And the governor already made it clear she's never going to do it. And so the foundation of his program is not winnable. Now look at mine, $30 billion dollars back into the pockets of working class people, paying off medical debt, paying college tuition for foster care children, dropping the cost of Metro Cards on those low income New Yorkers, just passed Axe the Tax. 

Low income New Yorkers pay no income tax at all because of the partnership we had with Albany. So finding ways as the mayor to put money back in the pockets of working class people, I know how to do. He doesn't. This is a class exercise. Right now we need expertise so that we don't lose the success we made in this city.

Becky Quick: Have you spoken to Andrew Cuomo at all?

Mayor Adams: Yes. Yes.

Quick: Talked to him about the potential for him getting out?

Mayor Adams: Well, there's a real history with Andrew Cuomo and particularly Black elected officials. He did it to Carl McCall. He went on the liberal line with Carl McCall when he was running for governor. Carl McCall lost. He pushed out Charlie King when he was running for attorney general. After raising $5 million dollars, he pushed out Charlie King. 

He did the same thing to David Paterson when David Paterson was governor. For him to see that I was on my own independent line prior to the race. And then for him to join it. He knew he was setting us up for this. He knew Mamdani was going to be on the Working Families Party.

Quick: Has he asked you to step aside? 

Mayor Adams: Yes. I said, “Andrew, are you that level of arrogance?” I'm the sitting mayor, the sitting mayor of the City of New York. And you expect me to step aside when you just lost to Zohran by 12 points. He was up 32 points, $30 million dollars. You lost. They heard your message and you lost. Now let a fresh set of legs that has produced for this city. And that's the highest level of arrogance. 

Sorkin: I have a different question for you. You probably saw the story over the weekend about Zohran claiming to be Asian and an African American in this application he made to Columbia. I'm curious just whether you think that should matter to you. He's made this argument that there were not enough boxes to check to represent his heritage. What do you personally think?

Mayor Adams: There was a mix. There was a box for, I believe, mixed ethnicity. There was a box. First of all, he was not American at the time. He just became a citizen a few years ago, I think in 2018. It's not excusable. He said himself when he was interviewed, if he called himself African American, it would be misleading. You know, during those times, you identify seats for particular groups to make sure you had diversity on the campus. It was the wrong thing to do. 

So instead of saying that I didn't have enough boxes, how about saying I'm sorry? How about saying I'm sorry that I [shared] a video mocking Hanukkah? How about just standing up and saying, I'm sorry, I'm wrong. And I've said it over and over again when I look at an analysis, what I had to put the city through. I said to New Yorkers, I'm sorry I had to put you through this, but I delivered for you. And I think the most humbling thing you could do is just say, listen, I'm sorry, I should not have done it.

Joe Kernen: How are you going to win? I mean, why does no one vote in what they allow this to happen with such small numbers? And can you galvanize New Yorkers that might be horrified by the prospect of an anti-Semitic socialist mayor?

Mayor Adams: And that's such a good question. Nine percent of New Yorkers voted. Nine percent. Ninety one percent. They have yet to speak. Two point five. 

Kernen: They never speak. 

Mayor Adams: Yeah. No, I would challenge that just a little. 2.5 million Democrats did not vote. One million did not vote yet. We have yet to hear from 700,000 Republicans. I think what Mamdani did, he had an army already built. They were already on our college campuses, angry, frustrated, anti-American citizens. They were already walking through our streets in the thousands of protests. 

The day after Gaza took place on October 7th, we had tens of thousands on our streets. He had an army that was already angry with the presidential race. So he didn't have to recruit. He took that army and funneled that anger. And as I said, when I saw the radicalization of our children on college campuses, I was sending out the warning sign. 

Listen, they're radicalizing our children. And we don't know really what all of that radicalization is coming from. So now, just as he radicalized and he mobilized people who were feeling the pain of affordability, the anger of college campuses, now we're going to mobilize a million new voters who woke up on the day after the election on the 25th and said, “Oh my God, let's listen to what this guy is saying.”

Sorkin: We should mention we have invited him and Andrew Cuomo on the broadcast. But let me ask you this just straight up, because Joe made a reference to antisemitism. And I've talked about how upset I was that he wouldn't condemn this phrase, “Globalize the Intifada.” Do you believe he's an anti-Semite?

Mayor Adams: I think if he's not, he's truly misguided. You know, you don't mock Hanukkah. You don't mock it. You do not ridicule. You respect all faiths. Everyone knows my basis of faith. You do not lift up a group as a rap artist that talks about an organization that supported Hamas. I think that there are actions that you're seeing that if he's not anti-semitic, then clearly there are things he needs to reexamine what he's doing.

Sorkin: He said that he would, he would arrest Bibi Netanyahu, by the way, who's in Washington today if he was in New York City. What do you think the role of a mayor should be as it relates to international affairs?

Mayor Adams: Well, it's interesting. He said he would arrest the head of Israel, but he's not willing to arrest the 27 gang members that came to the city, Venezuelan gang members. He stated that he would block ICE from doing that as though ICE is a criminal organization and not as they are a federal law enforcement organization. So he would arrest him, but he will open Rikers Island when after bail laws, you have the most dangerous people on Rikers Island, but he's okay with letting them out and go back into the communities that they harm. 

So I think he has it a little mixed up. The role of the mayor is to protect the people of this city and to embrace international leaders to come here. There's a reason the United Nations is on the East River in our city, because this is the place where you come in and debate issues, not use your prosecutorial arrest powers to harm people you disagree with politically.

Sorkin: It is a longer conversation. We want to thank the mayor for joining us. As we mentioned, we have asked and invited Andrew Cuomo to be here. As we have with Mamdani. We want to talk about all of these issues, given our audience and what's going on here. So thank you for coming in.

Mayor Adams: Well, the city is doing well. Strongest economy in history. And I'm going to tell all those business leaders with a little tension right now. Trust me when I tell you we're going to win.

Sorkin: Okay, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

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