Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears on NY1 Online

July 22, 2025

Ayana Harry: Thank you for your time, and thank you for this opportunity to sit and chat about all of the work that you've been doing. In April, you announced an ambitious plan to bring afterschool for all throughout New York City and to make it a reality. What's been the update? How's the progress been coming along?

Mayor Eric Adams: Moving forward, we made an announcement today that we're targeting several communities that, one, are high crime areas, second, they did not have after-school programs in the locations, English as a second language in some of the locations. So we're very targeted as we expand. We want universal. We want to reach the point of 179,000 of our children getting to that mark, and we're going to continue to nibble away at it. 

But it's so important because, you know, I think about it, Ruben Diaz Jr. and I always laughed about it. Our afterschool program was a vacant lot with an old mattress on it. These children need to develop their full personhood, not only being academically smart, but how do you have good socialization skills? They're going to learn robotics, tennis, swimming, dance. These are great socialization skills, and so we're excited about the rollout and the continuation of a multimillion-dollar initiative.

Harry: Let's talk about the Charter Revision Commission. Voters will have some input, some real input on how the city approves upcoming potential housing projects. There has been some pushback from within the City Council, with some worried that there's going to be too much control potentially shifted to the Mayor's Office and away from a local councilmember in the district. 

What do you believe? How much say should that local councilmember have who lives and represents that district? How much say should they have?

Mayor Adams: And think about it for a moment. When you talk about housing, not one council person is homeless. They're all living in a house. And I think it's a level of arrogance when you do things to prevent buildings from taking place. 

Do you know, due to member deference, and that means for your viewers, that means that if that one member decides not to build housing, they can block a housing project. We lost 3,000 units of housing because of member deference. When we did the City of Yes, they took away 20,000 units of housing. 

So on Monday they say housing is a right, Tuesday they're using methods to block housing. And so what we're saying, let's give the power back to the voters and back to New Yorkers. We can't say housing is the number one issue that's facing working class people, yet every time we talk about building more housing, they come up with ways to prevent it from taking place. 

Let the voters speak. If the voters make a determination that they're not in favor of these changes in housing laws, then we will respect the voters.

Harry: The council just rejected a land use proposal that would have cleared the way, potentially, for a casino in the Bronx. Do you plan to veto it?

Mayor Adams: We're still looking at it, but why should we say no to the Bronx when we're willing to look at Manhattan, we're willing to look at Brooklyn, we're willing to look at Queens? Which is unfair. Why must the Bronx always be treated differently? What major economic development proposal should be stopped from a particular area of the city? 

Now, we're doing major investment in Hunts Point. We're doing major investment in the parks. We're doing those quality of life issues. But they should have a right to have that proposal examined to determine who's the best person in the best place.

Harry: It's not like you're leaning towards a veto.

Mayor Adams: My team is going to look at it, and they're going to make a determination. We're going to do an analysis. I believe that every borough should have a right to determine. And, you know, we veto items before, the council overrides those vetoes. I could only use my power to the best of my ability. I want every borough to have an opportunity for real development.

Harry: Newly released video seems to show the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza has been used as an ICE detention facility, and there are some real questions about the conditions, whether people have access to food, whether they have access to medicine. Do you plan on raising any concerns about the conditions there to anyone in the Trump administration?

Mayor Adams: Yeah. Someone just asked me this today. That was the first time that it was brought to my attention, and so I called my team and said, can we find out what's going on? Because people must be in humane conditions. We saw when we handled 237,000 migrants and asylum seekers, we made sure they were treated with dignity and respect, and we're going to see what's going on. 

But as I said today, that's a federal building, and what I'm seeing too often is that we can't allow our federal elected officials to get a pass. We all have our level of government. My state officials need to be fighting for New York. City officials need to be fighting for the city. State officials, I mean, federal officials, they should be on top of that. 

I know people think the mayor has all the power, but we don't. That's a federal building. Federal authorities should find out what's going on there. They are in charge of federal initiatives, but we're going to look into it to see if there's something that we need to do, because it is housed in New York, but that's a federal building.

Harry: Has the Trump administration so far been good for New York City?

Mayor Adams: It depends on what you look at. I think that when you look at some of the policies where young people were in, going through the process, legally following the process, many of them came through our program. 112,000 people we gave legal services to. You should not go in court and grab them. We made that clear. 

But when you look at projects like the [] Empire Wind project, it was going to sunset. They put a stop work order on it, 1,500 union jobs, 500,000 homes would have received electricity. We were able to go there, communicate with them, and they lifted the stop work order. Those jobs are online. 

Or sealing the border, closing the border. We were having a real problem under the previous administration on sealing or closing the border. You saw what this city was impacting. We were getting 4,000 people a week at one time, 8,000 every two weeks. 

And so has that been good for the city? Yes. Has his support for public safety and going after dangerous gang members been good for the city? Yes. But when it comes down to those other policies, you know, cutting health care issues, that hurts the city. And we're going to do everything possible to bring those resources to the city.

Harry: On the Stephen A. podcast, Andrew Cuomo questioned whether or not you're running for another term for your ego, or to defeat Zohran Mamdani. How would you explain to New Yorkers why you're running?

Mayor Adams: Just think about that question. The only reason Andrew is running– he didn't want to be mayor, he was governor. He succumbed to the far left, he gave us a terrible bail bill, he gave us a terrible cannabis bill, 15,000 people in nursing homes died under his watch. The problem we're seeing with people with severe mental health issues is because he closed psychiatric beds. I mean, young people are shooting young people right now and becoming younger and younger victims because of his Raise the Age. 

And so when you talk about ego, he spent $25 million, he was 40 points up in the poll. The day before the primary, he stated that he was up 10 points. He lost by [12] points. Now, I made it clear to everyone I was running on an Independent line. I told everybody that I was doing that. We knew Mamdani was going to be on the work and family line. Why did he throw his name in the middle of this? He created this. So he's saying it's my ego? 

Let me tell you what ego is. Ego is being the second Black mayor in the history of the city with a 30-year gap. I'm the sitting mayor of the City of New York. He sabotaged Carl McCall's race when Carl wanted to be the first Black governor. He sabotaged King's race when he wanted to be the first Black AG. He sabotaged David Paterson when David Paterson wanted to run for re-election. He sabotaged Keith Wright when he wanted to be the first speaker of the assembly. 

He didn't allow Andrea Stewart-Cousins to come into the meetings when there were the budget meetings that were taking place. He sabotaged that. He has a history of doing this, and he thought he was going to do it with me as well. I'm running to win. It's not my ego. It's my city. I'm running for one reason only. I love New York.

Harry: After the federal corruption charges were dropped against you this spring, you said, quote, “I trusted people I should not have, and I regret that.” Since then, some of the people who were either cut loose by your campaign or by you, they've reemerged. Winnie Greco and Brianna Suggs were seen at your campaign relaunch. It's been reported that Ingrid Lewis-Martin is helping to organize some of the volunteers for your campaign. Why continue to surround yourself with people that there have been ethical questions that are still in some ways unanswered, raised about?

Mayor Adams: And think about this for a minute. You’re a young African American woman. Brianna Suggs was one of the top fundraisers in the city. Never convicted, never charged with a crime, never convicted of a crime. Do we tell her, you know, you cannot do what you've shown to be good at doing? 

I mean, there's something in this city and country that's called due process. People [are] allowed due process. And we have brought on amazing talent around us. My new campaign manager, young man Eugene, is on board. Look at my paid staff of the campaign. Those people are not on the campaign. People are still New Yorkers. People still believe in my candidacy. If in their own time they want to volunteer to help the campaign in whatever way they know how to help, the worst thing we [could] do is say they shouldn't. 

Look at what we talk about, what whole reform is about, giving people the opportunity of due process and allowing them to– in this country you are allowed to volunteer your actions as much as you want. I think it's the wrong thing, it sends the wrong message to tell people who are still trying to be engaged and move the city in the right direction that they shouldn't do that.

Harry: I want to ask you about Tom Donlon, the former interim police commissioner. It seemed like last week you were raising some questions about his ability to lead. Were you a part of the hiring and interview process for Donlon? And were there any red flags that came up before he became the interim police commissioner?

Mayor Adams: First, his case, both of them are baseless. I'm not sure if you had the opportunity to read the 200 and something [page] document with the misspellings, the blanks, the grammatical errors. That attorney should be fired, to produce– to put something like that in front of someone. 

The courts have it now. The courts are going to determine exactly what the outcome is and all that information will be discussed, but clearly there was a real indication to rush this. I smell politics.

Harry: But, as you were interviewing him, I don't know, did you sit down with him, did you interview him, speak with him in person? Nothing came up during that process before he was named interim police commissioner that gave you pause?

Mayor Adams: That's going to be all part of the conversation in the days to come. And you know how lawyers are. Something is in the courtroom, lawyers tell you, let us handle it. And I have great trust and faith that it's going to be handled.

Harry: Donlon's lawsuit is one of several that have come up recently that have questioned the NYPD under your time as mayor and allegations of corruption. How do you, for New Yorkers, restore faith in the NYPD? What do you say to New Yorkers who maybe are seeing the news of these lawsuits, perhaps they're reading through some of them, and they have some real questions of trust?

Mayor Adams: Well, first, I go to a lot of community board meetings, I go to a lot of older adult meetings, youth meetings. I have not been to one, not one, where people say we don't want our police officers. Not one. There's no lack of trust that New Yorkers have for the NYPD. They're doing their job. 

Lowest numbers of shootings and homicides in the last six months in recorded history. 100,000 illegal vehicles off our streets that were used for crimes and other illegal actions. 22,000 illegal guns off our streets that you're seeing. We're seeing drops in crime on our subway system, in our housing development. New Yorkers love their police officers, and I know they do because I wore that uniform and it showed me a lot of love when I was a police officer. 

Do we always have to make sure that we stay on top of things? And that's what Commissioner Tisch is doing. In my conversation with her, she says, “Eric, all this that they're talking about was happening in the department?” No. Did we have to tweak some things? Yes. But you do not have rampant corruption in the New York City Police Department. 

And lawsuits are not new in the New York City Police Department. There are lawsuits for ageism, there's lawsuits for discrimination, they're not new. The timing of this, says a lot. And I think take a closer look at the attorneys who are bringing these cases. Go look at some of their websites and some of the things that they've said. One attorney says, I hate Eric Adams. So what's the motivators here?

Harry: It seems like, from the outside looking in, and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like this has been perhaps a challenging year for Eric Adams. How have you managed to lead the city, run for re-election, and take care of Eric? And you're smiling. I mean, what's the secret? How are you doing it? Let us in. Let us know. And has it been a challenging year?

Mayor Adams: Every year is a challenging year for human beings. We have ups and downs. There are days that I wish I would have gotten out of bed and days I wish I would have stayed in bed. I mean, that's just life. And so, how do I say, you're the mayor of the greatest city on the globe. There's only been 110 of you. How do I say that to a mother who's struggling and trying to put food on the table, like my mother was, that is my challenge? No, I have to get up and live up to what I promised New Yorkers, to serve them. 

During difficult times, other elected officials step down and they run. That's not what I do. So it doesn't matter who's in office. I'm not moving to Florida. I love New York. I'm going to be here in the city. I'm a gritty, grinder, New Yorker that knows how to be resilient. And so, yes, there were some difficult moments in this year. But there was also joy. 

There was a lot of joy I had this year. The joy of doing after-school programs, 130,000 pre-K seats, put the money into our libraries and cultural institutions and baselining that. That brings me a lot of joy, walking through the city and engaging with New Yorkers. So with the challenge comes joy. You remember Frankie Beverly? Joy and pain. 

Harry: Like sunshine and rain. 

Mayor Adams: You didn't miss that one.

Harry: No. It is summertime. You know, this is the time of year when we typically see that. You know, my final question for you, there has been some concern that, you know, you've been– I know you spent a lot of time in the five boroughs, but you've also been out in the Hamptons a lot. Is that the key to winning New York City, spending time in the Hamptons?

Mayor Adams: I've been there one time this year, you know, for a full day. One time, for a full day. Now, other guys have been back and forth over it, and one of the other opponents, somebody told me, I thought he was going for three days to Africa, but they told me it's a month. You know, a month. 

So I'm here in the city. I don't have the luxury to disappear for a month. I don't have the luxury to disappear for days. I am probably the most visible mayor in the history of this city. I've been in the Bronx more than any mayor in history. I've been on Staten Island more than any mayor in history. I am in the outer boroughs. I'm just comfortable around New Yorkers. I enjoy being around New Yorkers. If it's on the subway, if it's sitting inside a hookah lounge, if it's just being out here. 

And so, no, winning is not in the Hamptons. Winning is touching, shaking hands, doing that good old-fashioned kissing babies, and telling people policies. I'm looking forward to really letting people know what they never read about this administration. I get an opportunity now to tell them about it. We are winning.

Harry: Thank you for your time. Great to see you again. 

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

###