Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls In for Live Interview on KBLA1580’S “Tavis Smiley Radio Show”

August 4, 2025

Tavis Smiley: A conversation now with the mayor of Gotham, Eric Adams, who I'm honored to have on this program. Mayor Adams, how are you, sir? Mayor, can you hear me? Is your mute button on? How can I hear the mayor? There you go, mayor. Can you hear me now?

Mayor Eric Adams: Yes, I can.

Smiley: How are you, my friend?

Mayor Adams: Good, good. I hope you're well. I hope you're having a great summer.

Smiley: I'm having a great summer, and if I complained about anything, I'd be an ingrate, man. I'm doing well, and good to be in dialogue with you. Let me make the most of our time. I want to start with this.

As you know, I had the honor early in my career of working for the late great mayor of this city, the first African-American, Tom Bradley, and so I know all too well that so much of being mayor is navigating crises that you did not see coming, particularly when you're the mayor of New York City.

What can you say in retrospect now about this grim, this horrific shooting days ago in Midtown?

Mayor Adams: You're so right. Oftentimes, you start your day where you don't realize what the day is going to look like, and you have to adjust as you move forward, and I think that that's the life of a mayor.

It really breaks my heart that we lost four innocent New Yorkers who were basically carrying out their lives of what they do in this city. This gunman drove across the country with an automatic weapon with only one intention, and that was to bring death and destruction. The first person he encountered, who happened to have been a police officer, he shot and killed, and he just continued his rampage as he moved throughout the building. So it breaks our heart.

We're going to investigate this thoroughly to find out if there were any co-conspirators or if anyone had any knowledge of this horrific shooting, and as you know, we lost not only our civilians, but we also lost a police officer, a police officer Islam, a Bangladeshi immigrant who came here to serve our city.

Smiley: I mean, New York is New York. It's an iconic city, of course, in the world, and there's not a whole lot, I guess, one can do to stop this, but it must rankle you, it must really unnerve you that people keep choosing New York as the site to which they come to make these sort of horrific statements. This gentleman, as you mentioned, came to New York. I'm thinking of the guy that went to New York to kill the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. This is happening too much in New York City, mayor.

Mayor Adams: Yeah, and so true, and that's a great observation on your part. New York City is the media capital of the country, if not the globe, and when people want to make statements, including flying planes into buildings or doing something extremely horrific because they believe they would get the attention because it's in New York, and what we must do, we must balance that. We must balance that with a good law enforcement apparatus.

In our city, we don't control federal gun laws, but we do control those who carry illegal guns here. We removed close to 23,000 illegal guns off our streets, 3,100 just this year alone, and we have witnessed in the last seven months the lowest numbers of shootings and shootings victims in the recorded history of this city.

So clearly, you're seeing a law enforcement apparatus that is doing its job, and we would love to be able to stop people from carrying guns into our city, but unfortunately, we have very lax national gun laws. In some states, the laws are even more lax, and it hurts cities like New York, Chicago, and others. We don't manufacture guns here, but we have to deal with those that are manufactured.

Smiley: Obviously, as mayor running for re-election, we'll get to that a little bit later here, but let me just do a little bit of it now. Your record is under attack, under assault. It's being dissected by the media, by those who are running against you as you seek re-election, and your policing record is front and center, and again, we're following this race every day around the country. Many of us who are fascinated by this race in New York City.

For those who are critiquing your record on policing, what's your position on what you think you've been able to accomplish?

Mayor Adams: Well, you know, we should be clear here, we have now four candidates in the race, five actually. Three of them don't have a record at all. One of them, he is running from his record because his contributions are making our city unsafe, and I'm the only candidate that has a record. And the reason people can critique me is because I have a record.

But when you do an analysis of the record of, you know, not only looking at developing and putting in place more affordable housing, and individual years, year one, year two, and year three, in a recorded history of the city, putting $30 billion back into the pockets of working class people, everything from paying off medical debt to no income tax for low income New Yorkers at all. What we have done around paying for college tuition for foster care children, you know, more jobs in our city, in our city's history, decrease in unemployment all over the city, but particularly for Black and brown New Yorkers. So that record is good.

But if you want to examine just law enforcement alone, I ran on public safety, and as I mentioned, July, June and July are normally dangerous months for crimes in cities. We have the lowest numbers of shootings and homicides in the first six months of the year, and the lowest number of shootings and shooting victims in the seven months of the year.

Our subway system is the safest it has ever been, taking away the two pandemic years when no one was on the train. When you look at major crime categories, decrease, hate crimes have decreased in the city for the most part. And so, public safety is a prerequisite to prosperity, and we can't go backwards by making ill-advised decisions around how to keep New Yorkers safe.

Smiley: There's a paradox here, because you are right about the fact that serious crime is declining in New York on your watch as mayor, and to the victor goes the spoils, so you're the mayor, so if the crime is down, then you get the credit for that. And yet I keep reading that while crime is down, serious crime is down, so many New Yorkers don't feel safer. To those New Yorkers, you say what?

Mayor Adams: And I'm glad you said that, because I just answered that question today. One of the reporters at a press conference said, “Well, you know, New Yorkers, they don't feel safe.” And I said, well, let's ask the question, where are New Yorkers getting their opinions on how well the city is doing?

8.5 million New Yorkers, and when you start your day, what do you do? You pick up your newspapers, you read to see, and engage how well the city is doing. So if we focus on the worst thing that could happen in the city of 8.5 million people, the largest city in America, then it's going to have the tendency to make people feel unsafe.

I keep saying to them, as you write [about a] horrific incident that happens in our city, how about putting in the city, in one sentence, that we are the safest big city in America. When you look at what happened in Chicago over Fourth of July, and I'm not trying to say anything negative about the city, but the fact is, we had one shooting on Fourth of July. The number of shootings these other cities, big cities, had were extremely high. Through the weekend, they had over 50 shootings.

And so we know the work we're doing here, but I think it's imperative that the local tabloids must play a role in how people feel about their city. We know we have to do more. One crime is a crime too much. But when you look at this city and what we have accomplished, like I said, these are record-breaking decreases in crimes.

Brother, I have 4.6 million people that use my subway system every day. 4.6 million. We have an average of five felonies a day. Out of 4.6 million. That's an amazing job by this Police Department.

Smiley: The mayor mentioned housing. When we come forward in our conversation with him, I want to ask him about Housing Week in New York City. I want to ask him, as we discussed earlier on today's program in a different conversation, of course, we were talking about the fact that New York Times has opted out of endorsing in this race. I'm curious as to how the mayor sees that. All of a sudden, New York Times didn't want to endorse now.

We'll talk about that. And one of those candidates who he mentioned, not by name, has had some success talking about affordability. And I want to ask the mayor what his thoughts are on affordability and how he's responding to those attacks. You're listening to the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, right now on Tavis Smiley.

[Commercial Break.]

Smiley: Tavis Smiley and the mayor of the Big Apple, Mayor Eric Adams, who I'm honored to have on this program. I thank him for squeezing out a half hour to talk to me with all that he has going on around the city and, of course, running for re-election. Mayor, a couple things real quick here. We talked earlier in this program today about the New York Times opting out of endorsing in this race. How do you read that?

Mayor Adams: I don't. I don't quite understand. I know that they indicated during the primary that the primary winner, Mamdani, was not qualified. And they mentioned how tainted Andrew's record was, so I'm not quite sure. I know they made an announcement, I believe almost a year, year and a half ago, that they would not be endorsing in local races. And so they're running their paper, I have to run the city, and I can't figure out what that is about.

I think that if you look at what my bond raters have stated, cities are judged by how well bond raters indicate the success of the city. They've increased my bond, and they've shown how we have stabilized this city and continue to have success. You know, more jobs in this city, in the city's history, and all our other wins, I believe, are extremely important.

Smiley: Since you mentioned him by name, Zohran Mamdani, achieved success, besting Andrew Cuomo in that Democratic primary, I think, for one word, affordability. That was the issue that he ran. He's still riding that issue of affordability. It has worked quite well for him. Talk to me about why he's been so successful running against you now, talking about affordability in New York City.

Mayor Adams: Well, because clearly the great philosopher once stated in New York, the rent is too damn high. And we know that. We know that. And so we don't disagree with the affordability issue. The question needs to be raised is who has a plan to correct it? That's what is important.

We cannot allow any form of stating what the problem is. Anyone could define the problem, but can you correct the problem? If housing is an affordable issue in our city, which it is, then it's imperative that we build more. As I stated, we broke records in year one, year two, and year three in building housing. And we know what we have accomplished in building housing.

We have passed the most comprehensive housing reform in the history of the city. And in the pipeline, we had a 500,000 moonshot goal of building housing. We have created, preserved, and planned to build 426,000 units of that housing, outpacing any other mayor of the 12 years of Mayor Bloomberg and the eight years of Mayor de Blasio combined. And so we know we need to build more.

We have an inventory issue here, brother. We have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate. 1.4 percent of apartments are available. If we don't build more, we don't get it done. And so we have moved more people out of homelessness into permanent housing in the history of the city in those three years. More people into supportive housing. More people to subsidize housing program called FHEPS vouchers. And so we are doing and solving the problem and not just talking about the problem. And the beauty of it is when you talk about affordability, it's about putting money back in the pockets of New Yorkers.

As I indicated, $30 billion. No income tax in this city for low income New Yorkers. No income tax. And we accomplished that. Paying off college tuition for foster care children. Making sure that $100 that people paid for their high speed broadband, our NYCHA residents are not paying that at all because we gave it to them for free. So we identified ways. Dropping the cost of child care from $20 a month to less than $20 a month. Free after school program. Free pre-K and 3K programs. So we said let's find ways as the mayor we can put money back into the pockets of New Yorkers and keep the city affordable.

Smiley: When we come forward in our remaining moments with the mayor, I want to ask him a specific question about housing week in New York City. And then I want to ask you finally about the Black vote in particular. He mentioned there are five persons running in this race. He's the only African American in this race. And yet the Black vote is split in a variety of ways. The numbers are pretty clear about what Cuomo pulled in the primary. What Mamdani pulled in the primary. And what Adams expects to pull in the main race, the general election, come November. But the Black vote is split. I want to get his take on that before I lose him at the top of the hour. You're listening to the mayor of Gotham, Eric Adams, on Tavis Smiley.

[Commercial Break.]

Smiley: Tavis Smiley, the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. I've got four minutes left with him. I know he has a full schedule, and I thank him for this half hour. A couple questions, mayor, I want to ask right quick.

I know that we all know, of course, Housing Week happens every year in New York. This year runs from July 28th through August the 4th. Today is August 4th, so today is the last week of Housing Week. You kicked this off with a big announcement about that abandoned airport in Queens. Say a word about that real quick.

Mayor Adams: It's so important. That airport remained, and it was vacant ever since 1984. I was a rookie cop many years ago. There's 3,000 units of homes and 60 acres of public open space on this site at the former Flushing airport. This is a big, big win on our part.

Smiley: Let me pivot now. I've got three minutes left here. I want to pivot to the African-American vote, the Black vote in particular, because I'm fascinated by the way this thing is shaking out. You opted out of the Democratic primary, running as Independent, of course, in the general election as the incumbent mayor come November so that Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo fought this out in the primary.

We saw the Black vote split in that race. But everybody remains in. Cuomo is still in. Mamdani is still in. There are two others still in. And so this Black vote is going to get split unless you find a way to coalesce it between now and November. So talk to me, as you will, sir, about the Black vote in this all-important mayor's race.

Mayor Adams: No, so true. It comes down to what I hear all the time when we give our record. People say, I didn't know that, I didn't know that. Many in our communities are not aware of the record that we have in the city.

My job now, because I was not in the primary, my job is to do what I did in 2021, let the African-American and the Hispanic community and other immigrant communities know how I have impacted their lives. And that's the beauty of campaigning. You can use your campaign dollars and not have to just depend on media to give your story. I'm now able to go out and tell my own story, and we will coalesce the Black vote, the brown vote, and many of our immigrant communities as well, because I'm one of them.

Smiley: Here's my exit question, mayor. Give me your 30-second pitch, your 60-second pitch to African-American voters specifically, aside from the fact that you happen to be one of us. What's your pitch to Black voters to reelect you?

Mayor Adams: Well, and that's part of the pitch. It was 30 years since David Dinkins was the mayor. 30 years later, I came along. But look at who I am, a person. I didn't study poverty. I grew up in poverty. I know what proper policing is.

I know what it is to be promised something that you can't live up to. And when you look at the lives of Black and brown people, decreasing unemployment, making sure that those who are in homelessness get housing, building more housing in the recorded history of the city in individual years, brought down crime, which typically impacts Black and brown communities. The bottom line is, I am probably the first blue collar mayor that came from the communities that are going through a lot, and I know what it’s like because I went through a lot in the process.

Smiley: I’ve known Eric Adams for many, many years, long before he was mayor. And I’ve never called him one time [where] he did not return my phone call to come on my program, wherever that program was. And I’m honored to have had him on this program once again today.

Mayor Adams, thank you for your time, sir. All the best to you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Take care.

Smiley: Thank you for your time.

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