Transcript: Mayor Eric Adams Appears Live on MSNBC’S "Morning Joe"

February 8, 2023

Mika Brzezinski: One of the moments President Biden drew bipartisan cheers for last night as he announced plans to create more blue-collar jobs in America. Joining us now, New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, who says he has a similar agenda for his city. He joins us now. It's good to see you.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you. I feel like I have arrived.

Brzezinski: Really?

Mayor Adams: At Morning Joe here, watching.

Brzezinski: Aww.

Mayor Adams: Aww, yeah.

Brzezinski: "You have arrived," as the GPS tells you in a very firm voice.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Brzezinski: I love her.

Joe Scarborough: So, what do you think about the speech?

Mayor Adams: Really, when you look at my State of the City Address, a few weeks ago, I talked about the working class agenda, the blue collar agenda, and it's so important, because when you move around this city, if you are on the subway, if you walk in the streets, everyday New Yorker blue collar workers are hurting, and they really want government to speak to them, and not at them.

Scarborough: What way has there been a disconnect between working class voters, who should be aligned with Democrats economically, and party leaders?

Mayor Adams: There was, and you look at the numbers, there's a hemorrhaging of our Latino community, our AAPI communities, that's leaving the traditional Democratic base, is because we've allowed the loudest and those who consider themselves to be "woke," some of us never went to sleep, and we hear and speak directly to people, and I think the party is now understanding that we have to speak at those issues that are important, jobs, public safety, educating our children, good healthcare, just these common kitchen table issues that we move away from.

Scarborough: And another one, homelessness that you've been talking about in New York City. It's certainly a problem here in Washington D.C., where there's a humanitarian crisis on the streets every night.

Mayor Adams: And think about it. We're saying that people who cannot make decisions for themselves to the extent that they can't take care of their basic needs and they're dangerous to themselves, we should get them care. You actually have people advocating that they should have the right to stay on the street. That's inhumane.

Brzezinski: No.

Scarborough: Instead of taking care of them. It's a humanitarian crisis.

Mayor Adams: It really is. It really is.

Willie Geist: So, when we talk, Mr. Mayor, about policing, first of all, we offer our condolences about Officer Fayaz, who was killed off duty, unrelated to his police work. Just a terrible, terrible tragedy. Died yesterday. What is the state of policing in New York? You came in on an agenda of public safety, as a former police officer yourself. You've said many times, "Police officers are just being asked to do too much. They can't be a social worker and a counselor and everything else that we're asking them to do." How have you changed it in your first year? How have you changed policing in New York?

Mayor Adams: We zeroed in on those things that were, I said, was crucial. Number one, the over-proliferation of guns, taking several thousand guns off the street, double-digit decrease in shootings, decrease in homicides. Now we have to go after those predatory crimes.

And I keep talking about recidivism. When we heard of the shooting, even before we knew who the shooter was, I said, "I bet you the person has an extensive criminal record." The guy has an extensive criminal record. The revolving door recidivism that you're seeing in, not only New York, but our country, is impacting how we keep our cities safe. And what we must not do is have a knee-jerk reaction and take tools away from police officers, because the bad guys celebrate every time you say, "I'm going to take a tool away from law enforcement." No, we must have the balance, justice and safety can live and coexist together.

Geist: We've been talking with you on this show for, gosh, a couple of years now, about bail reform. And a problem that you've tried to address with Albany, police officers will tell you again and again and again, we're seeing the same people in the subway every day. We arrest them, they go in, they come back out, multiple arrests. Is there any progress on reforming that in a way that makes New York safer?

Mayor Adams: We're engaging in some real conversations with the governor and the leaders in Albany where we're saying, "Listen, let's have a holistic approach to dealing with this problem." The bottlenecking of our criminal justice system, or where cases are on too long, and the revolving door aspect of it is really what's hurting our criminal justice system.

Katty Kay: Mr. Mayor, another issue that the president addressed last night, and that your state, every state in the country is dealing with, is fentanyl. This rise of the number of fentanyl deaths around America. Some of it is coming across the border, some of it from China as well. You heard Republicans last night heckling the president over the border and over China. But, in your experience, is there something that the government is not doing, the federal government is not doing, that might help you address fentanyl? If you had the ear of the White House right now to address this one issue, is there something you'd be asking for?

Mayor Adams: I'm glad you raised that. Many of us remember the 70's, what heroin did to our cities, and during the 80's, what crack cocaine did to our cities. This is the heroin and crack cocaine combined. Fentanyl is so dangerous that even when some of the dogs sniff it, they get sick. We have correction officers who are falling out and have been having to be hospitalized because it's smuggled in. If we don't attack fentanyl right now, we are going to see a combined combination of what heroin and crack cocaine did to our cities. We must be on the front line. We have to stop the production. We must come with the technology that could identify it right away or must be a real education campaign inside our schools. Our young people now are embracing fentanyl and other opioids at a level that is unbelievable. Our overdoses are increasing. This is a national crisis that we need to reach head on. We made a mistake with heroin and crack cocaine. We allow it to infiltrate. We can't make that mistake again.

Scarborough: Yeah.

Eugene Daniels: Last night, President Biden gave his speech. You thought it was a good speech, it had tenders of the State of the City Speech that you gave a little bit ago. But talk to me as you're sitting in that room, you agree with the president. There seems to be sometimes a disconnect from what he's saying and how Americans are feeling that we're seeing in the polls, right? He's about to likely announce a run for president again. So what do you think as a mayor, who's closest to you, closest to the citizens, what is the disconnect that Americans aren't seeing when you felt that in that room yesterday?

Mayor Adams: Well, I think that first of all, I like the president. And when you like someone, you don't have a problem when you disagree. I believe we have to secure our borders. There must be real comprehensive immigration reform. Republicans, Democrats must come together. We were able to get resources. But, what New Yorkers, and I believe New Yorkers are similar to what people are feeling all over the country, they want government to work for them in a real way, and that's a battle we're having even in the city, of those real issues. They want to walk out their homes and see their streets clean. They want to be on the subway system to save. They want to know that their children are being educated, and there's a future. People lost their belief that there's a future in this country. And I think he's right. I'm just, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I just believe that we are the only country with "dream" attached to our name. There's no German dream, French dream, Polish dream. Damn it, there’s an American dream.

Brzezinski: There might be a Polish dream. No, you're right. You're right.

Scarborough: Before you go, we talked about crime an awful lot. I am just curious, you started to make reference to numbers. Let's talk numbers. Year over year, how's New York doing on safety and crime year over year, and compared to the 1980's?

Mayor Adams: So, look at what we're doing in the subway system. When we did our subway safety plan, people thought it was not going to work. You see a substantial decrease in subway crime. We're moving in the right direction. We started up in February 2022. We were like 40 percent up in some of the major, seven major crimes. You're seeing a trend downward. We continue to pursue to remove guns off the street. But something else you're going to see, you're going to see the infusion of technology in New York City policing that's going to cascade throughout the entire country. We have to catch up to what others are doing. The city is moving in the right direction, training in the right direction. Morale is up. Police officers are doing their job, and they believe again that we could have a safe city. I knew what the 80's looked like, and we are not going backwards. We're going to move forward.

Brzezinski: All right. New York City Mayor, Eric Adams. Thank you very, very much for being on the show this morning. It's nice to see you here in D.C.

Mayor Adams: Listen, I'm going to hang out here a little.

Brzezinski: Yeah, talk about the Polish dream next time you come on.

Scarborough: It's great to have you here. Real quick, I'm so sorry, I just have to ask you really quickly, what about Tyre? What about what happened in Memphis? You're a cop. What did you think as you saw him being beaten to death?

Mayor Adams: It reflected on my days from when my brother and I were assaulted by police officers, and the symbol of protection to violate that. And it was just a real personal moment for me, because I know the men and women who serve and protect us are so much better. They tarnish that. All the work that we're trying to do, when you see that, it takes us back. But I just tell Americans, let's forge ahead. Let's remove those who are not suitable to do the nobility of public protection, and do not tarnish all those who place their lives on the front line all day, every day. Police Officer Mora and Rivera wore that uniform. They're not the same as those officers in Memphis that tarnished their uniform. I mean, we should never forget that.

Scarborough: Yeah.

Brzezinski: Mayor Adams, thank you very much for being here. We appreciate it.

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