Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls In For Interview With 77 WABC Radio

February 14, 2024

Rita Cosby: And joining us now here on the Rita Cosby show is the mayor of the great City of New York, my friend Mayor Eric Adams. Mr. Mayor, great to have you here.

Mayor Eric Adams: Always Rita, always good being on with you and just giving people updates of this major city [inaudible].

Cosby: Yes, for sure. And boy, it is a big breaking news day. I have to get your reaction, Mr. Mayor, to this horrible shooting that just happened in Kansas City at the Super Bowl celebration for the Chiefs. At this hour, the latest is 22 people shot, at least one person dead.

It is just such terrible news and it's scary as it happened in a very crowded outdoor celebration. And New York, of course, has many big outdoor events. Your thoughts, Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: It's really heartbreaking when you see a celebratory atmosphere where people are, you know, actually celebrating with children and families of a great sporting event and then to have individuals, what appears to be two gunmen, exchange gunfire, 22 people shot, one person lost their life due to this. And our heart goes out to the families.

And this is why we have been really dogmatic about removing guns off our streets. Since being mayor, I think we've removed over 13,000 firearms off our streets. We have to get these illegal guns off the streets of our country.

Cosby: Also, how complex is it, too? As you know all too well, you're the mayor of, I think, the greatest and the biggest city in the world here in New York City. It's scary. It's very hard to control. There was a lot of security there. But it's also a very difficult scenario. People are nervous with so many threats all over the world.

Mayor Adams: That's so true. And when you think about the amount of security that was at the celebration, it just really reinforces that when you're dealing with people who are destined to bring violence. You have to make sure that you're able to apprehend them as quickly as possible.

And I think that I take my hat off to the law enforcement officers. You could only imagine, you had a celebration, you're hearing gunfire, people are running in different directions. Those responding officers are unclear if they're dealing with a terrorist threat or if they're dealing with just a dispute. They have to make that quick decision.

It just shows you the challenge that law enforcement officers are dealing with across the entire country. This appears to have been a dispute and not a terrorist threat, but a bullet discharge from a gun does not matter what the reason for it. It is harmful to children and families.

Cosby: And speaking of children and family, you have launched a lawsuit now against social media companies. Explain this, because, boy, are kids are getting so caught up and affected by social media and you're really putting a big spotlight on this, which I think is so powerful and important. Talk about the lawsuit you announced because this is a big deal.

Mayor Adams: Yes, it is. We're the first city of this size to initiate a lawsuit of this capacity. And I want to be clear. Social media is going to be here with us. It is part of our everyday interactions. And technology is so important. You know, I'm a mayor of that believes in technology, but this is a responsible action on our part. And sometimes you have to do the hard things to make sure the right things are done.

We are announcing today that we are suing social media companies, the large platforms because of their abuse, I believe, on how they use algorithms to really target our children and bring them into a real dark hole of violence, of depression, of suicidal ideations, of all the things that we fight to prevent our children from experiencing.

We think the really introduction of this, relatively new introduction of the medium of social media is having a major impact on our families.

Cosby: You know, I was looking at the lawsuit, too, you talk about the algorithms. What do you hope to accomplish by this lawsuit, and how do you hope it can make a change to help all families?

Mayor Adams: The same thing we did collectively to address cigarettes. You know, the cigarette industry was well aware of the harmful effects of cigarette smoking, and there was many layers in lawsuit before we were able to get the data to show what cigarette manufacturers were doing.

And that's the same here. We want to have real transparency. Their studies are going to reveal the intentionality of what they are doing, and their own data is going to give us a pathway to improve social media, because there's a lot of good that comes out of this technology, such as we're using apps to allow children to speak to mental health professionals because our children use phones.

But there's a lot of harm. We see subway surfing, millions of views encouraging young people to do it, gang riot rivalries, retaliatory shootings, having young girls believe their body type is something that they should not be proud of, the suicidal thoughts.

Many of these algorithms are clearly bringing our young people into the dark hole of depression and dark hole of dealing with anti-social behavior. We want them to correct their course, and we want them to look at the $100 million that it costs us annually to deal with the mental health issues with our young people, to play a role in compensating for that as well.

What have families told you also, Mayor Eric Adams, because some of these stories, my goodness, when they testified even on Capitol Hill, it is devastating the bullying that happens and the exposure that happens also with sexual contact, it really is frightening for parents out there.

Mayor Adams: It's impacting families in a real way, and parents feel so hopeless in raising their children. And really neurology is showing us that when a child's mind develops that they should not be on social media, some experts said, before they reached the age of 14.

And today standing next to us was the mother, Norma, who lost her son to subway surfing. And even when these incidents end and the funerals are over, the pain continues and it continues to travel throughout our entire lives. And so we know that this is a major issue for children and families, and it would be irresponsible if we were to ignore this.

My hat off to Dr. Vasan, our commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, who held the summit last year on this, and this is the continuation of really approaching this very difficult issue.

Cosby: And Mayor Adams, you brought up also gangs, too. I want to just ask you briefly, because people are so concerned about some of of the headlines we've seen of late in New York with the Venezuelan gangs and MS-13, another brutal gang, that they may be joining forces and may be part of some of the things which have been the robberies.

We've also seen sadly the beat down of the police officer in Times Square, the two officers that was so horrible. How do we control it? What can be done to clamp down?

Mayor Adams: And this is such a really, this is such a new toy to conversation because we want to be clear: the pathway to the American Dream is something every immigrant has experienced, and this is a city of immigrants.

And by identifying a small number of people who are participating in either gang or criminal behavior, we don't want to demonize of the hundreds of thousands of people who come to our country to participate in the American Dream. All of our ancestry is attached to that dream. That dream is still alive.

But we must make a tough decision, again, to do the right thing. And if we identify a packet of people doing illegal behavior, we don't want to be so politically correct that we're not going to correct the problem we're facing.

There's a potential that there is a small group of people who came into the country that have criminal behavior. We're going to identify them. It appears as though this is not only in New York, but in parts of Florida and other parts of the country.

And our goal is to use Interpol and use other law enforcement, both city, state and federal, to identify those criminal behaviors and clamp down on them. But at the same time, we must always keep the American Dream alive and well and never use these as excuses to deny people the pursuit of them.

We must secure our borders. We must have a decompression strategy. We must make sure that the federal government picks up the price tag that's associated to the migrant and asylum seeker issue, but we must also not demonize the entire population.

Cosby: And finally, Mayor Adams, the other day, and it seems like every politician, wherever they're walking these days, they have these anti-Israeli protestors. There's a group that came over to you.

And I've been singing your praises because you had a brilliant answer for them. You know, they were coming over to you like they do to...it seems like everybody else that's out there, a Republican, Democrat.

And you said, think about the hostages. Explain that, because boy, when I said though people all over social media were cheering, it didn't matter what side of the political aisle. Everybody was cheering, it was a great answer.

Mayor Adams: Well, I think that is so important to be consistent on message, and just as there are those who are calling to end the… or call for ceasefire, part of the call for ceasefire should be allowed to bring the hostages home, release the hostages. And I've been clear on that.

No one wants to see innocent children and families being harmed in any way, but we need to clearly understand we have people who have been in hostage since October 7th of 2023. We need to release those hostages.

And I'm very clear on that. I stated that on October 8th, I believe, when I spoke about it. And I'm going to continue to say, we need to release the hostages. That's the right thing to do.

And Hamas must be destroyed. We cannot allow the evil actions of Hamas to continue, and I am not going to do what's popular because people are yelling or screaming at me. I'm going to be consistent in my message.

I don't want to see any innocent child or family killed, but we have to deal with the fact there are hostages that are still in captivity.

Cosby: No, bravo for always remembering them and also fighting the good fight for our kids, too. And this lawsuit, I think, that you announced also today is so powerful, too, against the social media companies leading the way on that.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, thank you so much for being here.

Mayor Adams: Thank you, Rita. Love you. Take care.

Cosby: And Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for joining us. What a powerful discussion, and bravo for taking on the social media companies that are, indeed, we'll see what the documents show, but boy, are they certainly influencing kids.

And I think that's very, very powerful, taking the fight to protect our young and old, but especially our young people that are dealing with so many issues tied to social media.