Transcript: Mayor Eric Adams Calls in Live to WABC's "Sid & Friends"

March 13, 2023

Sid Rosenberg: He is the mayor of New York City and he's become a very good friend of mine. I'm honored to say that, proud to say that. Name is Eric Adams. And he, every couple of weeks doesn't have to do this, but every couple of weeks comes on this show and speaks to you guys, this audience, knowing full well a lot of you don't agree with a lot of the stuff that he says, but that's the type of guy he is and the type of mayor he is. So making his return to the show, once again, my friend Mayor Eric Adams. And Eric, in that song, Jay-Z, talks about concrete jungle where dreams are made of. So with that said, what is your pitch to future Hall of Fame, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers, to come here and play for the Jets?

Mayor Eric Adams: Well, two things with that song. Number one, you should sit down and listen to it one day because that song is you all the way, man.

Rosenberg: True. You're right, man. You're right.

Mayor Adams: You got that New York attitude.

Rosenberg: You are right. Especially the beginning of that song.

Mayor Adams: Well, listen, I think Aaron is a solid player and sometimes you have to change your altitude to get to the level that you want. And just sometimes you've done the best you could at a run at a particular location. It's time to move on to something new. There's many layers in life. It's not one layer. And so if he could come and add to the Jets' chemistry of that winning a title already and bring that to New York, I'm all for it. I'm a Jets fan.

Rosenberg: I know you are. That's why I asked you that. And of course, if he came here and did that, he'd be the first quarterback since 1969, since Joe Namath, mayor, to win the Super Bowl. I would imagine then he would get the keys to the city, but if not the keys to the city, what about these vacant offices that you guys are turning into affordable housing? I know you got a press conference 11:30 this morning. Tell me about that.

Mayor Adams: I think it's a great concept and great idea. We have about 10 million square feet of real estate in our commercial corridors and areas. And here's an opportunity where there's a match. We are living in a new environment post-Covid. We're not sure if we're going to use all the office spaces. And people are even, in the spaces they are using, they are downsizing the square footage. And so if we have a housing crisis, this is how you turn lemonade out of lemons. And so we're going to look at that and we're not going to leave any stone unturned when it comes down to making sure people have housing.

Rosenberg: Well, there are two things about that story. Is it fair to say then, Mr. Mayor, that you've given up on a lot of people coming back to the city, unfortunately? And b, if you're interested in getting that affordable housing, how do you get in, how do you pick the folks that actually get in?

Mayor Adams: Well, those are both two great questions. One, we have not. Some of my companies that I speak with in my corporation leaders, they are stating, we're 100 percent back, but we realize we don't need the same floor space.

Rosenberg: Got it.

Mayor Adams: So we are downsizing our floor space because we have flexible hours, some people are working later, some people are working through weekends, they're doing this concept of shared desk. When you carry in the items you need and you don't own one desk, they're creating these group settings. So we are in a different place of work atmospheres, and it's because of that, many of my business leaders are stating they don't need the same amount of floor space.

And we have a lottery system when it comes down to your question about affordable housing. There's a lottery system that's in place that we want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to fairly go after the housing that's available. The big thing said is that we must encourage all electeds to be pointing out, here's a good place to build affordable housing, like Borough President Levine is doing and Councilman Reynoso... I mean, Borough President Reynoso, he's doing. Because we have to build more, so that we can house more.

Rosenberg: Let's talk about the announcement you guys made yesterday too, which I like too, Mr. Mayor, and that is you're going to create some more public space along Broadway, I guess, around that Penn Station, Herald Square area where we do get a lot of tourists leading up to Times Square obviously. So it just seems to make a lot of sense. That would be a spot where you would want to do that. I know you and Rodriguez made that announcement yesterday. What's the timetable on that?

Mayor Adams: We're starting today. The first level of that construction is starting right away. It's a beautiful concept. Hats off to Commissioner Rodriguez. He talked about this when he was a Council person and now he's actualizing it. Pedestrian spaces. I think that that's one of the themes. We are residents who enjoy people watching, who enjoy spaces to read, to just talk, sit down and engage with people, so we love this idea of turning some of our street scape into pedestrian plazas and places that people can walk. At the same time, making sure we have traffic mitigation taking place because we want to make sure vision zero is not just a concept, but it's a reality.

Rosenberg: I was thinking about you, Eric, Mr. Mayor, on Saturday night. Danielle and I sat down and watched the Chris Rock concert. Have you seen that yet?

Mayor Adams: People tell me it's hilarious. I didn't get a chance to see it.

Rosenberg: Oh, you got to see it. It's great. He's like, "Listen to me." He goes, "Men don't have the power. Women have the power." And he goes on to tell you why. He's like, "Let me tell you something. If Beyonce was at Burger King, she would still get Jay-Z. But if Jay-Z was at Burger King..." So the power of women, if anybody gets that, it's you. This is Women's History Month and the head of your Police Department, the head of your Fire Department, and last week, you were very nice, you got Jessica Tisch for me on this show, the head of the Sanitation Department, so if anybody appreciates the power of women, at least in your administration, Mr. Mayor, that seems to be the case.

Mayor Adams: And many first in many areas like the first Korean American to be a commissioner of the Small Business Services. So there are many firsts that we have around women and qualified women. We just didn't go out and say, "Hey, we need to fill and check the women's box." My first deputy mayor, the first deputy mayor was a woman, Lorraine Grillo, who's just a legend in the city, and now Sheena Wright. My chief of staff, and of course Ingrid, who's my chief advisor. She has been with me throughout my entire political career. Her husband and I were cops together. We were in the police academy together. And so you see the women around this administration because far too long, they sat on a bench and they've been saying, "Coach, get me in the game. Get me in the game." And I'm just that type of coach that says, "Listen, it's time for you to get in the game." And I'm really proud of the product that they're producing.

Rosenberg: Now, on the flip side though, there seems to be at least a controversy, which you can clear up right now, and that goes back to the Cardi B concert, Mr. Mayor, where Juanita Holmes, the Department of Probation commissioner, now seems to be at odds with, well, the other way around, Keechant Sewell, who of course is your commissioner for the NYPD. Although, a lot of folks say, "Not really. It's really Phil Banks. He's really the commissioner," which is unfair to Keechant and unfair to you. I get that. But that is a talk on the street. But there seems to be a little bit of a fight here between Sewell and Juanita Holmes who have since been promoted to probation commissioner. Is that overstated?

Mayor Adams: It's palace intrigue and covering in the press. You know, you in this business, you know, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Rosenberg: Right.

Mayor Adams: And if you could create a controversy without any... Basically that's the job of the media. How do you get clicks? How do you sell papers? So let's peel this back for a moment and just think conceptually what people are saying. Number one, I thought it was brilliant that Chief Holmes is now Commissioner Holmes. Brought Cardi B in to talk to young ladies. She has this thing called Girl’s Talk. She has been doing it for years. Back when I was borough president, I was impressed with it. She, on her time, goes out and has conversations with young girls and put them on the right pathways with professionals, with women who have made mistakes in life to give them some type of input. And that was the case with Cardi B.

If one were to say that Cardi B should not talk to young girls on how they should improve their lives because she was arrested, then what does that say about me? I was arrested as a child and that was a learning experience. And so hats off to Commissioner Holmes for understanding that and doing the right thing.

And then they attempted to state that she big footed the commissioner on the run in the academy, which is just not true. It wasn't Chief Holmes that brought that to me when she was the chief. It was the commissioner. In our normal briefing, the commissioner and I, we sit down, have a briefing. In our briefing, she brought up the conversation about the run and I simply asked her, what are the thoughts of those who are in training? What are their thoughts on it? She said, "There appears to be difference of thoughts on how to deal with this."

I said, "Bring everyone in and let me hear the different points." And so Sid, if people are saying that underlings or those who you supervise can't come and bring good ideas, that is not how I run my administration. If a teacher has a good idea that's in contrast to what a principal believe, I want to hear both sides. School children text me. There was a Post story of a school child, thought the principal was not running the school correctly. And the student text me. And 30 seconds later, I responded to her, I told her she need to be back in school. I responded to her. That is how I am. I want to create an environment where every clerk, every cleaner, every teacher, every cop, everyone should have input on what they believe their observation should be. And so people made it what it was not. This was about how do I govern? And that is hearing from everyone. That's my 320,000 people who are running this city.

Rosenberg: Let's stick with schools. Mayor Adams, you came under fire a couple of weeks ago for doing something I applauded you for. So did [inaudible] and others. And that is, you talked about religion in school. And look, I'm not going to blame every school shooter's issue is on lack of religion. But let's be honest, a lot of these kids have lost their way and a little religion hurts nobody. But you came under some pretty serious fire for that. You disappointed?

Mayor Adams: No, because I didn't come under fire. And that's what we have to be very careful about. The loudest and the numerical minority is not the position of the overwhelming majority. And just because they're well organized, loud people yell at the top of their lungs. That's not where America is. This is the country where we say “in God we trust” on every bill that we use. After I was sworn in, the last words I said was, “so help me God.” Until a few years ago, you could not become a citizen of this country without saying, “so help me God,” at the ending of your swearing in. Congress state, “so help me God.” We “one nation under God.” I read that somewhere before. [Laughter.] I mean, so what we doing? Who are we kidding here? We are a country of faith.

Now, should the bishop come in and tell us how to run an agency? No, he should not. But at the same time, we should bring the faith that we were taught. “Thou should not kill,” is what I learned in Sunday school. Those things that are the principle of what I learned in my faith, no matter what that faith is. It could be Islam, it could be Buddhism, it could be Christianity, Sikhism. No matter what it is, you should bring the principles and foundation of your faith and how you make your decision. So when you talk about, specifically with schools, I said, I'm really concerned of what I'm seeing. And sometimes I'm baffled I'm the only one that's seeing what is happening to our children? You have China giving our children a version of TikTok that they won't show their children. This is a Trojan horse moment, if I've ever witnessed it before in my life. If you dismantle the children of a culture or a country, you'll dismantle the future.

Over proliferation of drugs, access to fentanyl, access to cannabis in our communities with our young people. We just had a young man the other day, a young teenager under the age of 15, stabbed his sister, who was also a young teenager under the age of 15. Depression, suicide among our children. Instagram and social media, they have hijacked what we normally will instill in our children. And so I'm concerned about our children and I think one thing that is missing is the level of spirituality with our children. And so I'll take the criticism and I'll take the attacks from the numerical minority that don't believe that we should have God in our lives and that we should be led by a spiritual root. Even if I'm an elected official, I don't separate myself from my spiritual belief.

Rosenberg: I agree with you there. Now, in this story, Mr. Mayor, you cannot argue, you've come under fire. Rick Scott said it was embarrassing, the senator out of the state of Florida. There's a story in today's New York Post that says, "Eric Adams wants to send New York City migrants to college for free. It'll cost taxpayers $1.2 million." The story is you want to send some of these migrants up to Sullivan County and pay for their college.

And now, listen, I spend a lot of time talking about you, Mr. Mayor, and I don't want to say defending, but I do a lot of your policy because truth be told, I agree with you on most stuff. This one, I'm a bit baffled, my friend. Help me out here, please. Why would we pay for their college up in Sullivan County?

Mayor Adams: Well, first of all, my son went to American University. It cost me over $50,000 a year over. I still don't know how I paid for it on a police salary. It was painful. I know what parents are going through right now as they are dealing with college tuition, and I think this story is misleading.

I'm not paying for someone to get a four-year degree at a SUNY or CUNY or private institution, no. We're doing an experiment with 100 asylum seekers to teach them skills, so they won't be dependent on our city to teach them English, to teach them some type of trade, so that they won't be dependent. They will be self-sufficient, which they want. Everywhere I go and I speak with the asylum seekers, there's only one ask they ask of me. They don't ask for a place to sleep, food to eat, clothing. They only ask one thing, "Can we work? Can we have a job?"

And so, what we are doing is taking these asylum seekers and trying something new, of, number one, doing a decompression strategy to move them out of the city, to an environment where they could learn the basic skills, so they can be self-sufficient.

We make the same offer, Sid, to anyone that's in our city that is in some type of homeless shelter. We do job training, we do this job training. We have free English courses for people. We give people an opportunity to lift themselves up, so that's our goal. We need people to be self-sufficient and not depending on the society.

Rosenberg: What a difference in the way you just explained it and the way people like Rick Scott and the media have presented this. How you explained it made a whole bunch of sense. The way they're talking about it, of course, doesn't, but that's the beauty, Mr. Mayor, of getting you on, because the way you just explained it does make a ton of sense.

60 seconds to go, these pot shops in New York City, what's going on with this stuff? It's brutal. Help me out with that.

Mayor Adams: Sid, I am so baffled. We have to get this right and I thank the lawmakers, that they fully understand we have to do something different. The bottom line is we must give enforcement ability to the city. Right now, we don't have that. These guys are laughing at us for the most part. And we have to give enforcement ability to the city, so we can go in and shut these shops down.

We are going to Albany. We've been in Albany, talking to our lawmakers. They appear to agree with us, that we have to make sure that we can put some team in enforcement, so we can close these guys down. A $250 summon when you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars, that's just the cost of doing business. We have to be more forceful in closing these shops down.

Rosenberg: What a great conversation. Listen, Mr. Mayor, Eric, I can't thank you enough. That's a great job discussing all these major topics in New York City, and you keep doing the great job you're doing and we'll talk again very, very soon. Thank you so much, pal. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Take care.

Rosenberg: All right, man, you too.

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