Mayor Adams Calls in For Live Interview on WBLS 107.5 FM's "Caribbean Fever"

April 27, 2025

Dahved Levy: Very special guest on the line. Sir, are you there? 

Mayor Eric Adams: Yes, I am, brother. And I'm far from special. I'm a regular guest, man. Rocking you, brother. Rocking you. 

Levy: Mayor Eric Adams, how are you doing, sir?

Mayor Adams: Good, brother. You know, focused. God is good. And you just have to walk in the light and stay in the light no matter what you're enduring.

Levy: Okay, so I'm reading something that I got from a magazine on the plane. It says, Mayor Eric Adams, the incumbent Democrat, has seen his political fortunes decline so shortly that he's no longer competing in the Democratic primary set for June 24. 

Instead, he will run as an independent in a general election in November. Nine other major candidates are vying to win the Democratic primary, which is New York typically decides who will become mayor. Why do you think this is the pathway to becoming mayor again?

Mayor Adams: You know, it's interesting. You said that you read an article and I ask all your callers and listeners, go back to January 1, 2022, when I inherited a city that was high in crime. We were dealing with COVID. Unemployment was high, particularly in the Black and brown community. And look at some of the stories that they were writing in January, February of 2022 when I just got in office. 

People say to me all the time, “Eric, I didn't know that. I didn't know that.” When I started laying out the success of this administration and what we were able to accomplish, dropping Black and brown unemployment by 20 percent, putting almost $19 billion into M/WBEs. We have more jobs in this city in the city's history. 

Free high-speed broadband for NYCHA residents, paying the college tuition for foster care children, record level of affordable housing in three years, more than the city history, moved more people out of homelessness into permanent housing, record levels, more than anyone has done as a mayor. All of those victories, you wouldn't realize that. 

And so when I wanted to run in a Democratic primary, we collected 25,000 signatures. And the judge held up, dismissing the case that his independent person said he shouldn't do on the eve of turning my petitions. I said, let me get an opportunity to reintroduce myself to voters, running November. We're now collecting petitions. I'm still a Democrat. I want people to be clear on that. But now I have an opportunity, as that record said, let me reintroduce myself. 

People need to know I'm the same Eric, the same Eric that was with 100 Blacks In Law Enforcement Who Care, the same Eric that was a working class person, the same Eric that's been fighting on behalf of people. And now I got to get back into the community and let them remember. 

Let me reintroduce myself to you folks. I'm that cousin, that uncle, that brother. You know, my entire success, Dahved, has been overshadowed by the migrants and asylum seeker crisis and that bogus case that was placed on me when I fought New Yorkers.

Levy: Sir, New York City is facing an affordability crisis that has forced many families to leave the city. That's why they're saying that a lot of people are leaving the city, rents have soared, and there's simply not enough affordable homes which you talk about all the time. Can you correct this problem before this problem corrects you?

Mayor Adams: You know what? And this is what we knew we had to focus on. And the affordability issue is not a New York City issue. It's a national issue. You hear everybody talks about the price of eggs and how expensive it is to get eggs. This is all over the country. The entire country is dealing with an affordability issue. 

So what did I do? I said to the team, listen, we cannot control the price of bread, but we can put bread back in the pockets of New Yorkers. We put $30 billion back into New Yorkers' pockets. We're paying off medical debt, the number one cause of bankruptcy. We are reducing the cost of MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers. We dropped the cost of childcare from $55 a week to less than $5 a week. That is from $220 a month to less than $20 a month. 

When you look at all the creative ways, we said, “How can we make an everyday New Yorker's paycheck stretch a little further by putting money back in their pockets?” 98 percent of our union contracts, we settled to make sure that they can get the wages that they deserve. So I don't control the economy, but I can find ways within the city of how do we put money back into the pockets of New Yorkers, and we've accomplished that.

Levy: Overall, crime is down in the city, and homicides have fallen, but the number of felony assaults has risen, and crime has not returned to the pre-pandemic levels. What more can you do to improve public safety?

Mayor Adams: First of all, what we do– how crime is determined on what direction you're moving in is to look at year-to-year comparison. When we look at year-to-year, how well you're doing year-to-year, and when people see success, then they say, “Well, it's not back to pre-pandemic.” Well, you know what, pre-pandemic wasn't back to the 1950s. Come on, let's stop. 

I tell people, you know, you, as a former law enforcement officer, I know how you determine if you're trending in the right direction. You look at what you had last year compared to this year. We removed over 21,000 guns off our street, 1,600 just in this year alone. We had the lowest number of shootings in this quarter in the city's recorded history, second lowest number of homicides. Our subway systems are back safe again, record level of safety when you remove the year that COVID was in place. 

We are moving in the right direction, and it's not only what the police are doing, but it's also what our crisis management men and women are doing. And we're doing proactive programs to have our young people not participate in crime. Summer youth employment, the largest number of summer youth employment, 100,000. All year round, school for our young people who are in the Summer Rising program, 110,000 are employed. 

We're getting ready to do things around after school and all these other ways to put our children on the right pathway. That is how we brought down crime, with partnership, with community groups, community organizations, and we were proactive and not just waiting until a child commits a crime.

Levy: The number of people living in the streets and the subway system has risen to high levels in nearly two decades. More than 4,100 people were unsheltered last year. Some homeless people [are] struggling with mental illness and have been involved in violent episodes that have contributed to anxiety over public safety. How would you address the street homeless situation for people with severe mental illness?

Mayor Adams: And we're already doing it, brother. And remember back in 2022, when I talked about this and stated that we closed our psychiatric wards throughout the state, not only in New York City, but throughout the state. And what happened is many people started living in the streets because of that. 

And then the former governor, Governor Cuomo, killed a very important program that gave rent subsidies to people. And you will see that within that short period of time, homelessness spiked. 

And so what I said, when I came into office, I went and visited people that were living in tents, living in cardboard boxes. I saw human waste, cell food, drug paraphernalia. Many of them were schizophrenic, dealing with bipolar. And I told the team, we're not going to continue to walk past people and act like we don't see them living on the streets. And we went in a full plan to get people off our streets. 

You don't see New York City having the tents and cardboard boxes like you see in other cities. And people are defecating on the streets, injecting themselves with drugs. We are approaching this head on. 

Now, we need help in Albany. We're trying to get a bill passed for involuntary removal. This is dealing with people who can't take care of themselves or they're a danger to others on our streets, in our subway system. We see them all the time. We need Albany to be our partners. 

They need to pass this bill. The governor supports it. We need to get it passed so we can empower our medical institutions, psychiatric institutions, to not just give people medicine and let them go back in the street for a day, but do real observations and real handoffs. 

We've done an amazing job in transitioning people in homelessness into permanent housing. We broke records in doing so, but we got to build more housing. That's why we passed the City of Yes, the most comprehensive housing plan in the history of this city, so that we can get people into permanent housing and home ownership. 

We have an initiative for home ownership as well, for first time home buyers who qualify, $100,000 to allow them to own their home, because that's how you stop gentrification, giving people the money that they can purchase their own homes.

Levy: Sir, more than 200,000 undocumented immigrants have arrived in the city since 2022. New York City has so-called sanctuary city laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration and authorities. Mayor Adams wants to change the laws to make it easier to work with federal officials. Democrats in the City Council have refused to alter them. Should New York City keep its current sanctuary laws, or would you revisit them?

Mayor Adams: Let's understand. There is no law that says sanctuary city. That's not a law. It is what we do, and that's so important. This conversation has gone so far left field that we need to really understand this. What our city says, and why we're designated as a sanctuary city, is because we state, if you are here in New York, we want you to go after the services because that's how you keep order in the city. 

So if a parent comes in with a child, we say to that parent, put your child in school because the child is safe in school, not being involved in sex trafficking or abuse. We tell you, if you are a victim of a crime, call the police and report it. We tell you that if you need medical attention, go to the hospital and get that medical attention. 

So in our city, I have been sending that message out, Dahved, to tell people, don't live in fear. ICE is not in our schools. ICE has not been in our churches and houses of worship. ICE has not been in our hospitals. ICE has not been raiding our jobs. All these people who are giving this hysteria out there is making people live in fear. 

We managed over 230 migrants and asylum seekers. 190,000 went on to the next level of their journey, as many immigrants have done for years in this city. And national leaders came here, Dahved, and looked at what we did for the migrants and asylum seekers and what we do for other undocumented people. They said, “No one in the country is doing what you're doing in New York, Eric.” 

Legal services, allowing people to get their temporary protective status, allowing people to get birth permits. You know, this is a city of immigrants, has always been. We saw it during COVID. We saw it throughout history. And this administration, we stepped up when others did not step up. And we have been extremely successful.

Levy: So you've got the last words. I know you're busy. Thank you very much for your time. What's your last word, sir?

Mayor Adams: Don't let them do what they did to David Dinkins. They wrote about him. David Dinkins did the Safe City Safe Street program in Albany. Crime started to go down in his last year. The economy was turning around in his last year. He was a man of status and humility. And that's what we are again. 

We saw this playbook before. We've been successful in this city. The most diverse administration in the history of this city. We inherited COVID. We inherited a crime problem. We inherited a migrant asylum seeker crisis. And we navigated through all of that. 

This city has turned around, is going to continue to turn around. And I want an opportunity to have four more years to finish the job that we started. I'm just an ordinary person. Nothing special about me. Public school, attendee–

Levy: Sir, sir, sir. You are the second Black mayor of New York City. There's a lot special about you.

Mayor Adams: Yeah, but you know what, brother? You know, with all of that, people know me as Eric. Right. And that's what I'm always going to be. I'm the same person I was when I was with [100 Blacks In Law Enforcement Who Care]. I'm that person now. And I'm going to continue to fight for New Yorkers every day of my life, no matter what I go through. And most importantly, brother, you keep doing what you're doing. Rocking you, brother. Thank you, man. 

Levy: Mayor, thank you very much. Have a good evening. 

Mayor Adams: You too.