Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears on NY1’s “Inside City Hall”

July 13, 2023

Errol Louis: Mayor Adams has evoked race and racism repeatedly during his time in office when pushing back against those who criticize him. In an exclusive interview, our Emily Ngo asks the mayor about his perceived attackers and what role religion and God play in all of this. She joins us now with the latest. Good evening.

Emily Ngo: Good evening. Mayor Adams last Sunday called himself the symbol of black manhood. He not only evokes race and racism, he has compared criticism and attacks on him to treatment of slaves. I want to know why.

I am someone who's also their ancestors wildest dreams, but I haven't been arrested, rejected, and elected. I've listened to a lot of your speeches. I follow a lot of what you say. And several instances in recent weeks and months have been about the "they" and the "you," people who want to beat you even though you already have the scars, people who want you to call yourself Toby, when you're Kunta Kinte, and people who don't want a mayor like you in office. Who are you speaking about and what is the grievance that would warrant a metaphor to slavery?

Mayor Eric Adams: Well, I think a couple of things. And one of the most impactful moments for me was probably back in the '90s with Ti-Hua Chang, a pioneer among the AAPI community. And he talked about walking in newsrooms and how they wanted him to act humble and play up to stereotypes. And the years of knowing those who were of color that was in the journalism profession, that really shapes opinions. People don't realize that, but they shape opinions. And I watch the way the news is being reported and there's this sort of coordinated effort that if you don't pay attention to it and call it out, no one is going to be willing to talk about it. And I think it's so important to realize that Eric Adams called out police abuse and racism while he was in the Police Department.

So why would he come to the role of mayor and all of a sudden not be vociferous about his observation? And I look at some of the inaccurate coverage that we have witnessed and some of the coordinated effort by the same players who are doing the same thing. And so pointing the fingers at who they know they are, it's just going to elevate them even more. They know who they are, we see what happens. No matter what we do in the city, they have a coordinated effort in their appearance to attack it. And it's the same fingerprints and the same names.

Ngo: It's about the news media, not about other individuals or other groups?

Mayor Adams: It's a combination. I think it's a combination. My son…

Ngo: And you won't call them out because that would be elevating them necessarily?

Mayor Adams: Exactly. My son…

Ngo: But you have these names and people in mind?

Mayor Adams: Based on my observation.

Ngo: And what you did when you were a police officer of the NYPD, you've said yourself you're a disrupter and that's one of the reasons that they don't want you in office. I would see a parallel in that 84-year-old woman who spoke to you at the community conversation and you said she was acting like the owner of a plantation that you were on, but she was just speaking out in the way that you say you have. Did she deserve that?

Mayor Adams: Let's go back to that because that incident is so important because that talks about the distortion of reporting a story. What you saw on social media and what you saw in the reporting of the story was Eric's action. No one talked about… We were in a room of Spanish-speaking New Yorkers when we had an orderly movement of the tables. She totally disrespected and disrupted the meeting. She wasn't called on to speak. The people in that room were following the order of hearing their voices heard. She stood up and spoke. We allowed her to speak. I answered her question. She talked in a disrespectful manner.

And as I say over and over again, there was only one piece of advice my mother gave me, "Don't ever let anyone disrespect you." She was disrespectful and I didn't know her background. I didn't know where she was from. And so when people attach other parts of that, you want to create a picture. She disrupted the meeting. She did not respect the other people that were in the room. Her question was answered and she spoke in a disrespectful way. And the people who were there, you know what they did? They applauded me after I spoke.

Ngo: They did. And I've seen how you are received when you speak at churches too. So I know that there are people in agreement with that. Did you disrespect her in turn when you called her effectively a plantation owner?

Mayor Adams: Did I call her a plantation owner?

Ngo: You said that you were…

Mayor Adams: I was very clear.

Ngo: You said that she was treating you like someone on a plantation…

Mayor Adams: Exactly. And that's exactly what I received from her. Exactly what I felt. When you speak in that derogatory term, she was disrespectful and I know that there was an appearance to paint her based on that snippet instead of the totality of what happened at that event. That is what I talk about. Allow the viewers to hear the full scope of what happened there and don't just take out a snippet. And that is what we saw here.

Ngo: It's a little bit of a tabloid culture here, I must acknowledge. I've heard you use that perfectly imperfect line frequently, including from the church pulpit where you've also talked about Esther 4:14. And it's one thing to say that God is speaking to you. It's another thing to say that you don't necessarily believe in the separation of church and state that's in place to help respect other people's religions or people's right not to practice religion at all. Do you feel that you may exclude someone when you make a statement like that, that you exclude someone who's practicing another religion or chooses not to practice religion?

Mayor Adams: Listen, people have the right to practice any religion they want. And government should never be used in an abusive way because someone decides they don't have a faith. But I cannot separate my principles of my belief. "Thou should not kill, thou should not steal, thou should not do this or that." I can't go into office and all of a sudden state I'm going to separate what I was rooted in. I would never use my faith to deny people access to the services of government. No one comes to city hall or any agency and we ask, "What faith are you are part of?" But I'm proud to be a Christian just as I'm sure my Jewish brothers and sisters are proud to be of that faith, my Muslim brothers and sisters, those who are Buddhists. I embrace faith and I think that part of the things we must examine is our belief that we should embrace this spiritual part of us. I'm a big believer in that. And if someone does not embrace that, they would never have a lack of services because of that.

Ngo: Mayor, I think it's interesting that we're set up in this room because it's all white dudes, all white elected leaders.

Mayor Adams: I would've been beaten up for saying that.

Ngo: Not live. Would you have been beaten up? I don't know about that. But why do you think there's only been two black mayors in the history of New York City, a city that has a rich and vibrant black culture and record of black excellence? Why have there only been two?

Mayor Adams: I think it's a combination and it was a 30-year gap between Dinkins and Eric Adams. And there's a combination to becoming the mayor. Access to resources, I was the only mayoral candidate that stated we should have removed outside dollars for campaigning. No one else called for that. I stated, "Let's stop asking people to raise money. We should have a predetermined amount of money that people could use to spend." The lack of access to funding is a serious issue. We're talking millions of dollars.

Ngo: Is there a signature achievement or a legacy project that you could leave behind that benefits black young people with working class backgrounds, the very group of New Yorkers that you represent?

Mayor Adams: I always like that question because I find that electors and mayors attempt to point out one specific item that they've done. I just think that's a failing mindset of when you have a system that's so broken. If I was able to help foster care children, which we are doing, in a real way and that's all I've done, how could I stand up and say success? If I was able to just do dyslexia screening to prevent children from being incarcerated because they have learning disabilities, that's not enough. If I bring down crime, that's not enough. And so my signature issue is to take a city that I believe has been dysfunctional for generations and finally allow it to deliver the goods and services that taxpayers are paying for.

Ngo: And before we know it, it's going to be time for you to focus a little bit of your job on running for reelection. God spoke to you, you've said, and told you that you were going to be mayor in January, 2022. Has he told you that you're going to be reelected?

Mayor Adams: Well, two things. Number one, if you are doing the job every day, you don't focus on when it's time to run for reelection. Every day I do the job and New Yorkers are going to make that decision. And I believe that my path has always been clear by…

Ngo: Because God told you you'll be reelected?

Mayor Adams: My path has always been clear on what God wants for me to do. And when that message comes clear to me, you'll be the first I will share with no matter where you are in journalism.

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