Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on FOX5’s “The 5 O’clock News”

July 18, 2024

Steve Lacy: Shocking video of a New York City councilmember being arrested at a protest yesterday over a proposal to build a new homeless shelter in Brooklyn. Tensions continue to remain high, and Mayor Adams says every district must share equally when it comes to solving the city's homeless crisis.

Natasha Verma: The mayor joins us now to talk about these concerns and other big issues facing New Yorkers. Mayor Adams, if you can hear us it's so nice to see you. Thanks for joining us. Mayor Adams, can you hear us?

Lacy: No, we cannot hear you. 

Verma: We're having some mic issues. 

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. 

Verma: Okay Mayor Adams thank you so much for joining us, nice to see you. Yes, let's jump right into it so we just showed that video of that situation that got so ugly in Bensonhurst with Councilwoman Zhuang ended up biting a police officer. She said that she was subjected to excessive force. She's calling for justice. What's your reaction to that whole situation? 

Mayor Adams: You know I really love, like, Councilwoman Zhuang. She's always been pro public safety. She understands the aspects of how do we protest peacefully. I think that it was unfortunate this happened. I reached out and we're going to sit down and try to move forward on this. 

There's really no excuse for anyone ever biting or assaulting a police officer. I just came from a funeral this morning of an officer who died as a recruit. We lost too many officers. We have to send the right message. Peacefully protest but when you look at the tape he was bitten prior to any form of other contact with her.

Lacy: Right and obviously now we're seeing that some City Council are saying you're extending more grace to her because she's been vocally pro police in the past. I'm just curious what your reaction to that allegation is.

Mayor Adams: 8.3 million New Yorkers, 35 million opinions. I've extended grace to everyone and no one could ever question how much I support our law enforcement community in the city from giving them a contract that they've been asking for a long time to giving them the tools to do their job. What I believe is important when you have someone like the councilwoman that has been extremely pro law enforcement we need to find a way to resolve this issue. 

Verma: Let's talk about FDNY Commissioner Kavanagh saying that she's stepping down. This was news that broke over the weekend and of course it got buried with the attempted assassination of Donald Trump but it seemed like a surprise. What was your reaction to her decision to step down?

Mayor Adams: Not surprising to me. She shared with me several months ago that Eric I want to do other things with my life. Running an agency like the NYPD, like FDNY, look at what we're doing over HRA. This takes a lot of time out of your life particularly when you work with a mayor that's a 24-7 mayor and she wants to do other things with her life. 

What I found surprising, Frank Carone left the administration, Brendan McGuire left the administration, Max left the administration. No one asked the question was it that they couldn't take the pressure or the heat or didn't they get enough nurturing. I think we view women unfairly. She's ready to do something else with her life and we should just take it like that. That's what she shared with me and I believe her. She can stay the commissioner as long as she wants and FDNY or whatever else she wants to do in our administration if there's an opening. 

Lacy: Understood on that account certainly mayor, but I think you bristled at that question earlier during the off-topic news brief and just in our newsroom meeting in the afternoon we sort of organically came up to the idea of if you appropriately tout hiring the first female fire commissioner why would it not be a fair question on the way out if that somehow played into her decision especially since this is a predominantly male-dominated department et cetera. 

Mayor Adams: I hired the first Hispanic in the Department of Correction, and I moved him out now he's over at DCAS. No one asked me about Molina. Did he get enough nurturing? There are places that I hired the first men to run particular areas of different ethnicities, and [they] didn't ask that question. We have to be honest about it. I know it's uncomfortable when I raise some of these topics but every woman that left my administration from Judge Radix to Commissioner Keechant Sewell the same thing happens. I never was asked that question one time with a man and we have to be honest about that.

Verma: Yeah, let's talk about though, the department now. Without a head, are you going to hire another woman? Who are you thinking about for your job search?

Mayor Adams: Actually, it's not without a head. The commissioner made it clear she's going to stay until we're able to transition and find the next person and we're going to find someone that can continue the leadership. We have a lot of talent in this city. We're fortunate to have a lot of great leaders on our bench and we're just going to call them up to continue to lead the greatest fire department on the globe.

Lacy: All right you got it. All right subway crime let's talk about that new numbers showing crime was down around 7 percent month-to-month. Those were good numbers also in comparison to five years ago pre-pandemic. Now we've got the scanners about to be rolled out. Are you confident those will help further drive down the subway crime? 

Obviously, we've talked about this time and time again with you. It is a perception issue. We did a poll yesterday asked people vote in online whatnot. 90 percent of them said they didn't feel safe on the subway. 

Obviously, you've got a two-track issue there with driving the numbers down and then making people feel as if it's safer. How important do you think it will be on both of those fronts these new scanners? 

Mayor Adams: Remember in 2022 when crime was high, and I said we have to deal with perception and reality and everyone went at me because of that. Because these perception is your reality and we want to lean in with our SCOUT program to go after those with severe mental health illness. 

Let's be clear if you take out the two years of COVID this is the lowest crime has been in over 14 years. Robberies are lower than the time that we recorded robberies in our city. Over 4 million riders a day, an average of five felonies a day and we're going to continue to drive it down with the cameras on every train and with our new technology of identifying guns on our subway system. We're moving in the right direction. We're on the right track. There won't be any derailments. 

Verma: Some people say that having these body scanners are really going to slow down entry to the subways. What's your reaction to that? 

Mayor Adams: I go back to my original comment. 8.3 million New Yorkers, 35 million different opinions. Every day New Yorkers that use our subway system, they are happy to know we will identify if someone is carrying a gun before they get on the system. That's what the overwhelming number of New Yorkers line up. 

Lacy: All right fair enough let's go to illegal weed shops. I saw a big crackdown earlier this week. You busted a million dollars with a pot et cetera. How where do you think we are in the process of getting this whole situation under control? We saw all those illegal shops brought up. I credit where credit's due. I will tell you there were a million of them in my neighborhood. The ones you closed down about a month or so ago remain closed to this day. More legal licenses are being issued. Where do you think we are in the whole scheme of things as far as getting that under control?

Mayor Adams: We know like anything you have to warm up and then you have to crawl before you run and you have to jog before you're in a fast pace and that's what Sheriff Miranda and his team is doing with the other law enforcement agencies. 

A major bust yesterday because it helped us take millions of dollars’ worth of illegal cannabis and mushrooms off our streets, but it did something else. It allowed us to see that they're not only using traditional cannabis spots. This was just a normal deli that we had and put from our community. Over 600 closed thus far and we're getting better and better as the days go on. Kudos to the governor and the speaker and the majority leader for giving us extended powers with the Police Department. 

Verma: Mayor Adams we definitely want to hear from you about this. We've been hearing every single day increased calls for Biden to drop out of the race. Even today we're now hearing that former President Barack Obama might be changing his course, having increasingly doubts about him running. What are your thoughts on those calls?

Mayor Adams: Riding with Biden. I cannot make it any clearer. If I have one reputation that everyone knows, when I'm with you I'm with you. I am not someone that when times get tough that I abandon you. I know what he did around crime when I needed him in the city, what he did around our economy and what he is doing around women's health and protective of women's rights to choose. 

So, I'm riding with Biden and if he makes a determination that he's going to leave the race that is for him to make and the leaders of our party to sit down and charter the right course. But right now, I'm riding with Biden. 

Lacy: All right and final question here. When you were inaugurated into the office you made sort of a splash by taking your first three paychecks in Bitcoin. I haven't heard you talk a lot about it lately, but Republicans are clearly trying to make a play for being the party of crypto and Bitcoin. You're seeing it every day, a new announcement coming out of the RNC. Where do you think Dems should be on this issue and where are you personally when it comes to crypto and making it easier for people to get involved with it? 

Mayor Adams: Well, you had the Democratic mayor that took his first three paychecks in crypto so we're leading the way. I think the Dems should grab on to this. My last check, my crypto investment was doing fairly well, and I think that we should look at bitcoins. 

We should look at other forms of cryptocurrency as well as others. Cashless wallets. There's so much we can do. We should not be afraid of this new form of paying for goods and services. We should embrace it. I spoke with one of the leaders in El Salvador a few weeks ago and they're doing so much with this type of new form and so blockchain, all of this is the currency and a ways of the future paying for goods and services. 

Lacy: All right he's HODLing. That's the mayor. We appreciate it. 

Verma: Mr. Mayor, thank you so much.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Take care.

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