NEWYORK: New York city Mayor Eric Adams said that his administration is one of the most successful administrations in the history of New York.
Speaking at live interview on GMFT Live’s “The Reset talk show,” Mayor Adams said that the diversity, it’s just unprecedented when the number of people of color who are running these major agencies.
“We have the first Jewish woman to lead Intel. We have the first Trinidadian to be a deputy mayor, the first Caribbean American to be a chief of staff in the city, first African American woman to be a first deputy mayor, first African American Panamanian to be a chief advisor, first Filipino American deputy mayor, first Indian American deputy mayor, first Korean to head a small business services, first Spanish speaker to be the commissioner of this Police Department, first woman to be a police commissioner, first woman to be a fire commissioner,” he said.
“This city won’t be the same when I finish being the mayor of this city. We are changing M/WBEs. We’re dealing with those children who are being denied and left out. We put the city on the right path. Mayors normally deal with one crisis in the administration. Bloomberg dealt with 9/11, de Blasio dealt with COVID,” he said.
“ I dealt with COVID and 207,000 migrants and asylum seekers, and you don’t see children and families sleeping on the street because how we have managed that. We’re doing it. We should be proud that you have a first woman of color to be the speaker and a second mayor of color,” he said.
“The city is back. I did it in two years. They said it was going to take five years. We have more jobs in this city and the city history. More small businesses in the city history. Build more, put more people at a homeless shelter into permanent housing in one year in the city’s history,” he said.
“Robberies in the subway system is the lowest in the history of the city. We have turned around this city in two years. Unbelievable when you think about what we have accomplished,” he said.
To a question about Democrats convention, Mayor Adams said that The Democrats have a convention coming up and in spite of all that is taking place, we need to go to that convention and give a clear message to the American people and build a case on why we should continue to lead the country.
“We have a great narrative and we allow far too often the minor things to get in the way of the major things. If we are clear on our message and our track record of leaning into public safety, we support police, yet Democrats are ashamed to say that they support police,” he said.
“We’re not the one that is holding back the assault weapons that are shooting police officers in our country. We need to put that front and center. We support programs that prevent crime in the first place. We support senior care, healthcare. The president has stabilized our economy and not allowed it to be in free fall,” he said.
“We should be very clear in our message and do the right presentation that shows that we can continue to lead this country. We must come up with a real border plan to deal with the migrants and asylum seekers, and we need to be clear on what that plan is. Because if we lack clarity and people don’t walk away from the convention saying, I know what the Democratic Party stands for and how they plan on executing their plan, then we’re going to surrender to the message that is coming from the Republican Party. We can’t blame them for having clarity. We must make sure we have clarity on our message,” he said.
Mayor Adams said that democracy is not supposed to be a frictionless process. “We’re supposed to have many voices and we’re supposed to debate them. We’re supposed to have passion towards these issues and we should not be ashamed of that,” he said.
“In fact, we should lift our country up as a clear example, how we do smooth transitions of power. We have a long record, 400 year history of doing that. That’s very impressive. Having healthy debate is part of the process. We should disagree without being disagreeable and without being mean spirited in the process,” he said.
To question with regard to social media impact on youth in wake of shooting incident on Trump, Mayor Adams said that they were seeing an even increase after COVID, post COVID that social media platforms that know how to use algorithms to pull young people into dark places.
He said that they have been aggressively dealing with the accessibility of handguns. “We moved 17,000 guns off our street and we will continue to do so. Two, we are suing social media platforms to tell them they must do better. We’re educating children and families on how to better handle this just introduction into our lives,” he said.
To a question about Biden in or Biden out, Mayor Adams said that Biden has to make that determination because he is the president of the United States.
“I’m rolling with Biden. If he reaches the point after his family members, after he does some soul searching and he says, Eric, I’m deciding to do something different, then okay, then do something different in the meantime. So all those who are calling for him to leave, I don’t have that number, so I’m not making that call. I have the same number that this is Eric Adams that supports the president,” he said.
“When I needed the president around public safety, he came to New York, he assisted in ATF, he assisted in some of these economic issues. Even when I disagree with how the border issue was handled, that’s alright, because we don’t know who agree with anyone all the time,” he said. “I’m going to stay focused and he will make that determination on if he’s going to stay in the race or out of the race. He’ll sit down with the leaders of the Democratic Party and make that determination,” he added.
