the partnership between the federal
government and the city and state uh
governments is extremely important and I
think there's a role we need. My role is
to make sure New York is are safe and
the numbers are showing. We're doing
that and the partnership of making sure
guns don't come into our city and that's
what we want to continue to do with the
federal government. We already uh
collaborate with the federal government
every morning 10:00 a.m. with Haida,
city, state, and federal authorities to
go after shooters and those who bring
guns into our cities.
>> Um when he talks about the National
Guard potentially coming here to New
York and in the event that that happens,
is there anything you can do to
counteract that? I mean, you know, what
what would it look like if National
Guard's members, you saw in DC, 2,000 of
them on the streets of Washington, if
they were here, uh you know, on 90th
Street? Well, the the goal is the
relationship between the federal
government and DC is different than the
relationship between uh New York City
and the federal government. And again,
our communications with the federal
government is we we got this. Uh we
removed over 23,000 legal guns off our
streets. Uh we see we're witnessing
record levels of decreasing crimes,
homicides, and shootings in the first
six months and shooting victims in the
first seven months. And so we are very
clear, always have been. I have never
moved away from the public safety.
That's the prerequisite to our
prosperity. And we're going to continue
to do an amazing job. And if the federal
government wants to communicate with us
and ask us to go to other municipalities
and help them see what we're doing,
we're willing to do that because the
Safe America is a safe New York City and
we want to help any way we can.
>> Yeah. I want to ask you about um
November election as it relates to that.
Um, you know, one of your opponents,
Andrew Cuomo, has said, "If mom Donnie
gets in office, then Trump takes control
of New York City, then Trump does put
the National Guard here." Do you think
that could happen?
>> Uh, Andrew will say anything to anyone
to get elected. Uh, he created this. He
passed the cannabis laws. I had to close
down 1500 cannabis shops because of the
failed law he passed. He did the bail
reform. That's the revolving door
criminal justice system that we're
looking at. He closed psychiatric beds.
So every time you see someone put
someone on the subway track because of
severe mental health illness or stab
three innocent in New Yorkers, you have
to ask yourself, why do we close those
beds? Raise the age. We're seeing young
people are victims of crimes more and
more and they're shooters as well. These
are all of his bills. I had to fix his
mess. And so Madani's call to uh defund
police, his calls to legalize
prostitution, his calls to calls to
empty Riker's Island, they're two of the
same people. New York has come too far
to go backwards with either one of them.
>> When I heard the president talk
yesterday about cashless bail, you know,
I immediately thought of you because you
have been one of the people who has
talked about bail reform. Um, your
police commissioner talked about bail
reform on Friday with the friendly fire
incident involving the officer. Uh, the
president signing an executive order uh
directing DOJ to look at these
jurisdictions that have done cashless
bail. What's your take on that?
>> Well, I have been clear and I don't
believe if someone uh steals an apple
that we should hold them in jail because
they can't afford uh to get out. But if
you are possessing an illegal one uh
weapon, you commit one of the seven
major crime categories uh in our city,
you are repeatedly an offender, uh we
need to look at the criminal justice
system that allows you to continue to go
back and you pre repeat the crime. Uh we
saw what happened with the custom border
patrol agent. These were repeated
offenders. We just had a shooting over
the weekend. of the individuals in job
involved. They had several gun arrests.
That just can't continue to happen. And
so using bail appropriately, I think it
would help us deal with the public
safety issue we're facing in the city.
>> The president said, you know, crime has
continued to rise when they have
cashless bail. Is that something that's
happened here in the city?
>> Uh when you remove bail on those who
commit serious crimes, it will impact
your public safety. We're we are
witnessing that over and over again.
>> The school uh system comes back next
week. Um should parents fear for ICE to
be in their schools? You know, in
Washington, that was a big fear as they
went back to school yesterday with ICE
saying that they may come to some
schools of students. We saw a student in
Queens, 6 years old, um deported by ICE
with with her mother
>> with with a family. And so we want to be
clear, ICE has not been in our schools.
uh ICE only way they could uh come into
the schools with clear judicial warrants
or if they are uh looking at a condition
where someone is fleeing running into
the school a dangerous person but that's
the role of our police officers to do so
and we have been extremely consistent
around this children should go to school
they're not going to be fearful of
having ICE come into their schools their
directives indicate that as well uh
people should go to the hospital if they
need medical care. They should call the
police if they need police assistance.
And I know personally what happens when
you fail to do that. Uh my rookie years
as a police officer, I had a Chinese
immigrant that was afraid to call the
police when he was being robbed. I took
actions while I was off duty, but he was
extremely fearful. People can't live in
the shadows. That creates disorder and
we don't want that.
>> Let's go back to your career in a
transit police. It's where you met
Ingred Lewis Martin's husband, obviously
someone you've known a long time. I
just, you know, we heard from you on
Friday, but what when you hear some of
the allegations in the indictment and,
you know, indictments just show a piece
of of what is being alleged. What did
you make of of the some of the
allegations you heard?
>> Well, first of all, let's think about
this for a moment. Uh, like I said,
Ingred's like a sister to me and uh I'm
pretty sure you have close relationships
in your life and the first thing you
want to do is not allow people their due
process. And when you're dealing with
criminal cases, every word you say could
harm that person who's dealing with that
case. And I'm not going to do anything
to harm someone that's like a sister to
me. I'm very clear. She's in my prayers.
She has an attorney. And anything that's
dealing with that case should be uh
brought to her attorney. I would not do
anything that's going to be harmful to
someone that's like a sister to me. How
would you say your your week was last
week? Because you had the situation with
Ingred, Jesse, um Jesse Hamilton as well
and then you also had the situation with
Winnie Greco. Um just what your thoughts
on what happened with Winnie Greco and
then also you know it was you I saw by
Friday it was it was a week.
>> Yeah. No, not to me. Um I had 237,000
migrants and asylum seekers. I inherited
COVID. I inherited a city that was
imaging jobs. uh had thousands of
illegal guns on our streets, ghost cars
on our streets, cannabis shops uh open.
People rode off New Yorkers. Uh not only
were was I dealing with those who were
committing crimes, had to deal with rats
everywhere. But look, everywhere that we
dealt with, we got up every day and we
did the job.
>> The red envelope in in a in a potato
chip bag. I mean, when you heard about
this and what did you think of it?
>> First, I want to go back. More jobs in
our city history. 12 months of uh of
tourism. uh 12 months of Broadway, the
best in the city's history, uh
unemployment drop, crime drop, illegal
vehicles off our street, all of those
things. Uh I'm not going to be judged by
a red envelope in a paper bag. I'm going
to be judged by how I
>> how I improved the lives of New Yorkers.
It was a stupid thing to do. I don't
understand the conversation she had with
the reporter. I don't have the history
of it. It's not not something that we
would do in our campaign. I made that
clear. I don't know what that was about.
And now she's no longer volunteering or
she was never employee of the campaign
and she was longtime no longer in uh
city hall. So only the reporter and
Winnie can explain to us exactly what
that was about. I don't know what it was
about and it's not acceptable um
behavior on my part.
>> Let's talk campaign because we've talked
about the campaign plenty of times.
Private meetings, public meetings, you
know, where have you. um you're polling
in the single digits behind Mum Donnie.
You know, I've heard you talk about um
you know, the the state of the race um
when you were running last time, but
that was sort of during the primary. Now
we're in the general election. Just tell
me sort of what's your strategies uh to
win in November. Um and and how you how
you think you could pull through.
>> Well, a couple of things. As I said over
and over again, when you look at this
distance from the primary to uh the
election, the same time period, Madani
was at 1%. No one called for him to step
out of the race. And if we did, we would
have been premature because he won the
primary. And we need to be clear that
that seems to be a fact that everyone is
missing. We also missing the fact that I
was in third place in 2021 behind Andrew
Yang, who was beating me by double
digits. Some polls have me in double
digits. Some polls have me in single
digits. Um polls had uh Andrew up Andrew
Cuomo up by 10% before the election. He
lost by 12%. He was up 36%.
So when you start to talk about the
polls, the only poll that matters on
election day, who's going to have the
most votes? I must do what I'm good at
doing, campaigning, getting my
information out to the public so they
can see the success of where we were and
where we are. Uh, this city has turned
around. I mean, if we want to be honest
about it or not, and I have to explain
that to the voters.
>> So, the message is Eric Adams is staying
in no matter what.
>> Yes.
>> You're not saying any pledge.
>> Yes. I'm staying in no matter what. Who
created the pledge, Andrew? you know,
uh, one candidate that was at 1% in the
poll all of a sudden said whoever's up
by a certain number in September, uh,
should win. That's all Andrew's
creation. Trust me when I tell you, he
creates these scenarios so that people
can believe he's doing the right thing.
He was he lost the race, $35 million, up
by double digits, didn't get out in
campaign, and he lost the race. people
heard his message already.
>> Let's get to some Bloomberg topics here.
Um, you know, one of your biggest
accomplishments that you've stated has
been city of Yes. Um, just tell me, you
know, what it took to get that through.
Um, housing a big issue for, you know,
voters and for people who own homes
here, who want to own homes here. You
you have a lack of places to to put
homes, but City changed that. just you
know explain how how that's worked out
>> in so many ways you know u many people
talk about affordability but never use
their offices to actually produce
affordability like I said five people
running for office three people don't
have a record one person is running from
uh his record I have a record uh city of
yes is going to produce housing
throughout the city because housing New
York is is not just a Manhattan or
Brooklyn or areas that were gentrified
gentrified. It's the entire city. Never
before have we witnessed this most
comprehensive housing and reszoning
policy in the history of our city. Uh we
have uh built uh renovated and planned
resoning for 426,000
units of housings in the next decade. I
mean this is unbelievable when you think
about it. We did it in three and a half
years. That number is larger than 12
years of Bloomberg, eight years of
Delasio combined in three and a half
years. We are the most housing forward
administration in the history of this
city. And we got projects off the ground
that many have tried like Willis Point
2400 units of affordable housing.
Flushing airport of hundreds of using of
units of affordable housing union built.
And so city of Yes is part of the
overall package that we that we're doing
five resonance in each buddy burrow
50,000 of 50,000 units of housing that's
coming out of that. So we know New
Yorkers must be housed but you got to
match housing
with using the resources of city to make
the city affordable decreasing the cost
of child care universal child care. No
income tax for low-income New Yorkers.
None at all. Of what we have done.
>> Well, that sounds that sounds like, you
know, like no income tax for low-income
New Yorkers sounds a lot like a Mam
Donnie proposal and you know that that
requires going to Albany to get that
done. People may say, you know, you've
been in office for, you know, nearly
four years. You know, how come we you
haven't been able to get that done? Um,
you know, just make the case for how how
you could get that done, uh, you know,
with with four more years. Well, no. We
already We already got it done. There is
no income tax for low-income New
Yorkers. And then what you do is each
year you go to Albany, they call it a 10
cup day for a reason. You go up there to
beg for your proposal. But look at each
year. Each year we got exactly the
things we asked for. Mail control. Uh we
got the no income tax. We got housing
reform. Uh renovating our office spaces
into permanent housing, low-income
housing. uh we got the public safety
initiative, we got the uh involuntary
removal. So you you're seeing each year
we brought back what we needed from the
city. And so in 3 years and 8 months, we
we've done a great job with partnering
with our law aony lawmakers.