NYC Mayor on Deep State Hit Job, Trump Relationship & Epstein Files

Summary

Podcast Summary: Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh – "NYC Mayor on Deep State Hit Job, Trump Relationship & Epstein Files"

Release Date: April 2, 2025

In this pivotal episode of Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh, hosts Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh engage in a candid and unfiltered conversation with Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York City. The discussion delves deep into pressing issues such as government bureaucracy, the migrant crisis, public safety, mental health, and the intricate relationships between local and federal administrations. Below is a comprehensive summary capturing the essence of their dialogue, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps for reference.

---

1. The Concept of a "Deep State" and Permanent Government

Eric Adams opens the conversation by addressing the notion of a "deep state," asserting its existence and influence over political positions:

• Eric Adams [00:44]: "It is, it's not used too much. It's real. Permanent government is real. And whoever's trying to act like it's not real, they're lying."

He emphasizes that while presidents and governors may change, certain bureaucratic elements remain constant, shaping policies irrespective of elected officials.

2. Migrant Crisis in New York City

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the migrant crisis and its financial and social implications for NYC.

• Andrew Schulz [00:12]: "So tell us what happened with the migrant crisis."

• Eric Adams [00:14]: "This cost us $7 billion. This was the tipping point where I decided I gotta publicly criticize the Biden administration."

Adams explains the substantial economic burden migrants have placed on the city, leading him to vocally oppose federal policies. He criticizes the administration's handling of border security, attributing the influx to failures in securing national borders.

3. Justice Department Investigation and Epstein Files

The conversation takes a contentious turn as Andrew Schulz probes into potential investigations surrounding Eric Adams, hinting at connections to Turkish Airlines and the notorious Jeffrey Epstein case.

• Andrew Schulz [00:35]: "Justice Department looks into Eric Adams... Epstein Files. Do you think there's any connection to those two things you're doing?"

• Eric Adams [46:49]: "The timing of it. The leaking...they're trying to send a message."

Adams suggests that the Justice Department's actions are retaliatory, targeting him due to his criticisms of federal policies. He references leaked text messages and indictments, portraying them as politically motivated attacks orchestrated by entrenched government elements.

4. Public Safety and Subway Security

Addressing public safety, Mayor Adams highlights the improvements in crime rates and the proactive measures taken to enhance subway security.

• Eric Adams [15:08]: "We're protecting the people. I'm in charge of the police system. We've put a thousand more cops in the system."

• Eric Adams [19:10]: "We have record decrease in crime, but that means nothing if people don't feel safe."

Adams acknowledges the discrepancy between actual crime statistics and public perception, attributing fears to constant media coverage of negative incidents. He underscores the importance of police presence in restoring confidence among citizens.

5. Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System

A critical analysis is provided on how mental health issues are intertwined with incarceration rates:

• Eric Adams [09:07]: "If you feel they're struggling in school, there's no other opportunity. They go...to jail."

He reveals that a significant percentage of incarcerated individuals suffer from dyslexia or other learning disabilities, advocating for early diagnosis and support to prevent criminal pathways.

6. Bureaucracy and the "Permanent Government"

The episode delves into the challenges posed by longstanding bureaucratic structures that impede progressive changes within the city administration.

• Eric Adams [52:23]: "Permanent government is real. And whoever's trying to act like it's not real, they're lying."

• Andrew Schulz [73:13]: "Why don't we air them out? Why don't politicians air them out?"

Adams argues that entrenched officials with decades-long tenures often resist reforms, slowing down initiatives aimed at improving city operations and services.

7. Relationships with Federal Administrations: Trump and Biden

Mayor Adams discusses his interactions with both President Trump and President Biden, highlighting attempts at collaboration and the obstacles faced.

• Eric Adams [81:26]: "I called the president twice...we had real conversations about the city."

• Eric Adams [85:23]: "Biden pardoned his son...he said the Justice Department has been politicized."

Adams emphasizes his commitment to working with national leaders to secure funding and support for NYC projects, while also critiquing actions he perceives as politically motivated.

8. Rikers Island Closure and Criminal Justice Reforms

A substantial section is dedicated to the future of Rikers Island, NYC's notorious jail facility, and the proposed reforms to address its shortcomings.

• Eric Adams [93:24]: "Rikers Island is New York City's jail system. They want to close it and build four more jails...why don't we build a state-of-the-art psychiatric facility?"

Adams criticizes plans to close Rikers Island without providing adequate alternatives, advocating instead for facilities that address mental health needs rather than merely expanding incarceration capacities.

9. Financial Literacy and Economic Empowerment

Highlighting the importance of financial literacy, Adams outlines initiatives aimed at empowering New Yorkers through education and economic opportunities.

• Eric Adams [85:23]: "We're teaching our young people how to open up bank accounts...dive into the stock exchange."

He proposes programs that integrate financial education from a young age, enabling citizens to engage confidently with the economy and fostering a sense of ownership and participation in the city's financial success.

10. Overcoming Bureaucratic Challenges and Promoting Transparency

The Mayor stresses the necessity of identifying and removing obstructive elements within the bureaucracy to streamline city governance.

• Eric Adams [75:58]: "Identify them, you have to remove them when you can. Replace them with good people that you want."

He advocates for transparency and accountability, aiming to reduce inefficiencies and enhance the effectiveness of city services.

Conclusion: Commitment to New York City and Its People

As the episode nears its end, Eric Adams reaffirms his dedication to NYC, emphasizing resilience and the collective spirit of its residents.

• Eric Adams [81:26]: "If I had to say one thing, what we failed at, we failed to get our success out."

• Eric Adams [86:35]: "We're not going to solve all the problems. But you can't tell me we continue to spend this much money and then have 40% of our children reading and writing at grade level."

Adams concludes by encouraging New Yorkers to recognize and support the city's initiatives aimed at fostering growth, safety, and prosperity, while acknowledging the obstacles posed by both internal bureaucracy and external political forces.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Eric Adams [00:44]: "Permanent government is real. And whoever's trying to act like it's not real, they're lying."

• Andrew Schulz [00:12]: "So tell us what happened with the migrant crisis."

• Eric Adams [46:49]: "The timing of it. The leaking...they're trying to send a message."

• Eric Adams [19:10]: "We have record decrease in crime, but that means nothing if people don't feel safe."

• Andrew Schulz [73:13]: "Why don't we air them out? Why don't politicians air them out?"

• Eric Adams [85:23]: "We're teaching our young people how to open up bank accounts...dive into the stock exchange."

• Eric Adams [93:24]: "Rikers Island is New York City's jail system. They want to close it and build four more jails...why don't we build a state-of-the-art psychiatric facility?"

---

This episode offers an in-depth exploration of the multifaceted challenges facing New York City, from systemic governmental issues to immediate social crises. Eric Adams provides a transparent look into his administration's efforts to navigate these complexities, advocating for reforms that prioritize public safety, economic empowerment, and effective governance. For listeners seeking an unvarnished perspective on NYC's leadership and policies, this episode stands out as a crucial discourse.

Transcript

[Andrew Schulz]

The mayor is the second most powerful position in America. Do you know, like, what happened with Epstein?

[Eric Adams]

As Obama said, if you say it, they gotta kill you. Oh, wait, so do you know? No, no, no. I have no idea.

[Andrew Schulz]

So tell us what happened with the migrant crisis.

[Eric Adams]

Oh, great question. So let's talk about the migrants. This cost us $7 billion. This was the tipping point where I decided I gotta publicly criticize the Biden administration.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. So listen, and I don't want to get conspiratorial after you come out. All of a sudden the Justice Department looks into Erica and there about Turkish Airlines. Right. Do you think there's any connection to.

[Eric Adams]

Those two things you're doing right? I do.

[Andrew Schulz]

Do you know who you think it came from?

[Eric Adams]

Like, that's a great question. And I don't want to sound conspiracy theory, but there's a permanent government.

[Andrew Schulz]

Is this like what people refer to? And I think this word has been used too much. But like the deep state or whatever.

[Eric Adams]

It is, it's not used too much. It's real. Brother May is come and go. Presidents come and go, Governors come and go. Permanent government is real. And whoever's trying to act like it's not real, they're alive.

[Andrew Schulz]

And which borough has the most attractive women.

[Eric Adams]

Think all of them have great shorties there.

[Andrew Schulz]

Adams, everybody. This is awesome. Thank you so much. Born and raised New Yorkers, Alex and I.

[Eric Adams]

Okay.

[Akash Singh]

Far Rockaway, the Rock, probably no.

[Eric Adams]

Problem.

[Andrew Schulz]

Listen, you know, this. This girl got to be so gassed right now, cuz she got be telling everybody I'm his shorty and Car Rock, I'm his shorty. Do we know who that girl is?

[Eric Adams]

Is she. They, you know, it's like that. What's that story? What's that show that used to come on with. With the real some.

[Andrew Schulz]

The real world?

[Eric Adams]

No, the truth. They asked the person, the panelist questions and they said with the real whoever is standing up. I forgot his truth is it's true something lie to me.

[Andrew Schulz]

Maybe. Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

Now I'll get the name of it. It'll come to me when I come on. So, you know, probably everybody's running around and saying, I'm the shorty. I'm the shorty. I'm the shorty. You know, so.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, so you have a lot of other girls claiming that they had a shorty?

[Eric Adams]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So it's possible there could be multiple shorties.

[Eric Adams]

Not far.

[Akash Singh]

He made that shirt one time.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's like, it's too far. We got girls in Jamaica. Guys, what's up? The show today Our illustrious guest is a true New York success story. I don't know if this has ever happened before. I don't know if it'll ever happen again. From my research, he went from literally one of the dudes doing the squeegee on your car when you're at the stop sign and you don't want it to mayor of New York City giving for Eric Adams, everybody. Okay, is that. Is that true about the squeegee?

[Eric Adams]

You know, the. You know, but back then. Back then, you had to be creative to, you know, just help the family.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right.

[Eric Adams]

And, you know, I think that is what the total sum of your life experiences allowed you to be. Whomever you are. Like, you. All of you, you sit in the room, you guys are successful. But think about the total, total of all of your experiences.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, of course.

[Eric Adams]

To get in here, sit down, and have real, authentic conversations. That's why people connect with your show. Yeah. Because of, you know, it's just an authentic conversation.

[Andrew Schulz]

Dude, this is. This is one of the things that we were, you know, as we were doing, like, prep for this, I'm watching all these videos from you, and I'm like, I'm so curious. Like, are you aware of the moments you have that go viral?

[Eric Adams]

Like, you know, like, does it hit you?

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, it hits. Because you say some stuff. Like, obviously the shorty and far rock thing was crazy. Right? But there are other things you say. Like, remember when you were. We have the video almost you to watch it. Like when you were teaching the parents how to find drugs in their. Okay, okay, okay. So have you watched this? Have you watched this?

[Eric Adams]

Yes, yes. I love this piece.

[Andrew Schulz]

Some of my best greatest hits. All right. All right, let's go.

[Eric Adams]

Break it down as a baby doll. Could be just a baby doll, but also it could be a place where you can secrete or hide drugs over the pillows.

[Mark Gagnon]

Those are just pillows.

[Eric Adams]

Those are just pillows. Like a pillow like this with a button.

[Alex Media]

Oh, the button.

[Eric Adams]

Invitation to hide something. I felt something bumpy, I would reach in what it is.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, damn. Sorry.

[Eric Adams]

Look how fat I was. Now, each one of those scenarios that you saw, the gun in the pillow, the baby doll, those were real scenarios.

[Andrew Schulz]

That bumped into people.

[Eric Adams]

People who either was arrested because a lot of people don't know if your child or someone in your household is doing something improper, they come in and do. And they do a warrant. They taking everybody.

[Andrew Schulz]

They're taking parents.

[Eric Adams]

Right, Right. And so parents often didn't even know what was happening in their home. And so I said, you Know what? I'm getting all these stories. So I said, we're going to do a video to show. How do you just go through and see what's in your house? Because, you know, children are slick.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

And there's a lot of indicators. Like if you see a cut straw with a point on the tip of it, the average parent don't know what that is.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't know what that is.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, it's sniffing. You sniff back then. You were sniffing coke back then.

[Andrew Schulz]

Those are Capri Sun.

[Eric Adams]

So it's sort of wrong to set parents up and not give them the basic information. Now, there was a lot of people, I got a lot of pushback from those who were saying, oh, you know, you're violating the rights. Listen in the hood, man, this is real stuff, man. Don't tell me the life you're living. I'm telling you the life in the.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're saying you're violating your kids rights. Like, I feel like in your house, your kids.

[Eric Adams]

How many times do I have to say that? Mom would tell me in a minute, man, boy, you don't have no rights.

[Andrew Schulz]

Cause this is an interesting story, right? Like, you started as a kid and like I'm doing some research and like you had a kind of tough upbringing. You were doing some kind of. I mean, around some wild stuff is how you were.

[Eric Adams]

And now the question is why? You know, when you wake up every morning, there was a ritual. Like, I have a ritual now that I do every morning. But when you woke up every morning, what's the ritual? I'm going to tell you what the.

[Andrew Schulz]

Ritual is back there when I was a child, because we got some crystals for you.

[Eric Adams]

Because, let's see, stones have a lot of energy. And I want to share that. We got a lot to talk about in an hour and a half.

[Andrew Schulz]

All right, all right, all right.

[Eric Adams]

We got it.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know what type of stone? Crack stone. Has tons of energy. Oh, my goodness. That's the way to start the morning.

[Eric Adams]

But I just start the morning, every morning, praying, you know, God, don't make me read.

[Andrew Schulz]

God, don't make you read.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah. In school. Cause I was right, right. And if I read something and stumbled over the words the whole day, you know, kids are cute, but you know what?

[Andrew Schulz]

No, they're ruthless.

[Eric Adams]

They would say, let's act like we're Eric Reeding. They would stumble over duh, duh, duh, you know, Right. And so the whole day you would.

[Andrew Schulz]

Go read the words. That's what I'm saying.

[Eric Adams]

When you look at and when you.

[Alex Media]

Have just like put that to him.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right, right.

[Eric Adams]

It mixes up the characters.

[Andrew Schulz]

O.

[Eric Adams]

So it was to me, I was like, listen, why are you going to school, man? Why are you going in classroom every day? Then I just started doing numbers. Back then, before numbers were legal, what.

[Andrew Schulz]

Does that mean to people? Cause I think running numbers means what? There's some people that are running a gambling ring and you're making sure that they get those.

[Eric Adams]

Great question, great question. How does that even work? Before the numbers in the lottery.

[Andrew Schulz]

I sound like I'm snitching right now.

[Eric Adams]

Before the lottery system was in place, you look in the newspaper at the racetracks and you see these last three numbers, digits. And you could bet on what those last three digits were going to be.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know, so it's a gambling ring. I've heard about this, and I definitely heard that it no longer exists in the Dominican neighborhoods in New York. They definitely don't have their own gambling ring or lottery system.

[Eric Adams]

Right, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

So that's what the lottery would be.

[Eric Adams]

Exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

If you could predict those numbers. They're privatized.

[Eric Adams]

50, 50 cent. 50, 25 cents would give you a certain dollar amount. 50 cents give you a certain dollar. So you walk around with these slips, you go around the community, they stores and they say, okay, I think 382. I had a dream last night and I saw 382. You'll bet on that. People bet all the time on those numbers and hinges. There were newspapers that were in the community, whole industry around numbers, giving you.

[Andrew Schulz]

Advice on the numbers.

[Eric Adams]

And so what I learned later in life, like I learned I was dyslexic in college. And I heard a young lady listening to a documentary on dyslexia. And I took it out and I said, wait a minute, man. Goddamn, I'm dyslexic. So I went from a D student to a A student once. I learned. Now when you look at all these young people who are incarcerated, 30 to 40% of them across the country are dyslexic or have a learning disability.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wow.

[Eric Adams]

So if you feel they're struggling in.

[Andrew Schulz]

School, there's no other opportunity. They don't do. Ah, that's it.

[Eric Adams]

They go. They go. So the crime is not with only what they did on the streets is what we're doing to them.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right. So being able to diagnose these things earlier. Same with like mental health. That's what we're doing now. Yeah, right.

[Eric Adams]

Right now we're doing dyslexia screening. So we're catching a young person and giving them the services that they need that they don't feel that they're doing.

[Andrew Schulz]

How do you even fix dyslexia? What do you. What are you doing?

[Eric Adams]

All you do is learn differently. Your mind process, because the words are mumbled, the letters are mumble, jumble mix up. But you. Once you learn how to process and learn differently, how you learn, you can reorgan. Exactly. Exactly. And so that led to, like, you said all that crazy stuff you were doing. I was saying, why am I sitting in school? Why am I going there? Just to, you know.

[Andrew Schulz]

So once you become the A student, now you go, I need to put those other people in jail. Like, those other people. Like, why would these criminals take advantage of my disability and put me on the streets?

[Eric Adams]

That's how you get locked up, you know, and so, you know, it was.

[Alex Media]

You know, how many dyslexic people you locked up?

[Eric Adams]

Yep. Think about it.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's excited. Read your ass out of this jail.

[Eric Adams]

I bump into people all the time who are doing successful in business. When they hear, you know, my journey being dyslexic, they all say to stop me and say, eric, you know, I went through the same thing. Now I'm successful in business because once you push through that, you find that you get through just about anything. So when people run around now yelling, booing, oh, we don't like this. We don't like that. Because you're in New York. 8.3 million people, 35 million people, lot of opinions. I say to them, that's all you got. You know, all you got is to call me a name. Listen, I'm so used to being called names. I used to get called names every morning, you know?

[Andrew Schulz]

So when you build, what's the best thing you've been called? Like, has there ever been anything you've been called? You're like, nah, that's kind of funny.

[Eric Adams]

I don't know. I'm probably. Asshole is not the top one.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know better than asshole.

[Eric Adams]

You know, people call. Listen, hurt. People hurt people, and they hurt themselves. It's not like, you know, I hate you, Eric. No. People are hating themselves.

[Alex Media]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

And they express that hate, you know, through how they treat people. Cause we're in a place now where everyone is so mean. Spirit man. Yeah, they. We no longer. People don't do this. Like, this is powerful when you can sit down, have conversations. Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

We should seek to understand so that we can be understood. That's.

[Andrew Schulz]

We have that conversation all the time here, which is like, Nobody wants to understand anybody. Everybody wants to, like, dunk, score a point so that their party or affiliation or group feels good about themselves instead of trying to, like, understand what that person's going through.

[Eric Adams]

And social media makes it even worse.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. Because you're getting. You're getting, like, patted on the back every time you do it. There's like a reward system baked into it.

[Eric Adams]

Right. You know? Yeah. And it's a coalescing of everyone who has a ill feeling. You know, it's a place like, you.

[Andrew Schulz]

Know, now you're not alone with your ill feeling.

[Eric Adams]

Right. And you could coalesce around this feeling that you have, no matter what group you are. I did an experiment the other day. I said, just think of anything you think about. There's a population out there. I said, let me just find people that like grass. Not cannabis grass.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, you don't like the weed.

[Eric Adams]

And it's unbelievable how many people call us around there. And first of all, I feel people should have a right to smoke cannabis if they want.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right?

[Eric Adams]

Right. My concern, as I said it when I was running for office, is that we have real educational problems. And our children starting their day. These teachers tell me, eric, these kids are high all the time. Yeah.

[Alex Media]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

You know, if you start your day walking to school and, you know you're smoking a joint, you're sitting inside the classroom, you smoking the joint during the period, these children are not gonna be. It's particularly at a younger age when brains are real developing, there's some real science. So if adult wants to smoke, go do your thing. But we have to be real concerned about what's happening with our children in Canada.

[Andrew Schulz]

I feel like most people are supportive of that. Like, I think most adults in New York would go, hey, we got to keep weed out of the kids, and we got to protect the kids. I feel like, yeah, I feel like most adults in New York are supportive of that. I almost feel like there's a lot of support around issues in New York, but there's not a lot of understanding on how issues get fixed.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And that's one of the things about, like, I'm always curious when I talk to elected officials. It's like, it's your fault. No matter what happens, it's your fault.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Even if you don't have the power to change it.

[Eric Adams]

Especially the mayor, man, bro.

[Andrew Schulz]

So it's like. And I always say this. I'm like, the mayor is the second most powerful position in America. The mayor of New York.

[Eric Adams]

Right, Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

I didn't even know that the governor was a woman until, like a month ago. I've never known that. We had governor. We had a blind guy governor.

[Alex Media]

I didn't know a state. It's a city.

[Eric Adams]

You know what I mean?

[Alex Media]

You ask people in Texas, New York, they're not thinking of the state. I grew up in Texas. I only thought of the city.

[Andrew Schulz]

And that is our. I guess our blind spot is like not seeing outside the city. But it's like if you are, there's the president, United States, and then next it's the mayor of New York, and then there's the rest of the people in government.

[Eric Adams]

And that's why civics is crucial, so people can understand who's responsible for these different things. Right. Because when you're the mayor, I don't care what it is, man.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's your fault.

[Eric Adams]

Guy stepped to me a couple of months ago, man, said, listen, I'm getting divorced. You know, you had sex with my wife.

[Andrew Schulz]

Far off. Some vegan guy was walking around laying me, though.

[Mark Gagnon]

That one is your fault. That one.

[Eric Adams]

No, you're saying that's the case is. So people say, well, you know, the. The. The trains don't. Are not operating the way they're supposed to. That's the state, man. That's not the city.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, so. So wait, the trains meaning, like, you're somewhere else somewhere?

[Eric Adams]

3, 4, and 5. The state is in charge of that.

[Andrew Schulz]

The state is in charge of the mta.

[Eric Adams]

Right. Our job is to protect the people. I'm in charge of the police in the system. Yeah. And what we've done in the system is unbelievable. A lot of people, like when I walk in rooms and I say, tell me how many crimes you think serious crimes you think happen in this. In the subway system? People say 100, 200 a day, 300 a day. We have 4.6 million riders every day. We have six felonies a day. Day. Wow. Out of 4.6 million. I don't feel like going to work. I'm pissed off. People on the subway. It's a miracle that we're able to move that volume of people every day.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

And deal with the mental health issues down in the subway system. People are attracted to this.

[Alex Media]

All right, guys, let's do some tour dates. Side splitters. We're at, like, eight shows right now. I think a few of them have, like, three tickets left. But we added another show Saturday at 4pm on April 12, so hurry up and get tickets to that. Also April 18 through the 20th, I'm gonna be in Denver and In the Denver area. April 18th and 19th, I'm gonna be at comedy works south in Greenwood Village. April 20, my traditional 420 show at the Comedy Works downtown. These are my favorite clubs in America, so make sure you come to that also. May 9th and 10th, Virginia Beach. June 19th and 20th, Salt Lake City, and June 21st and August 1st and 2nd, Kansas City, Missouri. Get your tickets to those dates and [e-mail] Love y'all. Get back to the show now.

[Mark Gagnon]

All right, don' forward, guys. It's the world's fat fastest date read ever. Mark Gagnon is coming to your city. All right, I'm officially a pro comic. I'm going to Charleston, Atlanta, Strasburg, Hoboken, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Raleigh, Poughkeepsie, Portland, Fort Worth, Austin, Stanford, Philadelphia, Levittown, Chandler, Arizona, San Diego. Many more dates to come.

[Alex Media]

If any guys named Chandler want to suck his dick.

[Mark Gagnon]

Nope. Chandler is a good city with good people. You don't have to do that. Themarkagno.com I'll see you on the road. Thanks so much. Love you all. Bye.

[Eric Adams]

So.

[Andrew Schulz]

So there's a good question, right? It's like there's. There are two things. There are the data, the facts, like, the reality of what's happening, and then there's the. The feeling that people have, without a doubt. And we got to be careful that if people have that feeling, we don't make them feel stupid for having it. Because, like, being scared in the subway is a real feeling, right? And maybe now that there's more video phone videos and I hear about all these stories, like, I know my wife, she says she feels uncomfortable in the subway. I know probably now because she uses a tuber, but a convenient excuse. Yeah. But no. Like, some of the girl work for us also say they have that feeling. When I grew up in the city, I was, like, sleeping on the subway.

[Eric Adams]

On the way to school.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, I never even. Now, don't get me wrong, I got robbed before, but it wasn't on the subway. It was like, there's people around.

[Eric Adams]

So now. Now ask yourself, because I'm big on that. Back in 2000, back in 2022, when I said, listen, we have to deal with the perception and the reality. You know, people attack me when I said that. They said, well, you know, perception doesn't matter. I said, yes, it does.

[Andrew Schulz]

Perception matters because I was a transit cop.

[Eric Adams]

So I remember. And so. So what happens? So now we have to ask ourselves, why do people feel unsafe in the subway system?

[Andrew Schulz]

Why do you think?

[Eric Adams]

Because Every day we take the worst thing that happens and we blast it on all over. And every day, we blast it every day. Every day. And so you wake up in the morning, you open the paper, oh, somebody got pushed on the subway track. Now, you may have never had a negative experience. Someone got pushed on the subway track. Then you go down in the system and you see someone walking with no shoes on, no shirt on, and they're yelling and screaming. You hear noise, you hear it's not clean enough. You begin to say to yourself, I feel unsafe. Yeah, I feel unsafe. And so what I have to do, as you said, I'm not going to go to you and insult you and say you shouldn't feel a certain way. No, I have to answer that fear. So that's why we put a thousand more cops in the system. We have them riding the trains back and forth. When I was a transit cop, that's what I did. I rode it back and forth because we know the omnipresence of that uniform can deal with that perception. Now we have record decrease in crime, but that means nothing if people don't feel safe.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, maybe it's real quick, just like maybe it's a common combination of both of those things. Like maybe it's, it's telling people, hey, we are going to address that and we're putting more cops out there so you feel safe. And then after that going, hey, by the way, crime statistics compared from last quarter or whatever you do are down 50%. So look at this positive influence that's happening, right?

[Eric Adams]

And that's.

[Andrew Schulz]

I feel like all too often it's people going, no, you idiots, look, crime is way better. And then they're like, don't call me an idiot. You right, right.

[Alex Media]

Are there some pushback on above ground? Yeah, I walk around New York City a lot. I moved here 08 and I will say it feels less safe. Like just seeing. I was walking here one day from 59th. It was a long walk, but I was like, let's do it. On one block, I see like four guys shooting heroin. I see another guy, literal piece of his intestine sticking out of his stomach, covered in what looks like shit. That's not. When I go to Penn Station, I used to live in Jersey. I'll take it. Every day I see people shooting up, hair on right outside. These are not things that make me feel safe. And, and that is a crime. You know, even then it might not be aggravated. But like I not even saying this to like dunk on you or whatever, but I will say, as someone who's lived here 17 years, it does feel less safe when I'm walking through and I see stuff that makes me feel like, this doesn't feel better.

[Akash Singh]

And I would tell him I was like, for a person who grew up here my entire life, it's safer than it's ever been. That's why it's just so weird hearing that, because I'm like, yo, I think.

[Andrew Schulz]

A lot of the Times Square back.

[Eric Adams]

In the day, but that's what I'm saying.

[Alex Media]

It might be safer than it was in 1998, but I don't think it was safer.

[Andrew Schulz]

Personally, I think a lot of this, a lot of the sentiment is like, we went through a pretty tough time in New York where it was like, there were a lot of things were quite commonplace.

[Alex Media]

You started stealing because you're dyslexic. Like, you know how tough New York was. They were like, I mix up letters. Let me just start running numbers.

[Eric Adams]

But when you. When you go back, how could you.

[Andrew Schulz]

Read if it was a Jan sport?

[Eric Adams]

When you go back to when they were growing up and you go back to that period of time, graffiti was everywhere on all our trains. You should see some of the pictures back there.

[Andrew Schulz]

It was crazy.

[Eric Adams]

And so understand that's why civic is important. Because when you see some. Like right now, when I became mayor, we were having encampments all over. People living in cardboard boxes and tents on the side of highways. And when we came in, we said, listen, people are not living that way. January and February of 2022, I went into the streets to talk to people that lived in these encampments, saw human waste, drug power fanatics, stale food, dyslexia, bipolar, schizophrenic. And so we came up with a real initiative that said, listen, we clean up these encampments and we putting people in housing. We got huge pushback, Huge pushback. The city council passed a law that said people should have the right to sleep on the streets. So when you have those governmental entities that are extreme left in their philosophies, what everyday New Yorkers want, they're pushing back. I'm fighting tooth and nail to do involuntary removal. Like you said, someone. You saw someone injecting themselves, undressed, screaming, not taking care of themselves. I'm fighting to say, I gotta get this person in care. He doesn't know he needs care.

[Alex Media]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eric Adams]

These are the battles we have that fall outside the scope of what the mayor can do. Real quick, I'm just curious.

[Akash Singh]

We have CCTV Everywhere. Why don't we have any security cameras inside the subway carts?

[Eric Adams]

Oh, we do. We're gonna. House. We're gonna. They're breaking down.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

Right now. Right now we're going to build out all the trains. But the governor has done an amaz job where we have cameras in the cars and they're going to be cameras in every car, which is huge because that allows us to pick up on any illegal behavior. It's a lot. It allows us. We caught the guy that burned the woman to death because of. Of that. That camera and that footage. So we do. Then eventually every train is going to have a camera. Yeah, I feel like.

[Andrew Schulz]

I feel like sometimes cops are like this backstop to all the problems in society. Society. So mental health we're not addressing. Right. And there's a person that's crazy on the street, and then there's a cop who might not be trained in how to deal with crazy people. He's trained in how to uphold the law.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

But now it's his responsibility to protect these people from crazy people and to protect that crazy person from themselves. And I wonder if there's like, I don't know if it's expansion or more specific division, but it seems like a lot of the problems we see on the streets that are making people feel unsafe are people who are dealing with.

[Eric Adams]

Like, severe, without a doubt. We have three issues that overshadowed our success. We turned around the city. No one thought I could do it, and they told me it was going to take five years. We did it. Two years. There are three issues that had.

[Andrew Schulz]

I love that. I can't even tell you you did it. I feel less safe and I feel.

[Alex Media]

Stupid for saying.

[Andrew Schulz]

There'S no more rats. The rats are gone. Got all the rats out of here.

[Eric Adams]

Well, they're indicators. There are indicators of a success of a city. And so you look at the financial. We have more jobs in New York in the city's history, more small businesses in the city's history, double digits, decreasing homicides, shootings, the seven major crime categories. Fourth largest tourism in the city history. Build more affordable housing in year one and year two. Individual years in the city's history. Move more people out of homelessness into permanent homes in year one and year two in the city's history, drop unemployment, employment around all demographics in the city, but particularly black and Hispanics by 20, 20%. So there are indicators that we. That people look and see. Let me see the success of the city. When you look at the indicators, it shows how successful we are and Bond ratings. These people who look and say, okay, is this city being well managed so that we can give you a bond rating so that people see if they're going to invest in your city? They raised my bond bond and then came back. Out of all that we went through, they said, we still want to keep this bond rating high because this mayor has managed, Covid managed 230,000 migrants and asylum seekers that came into the city. So they've watched how I managed to just.

[Andrew Schulz]

The bond thing is, people can invest in cities. They're called municipal bonds, right?

[Eric Adams]

Yeah. Combination of bonds. You have their industry bond raiders, Fitch S and P. These are guys that look at your cities and say, okay, what are we going to say to our investors? How well is this city being managed?

[Andrew Schulz]

And the fact that the rating maintains high.

[Eric Adams]

They scrutinize. They're hard. They look at everything they. How you manage your money. And they said, this guy has managed this city.

[Alex Media]

You raised the city's credit score. Take that, racist.

[Andrew Schulz]

So tell us what happened with the migrant crisis.

[Eric Adams]

Oh, great question, great question. Think about it. And that was my first. I want to tell you three things overshadowed our success. And I want to talk about the migrants. One, random acts of violence. Nothing impacts your feeling of being unsafe. You're a woman walking down a block. Someone punches you in the face. Out of nowhere, 100%, you know, random act of violence. One guy, you know, dealing with severe mental health issues that should not have been on the street stabs three people. Those shock everyone. Yeah. That has overshadowed our success. Mental health. That's tied to mental health. The second is residual activism. We have cats that are committing crimes. Repeatedly. Yeah, repeatedly. They made up their mind. We got. We have 575 people.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, I'm committed to this.

[Mark Gagnon]

Can't stop on.

[Eric Adams]

You can't have 575 people who are arrested for shoplifting. And they have been arrested over 7,500 times. 36 people who have assaulted people in the subway system have been arrested over 1600 times with this revolving door system and trying to convince our lawmakers in Albany that, yo, this is a problem, you know, and they're real problems.

[Andrew Schulz]

So who can do that? Because I think a lot of people blame you for that as the mayor. Right. And that's gotta be frustrating because you're like, yo, I'm not the da. You guys elected the da, Right? It's not like you even placed them there, right?

[Eric Adams]

No. So who decided the judges have to get on board? But there was a great deal of reform passed in Albany that it was conceptually it was a great idea.

[Andrew Schulz]

What was the concept that was.

[Eric Adams]

When you hear bail reform, discovery reform, raise the age reform, this is a lot of reform. Because we don't want a heavy handed criminal justice system when everyone is being locked up for no matter what.

[Andrew Schulz]

You want to give people an opportunity to have a life after making a mistake.

[Eric Adams]

Exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

But if they're repeat people, like you said, they're committed to that.

[Eric Adams]

And that's what we're trying to show them that. Listen, the data is showing these reforms you did in 2019 is having a negative impact on public safety. And it has been very centered on people who commit crimes. But what about the people who are the victims of these crimes? We have to start talking about those who are victims of these crimes.

[Alex Media]

So what would your solution be? Because three strikes doesn't seem that fair either. So like what would your solution be?

[Eric Adams]

It's not so much saying three strikes, two strikes. The judges must use the determination. Are you. Is it a danger releasing you?

[Andrew Schulz]

Right.

[Eric Adams]

Is it a danger releasing. Judge has to make that call. Is it a danger releasing you, putting you back in society? If you arrested in a short period of time for repeated burglary. Repeated burglary. You making up your mind, listen, you can let me out as much as you want. I'm going to continue to do the crime.

[Andrew Schulz]

We have to prioritize law abiding citizens over the ones that are breaking the law, the safety thereof.

[Eric Adams]

And that's what we don't do.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, and I get the idea. Like you said, the idea was good. You don't want too heavy handed a justice system where these people make mistakes and then they don't have opportunity in their life thereafter. Like as you said, like as a young kid, you did some silly shit. I know I did some silly shit.

[Eric Adams]

We all did.

[Andrew Schulz]

We did.

[Eric Adams]

Right? Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

We gotta talk about it. But we can.

[Akash Singh]

The problem with that, a lot of people were doing like petty crimes and they didn't have money to bond out so they would just sit in jail for.

[Andrew Schulz]

So they're trying to solve that problem.

[Eric Adams]

And that's why. And I'm a big believer in non violent crimes. If you, if you.

[Andrew Schulz]

What do you mean you're a believer in it?

[Eric Adams]

I'm a believer that you and that we should be being heavy handed with the nonviolent crimes. Now what we want to do is, hey, you have a drug problem, you're going into rite Aid over and over again and you're doing shoplifting. Listen, we're gonna give You a pathway to deal with that drug issue, you know, so we don't wanna be heavy handed. And those are the alternative to incarceration. Give people the support they need. Cause a lot of people think, okay, well, shoplifting is a victimless crime. That's not true.

[Andrew Schulz]

No.

[Eric Adams]

If that right aid closed down, Ms. Jones now has to get on the bus and go to get a drugstore that's, you know, a mile away from her now that cost her money. The people who worked in that Rite Aid are now losing their jobs in the same process. It impacts your economy, you know, so we need to make sure that we send the right message that you can't have a revolving door system. So let's talk about the migrants. So out of nowhere, we started getting in a large flow of migrants. Now this is the city of immigration immigrants. And it's a city that has always been open to immigrant. There's a reason that the Statue of Liberty sits in our harbor.

[Akash Singh]

Sanctuary city, Right?

[Eric Adams]

Right. It's a sanctuary city.

[Andrew Schulz]

Which is another separate issue. I think what you're saying, culturally, migrants aren't shocking to New Yorkers. I always tell people this, like you can't even tell who the migrants are. But continue. Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

So we started getting in busloads.

[Andrew Schulz]

And by design, right? Like this is political plan.

[Eric Adams]

It was coming from Texas. But it was the failure that we didn't secure our borders. We were allow allowing everyone to come into the country with unsecure borders. Many gang members, very dangerous. When I went down to Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico to look at the flow, there was a place called the Darien Gap. So I went down there to see why people coming and try to explain to the government that New York City, the streets are not paved with gold. Because everybody thinks you come to New York City, everything is fine.

[Alex Media]

Yeah, saved and rat shit.

[Eric Adams]

Right, right, right, right. So.

[Andrew Schulz]

Delicious meal. Gotta be careful with that one either.

[Alex Media]

It's vegan.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, go ahead, go ahead.

[Eric Adams]

And so people got upset because they said, man, what you doing? You know, you. You letting everybody come into the city. You're paying for them.

[Andrew Schulz]

Very reasonable.

[Eric Adams]

Right? So what people didn't understand, I couldn't stop the buses from coming in. The federal law said, you can, Eric. I couldn't even allow them to work. The federal law said, you can't even allow them to work. And a group of migrants and asylum seekers came to me and said, listen, we want to contribute to the city. Let us remove graffiti, let us clean the streets, give us a stipend. Federal government, you can't even do that. And the city law says everyone that comes here, you must give them three meals a day, you must house them.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's the sanctuary city law. Right, but that wasn't built for migrants. It was built. No, it was built for our homeless population.

[Eric Adams]

Exactly, exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

Hoping that you would take people from the homelessness, you know, going through a rough time, and then they would be.

[Eric Adams]

Housed, without a doubt, over 40 years in existence. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

And so it's kind of unfortunate that that was taken advantage of like that. And it was done, in my opinion, and I'd like to hear your opinions, but I think it was like a political tool specifically done to make more liberal leaning cities seem uninhabitable.

[Eric Adams]

And I think the message was because it should not happen too. When I went down to El Paso, they should not have had to have gone through that.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, they shouldn't.

[Eric Adams]

Brownville, Tex. Right, right. No one should.

[Alex Media]

Growing up in Texas, they feel like New Yorkers, LA, whatever. They judge you a lot, especially New York. But y'all don't deal with what we deal with now. See how you like it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right, right. I think that's fair too. It's like a lot of times New Yorkers or even people in like different parts of California, but like these coastal elitist cities, they're just kind of like, yeah, just don't. Building a wall is bad. Don't secure the board. How dare you. It's like we're not dealing with it. So who are we to say what the issue.

[Eric Adams]

So where they went wrong, where the governor of Texas went wrong is that we were saying, hey, we hear you. Let's collaborate together and send that message, not just listen, I'm not going to punish another municipality because the federal government is screwing up. So when we reached out to them and said, listen, we're on the same page with you. Your city should not be going through this. Let's get together, let's work together. No, I just want to.

[Andrew Schulz]

So now this is the dunk culture we're talking about.

[Alex Media]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Instead of having that dialogue and you coming together. And I think at that moment you were like a surrogate in the Biden administration. You were somebody who was working, working with them. You were hand chosen, by the way. It's not like everybody's a surrogate.

[Eric Adams]

Right, right, exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

You want one of the most powerful positions in the country, the mayor of New York on your side if you're the administration. So you're like, if you go and extend yourself to a conservative governor and say, let's Work together. And they go, no, thank you. We're gonna send the buses.

[Eric Adams]

Exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's some cornball.

[Alex Media]

I don't like wheels.

[Eric Adams]

And so we lost an opportunity because when I went down to El Paso and I saw people sleeping on the streets in air, I said, this is not right, even for El Paso. My position was no city should take on a federal responsibility. And that was my advocacy. I went to Washington 10 times to speak with the lawmakers. I met with the president twice, President Biden twice around this issue. And his people, they were giving him misinformation. They were not being honest to him.

[Andrew Schulz]

Who are his people? I think, yeah, who are his people?

[Eric Adams]

There were several people who was close that was in charge of this issue that was supposed to be given him the right information. And I was, I told him, I said, Mr. President, maybe they told him.

[Alex Media]

That he just forgot.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's a little old.

[Eric Adams]

You know what I mean?

[Andrew Schulz]

Possible.

[Eric Adams]

But.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, no but. But I'm just curious about these people because that's what we've heard a lot about sometimes with the Biden. And I don't want to make this like a political thing, but like just this idea that maybe there were other people that were in his ear or making certain decisions that he might not have been privy to. Because if you spoke to him and he seemed like an amicable, nice guy who was understanding what's going on. Like, where's the disconnect here?

[Eric Adams]

You interesting. In government, particularly on the federal level, people have their own agendas as well. And there was so much going on back then of people pushing back on the concept. There are some people with a philosophy that our borders should be open and any and everyone should be able to come in no matter what. I don't believe in that policy.

[Andrew Schulz]

Is it part of government?

[Eric Adams]

Right. Here's what I said to the administration. I said, listen, no one should Right now, people were coming into the country not knowing anyone in the country, not knowing where they're going. I said, listen, we're having, in our country, we're having population problems. There are a lot of cities that are dealing with population issues. Let's tell people, we're going to tell you where you're going to go for three years. If Kentucky needs people to be backstretch workers to racing and working the racing industry, you're going to Kentucky after you do your three years, then you can go anywhere in the country and apply this way. We're connecting your need to be in America with the need that America needs. It's a fantastic Idea and we're controlling the flow. You're not coming in. If you part of a gang, which they were doing, they say, hey, the border's open.

[Andrew Schulz]

Let's go. All right, guys, let's take a break for a second because I want to make sure that your energy is up whenever you need it. And you know who's going to do that? America. America in a can. Veteran owned. That's right. Okay. Veterans came back from defending our freedoms and they said, you know what America needs? America needs to enjoy this country for more hours of the day. They went to these other places. They were like, these places. I get why they sleep all the time, take a little siesta, do whatever the fuck. But America is so incredible. We're gonna help Americans enjoy more hours of the day. How do we do that? Obviously of the Black Rifle coffee, but now you have Black Rifle energy. Some of you don't like coffee. I get it. Some of you don't like coffee. You will grow up one day. This right here, the Black Rifle Energy, Absolutely fantastic. Project Mango, right? Probably some of those veterans went on that project. We don't have to talk about the details, but there's a lot of things they probably did. Maybe destabilize the nation because we needed to get, you know, mango reds to a certain. I'm not going to get into it. Yeah, yeah. This is not about. This is not about politics right now. My point that I'm trying to make is the Black Rifle guys, they are coffee connoisseurs. They are getting the best beans in the world, okay? I'm not talking about the ones sneaking in our country. I'm talking about the best beans in the world. They do not approve any of these jokes, okay? But they do believe in free speech. They also have the best energy in the world. It's Black Rifle Energy. Look at Project Mango. We also got the Ranger Danger. What is this one? Ranger Barry. Also Ranger Barry. Also Ranger Barry. There's a lot of different. Go check them out. You Consume them. Black riflecoffee.com Flagrant. Use the code FLAGRANT. 30% off your first purchase. I mean, I can't believe that they're giving 30% off the first purchase. Black riflecoffee.com flagrant. Use the code flagrant. You can also find Black Rifle coffee, energy and energy drinks and gear in grocery and convenience stores near you. Now let's get back to the show. All right, guys, let's take a break for a second.

[Eric Adams]

Okay?

[Andrew Schulz]

Call of Duty.

[Eric Adams]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Some might say the greatest video game In. In history, A lot of times people talked about verdansk. They talked about it. They go, oh, man. Remember, Remember that original map? How do we get that back?

[Eric Adams]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, they heard your inner thoughts, and it's returning to war zone. Hell, a lot of veterans is the richest. So what you need to do, okay, is you need to right now, if you're one of those OG Call of Duty folks or you're a new Call of Duty fan and you're like, I need to understand why. Why this thing got so successful. I didn't understand why this thing was so iconic. I understand why this game just had a stranglehold over the world. Well, the reason is verdansk. It might be verdansk, it might only be verdansk.

[Eric Adams]

That's it.

[Andrew Schulz]

To be honest, it might be the single most important thing. Whoever developed that map should be the highest paid person in gaming history. Okay? We're saying it right now. There are new gameplay updates and the return of the verdansk era weaponry. Very important. It's going to be epic. So download Call of Duty warzone for free and drop into Verdansk on April 3rd. Call of Duty warzone flagrant. And remember, it's rated M for mature. Now let's get back to the show.

[Eric Adams]

This was deep. When I was in Ecuador, Ecuadorians didn't want to leave their country and come to America. They loved being in their country. When I went down there and I spoke to the people, they said the.

[Andrew Schulz]

Gangs have taken over, so they're looking for reprieve from the gang violence.

[Eric Adams]

Right? And then they came here to New York and they said they were like.

[Andrew Schulz]

They over here too. Gotcha. And that's what happened.

[Eric Adams]

People are like. People are like. When I said, when I go, you know, because I spent the night in a migrant and asylum seeker shelter, one of our shelters. I spent the night to talk to them and find out, you know, why did you flee? What are you going through? They say, the gangs are here. They're preying on us. And so when I say that, listen, you're a gang member, you recognize a terrorist, you're committing crimes. You can't be here. You know, you cannot prey on migrants and you cannot prey on everyday Americans. You can't be here. So now people want to say, this is what. What's really deep because so much politics is in place. People say, oh, you anti immigrant. Anti immigrant. So I went to. I got the national immigrant leaders, the national people who fight this nationally. I said, I want y'all to come to the city and see what I'm doing. They said, we want to come here because you anti immigrant. We don't want to come. We don't want to talk to you. And I said, well, at least come. Yeah. They came to the city. They spent the day with Anna da Almazar, the first Dominican deputy mayor in the history of the city. She. They came, spent a day with her. They met me at Gracie Mansion, had dinner. They said, we gotta apologize to you. Wow. They said, no one in the country is doing what you're doing. We're gonna write a letter to Washington and say the country needs to follow your model. We fed, housed clothes, educated 40,000 children, put people on the pathway for citizenship. What we did with 230,000 people, 190,000 have left our care. And I went on to the next journey. What we did, no one in the country was doing. But when you pick up the papers, you walk away with saying, oh, this guy hate immigrants. This guy is anti immigrant.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, but I think it. That's one of those things where it's like, very easy, politicized. Like, I got. I got frustrated that too, like, all of us are kids of immigrants on this podcast, like, every single one of us. So this idea that, like, we are not supportive of immigration is kind of absurd. Also, like, coming in New York, like, you heard those criticisms in New York. You're like, what the fuck are you talking about? Somebody from Maine is going to tell me about immigrants.

[Alex Media]

Like, New York immigrant.

[Mark Gagnon]

If anything, you almost do the opposite where it's like, oh, they're putting migrants in hotels and they're putting them up and they're, you know, they're taking over city blocks. So it's almost the opposite where it's almost too, too accommodating.

[Andrew Schulz]

That was right.

[Eric Adams]

And that's. That's it. But now people don't talk about that.

[Andrew Schulz]

So much is so. It's like you either hate immigrants or they're staying at the Four Seasons.

[Eric Adams]

Right, Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

But I think that was the thing that New Yorkers started to give pushback, which is like, New Yorkers obviously struggling. Cost of living has gone up. Like you were saying, housing prices are crazy. And then you're hearing these stories about these people that are migra New York. Right. And they're getting put up at the hotel outside of Madison Square Garden, getting three meals a day. You're like, yo, my kid's getting two meals a day. So you understand their concern and resentment.

[Eric Adams]

Without a doubt. Without a doubt.

[Andrew Schulz]

And you're in this situation where you're like, okay, the federal government is not helping me with this situation at all. And I'm shackled by my limitations as a city to even put these people to work or do anything. So now the center of the federal government, through law, is making me put them up and feed them at the potential disadvantage to my own constituents. And then you just got to sit there and take it.

[Eric Adams]

What you just stated, and here's the impact of this. This is what was deep about this moment, that they were, they were not standing. They were standing in tents. Randall's Island, Creedmoor. We put up a tent, Floyd Benefield tents. I went to go to these tents. Now, it was, it was the best we could do in the circumstances. Roosevelt Hotel was our intake center.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you go to Roosevelt first, and then you go.

[Eric Adams]

You'll go to one of these other locations.

[Andrew Schulz]

Gotcha. But once the narrative hits the news, you go to nickname sitting courtside.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Migrate to America.

[Eric Adams]

And that was not the reality. But then this is what angered me. This was the tipping point where I decided I got to publicly criticize the administration. The Biden administration.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, yeah. When did that happen? Because that was very brave.

[Eric Adams]

The money, this, this, this cost us $7 billion. Now, we, we. We have a. We have a fixed budget.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

You know, we have a fixed budget.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

And so if you take. Just think about if you're a homeowner and you take and you have your budget to do your lights, your gas, your budget for your repairs, all of a sudden the roof caves in. You want your insurance company come and give, you give.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's very reasonable.

[Eric Adams]

And if the insurance company tells you, insurance, you, hey, we're not giving you anything now. You got to take it out of somewhere. So I had to take $7 billion out of the services for our city. The long term impact of that is what troubles me.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right.

[Eric Adams]

That's the, that's the. Because I could have taken $200 million of that to go to chronically absent children. Because we had a lot of children that are chronically absent after Covid. I could have taken. I could have taken $500 million and went to. To my adults care. I could have.

[Andrew Schulz]

And what you're saying is that this is a federal issue. The federal government is responsible for protecting the borders of this country. You are dealing with their lack of effort to protect the country. And they're going, but you also got to pay for it.

[Eric Adams]

Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, I understand what that feels.

[Eric Adams]

You know what their response after going there all the time, what they say, Eric, this Is like a gallbladder. It's going to hurt now, but it'll pass. I said, then you piss it out.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, okay, so listen. And I don't want to get conspiratorial. I don't get conspiratorial. But after you come out and I thought, like very reasonably criticized them, Right. A little bit afterwards, all of a sudden, the Justice Department looks into Eric Adams. Now, listen, I don't want to get. I don't want to get conspiratorial here, but we're going to get conspiratorial. They look into Eric Adams and then they. And there's this thing about Turkish Airlines. Right? Right. Which I think that they were targeting you because you're bald and maybe you're going to get.

[Eric Adams]

And I wear earring.

[Andrew Schulz]

So. So this is what bothered me the most, is it was the dollar amount.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

If you were being corrupted, it better be more than a hundred fucking thousand dollars. Please, God. Now, listen, I know there's level corruption in government all over the place, but if you were the mayor of New York City, have some fucking respect for yourself. So can you. Do you think there's any connection to those two things?

[Eric Adams]

You're darn right I do. You know, the timing of it. The, the, the leaking. The public embarrassment and humiliation leak. They were leaking information. Part of the case. They were just leaking it out. You know, grand jury testimonies are supposed to be private and secret, and then.

[Andrew Schulz]

All of a sudden they start ending.

[Eric Adams]

Up in the same paper over and over again. The New York Times. Over and over again. Over, over and over. So think. And a lot of people never read the indictment.

[Andrew Schulz]

Of course not.

[Eric Adams]

Anyway, I keep going, yeah, they never read the indictment. The whole premise of this, their indictment. I was the borough president at the time. The Turkish embassy was going to open. The president was coming, and they were going through the bureaucracy. The madness of it.

[Andrew Schulz]

If you've ever built a thing or renovated in this fucking city. Right, right.

[Eric Adams]

And I ran on the platform that government must be more fluid and it can't be bureaucratic. I call the Fox Fire commissioner and say, can you at least go do an inspection? Can somebody go do an inspection so that they can see they can pass the inspection? And I said, if you can't do it, let me know and I'll manage their expectation. All of this is in the indictment. Let me know and I'll manage their expectation. I didn't tell them to go past them. I didn't tell them go past the rules. Ignore it. I Said, no, just go do a dawn inspection. The guy's asking for an inspection. So they said, well, you know what? The federal government said, well, they gave you upgrades throughout the years, and we're going to attach that to when you call them and say you were bribed.

[Andrew Schulz]

Upgrades on a flight.

[Eric Adams]

On a plane. On a plane and say that you were bribed. They use all of these numbers for upgrades. Right, right, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

You buy an irregular coach ticket, but the fact that you get bumped up means you're in their pocket 100%.

[Eric Adams]

Exactly.

[Alex Media]

Why did you get bumped up? Cause I didn't even know.

[Eric Adams]

Who hasn't flown? I mean, tell me someone who hasn't flown and said, hey, I see you got an empty seat in business. You know what I'm saying?

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Eric Adams]

You know, But. But to. To take down a city, mayor of the largest. Yeah. The largest city in America. Yeah. And then when you looked at the text messages that were leaked a few weeks ago of them talking. Talking about it, and, hey, you know, the U.S. attorney, he may have a political agenda here. Right, right, right. They found their text messages and their communications.

[Andrew Schulz]

So it exposed their.

[Eric Adams]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

And that gets leaked by whom?

[Eric Adams]

No, they. The judge ordered it to be released. Yeah, right, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, my God.

[Eric Adams]

Ordered it to be released. But, you know, if you really want to understand.

[Andrew Schulz]

And they've dropped this case. Right. Like, well, nobody will prosecute.

[Eric Adams]

Do you. U.S. attorney said it was a weak case. The new incoming U.S. attorney says it was a weak case they put in to have it dismissed. The judge said, basically, I don't want to dismiss it on my own opinion. Let me get an independent person to look over and make the determination what I need to do. That independent person came back three weeks ago and said, you need to dismiss this case. And so we're now waiting for the judge to look at what his independent person said. We believe he should agree with the independent person. What he said, listen, I did nothing wrong. How do you. You know, I mean, I lived a public Life for over 40 years.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

You know, and I know that. Listen, everyone in New York, you're scrutinized. And watch. You know, I know how I live my life. I did nothing wrong. This was traumatizing to my family. You know, but you're in public life. You have to fight hard. Now, the real test for me was 15 months ago when the indictment came down. I could have easily said, you know what? Let me just.

[Andrew Schulz]

I resign.

[Eric Adams]

Right. People say, oh, you need to resign. I was like, I'm not going anywhere. I Did nothing wrong.

[Andrew Schulz]

People were leaving. You right? People were leaving.

[Eric Adams]

Right, Right. Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now what are they going through? Right.

[Eric Adams]

You know, that's how true. That's how, you know, true folks are.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because who else would hire somebody that left at the first sign of trouble?

[Eric Adams]

Listen, look, God, you know, I don't know your spiritual belief, but my belief is clear. God is good, man. You know that. And God. And all the time, God is good. Look at. You sound like a Baptist preacher, you know, so, you know, but we have delivered in the midst of that. Yes, you know, because.

[Andrew Schulz]

But it is a shot at your, like, political career. Is it frustrating to not, or do you know who you think it came from? Like, is Biden aware of this or is it the people that are, like, underneath Biden? Is it completely separate?

[Eric Adams]

That's a great question. That's a great question. You know, there are a lot of people, you know, this, you know, and I don't want to sound conspiracy theory, but there's a permanent government. There are people that see presidents and mayors come and go. Their attitudes will wait you out, you know. You know what? Book is a great book, man. Everybody should read the book. Cash Patel's Government Gangsters.

[Alex Media]

Okay, Put them on the pod.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, you should read that book, man. Cash breaks this down.

[Andrew Schulz]

What is he. And is this. What's.

[Eric Adams]

He's now the FBI director.

[Andrew Schulz]

Of course. Of course, we love Cat. But is this, like, what people refer to? And I think this word has been used too much, but, like, the deep state or whatever it is, it's not used too much.

[Eric Adams]

It's real.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, really?

[Eric Adams]

Think about it. Who's part of it?

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, what are there. Are there current, like, senators and that kind of stuff? Or is it people that we don't even know, but they're always existing?

[Eric Adams]

You know, I have never seen anyone do such a good, good job of defining that deep state. You should have him on.

[Andrew Schulz]

I would tell him to come on.

[Eric Adams]

You should have him on.

[Andrew Schulz]

We would love it. The way he's probably listening right now. Right?

[Eric Adams]

The way. Because he was in. It's like me talking about what happens in NYPD after 22 years.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

Cash was in the DOD. He was in the FBI. He prosecuted terrorists. So he comes with this wealth of knowledge. And the way he breaks it down. Yeah, it's just. It's just unbelievable what this deep state is about and why it's so important for Americans that we cannot have a weaponizing of our prosecutorial powers that. Imagine the Southern District, right. Southern district of Newark. That's One of the most powerful U.S. attorney's office in their mind. They said, we're sovereign. You know what that means?

[Andrew Schulz]

What do you mean? They said they're sovereign?

[Eric Adams]

They don't have to answer to anyone. They don't have to answer to the President. They don't have to answer to the U.S. attorney in Washington, the Attorney General in Washington. They believe they're sovereign entity. You're not elected. Imagine an entity believing they don't have to answer to anyone, but they have.

[Andrew Schulz]

To answer to the people and ultimately the people that we put in power.

[Akash Singh]

I'm curious, what do you say to people saying that Trump played a role in the DOJ dropping the case? Because it's like it kind of looked like he went.

[Alex Media]

The timing does seem.

[Akash Singh]

And then all of a sudden, he.

[Andrew Schulz]

Had your back at that Catholic dinner. He was like.

[Eric Adams]

And that's what they did.

[Andrew Schulz]

And I thought that that was like a really interesting thing to even say. He said it kind of flippantly, which I thought was more effective because he could have went and made a big deal, but he was like, eh, it's wrong what they're doing. And I've always wondered if he felt. And people are gonna say, we're apologizing for Trump or whatever, but I've always wondered if he felt like, oh, they're doing the same thing to him.

[Eric Adams]

Come on, brother.

[Andrew Schulz]

You tell me.

[Eric Adams]

Come on, come on. Listen. People say, think this is. This is what those who have Trump derangement, syndro. Because there's some folks, I'm not the type of cat that I respect the office. The presidency is in office. It's representative of our country. Presidents come and go like mayors come and go. I'm a big believer. I'm a patriot. I believe in the American flag. My uncle died at 19 defending this country. I wore a bulletproof vest for the city. My brother did as well. So I believe in the symbol of office, so I don't have to like who's in office. I respected Biden to the fullest extent. I respect the office. And so when President Trump was on a campaign trail before he was elected, he was saying, look what they're doing to this man in New York. He said, this is wrong, what they're doing to this man in New York. He never asked me for anything. I believe he personally saw what they did to. It's one thing to do something to the individual, but when you start doing something to your family members. And I think there was something he saw because out of everything he had on his Campaign trail. He didn't have to come out on his campaign trail and say, this is wrong, what they're doing to Eric. He did it at rallies. He did it the day before the election when he's at Madison Square Garden a few days before election. On that Sunday, he said, look what they're doing to this man in New York. So there was never, they say, well, there was a quid pro quo. You are now trying to be hard on immigration. I said, show me me what I said that refutes after he was elected that I wasn't saying before he was elected. The same thing that was saying before he was elected. You commit a crime, you need to get out of our country. Yeah. That's the same thing that, that I've been saying, and let me just drop this on you, that a lot of people don't realize. You know, ICE is a law enforcement organization.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

I mean, I'm not going to say I'm not going to cooperate with any law enforcement organization to keep our city safe. Now, you may. People may not like ice. That's. That's your opinion. But it's a law enforcement that's not criminalized, a law enforcement organization, and there's some people coming into the country to commit crimes.

[Alex Media]

But you have been vocal, like when you were in the police force, which I thought was admirable. You were vocal against Amadou Diallo, I think is how you pronounce, which is a brave thing to do because what happened to him was. But to the same end, if you think what ICE is doing right now, deporting guys with green cards and all that, I assume that would be ice. You would also speak up against that ice.

[Eric Adams]

Well, our city, you know, this is some good stuff for your listeners.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

Our city is not allowed by law to collaborate with ICE for any civil enforcement. We can't do it. The law says that, you know, but the law allows us to collaborate for criminal enforcement. If somebody's committing a crime, we could collaborate them. We have joint task forces with FBI, Homeland Security, all these entities that we collaborate with all the time to go after dangerous people, terrorists enough to have the dangerous people. So we can't collaborate by law if it's just for civil enforcement.

[Alex Media]

Okay. So what do you think of what we're reading? I don't know what's real. It seems like students leading protests with green cards getting deported in your city.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alex Media]

How do you feel about that?

[Eric Adams]

And I want to go back to that question because that's important. Prior to the election, when I saw what happened on Columbia University and people were saying, you know, they are pro Hamas, they lifting up Hamas. I am Hamas. When I heard people say that we should destroy America, all these leaflets on Columbus University and all of these protests who were there, some of them were not even students at Columbia University prior to the election, I said, this is unacceptable. You know, my uncle died defending this country and I dare anybody to go on, desecrate our statues, desecrate our war memorial, destroy property. You know, that's not acceptable to me. So that tone didn't come after Trump was elected. I was saying this pre election, that's not acceptable to me. So those people who they rounded, they got for whatever reason, I don't know the evidence that they have, I don't know if it's just because they violated some rule, violated some law, handing out terrorist paraphernalia. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization.

[Alex Media]

Gentle pushback.

[Eric Adams]

No, no, no respect. Too hard pushback.

[Alex Media]

Okay, good. This is a resident of your city?

[Eric Adams]

Yes.

[Alex Media]

He's at Colombia. So temporarily he's a resident of your city.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Alex Media]

Wouldn't it be. Wouldn't the onus be on you to look into what happened? Was it lawful? Was he breaking laws?

[Eric Adams]

No.

[Andrew Schulz]

How about that? I'mma take your green card.

[Eric Adams]

No, not at all. You. You feel deaf to America. You know, what.

[Alex Media]

If he's saying all that, cool.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, we don't know that. But I want to be really clear, and I say this over and over again. A lot of people don't pick up and understand I have no control over immigration. The federal government controls immigration.

[Alex Media]

Understood.

[Eric Adams]

That's their responsibility. And I don't know, Jay Z said it best. I have 99 problems, brother, and immigration is not one. They deal with immigration. And so when you start to. I don't want them coming in telling me how to run my city. And I don't want them dumping something on me like the previous administration did. They had me deal with. I was. We were getting sometimes 4,000 migrants a week, 8,000 every two weeks. Do the math. And so I don't want to go in and start telling them how to do their job. And immigration and I don't want them telling me how to do my job.

[Akash Singh]

Real quick, should legal immigrants be afraid to practice free speech?

[Eric Adams]

I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that.

[Alex Media]

Yeah, that's.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, no, that's. That's an important question. And so many. When I'm moving around my immigrant communities and they share with me, you know, What? We're, we're afraid. We're afraid to go to school, church, work, etc, and I mean, why are they afraid? Because I've been saying this same thing. Go to school, go to your house of worship, go to the hospital, call the police if you need help. You know, the activists who love this hysteria are given the impression that all of a sudden ICE is going into our schools, taking our children, going to hospital. That's just not true. That's not true. They created this hysteria that you're seeing right now that is not going on in this city.

[Andrew Schulz]

Speaking of the greatest city in the entire world, let's switch up the seating arrangement a little bit because I'm going to tell something exciting that might. Might blow your mind. It's actually about baseball. The Yankees. The Yankees, the greatest team in the history of baseball from the greatest city in the history of the world. Yes. Have hit 15 home runs in three games. Are they cheating? Yes.

[Eric Adams]

Let's go.

[Alex Media]

It's awesome.

[Andrew Schulz]

It is awesome.

[Alex Media]

It's awesome. It's legal cheating, which is what we all do.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why didn't they change the bats before?

[Alex Media]

Yeah, why are they the only team that looked into this?

[Andrew Schulz]

Smart.

[Alex Media]

So Miles probably knows what they did to the bats. I don't know if we care, but they changed the bats and they' knocking them out of the.

[Andrew Schulz]

We're not going to tell other people what happens. Like, let them figure it out on their own.

[Mark Gagnon]

And some good migrants, like the Yankees have some good migrants.

[Alex Media]

Oh, that's true.

[Andrew Schulz]

They got the migrants.

[Mark Gagnon]

And look at what they're doing.

[Andrew Schulz]

They're fucking hitting home runs. When you. When they know ICE is waiting. When they know ICE is waiting. And ICE has got some money on the game. When ICE is gambling on the game.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

With stake, by the way, the leader and you know us social casinos, you bet on top sports, political events. Use promo code flagrant for your welcome bonus. Just letting you guys know that. But, but when ICE is. This has been happening. Yeah, this has absolutely been happening. You know Mayor Adams coming back right now, he's just using the bathroom. But when ICE is gambling on the Yankees and the Yankees continue to hit home runs, they don't throw them back to whatever country they came from.

[Alex Media]

That's true.

[Andrew Schulz]

Exactly.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's a sanctuary stadium.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay? It is absolutely sanctuary stadium.

[Mark Gagnon]

And if you leave with a couple strikeouts on the catapult.

[Andrew Schulz]

See you later. See you later.

[Alex Media]

Yeah, we're throwing you over the wall.

[Andrew Schulz]

You reside in New Jersey, which is not a sanctuary. That is a big problem for a Lot of these Yankees. Okay, so point is, steak has got your back. If you want to go gamble, obviously you're going to gamble. The Yankee. Yankees are questioning it. Are we going to win whatever the championship in baseball is? Yeah. The World Series, the World Bowl. Are we going to win the World Bowl? Are we going to win the Super World Bowl? Yes, we are. Okay. Just like we have all throughout our childhood. This is what we do. Greatest city in the entire world. Can we get back to this show?

[Alex Media]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Eric Adams]

We cannot ignore. Ignore the Trump part of this, because what Biden's Justice Department did was unbelievable. You place mothers on FBI watch list because you are worried about what they're being taught to children in school.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wait, what is that?

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, they had mothers and families placed on FBI watch list, Terror, terrorist watch list because of their advocacy around some of the things that they're teaching their children in school. They wanted to call them terrorists. I'm telling you, you got to see what that Justice Department did. And a lot of people want to ignore what, you know, they talk about my case. But when Biden. When Biden pardoned his son, he said. He said the Justice Department has been politicized.

[Alex Media]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know what I'm saying?

[Eric Adams]

You know what I'm saying?

[Alex Media]

We're not, like.

[Andrew Schulz]

It'S like, it is a tricky thing because, you know, I'm pardoning my kid 100% if I have that power. But at the same time, I understand the. The frustration you must absolutely feel. Okay, so.

[Eric Adams]

And we're not here. We're not hearing. We're not. No one from.

[Andrew Schulz]

We're not hearing the same criticism.

[Eric Adams]

No one from the Justice Department quit. None of them saying, I think what you're doing is wrong. So I'm quitting. Yeah. You know, I'm telling you, read Cash's book.

[Andrew Schulz]

The thing that I think is, like, is really frustrating is that, like, we know your name, we know Biden's name, we know Hunter's name, we know Trump's name.

[Eric Adams]

This.

[Andrew Schulz]

These people that you were talking about or Cash was talking about, none of us know their names.

[Eric Adams]

You got to know the name in the books.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, I'm going to look because. Because, like, how can we hold people accountable that were not elected by us, not democratically chosen, and are the ones allegedly behind these decisions, but how can we hold them accountable? We don't know who the fuck they are.

[Eric Adams]

Right, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And why do you feel. Why are you telling me you know the names?

[Eric Adams]

I don't know.

[Alex Media]

Dyslexia baby.

[Eric Adams]

No. When you. When you read the book, I don't remember all the names as he listed. He did a good job of documenting some of the case history of documenting. So I can't blurt out every name when I remember. Yeah, but it's all in the book. He does an amazing job of documenting the case history. Like, you look at the.

[Andrew Schulz]

Which case?

[Eric Adams]

Both cases. There's a couple of cases. Like, he goes into what was happening in the Justice Department under this previous. The previous administration and how the number of people who were under investigation was just political people. You know, I mean, the book is a good book.

[Andrew Schulz]

Do you get a nudge, like, when you start speaking out?

[Eric Adams]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Do you get, like, a private phone call from somebody or an email that goes, hey, why don't we go a different direction about this? It might not be good for you politically.

[Eric Adams]

What people told me. People told me when I criticized what was happening to our city around the migrants and asylum seekers. They said, eric, they got. They got many ways to come at you, really. Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And is this like a. Is this commonplace within politics? Like, did you experience this at borough president when you had strong opinions? Were you like, hey, if you go against. Against the administration, for the mayoral administration, they might come down on you? Is this just how politics works, or is this something specific to, like, federal government and control?

[Eric Adams]

I think it's a combination of, you know, people use people weaponize their authority in every business. You know, it's not only. It's not, you know, it's not just unique to politics. It becomes more costly when you're using prosecutors as a weapon against political opponents. You know, I mean, when you. When I was. I'm facing 35 years in jail.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wow.

[Eric Adams]

Think about it.

[Andrew Schulz]

I didn't know.

[Eric Adams]

Think about it. And it. And it. And. And it cost me over $3 million personally. Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Hold on.

[Eric Adams]

So think about this for a moment. You know what I'm saying? So this is. This is. This is real shit.

[Andrew Schulz]

So these people were 100% be totally fine with you being behind your bars for 35 years, completely broke, just so that they could send a message to other states not to push back.

[Alex Media]

Make an example.

[Eric Adams]

Read Cash's book.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wow. Have you spoken about this outside of this podcast?

[Eric Adams]

Here's what. And this is the most difficult moment for me for the last 15 months, because everybody knows me as. As a fighter. Yeah, everybody knows this guy never stopped fighting. This guy was in the police department, and he was criticizing the police department while he was in the police department.

[Andrew Schulz]

Which Is everybody knows police don't love.

[Eric Adams]

That, that I'm a fighter. And my attorney has put me in a place. You can't talk about the case, Eric, because it's still going on, right? Still pending. And it has been hard as hell not to talk about the case because to watch my name be.

[Andrew Schulz]

Be slandered like that.

[Eric Adams]

I mean, slandered, you know, I mean, you have people writing all sorts of, you know, he did a quip or crow, He's a criminal, he's corrupt. And you have to sit back, you know, and I'm like, my attorney said, eric, he called me every morning. Don't even think about it.

[Andrew Schulz]

So here's the question. If you're saying that this or Cash is saying that these people exist in government, there's a permanent government, as you will. And by the way, like, I kind understand that the idea that the most powerful country in the history of the world could just change leadership completely every four or eight years is kind of insane. Like, there needs to be something quote, unquote, permanent. Right, Right. So, like, I get it. I get maybe how it starts. I get the idea behind it. But if the people, you know, are some nefarious characters, they could go left very quickly anyway. So this thing. This thing exists. Right. Kind of permanent, permanently. Now Trump is in power, there'll be another person in power. Are they able to, like, influence that group? Or does that group just lay dormant while he's in power and wait for another administration? Like, how does that work when the.

[Eric Adams]

That's a great question. Great question. First of all, I think it was Jack Nicholson and a few, I think a few good men, we said, you really don't want to know the truth.

[Alex Media]

You can't handle the truth.

[Eric Adams]

You can't handle the truth. Right, right, right, right. Running a country this complex comes with things that don't want to know about. We need to be honest with ourselves. Some of these operations, some of these secret operations that take place across countries, I mean, it's just the complexities of ensuring and keeping us safe.

[Andrew Schulz]

Absolutely.

[Eric Adams]

And so when I came into office as the mayor, there were folks who were in agencies because agencies run cities. You know, the Department of Traffic, Department of Sanitation, Police department, that's what runs cities. There were people who were in agencies for 30, 40 years, never been elected. Right. And they. And they make decisions that you don't even realize are being made. And so a mayor comes in with his agenda. There's some things he can do, but there's others. If you there for 30 years. You like looking at them saying this motherfucker.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why are you telling me? All right, go talk your shit.

[Eric Adams]

Right, right, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wow. And then you ultimately deal with the failures of those unelected officials. Right? Now, if those unelected officials do something good, you do get the benefit.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah. No, so it's a. So.

[Andrew Schulz]

But there are most circumstances, I imagine, if somebody knows they can't lose their job and they're looking out for their agency, they're trying to increase everybody's overtime, they're trying to make sure everybody gets paid more.

[Eric Adams]

And layers and layers of bureaucracy, and.

[Andrew Schulz]

They'Ve been growing and growing, growing.

[Eric Adams]

They know that. They know the people. Because, remember you, we have $114 billion budget. You know what? You know the amount of money that is on the federal level. So when they went in and looked at USAID and say, wait a minute, you sending 3 billion to this? You sending 3,4 billion to this? And so those permanent people. And I know we want to believe in particularly the prosecutorial arm of our government, because the worst thing we want to believe is that people are using the prosecutorial powers to go after people. That is frightening. And we have seen that. Like I said, imagine you are a mother.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's fascism.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

I mean, definitionally, like, if you're going after your political opponent and you're using.

[Eric Adams]

The power of the government, imagine you're a mother in some small town somewhere and you truly believe in some of the governmental policies you disagree with, and you want to rally around that free speech. You want to organize around that. You should be on the FBI watch list.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. You should have the ability to speak out. Which I guess goes more towards what Alex and Akash were just saying before. Like, we don't want to remove people's ability to speak out.

[Eric Adams]

That's who we are. That's who we are as a country. I'm curious.

[Akash Singh]

We get frustrated because we look around and we see stuff not happening. And you just pointed out, here's one reason why things can't happen. Sometimes there's people in place for long periods of time, and it prevents you from doing something. Why don't you air them out? Why don't politicians air them out?

[Eric Adams]

No, and you do. And you're able to. You're able to remove those who are not, have workers, protection. I think you got a lot of laws to protect people. You can't just, you know, fire just to be fired.

[Akash Singh]

They're not fired.

[Eric Adams]

But let's.

[Akash Singh]

Let's say, hey, I want to build this park right Here, it's going to help the community. But this guy who's been in this job for 30 years wants this type of kickback in order to get the permit.

[Eric Adams]

Why don't you just.

[Andrew Schulz]

Put. Why don't we put a name and face to these bureaucratic kingpins?

[Akash Singh]

Because we look at it as like, oh, nothing's getting done.

[Alex Media]

Eric Adams isn't doing anything.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because ultimately they're the consequences.

[Eric Adams]

No, without a doubt. And we have been, in spite of the layers of bureaucracy, and I want to be very clear, we have 320,000, I think the last time I checked, employees. And the overwhelming number of them get up every day and get their job done. They committed, they dedicated. I've been able to give them a great contract. They were not getting contracts that they deserve. Give them good contract. They're hardworking people, but all you need are a few people in strategic places that can slow up the process. You have to identify them, you have to remove them when you can. You have to replace them with good people that you want. But the big thing that I want you to understand that May is come and go. Presidents come and go, governors come and go. Permanent government is real. And whoever's trying to act like it's not real, they lie.

[Andrew Schulz]

So. So just on that, like dealing with the bureaucracy and, and I think it's important that you said that. Right. There are like 3,300 thousand government employees that like, make this city operate.

[Eric Adams]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

It doesn't operate without them. We need them and they don't get.

[Eric Adams]

Caught up in the madness. Yeah. You know, if you, you call 911, that cop is coming, you know, that.

[Alex Media]

Person on the other line.

[Eric Adams]

Right. They're doing their job every day.

[Andrew Schulz]

And this is like an unbelievable task to run the city every single day. The fact that anyway, so, so, so I have a lot of, like, unbelievable amount of respect for them. And I, when I bring up, like, Doge, I don't want this to become politicized because I understand how people feel about, like, Elon, and I understand how they feel about you.

[Eric Adams]

Raise that I understand.

[Andrew Schulz]

And how people feel about, like, you know, swaths of people getting fired and losing their ability to provide for their families. Like, if that is exactly what's happening, I have empathy for those people as well.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think, like, as a normal human being.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

But is there a, let's say, more delicate way to go into some of the permanent government and make it more efficient, which would help everyday New Yorkers? Does that, does that mean that there's More money for other programs.

[Eric Adams]

Right, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Those people need to get hired for those other programs as well. It's not like we're just going to cut jobs forever. Right?

[Eric Adams]

Well said. Well said.

[Andrew Schulz]

Should we look into permanent government in every municipality?

[Eric Adams]

Without a doubt.

[Andrew Schulz]

See if there's some blow?

[Eric Adams]

Without a doubt. Without a doubt.

[Andrew Schulz]

Listen, how do you even say that without people going, oh, they're trying to.

[Eric Adams]

Dove, you got to ignore the noise, brother.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay?

[Eric Adams]

You got to. You, you, you, you. My claim to fame is that I know I love this city and I love the people in this city. And I don't care what you call me. I don't care how much you yell at me. I don't care how you call names. You're not going to tell me that people should be sleeping on the streets. And you can call me whatever you want. I'm not going to allow them to sleep on the street. You're not going to tell me that we should have guns in our community. We took 20,800 guns off our streets, almost 1,500 just this year alone. And we're seeing the results of that. And so you have to go into government not saying, okay, let me just say the right things. You know, you have to go in being your honest, authentic self. And that's what we do every day. We're not going to solve all the problems. But you can't tell me we continue to spend this much money and then have 40% of our children reading and writing at grade level.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, it just doesn't.

[Eric Adams]

All over the country.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's the thing. Like, there just has to be a better way. That's why I hate that the Doge thing has become so politicized, because I think most Americans agree, like, we don't want there to be ways.

[Eric Adams]

I agree. They do agree. And the thing is, I keep saying this, and people don't like it. They get upset. The Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. You can hate someone so much that even if they do something.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right.

[Eric Adams]

Right. You know that. And you could like or dislike Elon, but you don't have any right blowing up someone's Tesla.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right, exactly.

[Eric Adams]

You don't have any breaking the law. Who do you think you are? You know, you don't have any right going in and destroying.

[Andrew Schulz]

They drew a. They drew a dick on his Tesla.

[Alex Media]

Yeah, I'm sorry about that. By the way.

[Mark Gagnon]

A white dick, too.

[Andrew Schulz]

Small, Small white dick.

[Eric Adams]

But think about that.

[Akash Singh]

Now, to be fair, they should get 40 years.

[Andrew Schulz]

But yeah, so that is. That does happen.

[Eric Adams]

That's a hypocrisy. Yeah. When you say, okay, I'm upset that you are doing Doge and you're closing now Jobs. But you know what? You should close down Tesla. What about those people that work there?

[Andrew Schulz]

Dude, I literally said that. I was on, I was on this guy's podcast and I was like, listen, I totally understand you Theo Vaughn's podcast. And I was, I was like, I totally understand that, like, you people who are critical of Elon. There's reasons to be critical. Everybody should have the freedom to be critical. Right?

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And I go, I go, but hoping that Tesla shuts down.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, I understand you're upset that people lost jobs. It doesn't improve the situation if you make more people lose jobs.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Alex Media]

It is the richest guy.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, he's the richest guy in the world. He's not. He's going to be okay.

[Eric Adams]

Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

He's not the one hurt the people that work there. So you're upset these people lost jobs. You're like, I know the solution. More people lose jobs.

[Eric Adams]

Think about it. It's the irrational thought process that people are lining up. I just want to hurt each other. I want you to feel and, and, and, and, and God forbid if you say, I'm not playing that game, okay, then I'm gonna cancel you. Cancel me. You know what I'm saying?

[Alex Media]

All right, guys, we gotta talk about your website. If you have a business of any kind, entertainer, brick and mortar, it does not matter. You need a website and you need to build it with Squarespace. They make it easy to create a beautiful website to help you engage with your audience. You can sell anything from products to content to time to tour dates. And you can do it all on your terms. They also have Squarespace payments. So you can take payments, manage your payments all in one place. Onboarding is fast and simple. Get started in just a few clicks and start receiving payments right away. Plus, you give your customers more ways to pay for their product. They can pay with Clarnet, ACH Direction, Debit, Apple Pay, and Clear Pay, just to name a few. Also, they have design intelligence. Artificial intelligence is making everything easier. Why not use it to build your website? It empowers anyone to build a beautiful, more personalized website tailored to their unique needs and craft a bespoke digital identity. That means personalized. And last but not least, Squarespace can help you with SEO. Every Squarespace website, SEO people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies to do this for Google. Every Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions, an auto generated sitemap and more. So you show up more often to the people who matter. So go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.com flagrant to save 10% on your first purchase of a website or domain. Now let's get back to the show. What's up noodle dicks? It's that time you want to talk about optimizing, optimize your dick game. And you know how you do that with Blue Date Chew. They've been riding us since riding with us longer than any other. Would I say riding us? Yeah, if I was riding with Blue Chew, I would have a better experience. If I dudes and they use bluechew, it would be a fantastic experience. If you dudes and you want them to have bluechew, it'll make your experience better. If you anybody and you want to have a better dick game, Bluetooth is a way to do it. And you can get your first month.

[Andrew Schulz]

Of Bluetooth for free.

[Alex Media]

When you use a promo code flagrant, just pay $5 for shipping. That is promo code FLAGRANT. Visit bluechew.com get all your details, important safety information. But bluechew.com step your dick game up. Let's get back to the show.

[Mark Gagnon]

I'm curious, what is your relationship like with Trump now? Do you guys correspond on a frequent basis?

[Eric Adams]

When he first got elected called hey, president, congratulations, New York is important to you. It's important to me. We got some issues that I need help with, like salt. These are some of the taxes, I mean some of the things that were passed salt. It's just called a salt tax. It was hard on New New York, New York City. And we have communicate. I said I was very transparent. I want to work with the president, not war with the president. You don't win warring. And there are things I disagree. I'm going to communicate and say, listen, we disagree. You know, they took 80 million, 60 million away from us, from FEMA funding for the migrants. We disagreed on that. But the goal is how do we sit down like I did with Biden. You know, people forget that point that I sat down and worked with the president. He came to the city around public safety issues. The president came in, we sat down, we met with the police commissioner. He did what I asked of him to get a director to atf. It was amazing. So I want to work with our national leaders. I'm the mayor of the biggest city in the country, in the most important country on the globe, talk that shit. How do we not work with the president? I mean, it's ridiculous.

[Akash Singh]

How is it, like, going down to Mar a Lago? Are you guys, like, playing golf and kicking it or you having, like, serious.

[Eric Adams]

No, no, no. We, we. Everybody say Mar a Lago. You know, it wasn't Mar Lago. It was. I think it was Palm Beach's other golf course. And we were having real conversations about the city. You know, we. We're having conversations, conversations about what are the needs of the city. We have some real infrastructure pro problems that we have to face. We're dealing with our BQE that's almost about to. We don't get it fixed. It could be a real, real safety issue. So they're real. We had a lot of grants that we were getting for our infrastructure stuff. And so I was really saying, I want to revitalize the economy. I want to put a chip plant up in the Bronx where we can make the chips and not be held hostage by Taiwan and others. And I said, we can build the whole.

[Alex Media]

That's awesome.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, we could build a whole and build our jobs, teach people the technology. So I was sharing with him. It was a, hey, I'm the mayor. I want to let you know, I'm the mayor of the city you live in, you know, and we want to make sure that this city continues to grow. Now they critique me speaking with them. The governor went several times to see him. Yeah. You know, other governors are saying white woman privilege.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, but. But to that point, like, I think it's. I think a lot of times, like, we focus. It is. It is, isn't it? Right. Don't go bird watching. So. So this is the thing that I think a lot of times happens where it's like. And I'm glad you just said that last part, because a lot of times it happens with cities, especially major cities like a New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, where the focus so often is about plugging leaks in the boat that we don't think about how to make the boat even bigger.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And. And Americans, we love bigger. We love a bunch, especially New York. It's like all of our families came here for more.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

So we don't just want plug. Like when you say, I want to build a chip plan in the Bronx. Yeah, that's what I want, too.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And I think an important thing for all New Yorkers because you could affect New York City is one like, financial literacy. I was talking to the guys on the all in podcast, but, like, Specifically, how do we include people like me who grew up with like no financial knowledge whatsoever?

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

How do we include them in the most powerful driving force in New York City, which is the stock market?

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

How do we get young kids like me went to public school like al went to public school. How do we get financial literacy at a point and maybe even like an injection of capital. Like is there a fund? It could be 500 bucks. A thousand bucks for every kid born in New York City that's invested in the s and P500 so that they, they start one feeling like part of the success of this engine that runs New York City.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, how can America. Well, also in America, but like I want to set the preced my city first and then the rest of America that runs America.

[Eric Adams]

I love that. Firstly, right. We're the economic engine of the state and the country. And so what we're doing, my commissioner of dcwp, Deputy commissioner, I mean Commissioner of workers Protection, we're now connecting and partnering with banks in every school. We're teaching our young people how to open up bank accounts, how to open up checking accounts, savings accounts. We're going to dive into, to the stock exchange, financial literacy. Because the greatest impact on your life would be is your personality and your, your finances. If you don't have, if you, if you're not, you know, you could be academically smart, but if you're not emotionally intelligent, you're going nowhere. Yeah. And if you don't know how to manage your finance and by the time you get out of school, you in debt, credit card debt, you're wearing all of your wealth on your, on your, on your, your pocketbook or your shoes or your clothing. And so we're going to teach our children how money what we're doing in our educational system. We've put so much attention on, you know, your ABCs, we did not put enough attention on developing the full personhood of our children. We're teaching them meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, we're teaching them financial literacy. We changing the food in our schools to show them how to have healthy food. So we're giving them those foundational issues so no matter where they go, they could prosper. Like you guys are successful because of your ability to connect with people. You don't know how to connect with people. You don't know how to communicate with people. Huge advantage it is. And if you don't know how to manage your money, you could, how many, how many athletes, ball players, et cetera, makes a ton of money and then A couple of years after they had a game they don't have because they never. Nobody told them how to manage the.

[Alex Media]

One you don't have. My parents had money, then lost money. And when I remember when I didn't have money, all I thought about was buying X, Y, and Z when I got money. People who have money and grow up comfortable, they don't need these. They're not thinking about what they don't.

[Eric Adams]

Have all the time. Right? No, but when you get it, you can have it.

[Alex Media]

I'm buying everything.

[Andrew Schulz]

I just want New Yorkers to feel like a part of the success of the city. You know, like, when I was young, it was easy because we had, you know, sports teams that were successful. So when the Yankees won, I won. But, like, if the stock market is soaring, I want to feel like now maybe because at 35, I finally bought a stock. You know, I'm 41 now. But like. Like, when I. I want everybody, when they see the stock market soaring and they see these businesses that are, like, many of them centered in New York City, these CEOs walking around New York City, I want those people that are running those companies, hopefully they're doing a good job and they care about people. I want them to look up to them and be like, wow, part of my financial success in the future is due to that person. And I want them to have some admiration instead of looking at them going, they're getting rich and they're leaving me behind.

[Eric Adams]

Right, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

We can't leave people behind, especially in New York City. If city wants to do that, that's fine, but we should be a beacon of hope for, like, the rest of the country. This is how you take care of your citizens. And I want to get back to that point where it's like, we had a cockiness, bro, that, like, is deserved. It's the greatest city in history.

[Akash Singh]

We still got it.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, we still got it. But some states feel like they could even have a conversation. They could be critical of New York. I'm like, what is wrong with these people?

[Eric Adams]

And I've been to your stands. Right, right, right, right, right. And that's. And that's what. That's what I. And I'm. And I'm feeling what you're saying. And when I became mayor and said that, you know, we have swagger. We're New York. You know what I'm saying? And we. We were so used to not feeling the greatness of being in New York. No matter where I go, man, people argue about who's number Two. Who's number three?

[Andrew Schulz]

It looks smile number one.

[Eric Adams]

Right. We stop feeling as though we're number one.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think Covid hit the city in a. In a big way.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think it. And I think that we're coming out of it and we're recovering, and it is a monumental task that you have. But, like, I think it's really important as we plug those, those holes in the ship, like, how big can this ship get?

[Eric Adams]

Right. And we can't leave anyone behind. So that's why we're going to start teaching our children blockchain. We're going to start teaching them cryptocurrency.

[Andrew Schulz]

That'd be cool.

[Eric Adams]

We're going to start teaching them a. On the ground level. These are all new industries. And if we start nurturing our babies while they're in second, third grade, they're going to grow up in these industries. We want to teach them game making. Not only playing the game, but how to become an entrepreneur. Right. The right code. So that's the goal is many people thought they weren't deserving. We kept our young people in parts of the city in survival mode. You know, man's low hierarchy of need. Food, shelter, clothing. Don't worry about self actualization. We just going to keep you down here. Just be happy that, you know. Survival mode. No, you got to take people out of survival mode and take them. You want to get to the point of that self actualization that, you know.

[Mark Gagnon]

How long do you have to live here to be considered a New Yorker?

[Eric Adams]

I don't think being a New Yorker is based on time. I think it's based on attitude, you know? You know, it's not yours.

[Andrew Schulz]

You might not have attitude. So what makes attitude?

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, first of all, when you feel comfortable throughout the entire city, no matter where you are, you know, you, like, you will have folks who will move into a community and then all of a sudden complain about, where's that loud noise coming from that building? It's a church. If they do that, you know, so if you come in, if. If with your own attitude, instead of saying, I want to incorporate into the city, I want to bring something in the city. Because this is. The diversity of this city is amazing. Yep. You know, that's one of the joys of being. Not only when I was the borough president, but being the mayor. I mean, you can go and sit in a Sukkah, you know, during a Jewish holiday, Diwali, and one day you could go to Ramadan celebration, you could go to an Easter celebration, you could just you know, be all these parades. I love all these parades.

[Andrew Schulz]

There's real diversity. It's not like in California where, like, there's a lot of diversity, but everybody lives in their own enclave.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

You gotta pass through the neighborhood whether you like it or not.

[Eric Adams]

Like it or not, Little Italy and.

[Andrew Schulz]

Chinatown bleed into one another. So we gotta be around each other. And it's a very unique experience.

[Eric Adams]

It is, it is. And I don't think. I think it's. It's a tragedy that people don't appreciate and enjoy the power. The diversity educational process is not only the sterilized environment of a classroom, but it is in the community streets. If you take your children around and have them be part of their education is learning from different communities. Your children will grow up and adapt because boardrooms now can no longer. Everybody can't look like each other, talk like each other, eat the same food.

[Andrew Schulz]

So it's a huge advantage.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah. Oh, the diversity is crucial.

[Akash Singh]

How would the dismantling of the district doe affect New York City?

[Eric Adams]

It's a good question. We don't. We don't know it. That's a great question. We don't know the answer yet. But I would challenge you and your listeners to go across the country and look at the reading and writing and math results of all of these cities. Man, you got places where people are like 30% reaching academic standard. Something is wrong.

[Andrew Schulz]

So there's a good. There's a perfect, perfect example where it's just like I remember when. Remember when Rikers. Remember the horrible situation happening Rikers. And people like, we got to shut down Rikers. I don't even know what your position was on that. But like, I'm like, Rikers isn't the issue. Rikers is a building made out of concrete with bars. Right. It's like how that is maybe run.

[Eric Adams]

Love your question.

[Andrew Schulz]

But maybe that's the thing with part of education. It's like if we're looking at the numbers and they aren't to where they need to be.

[Eric Adams]

Got to do something.

[Andrew Schulz]

Something happens. Maybe it's not take away the whole thing.

[Eric Adams]

Right, Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

But if you don't believe in some change.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Then you're just politicizing an issue that's going to end up hurting kids and their.

[Eric Adams]

And especially when you are spending such a high number per student.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right. Where's it going?

[Eric Adams]

When do you get a return on your investment?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eric Adams]

You know, so let's switch to records for a moment. I got re baptized on Rikers with the inmates.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, really?

[Eric Adams]

Yeah. I went up with the inmates last year.

[Andrew Schulz]

So can you explain Rikers to the people not from New York that are watching?

[Eric Adams]

Yeah. Rikers island is the New York City's.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's where men go to find their sexuality.

[Eric Adams]

You know what.

[Alex Media]

I'm telling you? Dangerous.

[Andrew Schulz]

You can't hang out with a guy.

[Eric Adams]

What is right post headline tomorrow, Adam's baptized. This is a perfect example of fantasy colliding with reality. And that's what a lot of people who would like this job. Idealism collides with realism. So last administration, they made the decision. Reikus is our jail system. They made a decision that they need to close Rikers. And we had a little over 3,000 people that were there. They want to close Rikers down and build four more jails, one in each borough except for Staten Island. 51% of Rikers population, they have a mental health issue. 20% have severe mental health. What I'm saying to them that the four more jails that they want to build, it was going to cost us 8 billion. Now it doubled 16 billion to build it. What I'm saying to them, instead of building four more jails that can't hold the prison population, because the four more jails are going to hold about 3,600 people, we have about 7,000 people there right now.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you're building four more jails. All right, keep going.

[Eric Adams]

Right. So what I say to them, instead of building four more jails that can't hold the prison population, why don't we take one of those jails and build a state of the art psychiatric facility so we don't criminalize people who are dealing with psychiatric disorder. We give them the support that they need and take care of them. But people are caught on the romanticism of we close Rikers because they think.

[Andrew Schulz]

That it will do something. It's like, it's not solving your problem, brother.

[Eric Adams]

You got 7,100 people. And so I asked them, well, what are you gonna do with the other 7,100? Well, why you can't just let them go? You know what you gotta do to go to Rikers nowadays.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, okay, so. Okay, okay, so you. You become mayor, right?

[Eric Adams]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

You do. You know, like, what happened with Epstein? Like, can you figure out what happened? Because it happened in the Tombs, right?

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. It happened. He was in federal prison.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, what's the Tombs?

[Eric Adams]

That's around here downtown in lower Manhattan. But.

[Andrew Schulz]

But that's just like a. Like a weekend or like a weekday jail.

[Eric Adams]

No, it's a jail Also, any jail is bad. Nobody want to put people in jail.

[Andrew Schulz]

Fair, fair. But he was at federal, so you wouldn't have any president.

[Eric Adams]

The president.

[Akash Singh]

Fcc, right? Like, it's like right next to it.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, yeah, it's right next president. The president is talking about releasing the Epstein information.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know, they ain't never going to release that. We're never going to know about jfk. They just keep on saying shit. Okay, but is there ever a part of you that, like, when you become mayor, do you go, yo, tell me. Tell me who did it, or tell me what happened. Like, can you ask those questions?

[Eric Adams]

You always try to seek information.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, good.

[Eric Adams]

But if they release you, if you. As Obama said, if you say it, they got to kill you.

[Andrew Schulz]

God. Oh, wait, so do you know?

[Eric Adams]

No, no, no. I have no idea.

[Andrew Schulz]

The camera's malfunction.

[Mark Gagnon]

The guards fell asleep.

[Andrew Schulz]

There's nothing else you need to know. Right, Right. Somebody said, we got to get rid of that jail. Just Rikers. Oh, yeah. Okay. And then. And then what's the guy from the crypto guy. What's his name?

[Akash Singh]

Sam Bankman.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sam Bankman. He's in. He's also in federal.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So this is a federal holding house that you don't have any federal.

[Eric Adams]

The federal is a different system.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right.

[Eric Adams]

You know, you have federal jurisdiction, jurisdictions, and you have state, you have city after you. If you in Reich is. You have. You're doing. You're either waiting for trial or you're going upstate. Right, exactly. So it's a different system.

[Mark Gagnon]

Where's Luigi Mangio being held? Is he federal?

[Eric Adams]

Federal picked that up also. He's also being fed.

[Alex Media]

Sorry, did I hear. I think Joy was telling me right before they said they're seeking the death penalty for Luigi.

[Eric Adams]

That's what the federal government is doing. We can't. We don't make that call. The federal government, you know, to intentionally assassinate someone with his. I don't even remember any time in my law enforcement history back then of someone using a silencer. He intentionally sort out that. Sort out the CEO and assassinated him. Yeah. So.

[Andrew Schulz]

So back when you were. When you were in law enforcement.

[Eric Adams]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Did you ever have any, like, run ins with the Supreme Team? Did you ever have or like, T unit, like, you ever see the video?

[Eric Adams]

Supreme Team video?

[Andrew Schulz]

Which one?

[Alex Media]

With you.

[Eric Adams]

There's a video. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because, like, you hear about these iconic, you know, gangs.

[Eric Adams]

I grew up. Yeah. Those guys were larger than life, man.

[Andrew Schulz]

What. So what was it? Can you explain? Explain, obviously, without, you know, putting yourself in any kind of position. But like, can you explain? We hear them in almost folklore. We hear them through like rap stories and hoax.

[Eric Adams]

Folklore was real, man. So it was.

[Andrew Schulz]

Was it like complete control of the neighborhood?

[Eric Adams]

Crack, just cocaine and crack just came on. On line back then. You know, Kilo, Tinker, the whole. Those whole team. These guys used to drive around with roll Royces in Nycha and they just had a real lock on. On the drug scene in the city. Then rap started to come around.

[Andrew Schulz]

So they're telling stories of it.

[Eric Adams]

Right, right, right, right, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And then when you were in law enforcement, was there like, was law enforcement scared of them? Were they. Did they pose a threat to laws for. Did they try to work with law enforcement? Like, how did law enforcement even go about handling a violent.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, and you know what was interesting? The level of violence was not the same as you saw during the. The 80s. Going through the 80s, in the 90s back then, you know, those guys were about making their money. They were having beef.

[Andrew Schulz]

And then the inner gang, once that started happening.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, right. 80s is when you really saw the violence because it was just so much money. It was a lot of money on the street. People want to take over areas, take over streets. But back during, you know, when you look around 75 coming to the 80s, you know, crack started to really start to make his way. And really crack really escalated to violence. You know, when you start dealing with.

[Andrew Schulz]

Crack cocaine because of profitability or before.

[Eric Adams]

Profit, for whatever reason, you know, even heroin wasn't, you know, it didn't bring that level of violence going into the.

[Mark Gagnon]

60S, the cost per kilo also you can get a lot of money, like 20 grand for a key.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah. Oh, God.

[Mark Gagnon]

So it's just so processing and transport easily.

[Eric Adams]

And then you had you, you know, you had those who were participating in law enforcement. That was part of making that money. Also there illegal stuff that was going on.

[Andrew Schulz]

So they were corrupting police officers.

[Eric Adams]

77 the Brooklyn. Yes, yeah, 77 precinct. Yeah, yeah. You had the dirty 30 because guys were seeing so much money being made on the street.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know, there is something I've thought about which is like, you cannot, when you bestow responsibility on somebody, you cannot underpay them to a point where they're corruptible.

[Eric Adams]

Well said.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now I'm not saying you have to pay every single politician or every single police over million or whatever it is, Right? But they can't be living like below the poverty line or at it because it would be too enticed. They have so much power. It would Be too enticing not to do that.

[Eric Adams]

You know, you do these jobs because you believe in the job. But at the same time, you know, you should always compensate people because they take care of their family. And even when the modeling commission and others did their review over some of the action, they said it's important to pay a law enforcement.

[Alex Media]

I would think the highest profession should be cops, teachers, doctors. These are positions you want the best people going to. And if I, if I'm a cop making great money, the idea that I might mess around and do some corrupt stuff or treat somebody badly, and it might cost me this job that pays me well.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Alex Media]

I don't think it's worth it.

[Eric Adams]

Good point.

[Alex Media]

You're weed a lot of them out.

[Eric Adams]

And even teachers, you know, you go someplace like Korea, teachers are held to an extreme high level of respect here. You know, we gave our teachers great contracts, gave our cops great contracts. But you're right, you should make sure that they're receiving the suitable pay that they deserve. You know, that's what it comes down to.

[Andrew Schulz]

Do you. Can you still give out keys to the city?

[Eric Adams]

Yes. You know, we didn't give you a key yet.

[Alex Media]

That's.

[Mark Gagnon]

Now we talk.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now we talk. I would never ask for something like that. I've never asked for something like that.

[Alex Media]

I just want a rent controlled apartment.

[Andrew Schulz]

Forget the key to the apartment.

[Eric Adams]

You want to key to the apartment.

[Alex Media]

Rent controlled apartment. But this man deserves a key to the city. Nobody rides for New York harder than this guy and this guy.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, okay, quick couple quick New York questions, okay? Which borough has the most attractive women?

[Eric Adams]

I think all of them have great shorties.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. Politically.

[Eric Adams]

You know, because you, you say, you know how many times you go viral? I drive my team crazy.

[Andrew Schulz]

I bet she's writing notes right now.

[Eric Adams]

Don't give him a mic.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, we just locked up the next mayoral election, so don't even worry about it.

[Akash Singh]

But it is Queens, though.

[Andrew Schulz]

You tripping. You tripping. Okay, maybe the best strip clubs, but outside. Okay, okay, okay. We need it.

[Eric Adams]

We need it in 11 in New York. This is my guy, you understand?

[Andrew Schulz]

Why don't we have an 11 in New York?

[Eric Adams]

I spoke to some folks we may be rolling out.

[Andrew Schulz]

Think of all the things we gave Miami. We gave them Carbone.

[Alex Media]

That's true.

[Andrew Schulz]

We gave them so many plays, they can't give us 1little 11. A nice nightclub where you don't have to feel like a scumbag in a struck club, but their strippers there, they.

[Mark Gagnon]

Happen to go for some reason. Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

What a great coincidence.

[Eric Adams]

That's 24 hours.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why do people.

[Eric Adams]

I've never been to 11. Of course. Sounds.

[Andrew Schulz]

Two cars. Sounds good. Of course. Now we going to work on that.

[Akash Singh]

Why do places have to close at 4?

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, no, we. We need a 24 hour district, you know, and the community boards.

[Mark Gagnon]

A 24 hour district with red lights.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, we did not need that. This is the last thing we need. Yo, New Yorkers, go to sleep. Go to sleep. We need that because then you have.

[Akash Singh]

Illegal after parties and you don't want that.

[Eric Adams]

Right, right, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Not.

[Akash Singh]

I haven't been to those.

[Eric Adams]

Of course. And that's.

[Andrew Schulz]

You've never been to 11.

[Akash Singh]

I've never been to the after party.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yo, out of nowhere, unprompted. We need an 11amoment. Think about that. Is. Listen, listen. You want to make New York City abundant, right? Like that's one of the problems.

[Alex Media]

That's true.

[Eric Adams]

That's right. It's crazy.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's a disaster. We don't have an 11.

[Eric Adams]

It is, brother.

[Andrew Schulz]

I know. That other guy running for mayor wouldn't make an 11.

[Eric Adams]

Heck no.

[Andrew Schulz]

Have a dream of it. That old cornball. That other guy with a nipple piercing, he be dancing on the poles.

[Eric Adams]

I'm not.

[Andrew Schulz]

How are we gonna elect. How are you gonna have a nipple person and run for mayor of New York City?

[Eric Adams]

That's insane.

[Andrew Schulz]

Queens, maybe another folks headline. Listen, listen. I didn't say who it is, so we didn't even know who it is. But that other guy, right? Like, I can't believe it. Wearing white shirts, wearing a blouse with a nibble ring, saying he's gonna run for mayor. This guy's gotta be crazy. Against Adams. Against Adams.

[Alex Media]

You really want to make new. A great legalized sex work? Small business.

[Andrew Schulz]

Let's not get too crazy. I think it's the move we got. Okay, okay, here's. Here's one. One final question. All right, so Canal street has now become like an open air bazaar. When I was growing up, it's a soup. When I was growing up, you could get the fake bags, right? But there was like a little, like, I got my PlayStation hack so I could play the fake video games and shit. Like. But you had to go down into one of the. And it was a kind of nice undercover thing. And. And sometimes. And I asked the cops that were on the corner was like, yo, what do you do about this? And he was like, listen, bro, we could lock them up and then they're out in a few days. It's like they've kind of unfortunately were kind of like clipped and aren't they doing anything? Do you what, what do we do about a circumstance like that?

[Eric Adams]

Like you know, and Deputy Mayor Daughtry, Cass Daughtry, he has done a great job. What we've done, we've going after the Motherlode and going after some of the warehouses that are holding or. Exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

All the fake docs.

[Eric Adams]

Exactly. So if you go and just round.

[Andrew Schulz]

Up who's on, there's going to be another person.

[Eric Adams]

Exactly. So we've hit a couple of locations. If you were to go online, you'll see we've taken millions of dollars in supplies. We're still doing investigations. We want to go after the feeder. If not, you're just really, you're not even locking the person up. You're confiscating the problem.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is important information to get out to the people. Because like I, I, I remember seeing it every single day and I think why two there? I think two things. I would think that like the average person walking around here feels that the police do not have authority.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Which I think New Yorkers, we don't want to feel like that.

[Eric Adams]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

We don't like to be told what to do. But we still like know like the police handle some. But, but also it feels like is the city doing anything to stop this? The fact that you're going after the mother lo.

[Eric Adams]

Yes, that's the goal. Cuz we, we've, we've done a number of sweeps and that. Right. So now we've hit several warehouses and we're now zeroing in. That's the same thing we did with the illegal cannabis shops. We started going after the motherloads and we closed down six, I think it's about 1600 of them. And now the legal cannabis shops are making money now. So we want to go after those mother loads and get it to close down.

[Akash Singh]

Why not just increase the presence of police on Canal? Just have a bunch of police always stationed on Canal.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, but you know if you, and we do.

[Akash Singh]

Because they do that in the hood.

[Eric Adams]

Like yeah, the precinct is there. But you don't want those guys going after one, one after the other during the confiscation when you have some heavy crime that's taking place.

[Akash Singh]

No, no. I mean like if there was a cop right there in the corner, they're not even going to set up.

[Andrew Schulz]

But now they do.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, they're there. Yeah. They know if you confiscate the merchandise, they gonna go right back and get a new shipment of it and just be back out there.

[Andrew Schulz]

But there maybe is a point to that. Like if you confiscate every single day for six months, eventually they just like.

[Eric Adams]

The manpower that's taken, man, that's some serious manpower.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's another thing. And also, you two guys go confiscate one person, then everybody else on the block is like, all right, we're good. You would have to have 100 cops confiscate the 200 people that are throughout canal selling.

[Eric Adams]

And you can't, you can't throw up your hand. You know, the complexity of solving the problem is not an answer. Yeah. Out there's several investigations that are underway now of going after the law. Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. What is the best bodega boner pill.

[Eric Adams]

You know? You know, if I answer that, I'll be on the front page of the pill.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. Any other questions before Mayor Adams gets out here about to be second term Mayor Adams.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah. Well, let me. Yeah, please.

[Akash Singh]

You are definitely running.

[Eric Adams]

Oh, yeah. With Democrat 100%. As a Democrat. I'm running 100% as, as a Democrat. And listen, look, it breaks my heart that New York has had to go through these last 15 months, you know, and what I wanted to do to New Yorkers is that to let them know that no matter what I was going through, I was going to stand tall and fight for the city. And I also wanted to send a symbol because everybody's going through something. You know, I mean, we sit here, we talk, and we laughing. But I know if you go into the crevices of your mind, there's something in your life that, you know, you, you're wrestling with. It could be a health issue, could be a family member, et cetera. And I wanted them to say, listen, look at all that this guy's going through. And he's still getting up every day and he's delivering for us. He's building the houses, keeping our city safe. And I'm hoping that they would draw on it when they're dealing with their experience. Saturday, man, it, it broke my heart. I had to go on Ocean Parkway, and the mother and the two children were, were killed in that accident. Then I had to sit in that room with the dad and talk with him. You know, I, I, I do that so often, and I got to tell people that, hey, you know what? You're going to get through this. Yeah, I can't say that if I'm jumping ship when I'm going through something personally, you know, I want to show New Yorkers the grit and grind of those who grew up Here, you know, we're grit and grind. We fight, we never surrender, never give up. You know, and this, you know, I'm hoping your listeners go look at our.

[Andrew Schulz]

Record, man, I think you guys can do. I think that there is a version now with social media of posting the accomplishments.

[Eric Adams]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

And I think that's something that, like the Trump administration and Trump specifically, because he's like, so like entertainment minded. Like, any kind of win, even if it's not a win, anything that they're doing, they're letting you know they're doing it. Like, I don't, I don't know if we're taking Greenland, but sending JD Vance to walk around, it's a lot of marketing. And I think there's a version where it's like you even saying that about Canal street makes me feel like, oh, at least that there, this is being thought about. At least they're trying to do something. And I think there's a version where maybe it's through social media or whatever it is, but it's not through you doing a conference every single day. There's other things you do with your time. But I think disseminating that information to New Yorkers, one, gets us excited about a chip plan in the Bronx, but two, makes us feel seen when we go, hey, the price of this is expensive. And you're like, we're the richest city in the world. Maybe we got to subsidize eggs.

[Eric Adams]

Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

But no kid in New York City should not be able to afford an egg. Give us that information that you got what you want.

[Eric Adams]

That's how big. If I had to say one thing, what we failed at, we failed to get our success out. And our biggest failure on that is that what I've learned is that if Colgate had to depend on the tabloids to tell their success, they would never be in business. We had to depend on traditional tab tabloids to tell our success.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right. The word of mouth is what is more popular is not going to be in your favor.

[Eric Adams]

No. You know, you know, you don't need them anymore. Right. Someone shared with me the other day that was very interesting that they are. People forget that they are their business. They're in the business to make money, and if it bleeds, it leads.

[Andrew Schulz]

There we go.

[Eric Adams]

You know, so talking about we building a chip plant in the Bronx, it's.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like nobody cares, right?

[Eric Adams]

But we do.

[Andrew Schulz]

New Yorkers do.

[Eric Adams]

And I'm the, I'm the most clickable mayor in the history of New York.

[Alex Media]

I tell them all.

[Eric Adams]

I tell them All I said, I made your career.

[Mark Gagnon]

Exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

They paying their rent. No, for real, for real.

[Eric Adams]

They sit around all day. I said. And I told them, go back when I first got elected, I told them. I said, let me tell you all something. You are going to have so much fun with me being mayor.

[Andrew Schulz]

Facts.

[Eric Adams]

All of your career, careers are going to be made because of me. No one knew who you were.

[Andrew Schulz]

But listen, we're very excited, and I appreciate you coming on here. I also appreciate you like. Like, I like the fact that you wanted to have that contentious conversation. You know, I think that's good, and I think that's important, and I think it's something that New Yorkers, I think we identify as. It's like, we're not afraid of having a tough conversation. I'm glad that you addressed a lot of the, I don't know, controversy stuff going on and then cleaned it up. And if there are things that, you know, you guys need help with in terms of, like, disseminating information to the city, not on, like, behalf of you or your organization, but on behalf of, like, what the city is accomplishing.

[Eric Adams]

Yes, let us know.

[Andrew Schulz]

We would love to.

[Alex Media]

This guy really cares about the PR of New York.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah, I'm ready to move.

[Alex Media]

This guy really cares.

[Eric Adams]

It's a good product. And listen, brother man, you know, God has been good, too. You know, you. You know, you go from being called the dumb student in school, you, you know, you get arrested as a child, really beat by police officers, go on to become a police officer, a captain, becoming, you know, a lawmaker. You know, Mommy, before she transitioned, she saw a baby go from breaking the law to enforcing the law. And I went to Albany to write the law, and I'm the mayor of the most important city on the globe. I don't have any right to complain at all.

[Andrew Schulz]

Amen. What about the White House?

[Akash Singh]

Are you.

[Andrew Schulz]

For next podcast there? Adams, everybody.