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- [00:02]
Miranda Devine
Welcome back to the Pod Force One podcast. We're in New York City in Gracie Mansion in the Peach Room. This is the home of Mayor Eric Adams, who we're going to be speaking to. He's locked in an intense race for re election. Mayor Adams, thank you so much for talking to us here on podforce One. You are in for the race of your life for re election later in the year. And I know you used to be a Democrat, very proud Democrat. What made you leave the party and become an independent?
- [00:37]
Eric Adams
Yeah, and I'm still a Democrat, but the rules allow us to run on independent lines. And so I am a Democrat running on an independent line called safe and affordable to of the top issues that New Yorkers are facing. But it is clear that a portion of our party, they have taken a far left approach to governing. And I don't support those concepts. And I like to say that it's not so much I left the party, but the party left me.
- [01:14]
Miranda Devine
Why did that happen? What's gone wrong with the Democratic Party?
- [01:17]
Eric Adams
What I believe is, is the issue is that we are allowing a numerical minority that is the loudest to hijack the needs of working class people. And what working class people are concerned about, they're concerned about ensuring that they could afford to live in their city, they're concerned about the city being safe, and they're concerned about making sure that they can see a bright future. And these other conversations that they're having are not really the bread and butter issues of working class people.
- [01:52]
Miranda Devine
And who, who do you see as your biggest or strongest adversary? We have Andrew Cuomo, the former governor. I call him the Granny Killer because of his policies during COVID And he also was responsible for bail reform that I think's been very difficult for increasing crime in the city. And then you have Zoram Mamdani, who is the far left Democrat, just won the primary. And then you have the Republican, Curtis Lewa. So of those three, who do you see as the most difficult to beat?
- [02:30]
Eric Adams
Well, I'm a firm believer. When I ran in 2021, we had an impressive slate of people. And then we had a national figure, Andrew Yang, came into the race and he was beating me by about 13 points. In addition to that, I was losing from his candidacy that many people thought it was inevitable that he was going to win. But I knew I had to stay focused and do what I do best, and that is explain to New Yorkers why I was the best candidate. And I think I'm here in that same place now. We Were our entire administration, with all of our success, we were overshadowed by what I consider to be lawfare during a federal investigation. Now that that's behind us and not coming back, it's giving me the opportunity to speak directly to voters on our success. When I look at the candidates that are in the race, one has no record. The other is running away from his records, such as bail reform of 15,000 of our seniors died in nursing homes and other issues. And Curtis has never held office before and he doesn't have any real record. So I don't see them as an obstacle. The obstacle I will always have is ensuring I could speak directly to voters. And that is what we're going to do and share my vision for the future and the success that we've had in the last three and a half years.
- [04:04]
Miranda Devine
So take Mamdani. You and he could not be really more different. What is it about, you know, if he did become mayor, what would his policies do to the city?
- [04:16]
Eric Adams
Well, you would have to peel back each one of them because they would impact a part of the city severely and each one would be different. Such as he wants to empty out Rikers island after bail reform. The most dangerous people in our city are now on Rikers island, around 7,400. If he empties out Rikers island, those dangerous people are going to go back into the communities that they inflicted violence in in the first place. And they're largely black and brown communities. So the individuals he stayed in, he wants to help. He's actually hurt him. If you look at his government to supermarket program, that is going to impact my supermarkets, my grocery stores, my local mom and pop stores, which many of them are former immigrant communities that are now trying to pursue the American dream. And they invest all that they have in these supermarkets. It's a major impact on these communities. And even if you look at the call to freeze rent, no rent increase. He was first part of the population that was saying no rent at all during COVID Now he's saying freeze rent. My 700,000 small property owners and many that have a small rental buildings, they would be impacted. If the cost of running a building is higher than the rent roll of the building, then you're going to see eventually lack of repairs, lack of quality of life. And again, that is going to hurt low income New Yorkers. So each one of his policies, including the free bus, which is has become popular, it sounds good, but it costs $3 billion and mayors don't have the ability to raise income tax. He stated he's going to raise income tax on the high 1% of New Yorkers when at the same time he's saying that billionaires should not be in our city so he can raise the income taxes. So he's making these false promises. And so I truly believe the worst thing you can do when New Yorkers are struggling is to make broken promises. I saw that as a child when my mother was raising six children. Oftentimes she would get those broken promises never to resolve the issues we were facing. And that is what he's doing. And I think it's unfair to New Yorkers and it's unfair to the direction that the city is moving in now. And it is in the right direction.
- [06:53]
Miranda Devine
That's a very moving statement that you just made about broken promises and your childhood. Can we go back to. You had a difficult childhood. Obviously your mother was amazing, but your father was in and out of your life and he had some addiction problems. Didn't he describe what it was like growing up and how you managed to escape a difficult upbringing like that?
- [07:18]
Eric Adams
Well, one is the power of God and the power of prayer. I'm a person of deep faith. It was six of us. I had five siblings and my oldest sister played the role of raising us. And when you think about poverty impacts the quality of life of children, My sister did not have a childhood because she played the role of our mom while my mother was working three jobs and she was dedicated and committed. You know, I struggled from dyslexia as a child undiagnosed. So I did not realize that. I felt I was dumb instead of just that. I learned differently. And once I discovered I was able to excel in school. But it was a major impact and it was traumatic as a young child growing up, not receiving the services that I deserved. And then you look at the quality of food that we were consuming. It played a role on long term health care issues that we faced. But mother was determined and I think that's why I got my resiliency, that no matter what you go through, you have to push through. Mother got up every day. She knew she had an obligation of a small, modest house and six children. She did those three jobs. I never heard her complain. She would do morning at the Amstead daycare center. She was there for many years as a cook and a head cook. And then she would go on in the afternoon and clean the houses of people. And during the overnight evening hours, she would go and clean offices after they closed. And she would do it five and sometimes six days a week. But Never, never gave up, never surrender and always remain committed to doing the best she could possibly do for her six children.
- [09:14]
Miranda Devine
What an amazing woman she must have been.
- [09:16]
Eric Adams
Oh, she was, yeah.
- [09:17]
Miranda Devine
And, and your father, what was your relationship like with him?
- [09:21]
Eric Adams
He was, he had a good heart, but he wasn't just not a good father. He, he had an alcohol abuse. From time to time he would come in and out of the family, you know, sometimes just leaving for weeks at a time. We would communicate often throughout the time. But those basic needs that a father should be there and present, it was just not there. And it was not that he was a mean spirited person, he was just not the person that should have been in the role of raising or six children.
- [10:00]
Miranda Devine
And what effect did that have on you? I know you said you struggled at school a little bit at the beginning and you were obviously highly intelligent because you ended up overcoming the dyslexia and doing so well. But what I know you were a bit naughty and you ended up on the streets for a while.
- [10:18]
Eric Adams
Yes. And you know, when you have a learning disability, you ask yourself a question, why do you have to go to school at all? And that's what started to happen to me. When I walked into the classroom, I would see a sign on the back of the chair saying dumb student. It just constantly mocked, if I read, the children would mock me throughout the day. And you know, children are cute, but they can be ugly. Yes, Cruel. And it impacts you as a child. And so I started spending times in the streets. My brother And I at 15 were, we were arrested for criminal trespassing. And we the police officers, for no reason assaulted us during that encounter. And it's just had a negative impact on me for some time. But you know, sometimes painful moments become growing moments. And a civil rights leader named Reverend Herbert Daughtry encouraged me to go into the police department. And it was one of the best decisions that I could have made, not realizing that demon inside of me if I went inside the agency that created that painful moment and became an activist for public safety, but reforming in police departments. And I started an organization while I was in the police department and it allowed me really to push for proper policing, but also to deal with property, public safety. And it was just a therapeutic moment for me because it allowed me to get rid of that pain and anger that I was feeling from being a 15 year old that was abused by police officers.
- [12:00]
Miranda Devine
So tell me about the moment that you were arrested and the police abused you. I think you were hanging out with a gang at the Time, Yes.
- [12:09]
Eric Adams
During that time, there was a gang called Seven Crowns and Savage Skulls. Those were two street gangs.
- [12:16]
Miranda Devine
Right.
- [12:17]
Eric Adams
They were well known in South Jamaica, Queens. And from time to time, I was affiliated and I would be hanging out with them. Negative influences. If you don't have positive influences around you, you're going the wrong. Wrong road and wrong direction. And I bet you I don't have any scientific data, but I bet you the overwhelming number of those young boys that were in the gang, I bet you they had learning disabilities. So it was probably just a gang of individuals with undiagnosed learning disabilities, because when you look at our jails, 30 to 40% of the inmates have learning disabilities. And so this is probably an accumulation of those who abandoned the traditional education and thought that we had to educate ourselves. And so it was a gang that was involved in everything from selling marijuana to run in illegal numbers and just doing mischiefs. And when the police officer arrested my brother and I, it was for criminal trespassing. We went into an apartment of a person that we knew and we took items out of there and eventually we were charged with criminal trespassing when I was coming home from school one day.
- [13:31]
Miranda Devine
And how did the cops treat you.
- [13:33]
Eric Adams
When you arrest someone, you have to fill out paperwork. I learned later what that paperwork actually was. They said they were filling out the paperwork, processing our arrest, and out of nowhere they said, do you feel like a beat down? I did not know what they were talking about. And they took my brother and I down to the basement of the 103rd Precinct and they just kicked us in our groin over and over again. And it was a. It was a very. Not only a physical painful moment, but it was an emotional painful moment because you felt emasculated at the time. And for about a week, we were urinating blood. Never told our mother. He and I didn't even talk about it until we were late into our adulthood. We sat down and we reflected on it, but it was a challenging time. And I relived it. Every time I saw a police car, every time I saw a police show, every time I would hear a siren, you relive of that trauma. And that only stopped after I went into the police department and felt as though I was fighting on behalf of people, being safe, but making sure the right men and women were police officers.
- [14:42]
Bill O'Reilly
Hey, Bill O'Reilly here, host of the no Spin News corporate media programs. They're often lazy and dishonest. You know that the podcast world filled with misleading bomb throwers masking important issues that directly impact you. The no Spin News is here to counteract that we are a fact based, honest and unaffiliated broadcast. Our purpose is to inform you and give the best assessment of the situation, whether it's political or cultural. Please listen to the no Spin News with me. Bill O'Reilly on on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever podcasts are found. Remember, trust is earned.
- [15:30]
Mike Baker
Hey, Mike Baker here, host of the President's Daily Brief podcast. If you want straight talk on national security, foreign policy and the biggest global stories going on of the day, this is the show for you. We publish twice a day, Monday through Friday, once in the morning, again in the afternoon, and on the weekend we go longer with the PDB Situation Report with excellent guests including national security insiders and foreign policy experts. Check us out on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Also on our YouTube channel at PresidentsDaily.
- [16:00]
Eric Adams
Brief.
- [16:03]
Miranda Devine
You came in just a few years before Rudy Giuliani was made mayor. And then he of course had the whole broken windows tough on crime the city. I lived there Pre Giuliani here, I mean pre Giuliani. And it was awful, scary place. And so from a citizen point of view, Giuliani did a great job. But you saw it slightly differently, didn't you, at the time, right?
- [16:28]
Eric Adams
Well, the I'm a believer in using the theory of don't allow small issues grow into major issues. I think that what Giuliani did at the time, he brought in Bill Bratton, who was one of the smartest tacticians around public safety, and Bratton brought in that theory of broken window. It was a theory that was used in other parts of the country. He also brought in the theory of compstat becoming more predictable in fighting crime. Once we got to the levels that we needed, we started to go too far. We started using what was called stop, question and frisk. We were starting to use it as a quota. We were requiring officers to have a certain number of stop, question and frisk. This is interacting with the public and determining if someone is carrying a weapon or if they're committing a crime. We started going too far with it. And that went into what my whole belief system were. We not only must deal with public safety, but we have to deal with justice. We have to have proper policing without public safety. I was a big believer in going after those minor quality of life infractions, but I was not a believer in using a quota system that no matter what a person was doing in a particular community, we would stop and frisk them. That was Wrong. And I advocated against that. But I will always advocate in favor of catching those who are committing illegal behavior because that was the reason I went into policing. I wanted proper policing with those officers who could do the job from the days of being abused. But I also saw in my communities individuals who were victims of crime. So I wanted to make sure our city was safe. That was a duality that I experienced.
- [18:24]
Miranda Devine
As a police officer and I suppose it's a duality that you experience now as mayor. You've. I mean, I lived through the de Blasio years as well, which really the city went downhill. And there's a notable difference since you came in in terms of, you know, the just. It doesn't feel so scary on the streets. It doesn't seem like there are so many crazy homeless people running rampant. So that's great. But I mean, it hasn't been as big a difference as in Giuliani's time. But tell me about, I mean, crime. You've made it a big focus and I think you've had some good news on shootings and murder, but on quality of life, theft and so on, not such good news.
- [19:15]
Eric Adams
Actually, we have. The only real nagging issue we have is felony assault.
- [19:22]
Miranda Devine
Right.
- [19:22]
Eric Adams
We're seeing an increase on assaults on police officers, domestic violence and other random acts of violence, which is very important and we really want to crack down on those.
- [19:34]
Miranda Devine
Why do you think that's happening? Just is it?
- [19:37]
Eric Adams
And I don't have any scientific data, but I think Covid was a dark place for many people. Coming out of COVID people really experience breast of their anger by violence. You know, we lost a lot of loved ones. It was a very traumatic moment for many people. I'm pretty sure if we look back on this time, we're going to see that Covid, many people did not get the necessary therapy that they deserved. Many people are dealing with pain. I lost several good friends during COVID I still feel the pain of their loss because it happened so rapidly in such a short period of time. I think Covid has a lot to do with some of the issues that we're facing right now. And then I believe that we live in our lives through social media. Our loved ones and our family members, they stay on social media and you just see so much violence on social media violence and you see a. Just a quick knee jerk response to whatever angers you. And so when you do a combination of the time we spend in violent environments, from video games to looking at the screenshots, I think people are just Responding in a very knee jerk reaction and increases level of violence and then the high level of disrespect that we're showing for law enforcement, we're seeing it all over our country in general, but specifically here in New York there are many people that don't respect law enforcement. And we're seeing that increase in assaults on police officers. The goal is to crack down on that. But when you look at overall, we're seeing impressive decreases and what they call the seven major crimes. That is how you indicate the safety of the city. We're the safest big city in America. We're witnessing drops and robberies and grand larcenies. People are still killing items, grand larceny auto. We're seeing drops in our homicides, our shootings, but the lowest number of homicides and shootings in the recorded history of the city in the last six months. That just says a lot.
- [21:49]
Miranda Devine
How did you do that? I mean, did you focus on that in particular?
- [21:52]
Eric Adams
That's a great question. Because we were able to do it in spite of the city council laws that have, we believe they have harmed our ability to allow police officers to do their job, in spite of the bail reform, in spite of something called raise the age where we have stopped treating 16 year olds that commit violent crimes as adults. So with all of these legislative changes, we have been able to still bring down crime because we focused on on those areas. We created hot spots in the city where we knew there was traditional violent behavior. And we put in place a gun enforcement unit that assisted us in removing 22,000 illegal guns off our streets. And we zeroed in on some of the behaviors that associated with violence by closing illegal cannabis stores so that they won't be an attraction to violent people going after people who rode illegal scooters. They were using it to snatch and grab jewelry and phones and watches and to do robberies. And so we had a holistic approach that we knew if we take guns off the streets, we will see a decrease in shooting. Because you can't commit a shooting if you don't have a gun. And that is why we focused on it. And the plan clearly shows that it is working.
- [23:24]
Miranda Devine
And I think you've got a plan that you're rolling out right, right about now on quality of life.
- [23:30]
Eric Adams
Yes, we call it the, the Q teams and it is going after the quality of life issues. We were successful in bringing down crime statistically, but people weren't feeling safe. They weren't feeling safe because we saw abandoned vehicles. People just totally not following the Basic rules, illegal dumping, all of these things.
- [23:55]
Miranda Devine
Urinating in the street, right?
- [23:57]
Eric Adams
Yeah. The smell of pot everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. And now that's, that's, that is outside our span of control. The state laws created the pot laws. I think it should be relegated to certain areas that you could smoke marijuana, not throughout the entire street, because you still smell it everywhere. And I think that's one of the negative impacts of our cannabis law that the state government passed. But what we would like to do is just continue to ensure that we enforce those quality of life issues and so people can feel safer, and that's dealing with street homelessness. During my time in office, we removed thousands of street encampments from people living in tents, cardboard boxes. Our goal was to say we must visually be a clean and safe city and people must feel safe and people must also be safe. And that is the goal and we're moving towards that.
- [25:01]
Miranda Devine
And I mean, part of the issue with the city has been all the illegal migrants in, in hotels, expensive hotels, yes. The city's spent 6 billion plus, almost $7 billion on dealing with this as a sanctuary city. When are we going to see the Roosevelt Hotel, I think has been emptied out, but when are we going to see the other hotels in midtown and so on being emptied of the illegal migrants?
- [25:28]
Eric Adams
Clearly a successful initiative by the men and women who had to deal with this migrant and asylum seeker crisis. What makes it more impressive, this was the same body of workers that had to navigate us through Covid. Many of them spent long hours dealing with this issue. They are our human service workers. When the migrant and asylum seeker crisis came to the city, we received over 2,237,000 migrants and asylum seekers in the city at one time. At its peak, we were getting 4,000 a week, 8,000 every two weeks. And you could do the math to see how challenging this was. And we had to build an entire shelter system within months. It took us over 40 years to build the normal city shelter system system, but within months we had to build an entire shelter system, educate 50,000 children, make sure we had to feed, clothe and house. And many New Yorkers did not realize that we did not have the authority to stop the buses from coming in. We didn't have the authority to tell individuals that you have to work. They could not work. We didn't have the authority to say no to feed, clothing and housing them at the time. Same, same time. And so this was an unbelievable achievement that the team we were able to accomplish. And I really am pleased by my. The leaders of this administration who did it, we're now down to less than 100 migrant asylum seekers coming into our city a week. And that's due to the securing of the border. The Trump administration secured the border, and because of that, you're not seeing the thousands of people coming in. And it has been a real relief for our city. As you stated, it cost us $7.7 billion. Those $7.7 billion could have gone to other services in our city. So there's a long term impact of losing those billions of dollars that we, that we lost.
- [27:48]
Miranda Devine
And that got you into friction with the Biden administration when you pushed back against that and said, we need help, and you were indicted, arrested, or, you know, when you were en route to Washington, you had to turn around, didn't you?
- [28:05]
Eric Adams
Yes. And what, what happened? This investigation that they put in place. I was en route to Washington to talk about the migrants and asylum seekers when the FBI went into the home of my fundraiser and it started to unravel. A long investigation. And I truly believe it was associated with my criticism of what was happening in the city. And I just wanted to defend my city and say that this was hurting us. I was indicted for calling the fire department commissioner and asking him to do a building inspection, which was, which is the job of elected official. Not to tell him to pass it, but just to go inspect the building. And I said, if you can't do it, let me know. I'll manage the expectation of the embassy who was calling about it. They connected that request with my request when I traveled and paid for my travel and asked for more leg room by an upgrade. They said that because of those actions, it was bribery and I was facing 33 years in prison because of that. But that is how mean spirit and that is the level of lawfare that we were experiencing. And that's why President Biden stated that his Justice Department became too politicized when he pardoned his son. President Trump said it was politicized, and I too believe it was politicized. And those countless number of parents who were placed on FBI watch list just for defending their children, they felt it was politicized. We were moving in the wrong direction with our Justice Department. And I believe we should never allow Americans to go through what I went through and what others have gone through.
- [29:59]
Miranda Devine
Yes, because that's allowed your opponents to call you corrupt. But as you said, this is about upgrades on Turkish Airlines over a period of 10 years and the fire inspection, which I guess would be really part of your normal behavior with other Clients as well. And, but I mean, do you think Joe Biden himself still. You were obviously a thorn in their side. You were the only big city mayor. All those cities, Chicago, Louisiana, et cetera, were getting these influxes of migrants that were burdening their city that their people were getting angry about. But you were the only one who stood up and said something.
- [30:45]
Eric Adams
It's so true. And I think many other mayors, such as Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Denver, they too were receiving the full crush of the migrant asylum seeker crisis and not as large as New York. New York was the epicenter of this entire Crisis. And after 10 trips to Washington, after several meetings with the president, I could not sit back and continue to watch this city go through this. It was a major impact on the quality of life of New Yorkers, but also the cost factor. When you look at the city's budget, although we have $115 billion budget, only about 30 billion, you could actually move around. The other 70% of the budget goes to running the city. It is already paid for, teachers, firefighters, paving our streets. So the money we could move around out of that 30 something billion, 7 billion of that went through the crisis. That just was not sustainable. And I tried my best to explain to DC over and over again and they just didn't hear. So do I believe the order came directly from President Biden? I don't have any proof to that, but do I believe some of the underlink and some of those individuals who thought they were doing the president bidding, do I believe they did such and put the order out? Yes, I do. And then the U.S. attorney who was in charge of the prosecution after he left office, once President Trump was elected, he opened a website that looked like a campaign website where he highlighted taking me down and others. Because he also went after the highest ranking African American in the state, a Lieutenant governor named Brian Benjamin. He charged him with frivolous charges that were later dropped and dismissed as well. So people have not really connected the dots on what was happening in the Southern District of New York.
- [33:00]
Miranda Devine
Yeah, that lawfare is really frightening. And who was it you were talking to in Washington from the Biden administration when you were begging them to help New York?
- [33:10]
Eric Adams
A series of staffers, everyone from his.
- [33:15]
Miranda Devine
Chief of staff, Ron Klain or Jeff Zients.
- [33:18]
Eric Adams
Yes, his name escaped me. I don't want to say exactly who it is. I'm not sure of the name. I'm having a senior moment. But to his intergovernmental affairs people, there was a series of people after my personal communication with the Governor here in Manhattan. We sat down and spoke with him. The governor, the governor and I sat down and spoke with the President. Governor Hochul and I sat down and spoke with the president and shared with him that his people are not giving him real information, that this, the flow had to stop and it just never did. It just got worse and worse as time went on until we saw the securing of the border.
- [34:02]
Miranda Devine
Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing.
- [34:12]
Mike Baker
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- [34:21]
Miranda Devine
So give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mint mobile.com Power, politics and the people behind the headlines. I'm Miranda Devine, New York Post columnist and the host of the brand new podcast PO Pod Force One. Every week I'll sit down for candid conversations with Washington's most powerful disruptors, lawmakers, newsmakers, and even the President of the United States. These are the leaders shaping the future of America and the world. Listen to podforce One with me, Miranda Devine every week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You don't want to miss an episode. And what did the president, President Biden say to you when you were giving him these home truths?
- [35:20]
Eric Adams
He would, you know, he was, he was attentive, took notes. I'm pretty sure he went back and communicated with his team and his team probably told him that everything was under control, when in fact everything was not under control. Everything was out of control. And also traveled to South America. I went down to the Darien Gap where large hundreds of thousands of people were crossing, visiting Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico and tried to communicate with their officials that they should notify their public that the streets of New York, those streets are not paved with gold. You don't come here and automatically get a three bedroom house. And there was so much misinformation that was going to those local municipalities in these different cities that told them that everything is great once you got here in New York. And I wanted to give them the honest truth that you were sitting, sleeping in dormitory settings, you were sleeping on cots. This was not a luxury environment. And so we were able to. We were able to close over 60 of those shelters. Roosevelt Hotel, which became a symbol of the problem. We were able to close those shelters as well.
- [36:31]
Miranda Devine
It was a cartel center, wasn't it?
- [36:34]
Eric Adams
We had gang members that were in there, but it was not just only gang members. It was a shelter with children and families, but it was the intake center. So everyone had to go through there to get processed and then sent out to other locations in the process.
- [36:54]
Miranda Devine
And finally, your relationship with Donald Trump and people remarked upon it. I mean, he gave you a pardon, but I think he saw you as a fellow victim of lawfare. What is that relationship like?
- [37:07]
Eric Adams
Yes. And he, he, he, he didn't issue a pardon. What he did was. Sorry. Yeah, that's okay.
- [37:12]
Miranda Devine
Yeah.
- [37:12]
Eric Adams
The Justice Department looked into the case to determine if there was any need to be prosecuted me for those offenses of getting more leg room and doing my job as the president of inquiry about a building. And they made the determination, based on their evaluation, that it should move forward. They presented that to the judge. The judge had an independent analysis on what should be done. And that independent analysis came back and said the case should be dropped with any way of it coming back at all. And that's what was done. And so what many people don't understand, I did not know President Trump. The first time I met him was while he was running for office. Prior to that, the president was saying that what they're doing to Mayor Adams is wrong. He was saying this on a campaign trail. There were no conversations that were taking place between the two of us. He, he felt it was wrong. And when he was elected, his Justice Department did an examination. Then people are trying to say what he did it because there was some deal. There was never a deal. There was never any conversation that he would do A and I would do B. That did not take place at all. And when you did an analysis of what I was saying pre election, before I knew who was going to be the president, I was saying things about people who commit illegal crimes should not remain in our country. I said the same thing after the election. So there's no inconsistency in my comments. I have been the same person throughout my entire personal life. When it comes to professional life, when it comes down to protecting children and families of the city.
- [39:01]
Miranda Devine
And when did you meet President Trump for the first time?
- [39:04]
Eric Adams
I think it was at the Alfred E. Smith dinner. We were there, and he came in to be the speaker, and we exchanged pleasantries, and he indicated that what they did to you and what they're doing to you is wrong. And this was what I believe he felt, what his family went through, that he had. He felt the connection to what I was going through.
- [39:29]
Miranda Devine
Yeah. And. And then ice. Are you allowing them to come in and take out those illegal alien criminals?
- [39:40]
Eric Adams
Well, what I have been sharing with people over and over again is that we have to stop classifying ICE as an illegal operation. They're not. They are government to federal government to law enforcement entity. And we will coordinate with them when we go after illegal data. Dangerous people. And we have done that. When you look at the fact that we have taken down dangerous gangs, one of the gangs we took down was 27 Venezuelan gang members. Very dangerous. Trende Alagua. Extremely dangerous. Not only were they dangerous to documented New Yorkers, they were dangerous to undocumented residents of the city. They were forcing women into prostitution. They were shooting people, they were selling drugs. They were dangerous people. And so I am going to coordinate with ice, a federal law enforcement agency, and the other federal law enforcement agencies to keep our city safe. The law does not allow me to coordinate when it comes down to deportation, only civil matters. The federal government is in charge. And that enforcement, that's their job to do. But when it comes down to keeping our city safe, I'm going to be coordinating with them and continue to coordinate to go after dangerous people.
- [41:06]
Miranda Devine
One last question. Actually, two. One is, do you have any interesting talents or habits that. I mean, Donald Trump, we found out, used to play the flute. Is there anything like that that people wouldn't know about you?
- [41:22]
Eric Adams
No, I'm just an ordinary guy guy. I have two left feet, so I'm not a good dancer. And I'm starting to learn, using. Using online YouTube lessons. I want to sign up and learn how to play the guitar.
- [41:38]
Miranda Devine
Really?
- [41:38]
Eric Adams
Yeah. Always wanted to.
- [41:40]
Miranda Devine
Oh, so what do you want to play? What's. What's the tune that you want to.
- [41:44]
Eric Adams
My Way? That's one of my favorite songs.
- [41:46]
Miranda Devine
Ah, fantastic. Can you sing?
- [41:48]
Eric Adams
No, I cannot. If I sing, you'll run out of the room.
- [41:52]
Miranda Devine
And so, very last question. The secrets of success. I always ask people. You've met very many successful people. You're successful yourself. What do you think are the secrets for becoming successful?
- [42:05]
Eric Adams
You know, really to embrace that you don't have to be perfect. In fact, I'm perfectly imperfect. And the question is that perfection is dedication. And no matter who you are, my mom told me, if you live long enough, you're going to find yourself in dark places. And those dark places are not burials, they're plantings. And you should just keep pushing forward and resiliency. I watched her to show us how to be resilient. And little did I know those lessons was just shaping my character because this, the last 15 months tested my resiliency. But I came through because of my faith and I knew that I made a commitment to serve the people of the city and every day I did that. And so I just would tell people when they do an analysis of everything, it's not brilliance, it's not academics, it is just grit. Those people who have grit who are willing to push through those dark moments, that is probably the underlying characteristics of successful people. Just that good old fashioned grit.
- [43:18]
Miranda Devine
Thank you so much, Mayor Adam.
- [43:20]
Eric Adams
Thank you.
- [43:20]
Miranda Devine
It's been great to talk to you.
- [43:21]
Eric Adams
Thank you. Take care.
- [43:23]
Miranda Devine
Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Miranda Devine. Hit the like and subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes of Pod Force One.