Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls In For Live Interview On GMGT Live’s “The Reset Talk Show”

April 19, 2024

JR Giddings: Tell a friend to tell a friend. We have Mayor Adams now joining us. New York City mayor, Mayor Adams, are you there?

Mayor Eric Adams: Yes, brother. Let me just try to navigate my screen, my picture. While I'm doing that, I look forward to…

Giddings: Not a problem. 

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams: I'm sorry. I don't want folks to think I'm leaving just because the mayor is jumping on.

Giddings: No. Not at all. Public Advocate, we definitely have to partner with Darren in Mount Sinai to get this unit into our community. Screening is super important. This is a collaborative effort that I want The Reset Talk Show, the public advocate, Mayor Adams, this is something that we really have to get on. Pastor Straker, we got to get together with the clergy. It's so important, your remarks before you leave, public advocate.

Public Advocate Williams: Yes, and welcome to the mayor. You're correct. I think as we were talking about before, health care is shifting. It's shifting from the in-person beds that we needed at one time to outpatient care. This is part of that. One, that doesn't mean we have to get rid of all the beds, we still need [inaudible] but we know that outpatient care is the move of the future, and so we want to make sure that our communities have access to it, and so you can't just shut down SUNY Downstate.

You can begin to transform it in a way that provides the care that people need, including inpatient, outpatient. Another way to do this is to bring the care to the community, particularly for some of us who are stubborn and won't go to the hospital. We want to meet people where they are. That's the best kind of health care, the best kind of services that we can provide to folks. This is the way we do it.

I'm very much looking forward to partnering with that, bringing care to people at a place and time that's convenient for them, and also making sure they have full understanding of what they need, when they need it, and access to it. I'm proud for my office to be able to assist with that. I'm sorry that I have to jump now. I just talked to my team, hoping I could see if I can jump off a little later. I didn't want folks think I'm coming off now because our illustrious mayor is jumping on. It just happened to coincide this is the time that I had to jump. It's always great to speak to y'all, and hopefully, I can speak to you a little bit later.

Giddings: Absolutely, Public Advocate. Talk with you soon. The mayor is going to jump back in in a quick minute. Let me welcome in Nicole Jordan-Martin for a minute. Nicole, are you there?

Nicole Jordan Martin, CEO, Community Care, Health + Hospitals: I'm here, JR. Good morning. Good morning, everyone in the panel. Good morning to our listeners.

Giddings: Nicole, I have to defer to the mayor for a quick minute.

Jordan Martin: Go ahead.

Giddings: Okay. Good morning, Mayor Adams. How are you?

Mayor Adams: Quite well. Quite well. How's everyone? It's good to be on with you.

Giddings: Everyone is well. Before we get into our deep conversation, we have Darren Deoraj from Mount Sinai, and what we were talking about this morning is prostate cancer screenings. Mount Sinai has this mobile unit that will be coming into the communities. We want to partner with Mount Sinai, with the clergy, with every organization, because we want more Black men screened. He gave some crazy statistics, and it's important. Pastor, once we set it up, you and I will be the first ones to get screened. Mayor, could you speak to that for a minute?

Mayor Adams: I lost my dad to prostate cancer, and right now I am watching a very dear friend of mine, he's transitioning due to that stage four, and he is in good spirits, but it's an emotional toll that it plays on those who are not only going through it, but those who are watching their loved ones go through it. Early detection is the key, and instructions of all the readings that I have saw or learned from, it's about early detection and finding your right treatment.

Some state that operations are good and other methods are good, but it's to have that one-on-one consultation with your doctor and really look into some of the things that you can do about overall health. There's no constellation of getting a negative diagnosis for prostate cancer, but we are doing things that are causing other ailments. I really take my hat off to Mount Sinai. I think it's so important, and we have to do it in a way that's appealing for Black men. You're not going to just tell Black men, "Go to your doctor." That's just not the reality. We are known to suck up our pain, our discomfort, our prevention methods.

That's just who we are, and so we have to meet people who they are to take them where they want to be. We can't meet people where we are and expect for them to be there, so we must come up with creative ways of take a friend, bring your football team together, bring all of us who go out and enjoy each other's company. There must be ways to attract us to do this. Pulling up in a van is just not going to get Black men on the van. We don't seed the ground beforehand, and that's why it's important to partner with Mount Sinai. What do we do before the van comes to make sure that we have people who are going through the testing?

Giddings: Very true, mayor. You're so practical in every area. This is why we support Mayor Adams. We are going to shift for a little bit, Darren, because the mayor has a hard out, and there are a few questions that we have to touch on. Mayor Adams, small businesses is a lifeline for New York City, but often laws are created to restrict growth. You held a rally titled the City of Yes for Economic Opportunity. Can you talk a little bit about the economic opportunity to make our city more livable?

Mayor Adams: Mom used to say it's not always about our dollars and cents, it's about common sense. We have just moved away from common sense living, not only governing, but living, and at the heart of that lack of common sense are some of the rules that we have in place. They have been in place for a long time. When I came into office, Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, we made all of our agencies go out and look at what laws do we have on the books or rules or regulations on the books that are just impeding businesses, and how do we either put in place cure periods to give people an opportunity to fix the problem?

How do we go in and do inspections before an inspection come in and let people know, "Here's a problem that you're going to have when the inspections come in," and just find ways of allowing business to do business? Government has no business tampering with your business if it's not impacting safety. That's what this rally was about. It is doing a reexamination from turning our city into a City of Yes of Economic Opportunity. It's a set of 18 zoning changes that will, number one, update decades on zoning codes, modernize regulations and efforts to support new businesses and create jobs and help revitalize our economy.

We are going through a storefront crisis if we don't get it right to get people back into opening storefronts. We're all seeing them all throughout our city, and these rules that we are trying to deal with just makes sense. Some of the simple examples are really mind-boggling, like not being able to dance in a place because the cabaret restrictions, and looking at, you could have a bike shop one place or a shop where you could make one dish, but you cannot do other items. We just want to change that because people work from home. What does it look like working from home, and all those things are what we're looking at. This is extremely important for those businesses that are really changing how we do business in this city.

Giddings: Thank you for that, Mayor Adams. One more talking point before I bring [inaudible]. How's that? That's better. One more point. Upgraded parking meters have been rolled out. What do New York City drivers need to know about this new technology, and how user-friendly is it? This is a big one, mayor.

Mayor Adams: Yes, it is an important one. At the same time, I'm about to lose juice, so I'm finding my plug. It's an important one because what it does, it's telling those who are parking in our city, parking meters print enough receipts, paper, just think about this, to stretch from New York City to Los Angeles, 2,500 miles, and we're saying no to that. The new pay-by-plate parking meters, they're simple to use, it will make short-term parking easy for everyone that uses them, it would make paying for parking more efficient, and it would support local businesses by providing more parking space for customers.

Instead of placing a paper receipt on the dashboard, those of us who are using the meters now, they know what I'm talking about, you print it out and place it on a dashboard, instead of doing that, all the driver will have to do is enter their license plate number via the ParkNYC app or a parking kiosk, one of the two. Just enter your number, and using that app, the drivers can feed the meter while on the go from their smartphone. Right from your phone, you'll see when your time is up, you can add more time on it.

It's just a great way to do it so you don't have to go back to the meter, put more money in, take another piece of paper and put it in your dashboard. We know this is going to impact 80,000 metered parking spaces in our city. Pay-by-plate meter upgrades, this will begin in May in Northern Manhattan and meters citywide be upgraded over the next few years. 1.8 million users of this ParkNYC app are already paying this way. This is a great opportunity to just modernize. I'm constantly in the state of, how do you use technology to modernize, making our city more efficient?

Giddings: I thank you for that, Mayor Adams. We're jam packed this morning. We're moving fast. I know the mayor has to jump off. Pastor Straker, quickly your question for Mayor Adams, followed by Nicole.

Pastor Louis Straker, Jr: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. It's always a pleasure to have you with us. I think you know we highly respect you on this platform for your work, your leadership, and I personally believe that history will show that you're one of the greatest mayors to ever do it here in New York. Your administration, your significance in what you've contributed to the leadership in our city, I think while people may give you a hard time, I think when it's all said and done, people will realize how effective you were.

With that, I highly respect your leadership, trust your leadership, however, as my Caribbean grandmother would say, I have a bone to pick with you and the leadership here in the city and the state this morning, and it's around the central business tolling plan, the congestion pricing. I'm sure you've heard a lot of objections to it. Many New Yorkers are adamantly against it. I'm personally adamantly against it.

I believe it'll hurt everyday New Yorkers economically, businesses will suffer, high costs will pass on to customers due to the delivery costs from trucks, and you have workers that are outside of the city that have to come in, teachers, you have healthcare workers that sometimes leave late at night. They don't want to take the trains late at night. They have to drive. There are so many people that would be impacted.

I drive my kids to school in the city every day. There's an impact there. What am I not seeing? I respect your leadership. What do you have to say to somebody like me that adamantly opposes congestion pricing, doesn't necessarily see it as a great benefit in terms of all of the quotes on the environment because you need some type of congestion to get pricing to enhance whatever it is you're trying to get out of it. What am I not seeing, and what can you share with someone like me who's against congestion pricing?

Mayor Adams: Of, I would tell JR to bring on those who are responsible for it and implementing it, because it's not the mayor. I would start there. As oftentimes in the city, whatever we feel, okay, the mayor is in charge of it. I always talk about the guy that got divorced and came to me and said, "I'm losing my wife. It's your fault, Eric." That's the job of the mayor. We take all the hits, but let's peel back.

The state lawmakers have passed a bill to implement congestion pricing, and they gave the authority to the MTA, and the federal government gave them additional authority. Not the mayor of the City of New York and the City Council. I believe these are our streets, so they should have passed it down to the mayor and the City Council to figure out what it would look like, who would be allowed not to have to pay, to take into account a host of other things, and so this is not the mayor's bill. This is a bill that came from the state, handed over to the MTA to basically put this whole thing together.

We were able to wrestle away some victories such as $100 million for those areas that's going to be impacted, like the Bronx for the displacement of traffic and other environmental issues. We were able to look at some of those shift workers that you're talking about, some of those city employees that you're talking about.

We were able to fight to lean on the consciousness of the MTA board members, et cetera. We were able to look at school buses.

There's been many parts of this that we have been fighting, but I just want to be clear, this is not Eric Adams's bill. This came out of Albany. We are… Many people don't realize how much power Albany has over local cities. Everything from our school budget to mayoral accountability, to closing cannabis shops, to laws that are passed for public safety, Albany has a lot of power over the cities. That's just the way our state is set up, but I hear you, there are concerns that I have about the bill also.

I know we have to do something about congestion in Manhattan. I'm clear on that, but there's little things that I probably would have done differently on who would have been exempted from using it. That's the responsibility. Let's turn all of our anger towards JR. He needs to bring on the right guest to answer all of these questions. JR, you know what, we going to get you on this one [inaudible] bring on the right people.

Giddings: You know what, Mayor Adams, right is right, and that's what we have to do, because as you talk about blaming JR, which is fine, I'm going to tell you about all the heat that I get for you as I support you. I'm glad you were able to say, "Well, it's not the mayor." The mayor gets all the heat. I'm glad John Public is able to hear this right now. Quickly, Nicole, your question.

Mayor Adams: Hold on. Before you do that, JR. If you were to peel back, the heat that you take is because you are in the weeds and you understand all these layers. I'm on the subway, people beat me up, "Why don't you stop the buses or the migrants from coming in?" I can't, it's against the law, or, "Why don't you not give them a place to stay?" It's against the law, I can't. "Those who are repeated violent offenders, why do you not move them out of the city?" I can't. The law doesn’t allow me to do it.

I can't even allow those migrant and asylum seekers who want to work to work because the federal government said, "You can't allow them to work, Eric, and you can't even allow them to volunteer and you give them a stipend." People look at the mayor and say, "You are doing this to our city." No, the mayor has to follow the law. That's why it's crucial with this show, because you point people in the direction of who's responsible for what they're seeing play out in their cities.

This city has come back because of how this team has managed this city, and we are going to continue to do what's right, but it's imperative that people know what form of government is responsible for the things that are concerning them. There's a federal, a state, and city, and the cities have to comply with federal and state laws and still move our cities forward.

Giddings: Nicole, your question for Mayor Adams?

Jordan Martin: Good morning, Mayor Adams. Great to see you. First, we want to thank you. Last month we had the pleasure of highlighting all the fantastic women on your leadership team, and we really enjoyed getting to know them and highlighting their work. Yesterday was a huge announcement about the opening of 16 mental health clinics. It's a partnership in New York City Health + Hospitals where in our schools, different schools across the city.

I was so excited to hear that because I believe that we have a responsibility to help the next generation to avoid some of what we're seeing now play out in terms of our mental health and how fragmented the system is. We just need to do a better job of bringing these interventions to our young people earlier on, normalizing it for them as part of their health care. Can you talk about why you have chosen to bring this intervention to the youths in our school system in New York City?

Mayor Adams: Thank you. I don't think Health + Hospitals gets enough credit for what they do every day. Hospitals open and closed, and they decide what patients they're going to take, Health + Hospitals can't say no. That is the last stop, and they handle the largest portion of underinsured over healthcare issues. Large number of healthcare issues, a substantial number of underinsured, if we didn't have H + H, we would be in real trouble. Although we are doing some things like canceling medical debt, which is the number one cause of filing for bankruptcy, medical debt, we are canceling millions of dollars of medical debt for people.

Although we continue to play our role, we just really need our public hospital system, H + H, and really hats off to the entire team as they do their work every day. When you look at what we're doing about mental health, particularly we're seeing coming through Covid, a lot of our young people are dealing with real mental health issues. We want to catch those issues early, either through these clinics or through Teen Space where Dr. Vasan has used technology where young people can log on 24 hours, seven days a week, and get the help that they need, and it is being used right now.

Our young people are on their cell phone and their devices, and so being able to bring the care to the methodologies that are being used by those who are in need of the care is just a smart way to do it. If we have these clinics in schools where our young people are, they would feel more comfortable of going in and dealing with the mental health issues that they're facing. That is why Dr. Vasan, Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom, and that entire team, that is why they have been really focused, how do we become preventive and not just become reactive?

Because prevention is far more powerful than that intervention when you got to intercede when someone is doing something wrong. That just really opens a door to a larger issue of severe mental health illness. Many years ago, advocates compelled us to close psychiatric wards because of some of the draconian actions that were happening at these wards, and what we often do in government, we often go from one extreme to the next. We closed these wards, but what we did was people were just let loose and turned into the streets. There were no real systems of dealing with people with severe mental health illness or on the verge of it that can't take care of themselves.

What happened in return is that when you see someone on the street dealing with severe mental health illness, you take them for the day, put them in the hospital, give them medicine for a day, and then put them back in the street until they do something that is criminal in nature, assaulting someone, pushing someone on the subway tracks, doing petit larceny over and over again, then you take them and move them to Rikers Island. Do you know that 70 percent of the inmates at Rikers Island have mental health or severe mental health issues?

We closed down the psych wards and we turned our jail into the psych ward. This just makes no sense. We need a state-of-the-art dignified place where you can take people who are dealing with severe mental health issues, where family members are saying "My son, my daughter, my husband is exhibiting some dangerous behavior," we need to get them the care that they deserve. Right now we don't have enough psychiatric beds and right now we're just ignoring this problem.

We need to be honest about this problem, and part of the close Rikers plan should be to open a state-of-the-art dignified way we can deal with people with severe mental health issues and not criminalize them the way we're doing now. This is part of our overall plan of opening up these health clinics of giving families and young adults and adults the assistance they need, because it should not be a crime to try to address your mental health issue that you are facing.

Giddings: Thank you.

Jordan Martin: Thank you, Mayor Adams.

Giddings: Thank you. Mayor Adams, I know you have to jump, but I definitely want to ask you this, what were your thoughts after watching the solar eclipse last week? I mean, that was a historical moment.

Mayor Adams: It was. All in one week, we had a earthquake, a solar eclipse, a heavy rainfall, I look at right now what's playing out in Dubai, I don't know if a lot of people are watching what's happening in Dubai with the rainfall and the flooding in the desert. It just really reinforces to me that no matter who we think we are, there is a power greater than us. There's a power greater than us that can have the moon cover the sun. There's a power greater than us that can have our earth shake.

There is a power greater than us that says that if you play with my natural order, I will bring about destructive powers. It just really humbled me, and it was a period of looking and seeing that even when you looked at the eclipse, no matter how much darkness comes, light will peer through, and you just sit and wait on the creator, and that light that pierced through will bring the sun back. We can go through some dark moments, those dark moments are just probably moments of telling us, be still, be still. When you still sometimes, that what you are seeking will come to you. It's a moment of reflection.

Giddings: Well said, Mayor Adams. Well said. I know that you've given me more than your 15 minutes. I'm expecting your team to hit me up at any moment to tell me that the mayor has to go. I'm trying to be good. I'm trying to stay on the straight and narrow because we need you back here every month with all the important details. Once again, Mayor Adams, it's a pleasure. It's also a pleasure having you, and I will continue to say this, you have changed a lot of things in the city, and those in-person meetings that you host on Tuesdays with all the press, including The Reset, it really makes a difference. It opens up the eyes, okay, for not only the press that's there, but the grassroots press. I'm not going to stop thanking you for that opportunity.

Mayor Adams: I appreciate that. Like I stated, our success, it has been overshadowed by three things, and we've been extremely successful. More jobs in the history of the city. Fourth largest tourism, bringing down violence in our city, our children are outpacing the city and state in reading and math, changing our phonics-based reading curriculum, having independent financial observers look at how we're managing this crisis, making smart decisions, and raising our bonds. What we're doing with foster care children, paying their college tuition and allowing them to enroll in college at a higher level than what we have witnessed.

I can just go down the line, but David Dinkins had these successes also. David Dinkins was really cycling our city out of a real crisis coming out of the mayor prior to him, and using Safe City, Safe Streets to get more officers on our streets, what he was doing with our economy. If you go look at the analysis of David Dinkins’ last year, you'll see how he was having our city recover. The difference between David Dinkins and Eric Adams is that David Dinkins did not have a Reset Show. David Dinkins did not have a platform where he could speak directly to people and let them know the success that he was doing.

Our success is overshadowed by the recidivism of those who commit crimes and come back in our streets, like the person who shot Jonathan Diller, arrested 20 times prior, and he was still back in our streets. It's overshadowed by severe mental health issues that we're fighting to give people the involuntary removal so we can give them the care they deserve, and it's overshadowed by random acts of violence, people who are punching a woman in the face, or a person who's on our subway system shoveling someone to the tracks.

We're doing well as a city. We have recovered faster than anyone thought we would recover in two years, but those small actions hurt the narrative and it overshadows our success. I need this platform and platforms like yours to let people know, "Don't let the success of this second mayor of color to overshadow the success that we have done in this city." People didn't think we could do it. We did it in two years.

Two years, let's think about that for a moment, because sometimes people don't realize that. In two years, we turned the city around to the recovery that people thought was going to take me four to five years to do. It shows that every day blue-collar people can govern if we're given the opportunity to do so, and it's never been about dollars and cents, it just has been about what mommy said, "Common sense." I'm a common sense person, and just things that make sense, we need to be doing.

Giddings: Mayor Adams, I continue to applaud you, and now I know that you're a mommy's boy. I understand why you're surrounded by so many women, so many powerful women in your administration. I just want to give a heads up and I want to let the audience know as well, this year, your chief advisor, Ingrid Martin will be a recipient of The Reset Awards. I think it's quite deserving, her being one of the most powerful women in this city, if not the most powerful woman in this city, and we definitely are honoring her. I want to thank you again. I want to thank you for the team that surround you, all the women that make this city run, and I'm proud to be the platform, the facilitator to help to make it happen.