Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on ABC 7's 'Eyewitness News at 5PM'

November 8, 2024

Bill Ritter: Now to the mayor of New York. Lots of news involving Mayor Adams today and today he's joining us live on Eyewitness News.

Sade Baderinwa: Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for joining us.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you.

Baderinwa: We want to start with your decision late this afternoon to end that food voucher program for immigrants. What led to this decision and why now?

Mayor Adams: Well it was an emergency contract for a sunset in one year. That was what it was in place for, for one year. Now we have moved away from emergency response because we have had a constant decrease in our population and now we're going to the procurement process that we do now for food. But we've been successful with that program. We brought down food waste. We were able to get several thousand individuals to have culturally sensitive food at the same time and it was successful for the time being, and now we move into the general putting out the RFPs that are needed. It was an emergency and now we're moving in another direction.

Ritter: Funding of course thebig issue surrounding the city and has been the big issue surrounding your tenure to some degree. Let's talk about some other crucial issues though. You talked yesterday to President-elect Trump. What did you talk about and did it involve any funding for New York City or perhaps lack of funding?

Mayor Adams: Well you know I've been very consistent about private conversations. You know I don't go into them but I'm clear. I'm here to fight on behalf of this city. You know you can't hold your breath and wait four years before you start bringing back those resources to the city.

We have a new president and I'm going to collaborate with his administration to deal with some pressing issues that [are] facing our city, particularly around funding. When you look at the billions of dollars we spent with the migrants and asylum seekers, we got very little help from the federal government and I think it's imperative that we engage on the right foot to say New York needs infrastructure, affordability and other big-ticket items.

Baderinwa: Well Mayor, speaking of the new president, do you think the Trump presidency will have an impact on your federal case? Are you hoping the charges will be dropped? We do know that he said that you were being unfairly targeted because of your criticism of the Biden administration's immigration policy. What are your thoughts on that and have you spoken to Trump about this?

Mayor Adams: No I did not and I've been extremely clear that I've done nothing wrong and I have competent attorneys that are going to handle that case. My job is to do what I was elected to do and that's fight on behalf of New Yorkers and anyone who conflates the two just really [doesn't] know who I've been for the last 30 plus years as a public servant, serving from police officer to an elected official. I'm going to fight and defend this city. This city deserves that and that is what I'm going to continue to do.

Baderinwa: And just quickly mayor, are you hoping that he drops the charges?

Mayor Adams: My attorney, anything that's dealing with my case, I have an excellent attorney that can handle those questions. I have to answer the questions of how to move the city forward and I'm not going to do anything to get in the way of that.

Ritter: We'll call the lawyer later tonight and ask him the questions. I do want to talk to you a little bit more about financial assistance. Because you were quite critical of the lack of financial assistance. President Biden didn't help fund the flood, the flood of migrants coming into New York.

It's hard to imagine Donald Trump's gonna, you know, in all honesty mayor, gonna boost any funding to pay for that, and in fact he may order them out of the country as we well know. People who live here and work here and their children are going to school here in the public schools. Mr. Mayor, let's talk about that cost of all that and what your hopes are for Mr. Trump.

Mayor Adams: Well, first we need to deal with the reality. Over 220,000 migrants and asylum seekers came to the city and we spent billions of taxpayers dollars to take care of this issue as well as other cities. Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles. When you look at those tax dollars not going to the residents of those cities to deal with the crucial issues we had to face coming out of COVID. I found that troubling and I was a [clear voice] about it.

But this is a sanctuary city. I think that the modification that was last made under the previous administration was the wrong modification. When it was put in place under Koch and under Bloomberg, it had a different concept. I don't believe people come to the city and create violent crimes should not, should not remain in the city and we should have the right after they serve their time to turn them over to ICE. But we're going to continue to do the role that this is a city of immigrants and many people are here undocumented. We want them to continue to know that their Police Department, their hospitals and the educational system is going to be here to provide what we've provided for years.

Ritter: Okay, that's the nature of a sanctuary city. I agree with that.

Baderinwa: Mr. Mayor, you announced a lawsuit against a vaping company. How big of a problem is this industry in New York City and how do you think this one lawsuit is going to help stop it?

Mayor Adams: No, great question and really the corporation counsel, [what] she stated today's should send chills to all of us. We basically won the battle of bringing down the nicotine problem that we were having from cigarette smoke and now this vaping has been introduced and a level of addictive behavior from nicotine that's targeting our children is something we should all be concerned with.

And so this lawsuit is one of the many ways that we are combating this problem from closing thousands of illegal cannabis shops to [these] lawsuits and other lawsuits we want to file when we find culprits like this but also education. We [were] there joined by New York City Public Schools. We want to educate our children to deal with this problem so it's a combination of ways and we're going to use every tool in our toolbox to protect our children.

Ritter:I knowit's a weird time for so many reasons. An emotional reaction to the election by many people in New York. We thank you for joining us mayor. It's good to see you and we welcome you anytime here. It's a big city. Lots going on on all sides including yourself but we want- I think our viewers want to hear from you how the city is doing. We really appreciate you coming on.

Mayor Adams:Look forward toit and take care.

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