NYC Mayor Adams on Bribery Charges, Corruption, & Which Borough Has The Baddest Shawtys

YERRR! NYC Mayor Eric Adams pulled up to FLAGRANT and it got real. Adams talked about his Turkish controversies, and broke down how he handles crime, critics, and chaos. He talks about what it actually means to lead NYC, why NYC is the best, what it takes to be a New Yorker and dropped some classic one-liners. This episode is wild, Flagrant and 100% New York. INDULGE. 00:00 Intro 1:10 Alexx might know Eric's shorty 2:28 From Squeegee to mayor 3:43 Eric addresses his home search video 6:01 Upbringing, Running numbers + Dyslexia's impact 11:42 Dunk culture, social media + Cannabis Use 13:54 It's all your fault, even when it isn't 17:04 Reality v Perception + NYC feels less safe 23:04 Cops' role, Mayor's successes + What makes us feel unsafe? 30:28 Migrant issue in NYC + Federal "edicts" 40:04 Gangs driving migration, Narratives & Addressing Biden 45:54 Eric addressing Turkish bribery case 51:54 The deep state, Trump's role + Collaboration with ICE for crime 1:00:50 Should legal migrants be scared to exercise free speech? 1:03:39 Biden's record + Lack of accountability 1:07:34 Cost of bribery case + Permanent gov. 1:12:56 Air out these people + Finding efficiencies 1:21:21 Relationship with Trump now 1:24:38 Raising financial literacy + NY has swag 1:30:30 What makes a real New Yorker? Rikers Prison Problem 1:36:21 What happened with Epstein? Give me the secrets 1:38:34 Run ins with Supreme Team + G Unit + Real compensation 1:42:39 Keys to the city 1:43:14 We need an E11EVEN 1:46:25 Canal Street is wildin' 1:49:41 Best Bodega Boner Pill 1:50:01 Eric is running as a Democrat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:29Speaker 01

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

• 0:34Speaker 02

  As Obama said, "If you say it, they gotta kill you."

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Oh, wait, so do you know?

• 0:38Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I have no idea.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  So tell us what happened with the migrant crisis.

• 0:44Speaker 02

  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.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  So, listen, and I don't want to get conspiratorial. After you come out, all of a sudden, the Justice Department looks into Eric Adams, and there's this thing about Turkish Airlines, right? Do you think there's any connection to those two things?

• 1:05Speaker 02

  You're darn right I do.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Do you know who you think it came from?

• 1:08Speaker 02

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

• 1:14Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  It's not used too much. It's real, brother. Mayors 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 lying.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  And which borough has the most attractive women?

• 1:33Speaker 02

  I think all of them have gray shorties.

• 1:38Speaker 01

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

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Okay. Far Rockwood.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Oh, the Rock.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  I probably know who your shorty is.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  This girl gotta be so gassed right now. She gotta be telling everybody, "I'm his shorty in Far Rock." "I'm his shorty." Do we know who that girl is?

• 2:04Speaker 02

  They, you know, it's like, what's that story? What's that show that used to come on with the real?

• 2:11Speaker 01

  The Real World?

• 2:11Speaker 02

  No, The Truth. They asked the person, the panelist, questions and they said, "With the real whoever is standing up."

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Oh, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  I forgot, is it Truth? Is it Truth? Something.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Lot of me, maybe?

• 2:22Speaker 02

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

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Oh, so you have a lot of other girls claiming that they're the shorty?

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  So it's possible there could be multiple shorties on Far Rock?

• 2:40Mark Gagnon?

  He made that shirt one time and he's like, "It's too far."

• 2:44Speaker 01

  We got girls in Jamaica.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Guys, this is not 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, 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. Give it up for Eric Adams, everybody.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Okay, is that, is that true about the squeegee?

• 3:14Speaker 02

  You know, the, um...

• 3:19Speaker 02

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

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  And, you know, I think that is what the total sum of your life experiences.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Allowed you to be whomever you are. Like you, all of you, you sit in a room, you guys are successful, but think about the total, the total of all of your experiences.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  To get in here, sit down and have real, authentic conversations. That's why people connect with your show.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Because of, you know, it's just authentic conversation.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  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?

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Like, you know.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Like, does it hit you? Like, it hits, because you say some stuff, like, obviously the shorty in Far Rock thing was crazy, right? But there are other things you say, like, remember when you were, we have the video. I almost want you to watch it, like, when you were teaching the parents how to find drugs in their...

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Have you watched this?

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, I love this piece.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  As a baby doll, could be just a baby doll, but also it could be a place where you could secrete or hide drugs.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Those are just pillows.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  Like a pillow like this with a button.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Oh, the button.

• 4:48Speaker 04

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

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Oh, damn.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  Look how fat I was.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Now, now, each one of those scenarios that you saw, the gun in the pillow, the baby doll, those were real scenarios.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you bumped into people.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  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.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Oh, they taking parents?

• 5:23Speaker 02

  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.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  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.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  I don't know what that is.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's sniffing, you sniffing, back then you were sniffing coke.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Back then.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  That was a Capri Sun.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  So, it's sort of, 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, you, you, this is real stuff, man, this is, don't, don't tell me the life you're living, I'm telling you the life in the.

• 6:16Speaker 01

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

• 6:19Speaker 02

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

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Were you, because this is an interesting story, right? Like, you started out 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 this how you were saying it?

• 6:42Speaker 02

  And now the question is, 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-

• 6:51Speaker 01

  What's the ritual?

• 6:52Speaker 02

  I'm gonna tell you what the ritual back then when I was a child-

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Because we got some crystals for you, because-

• 6:56Speaker 02

  And that's the thing, 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.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Alright, alright, alright, we got it.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  You know, um-

• 7:03Speaker 01

  What type of stone? Crackstone has tons of energy.

• 7:05Mark Gagnon?

  Oh my goodness.

• 7:08Mark Gagnon?

  Best way to start the morning.

• 7:10Speaker 02

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

• 7:15Speaker 01

  God, don't make you read?

• 7:16Speaker 02

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

• 7:27Speaker 01

  No, they're ruthless.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  They would say, let's act like we're Eric Reiding. They would stumble over duh, duh, duh, you know, right. And so the whole day, you would go-

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Look it out.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  You know, that's what I'm saying. When you look at, and when you have this-

• 7:40Speaker 01

  He was like, put that to him.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Right, right, it mixes up the characters.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  And 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, you know, doing numbers back then, before numbers were legal.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  What does that mean to people? Because I think, like, running numbers means, like, what? There's like, some people that are running a gambling ring, and you're making sure that they get those?

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Great question, great question.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, how does that even work?

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Before the numbers and lottery system-

• 8:06Speaker 01

  I sound like I'm snitching right now. How does it work?

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Before the lottery system was in place, there was a, 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, you know?

• 8:22Speaker 01

  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.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  They definitely don't have their own gambling rate or lottery system.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  So that's what the lottery would be.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  If you could predict those numbers, they're privatized.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Fifty cent, fifty, uh, twenty-five cents would give you a certain dollar amount.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Fifty cents would give you a certain dollar. So you walk around with these slips. You go around the community, they come inside the stores and they say, okay, I think three eighty-two. I had a dream last night and I saw three eighty-two. You're betting on that. People bet all the time on those numbers and hens. There were, there was a, uh, there were newspapers that were in the community, whole industry around numbers.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Around the numbers, like giving you advice on the numbers?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  And so, um, what I learned later in life, like I learned I was dyslexic in college. And I heard a, a young lady listening to a, um, a documentary on dyslexia.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  And I took it out and I said, wait a minute, man, I'm not dumb, 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, thirty to forty percent of them across the country are dyslexic or have a learning disability.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  So if you feel as though-

• 9:38Speaker 01

  They're struggling in school, there's no other opportunity. It's like a pipeline. They go to, ah, that's interesting.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  They go, so the crime is not with, only what they did on the street is what we're doing to them.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Right, so being able to diagnose these things earlier, same with like mental health, a lot of people say, yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  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 like they're doing.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  How do you even fix dyslexia? What do you, what do you do?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  You, you, it's, all you do is learn differently. Your mind process, cause the words are mumble, the letters are mumble jumble mixed up.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  But you, once you learn how to process and learn differently, how you learn-

• 10:18Speaker 01

  You can reorganize.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. And so that led to, like you said, all that crazy stuff you were doing. I was saying, why, why am I sitting in school? Why am I going there just to, you know?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  So once you become the A student, now you go, I need to put those other people in jail, like the-

• 10:32Speaker 02

  That's how you feel.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Like, why would these criminals take advantage of my disability and put me on the streets?

• 10:37Speaker 02

  That's how you feel.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  They're gonna get locked up.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  You know, and, and so, you know, it was, you know, you-

• 10:42Speaker 01

  You know how many dyslexic people you locked up?

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Think about it.

• 10:49Speaker 01

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

• 10:54Speaker 02

  I bump into people all the time who are doing successful in business. When they hear, you know, my journey been just like, they all say to stop me and say, Eric, you know, I went through the same thing. I'm successful in business.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Cause 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. Cause you're in New York, 8.3 million people, 35 million opinions.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Lots of opinions.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  I, I say to them, that's all you got? You know, all you got is to call me a name? Man, listen, I'm so used to being called names. I used to get called names every morning. You know, so you build.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  What's the best thing you've been called? Like, is there ever anything you've been called where you're like, nah, that's kind of funny.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Um, I don't, I don't know. Probably asshole is not the top one, you know?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Better than asshole.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  You know, um, you know, people call, listen, hurt people hurt people and they hurt themselves.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  It's not like, you know, I'm, I hate you, Eric. No, people are hating themselves.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  And they, they express that hate, you know, through how they treat people. Cause we're in a, we're in a place now where everyone is so mean spirit now.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  They, we no longer, the people don't do this. Like this is powerful when you can sit down.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Have conversations.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 02

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

• 12:11Speaker 01

  That's, 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.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  And social media makes it even worse.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause 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.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Right, you know?

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  And it's the coalescing of everyone who has a ill feeling, you know, it's a place like, you know.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now you're not alone with your ill feeling.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Right. And you could coalesce around, you know, this, you know, this feeling that you have. No matter what group you are. I did an experiment the other day. I say, just think of the, anything you think about, there's a population out there. I said, let me just find people that like grass.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  You know, and not cannabis, grass.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  No, you don't like the weed.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Right, right. 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.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  My concern, as I said it when I was running for office, is that we have a real educational problems.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  And our children start in their day, these teachers tell me, Eric, these kids are high all the time.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 02

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

• 13:52Speaker 01

  I feel like most people are supportive of that. Like, I think most adults in New York would go, hey, we gotta keep weed out of the kids.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  And we gotta 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.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:19Speaker 01

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

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Especially the mayor, man.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Bro, 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.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  I didn't even know that the governor was a woman until like a month ago. I had no, I'd never known that we had a governor, we had a blind guy governor, I didn't know.

• 14:37Speaker 05

  New York is not a state, it's a city.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  No, it is.

• 14:39Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? 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.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  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 of the United States, and then next it's the mayor of New York, and then there's the rest of the people in government.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  And that's why civics is crucial, so people can understand who's responsible.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  For these different things.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Right, because when you're the mayor, I don't care what it is, man.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  It's your fault.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  A guy stepped to me a couple of months ago, man, saying, listen, I'm getting divorced, you know, it's your fault.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  You were texting with my wife in Far Rock.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Some vegan guy was walking around there. Laying meat though.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  That one is your fault.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  That's the case is, so people will 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.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Oh, so, so wait, the trains meaning like?

• 15:40Speaker 02

  The subway, the two, three, four and five. The state is in charge of that.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  The state is in charge of the MTA?

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Right. Our job is to protect the people. I'm in charge of the police in the system.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  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 the, in the subway system? People say a hundred, two hundred a day, three hundred a day. We have 4.6 million riders every day.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  We have six felonies a day.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  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.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:18Speaker 02

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

• 16:22Speaker 05

  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 4:00 PM on April 12th. So hurry up and get tickets to that. Also, uh, April 18th 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 20th, 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. Uh, and June 21st and, uh, August 1st and 2nd, Kansas City, Missouri. Get your tickets to those dates and more at alcarson.com. Love y'all. Get back to the show now.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  All right, don't skip forward, guys. It's the world's 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, Stronsberg, Hoboken, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Raleigh, Poughkeepsie, Portland, Fort Worth, Austin, Stanford, Philadelphia, Levittown, Chandler, Arizona, San Diego, many more dates to come. Guys named Chandler want to suck his dick. Nope, Chandler's a good city with good people. You don't have to do that. Could be a girl's name. TheMarkYagno.com. I'll see you on the road. Thanks so much. Love you all. Bye. So, 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.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Without a doubt.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  And we got to be careful that if people have that feeling, we don't make them feel stupid.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  For having it because like being scared in the subway is a real feeling.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  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 Uber. But uh, it's a convenient excuse. Yeah. But no, like some of the girls that work for us also say they have that feeling. When I grew up in the city, I was like sleeping on the subway.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  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.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  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.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  You know, people attacked me when I said that. They said, well, you know, perception doesn't matter. I said, yes, it does.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Perception matters more.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Because I was a transit cop, so I know. And so what happens, so now we have to ask ourselves, why do people feel unsafe in the subway system?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Why do you think?

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Because every day we take the worst thing that happens on four points.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  And we blast it out all over.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  And every day we blast it. Every day, every day. And so you wake up in the morning, open the paper, oh, someone 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, they're yelling, they're screaming. You hear noise, you hear it's not cleaning up.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  You begin to say to yourself, oh, I feel unsafe.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  I feel unsafe. And so what I have to do, as you said, um, 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.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  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 them back and forth. Because we know the omnipresence of that uniform.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Can deal with that perception.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Now, we got record decrease in crime, but that means nothing if people don't feel safe.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Well, maybe it's a com- I'm gonna give you some, sorry. Real quick, just like, maybe it's a combination of, 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, whatever you do, are down 50%. So, look at this positive influence that's happening.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  And I feel like all too often is people going, "No, you idiots, look, crime is way better." And then they're like, "Don't call me an idiot, fuck you."

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 20:08Speaker 05

  And I get some pushback on above ground.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 05

  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 heroin right outside. These are not things that make me feel safe, and that is a crime, you know, even then. It might not be aggravated, but like, I'm 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.

• 20:53Mark Gagnon?

  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."

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, right, right.

• 21:00Mark Gagnon?

  That's why it's just so weird hearing that, because I'm like, "Yo."

• 21:03Speaker 01

  I think a lot of times square back in the day.

• 21:05Speaker 05

  That's what I'm saying, it might be safer than it was in 1998, but I don't think it goes safer personally than it was in 2009.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  A lot of the sentiment is like, we went through a pretty tough time in New York.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Where it was like, there were a lot of things that were quite commonplace.

• 21:20Speaker 05

  You start feeling because you're dyslexic.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:22Speaker 05

  Like, you know what I mean? But you're like, "I mix up letters, let me just start running numbers."

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Right. But when you go back...

• 21:31Mark Gagnon?

  How could you read if it was a janitor's ward?

• 21:35Speaker 02

  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 used to see some of the pictures back then.

• 21:45Mark Gagnon?

  It was crazy.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  And so... Understand, that's why civic is important. Because when you see someone like right now, when I came, when I became mayor, we were having encampments all over, people living in cardboard boxes and tents on the side of highways.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  And when we came in, we said, listen, people 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 powered finaglia, stale food, dyslexic, bipolar, schizophrenic.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  And so we came up with a real initiative that said, listen, we clean up these encampments and we put people in houses. We got huge pushback, huge pushback. The city council passed the law that said people should have the right to sleep on the streets.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  So when you have those government to entities that are extreme left in their philosophies.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  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 give this person in care. He doesn't know he needs care.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  These are the battles we have that fall outside the scope of what the mayor can do.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  And real quick.

• 22:57Mark Gagnon?

  I'm just curious, we have CCTV everywhere, but why don't we have any security cameras inside the subway carts?

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Oh, we do. Yeah, we're gonna house, we're gonna, they're building it out. Yeah, right now, right now. We're going to build out all the trains, but the governor has done an amazing job where we have cameras in the cars. And they're going to be cameras in every car, which is huge. Cause that allows us to pick up on any illegal behavior. It allows us, we caught the guy that burned the woman to death because of that camera and that footage. So we do, then eventually every train is gonna have a camera, yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  I feel like, I feel like sometimes cops are like this backstop to all the problems in 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.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  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 aren't dealing with like severe mental illness.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  Without a doubt. We have, we have three issues that overshadowed our success. We turned around the city. No one thought I could do it and, and they told me it was gonna take five years. We did it two years. There are three issues that had.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  I love that. I love that.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  I can't even tell you you didn't.

• 24:27Speaker 05

  I feel less safe and I feel stupid for feeling less safe.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  The second you said it, I'm like, this guy told me to turn it around.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  There's no more rats. The rats are gone. Get all the rats out of here. Well, they're indicators. They're indicators of a, of a success of a city.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  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, our 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 to permanent homes in year one and year two in the city's history.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Drop unemployment around all demographics in the city, but particularly black and Hispanics by 20%, so they're 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 raiders, 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 gonna invest in your city? They raised my bond and then came back out of all the, all that we went through. They said, we still wanna keep this bond rating high because this mayor has managed COVID, managed 230,000 migrants and asylum seekers that came into the, into the city.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  So they've watched how I managed the city.

• 25:55Speaker 01

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

• 25:59Speaker 02

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

• 26:14Speaker 01

  And the fact that the rating maintains.

• 26:16Speaker 02

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

• 26:26Speaker 05

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

• 26:30Speaker 01

  So tell us what happened with the with the migrant crisis?

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Oh, great question. Great question. Um, the thing about it, and that's that was my first. I want to tell you the three things that 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.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  You know, random active violence. One guy, you know, dealing with severe mental health issues that should not have been on the streets, stabs three people. Those shock everyone.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  That has overshadowed our success. Mental health, and that's tied to mental health. The second is recidivism. We have cats that are committing crimes repeatedly.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  Repeatedly. They made up their mind. We have we have 575 people. They think they'll break the law.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  No, I'm committed to it.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Can't stop on it. You can't have 575 people who are arrested for shoplifting. And they have been arrested over 7,500 times. 36 people who who have assaulted people in the subway system have been arrested over 16 on your time. With this revolving door system and trying to convince our lawmakers in Albany that, yo, this is a problem, you know? And and they're real problems.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  So who can do that? Because I think a lot of people blame you for that as the mayor, right? And that's got to be frustrating because you're like, yo, I'm not the DA. You guys elected the DA.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  It's not like you even placed him there, right?

• 28:02Speaker 02

  No.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  So who decides?

• 28:04Speaker 02

  The 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.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  What was the concept?

• 28:16Speaker 02

  It was that was when you hear bail reform. Reform, discovery reform, raise the age reform. There's a lot of reform because you don't want a heavy handed criminal justice system. When everyone is being locked up for no matter what they do.

• 28:28Speaker 01

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

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 28:31Speaker 01

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

• 28:33Speaker 02

  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.

• 28:55Speaker 05

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

• 29:00Speaker 02

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

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:10Speaker 02

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

• 29:27Speaker 01

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

• 29:32Speaker 02

  And that's what we don't do.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I get the idea, like you said, like the idea was good. Like 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.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  We all did.

• 29:46Speaker 05

  We did.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 29:47Speaker 05

  We're gonna talk about it, but we can't.

• 29:52Mark Gagnon?

  A 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 until they're caught.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  So they're trying to solve that problem.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  And that's why, and I'm a big believer in nonviolent crimes. If you, if you are.

• 30:07Speaker 01

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

• 30:08Speaker 02

  I'm a believer in that we should not be being heavy handed.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  With the nonviolent crimes, yeah.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  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 going to give you a pathway to deal with that drug issue, you know? So we don't want to be heavy handed. And those are the alternative to incarceration, to give people the support they need. Because a lot of people think, okay, well, shoplifting is a victimless crime. That's not true. If that Rite Aid closed down, Ms. Jones now has to get on the bus and go to get a drugstore that, you know, a mile away from her now, that cost her money. The people who wrote to 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.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  So, out of nowhere, we started getting in a large flow of migrants. Now, this is a city of immigrants.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  And, and, 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.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Sanctuary city, right?

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Right. It's a sanct- it's a sanctuary city.

• 31:16Speaker 01

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

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  But continue, yeah.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  So, we started getting in busloads and...

• 31:28Speaker 01

  By design, right?

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Political play.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  It was coming, coming from Texas, but it was, it was the failure that we didn't secure our borders. We were allowing everyone to come into this, to, to, to the country with unsecured 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 for gold. Because everybody thinks you come to New York City, everything is fine.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's paved in rat shit.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Right. Right, right, right. So, uh...

• 32:07Speaker 01

  That might be a... Delicious meal.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Don't gross me out, man. Don't, don't gross me out. I'm still grossed out over here.

• 32:20Speaker 05

  It's vegan.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Okay, go ahead, go ahead. 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."

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Very reasonable.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  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 stifle. Federal law, they're like, 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.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  That's the sanctuary city law.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  But that wasn't built for migrants.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  No, it wasn't.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  For our homeless population.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  And hoping that you would take people from homelessness, you know, going through a rough time and then they would be housed.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Without a doubt, over forty years in existence.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  And so.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  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.

• 33:30Speaker 02

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

• 33:37Speaker 01

  No, they shouldn't either.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Right, right. No one should have to go through.

• 33:41Speaker 05

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

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  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 border, how dare you? It's like, we're not dealing with it, so who are we to say what the issue is?

• 34:06Speaker 02

  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.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  So now he, this is the dunk culture we're talking about, right? Instead of having that dialogue and you coming together. And I think at that moment, you were like a surrogate in the Biden administration. Like you were, you were somebody who was like working with them. You were hand chosen, by the way, it's not like everybody's a surrogate.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Right, right, exactly.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  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, well, let's work together. And they go, no, thank you, we're gonna send the buses.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  That's some cornball shit. I don't like wheels, I'm not a fan.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  And so, we lost, we, we, we lost an opportunity. Because when I went down to El Paso and I saw people sleeping on the streets and airports. 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, you know, to speak with the lawmakers. I met with the president twice, President Biden twice around this issue. And his people were, they were giving him misinformation. They were not being honest to him.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Who was, who were his people? That's, I think, yeah, who were his people, you think?

• 35:37Speaker 02

  There was a, there was, there were several people who was close, that was in charge of this, this issue. That was supposed to be giving him the right information. And I was, I told them, I said, Mr. President.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Maybe they told him and he just forgot, he was a little old, you know what I mean? Possible. But 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 administration. 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 of what's going on, like, where's the disconnect here?

• 36:15Speaker 02

  You know, what's 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, I don't believe in that philosophy.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  As part of government?

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Right. Here's what I said to the administration.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  I said, listen, no one should, right now, people were coming into the, the country.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  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 gonna tell you where you're going to go for three years. If Kentucky needs people to be backstretch workers, to racing, work in 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.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  It's a fantastic idea.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  And we're controlling the flow. You're not coming in if you're part of a gang, which they were doing. They say, hey, the border's open.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  All right, guys, let's take it for a chore.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Let's get back to the show.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  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 and I spoke to the people, they said the gangs have taken over.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  So they're looking for a reprieve from the gang violence?

• 37:40Speaker 02

  Right. And then they came here to New York. And they were like, they over here too.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  And that's what happened. People were 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 said, the gangs are here. They're preying on us. And so when I say that, listen, you're a gang member, you're a recognized terrorist, you commit 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's really deep, because so much politics is in play. People say, oh, you're 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 you to come to the city and see what I'm doing.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  They said, we want to come here because you're anti-immigrant? We don't want to come, we don't want to talk to you. And I said, well, at least come. They came to the city, they spent the day with Anna D.A. Amazza, the first Dominican deputy mayor in the history of the city. She, they came, spent the day with her. They met me at Gracie Mansion, had dinner. They said, we got to apologize to you. 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, clothed, educated forty thousand children, put people on the pathway for citizenship.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  What we did with two hundred and thirty thousand people, one hundred and ninety thousand have left Alcatraz and 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 and saying, oh, this guy hate immigrants. This guy is anti-immigrant.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think that's one of those things where it's like very easy politicize. Like 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've heard those criticisms in New York, you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? Somebody from Maine is gonna tell me about immigrant.

• 39:53Speaker 05

  I'm a New York immigrant.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  If anything, you almost hear 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 accommodated.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  That was the, and that's, that's what I was saying. Now people don't talk about that.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  So which is. So it's like you either hate immigrants or they're staying at the Four Seasons.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Right? But I think that was the thing that New Yorkers started to get 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 migrating to 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.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Without a doubt, without doubt.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  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 gotta sit there and take it.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  And what you just stated, and here's, here's the impact of this. This is what's, was deep about this moment, that.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  They were, they were not standing, they were standing in tents, Randall's Island, um, uh, Creedmoor, uh, 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.

• 41:24Speaker 01

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

• 41:27Speaker 02

  You'll go to one of these other locations.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Got you, but once the narrative hits the news, it's you go to Nick game, sitting courtside.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  You migrate to America, you sit courtside.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  And that was, that was not the reality. But then, um, this is how, this is what angered me. This was the tipping point where I decided I gotta publicly, publicly criticize the administration, the Biden administration.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. When did that happen? Cause that, that was very brave, I thought.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  The, the money, this, this, this cost us seven billion dollars. Now, we are, we are, we have a, we have a fixed budget, you know? We have a fixed budget. 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 coming, give you, give you...

• 42:15Speaker 01

  I think that's very reasonable.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  And if the insurance company tells you, hey, we're not giving you anything, now you gotta take it out of somewhere. So I had to take seven billion dollars out of the services for our city.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  The long-term impact of that is what troubles me.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  That's the, that's the, because I could have taken 200 million dollars of that to go to chronically absent children. Cause we had a lot of children that are chronically absent after COVID. I could have taken, I could have taken 500 million dollars and went to my adults care. I could have...

• 42:47Speaker 01

  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 gotta pay for it.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I understand where that feels unfair.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  You know what their response after going there all the time?

• 43:06Speaker 01

  What?

• 43:06Speaker 02

  They say, Eric, this is like a gold bladder. It's gonna hurt now, but it'll pass. I said, then you piss it out.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  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 Hous. Now, listen, I don't want to get, I don't want to get conspiratorial here, but... But we're gonna get conspiratorial. They look into Eric Hous, and then they, and there's this thing about Turkish Airlines, right? Which I think that they were targeting you because you're bald and maybe you're going to get the airline.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  And I wear an earring.

• 43:49Speaker 01

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

• 43:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  If you are 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, if you were the mayor of New York City, have some fucking respect for yourself.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  So, can you, do you think there's any connection to those two things?

• 44:13Speaker 02

  You're darn right, I do, you know, um, the timing of it, the, the, the leaking, the public embarrassment and humiliation. 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.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  And then all of a sudden, they start...

• 44:32Speaker 02

  Ended up in the same paper, over and over again, The New York Times, over and over again, over, over and over. So, and a lot of people never read the indictment.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Of course not, anyway, keep going.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, they never read the indictment. The whole premise of their indictment, um, I was the bar president at the time.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  The Turkish Embassy was going to open, the president was coming. And they were going through the bureaucracy, the madness of it.

• 44:58Speaker 01

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

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Right, right. And I, and I ran on the platform that government must be more fluid and it can't be bureaucratic.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  I called the 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 the 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 to a darn inspection. The guy's asking for an inspection.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  So they said, well, you know what? The, the federal government said, well, um, they gave you upgrades throughout the years. And we're going to attach that to when you call them and say you were bribed.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Upgrades on a flight.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  On a plane, on a, on a plane. And say that you were bribed. They use all of this, these numbers.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  For upgrades.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  You're buying a regular coach class ticket, but the fact that you get bumped up.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Means you in their pocket, 100%.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 46:06Speaker 05

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

• 46:14Speaker 02

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

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  You know? But, but to, to take down a city mayor of the largest.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  The largest city in America.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  And then when you looked at the text messages that were leaked a few weeks ago of them talking about it. And hey, you know, the, the US attorney, this, he may have a political agenda here. Right, right, right. They, they, they, they found their text messages and their communications.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  So it exposed their?

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  And that, and that gets leaked by whom?

• 46:55Speaker 02

  No, they, they judge ordered it to be released.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  To be released.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Judge ordered to, to be released. But you know, if, if you really wanna.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  And they've dropped this case, right? Like, well, nobody will prosecute it.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  The US attorney said it was, it was a weak case. The new incoming US attorney said, so it was a weak case. They put in to have it dismissed. The judge said, basically, I don't wanna dismiss it on my own. Um, opinion with let me get an independent person to look over and make a determination what I need to do.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  That 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. Uh, we believe he should agree with the independent person with what he said. Listen, I did nothing wrong. How do you, you know, I mean, I lived a public life for over forty years.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  You know, and I know that, listen, everyone in New York, you're scrutinizing and watch, you know? I know I live my life. I did nothing wrong. Uh, this was traumatizing to my family. Uh, you know, but you're in public life, you have to fight hard. Now, the real test for me was fifteen months ago. When the indictment came down, uh, I could have easily said, you know what? Let me just.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  I resign.

• 48:10Speaker 02

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

• 48:15Speaker 01

  People were leaving you, right?

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Now what are they going to do?

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Right. You know, that's our truth. That's our, you know, true folks are.

• 48:22Speaker 01

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

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Listen, um, look, God, you know, I don't know your spiritual belief, but my belief is clear. God is good.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  You know that? And God, God, and all the time, God is good. Look at you. Sounding like a Baptist freak.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  You know, so, you know, but we have to live it in the midst of that.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  You know, cause.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  But it is a shot at your like political career.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  Oh, and it hurts.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  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?

• 49:02Speaker 02

  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, a book is a great book, man. Everybody should read the book. Cash Patel's, um, uh, um, uh, Government Gangsters.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  You should.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  On the pod.

• 49:28Speaker 02

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

• 49:33Speaker 01

  What is he and is this what?

• 49:34Speaker 02

  He's now the FBI.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Of course, of course, of course, we love Cash. 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.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  It's not used too much. It's real, brother.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Think about it.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Who's part of it? 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?

• 49:57Speaker 02

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

• 50:05Speaker 01

  I would love it. Do you tell him to come on?

• 50:07Speaker 02

  You should have him on.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  We would love it.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  The way he.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  He's probably listening right now, right?

• 50:15Speaker 02

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

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  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.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  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, of our prosecutorial powers. Now, imagine the Southern District, right? Southern District of New York. That's one of the most powerful US Attorney's Office. In their mind, they say we're sovereign. You know what that means?

• 50:56Speaker 01

  What do you mean they said they're sovereign?

• 50:58Speaker 02

  They don't have to answer to anyone.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  They don't have to answer to the president. They don't have to answer to the US Attorney in Washington, Attorney General Washington. They believe they're a sovereign entity. You're not elected. You know what I'm saying? Imagine an entity believing they don't have to answer to anyone.

• 51:15Speaker 01

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

• 51:21Mark Gagnon?

  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 you went.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  The timing does seem.

• 51:29Mark Gagnon?

  And then all of a sudden.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  He had your back at that Catholic dinner.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  He was like, it's wrong what they did. And I thought that that was like a really interesting thing to even say. He said it kind of flippantly.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Which I thought was more effective. Cause 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, whatever. But I've always wondered if he felt like, oh, they're doing the same thing to him.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  Come on, brother.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  You tell me.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Come on, come on. Listen, people say, think, think, this is, this is what they, what those who are, have Trump derangement syndrome are saying. Cause there's some folks, I'm not the type of cat that, I respect the office. The, the, the presidency is in office, is representative of our country. Presidents come and go, like mayors come and go. I, I'm a big believer, I'm, I'm a patriot. I believe in the American flag. My, my, my uncle died at 19 defending this country. Uh, you know, 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, in office.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  I respect Biden to the fullest extent. I respect the office. And so when, when President Trump was on the campaign trail, before he was elected, he was saying, look what they doing to this man in New York. He said, this is wrong what they doing to this man in New York. He never asked me for anything. I believe he personally saw what they did to, to, it is 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, cause 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 doing to Eric. They, he did it at rallies. He did it the day before the election, when he's at Madison Square Garden, a few days before the election, on that Sunday.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  He said, look what they doing to this man in, in, in New York. So there was never, they say, well, there was a quid pro quo. You are now trying to, uh, uh, be hard on immigration. I said, show me what I said.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  They refused.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  After he was elected, that I wasn't saying before he was elected. The same thing that I was saying before he was elected. You commit a crime, you need to get out of our country.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  That's the same thing that, that, that I've been saying. And let me just drop this on you that a lot of people don't realize, you know.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  ICE is a law enforcement organization.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm not going to say, I'm not going to corroborate 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 organization. That's not criminalize a law enforcement organization. And there's some people coming into the country to commit crimes.

• 54:15Speaker 05

  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 phrase it.

• 54:21Speaker 02

  Right, exactly.

• 54:22Speaker 05

  Which was a brave thing to do, because what happened to him was fucked.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 54:24Speaker 05

  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.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Right, well, our city, you know, this is such, this is some good stuff for your, your, your listeners.

• 54:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Our city is not allowed by law to collaborate with ICE for any civil enforcement. We can't do it. The law says that.

• 54:49Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  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 and after dangerous people. So, we can't collaborate by law if it's just for civil enforcement.

• 55:16Speaker 05

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

• 55:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 05

  How do you feel about that?

• 55:27Speaker 02

  And, 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 Columbia's 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 his 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 election, elected.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  I was saying this pre-election, that's not acceptable to me. So, those people who they rounded, they, they got four. Um, 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 war, handing out terrorist paraphernalia. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization.

• 56:36Speaker 05

  Gentle pushback.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  No, no, no. Do hard pushback, man.

• 56:39Speaker 05

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

• 56:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:42Speaker 05

  He's at Columbia, so temporarily, he's a resident of your city.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:45Speaker 05

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

• 56:51Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:57Speaker 05

  How about that?

• 56:58Speaker 02

  I'm gonna take that shit.

• 57:01Speaker 05

  Dummy.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying?

• 57:02Speaker 05

  Dummy.

• 57:02Mark Gagnon?

  I'm gonna take your great heart. I'm gonna take your citizenship. I'm gonna take all that.

• 57:07Speaker 05

  Birthday, maybe?

• 57:09Speaker 05

  Okay, go ahead.

• 57:10Speaker 02

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

• 57:16Speaker 05

  If he's, if he's saying all that, cool.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, we don't know the evidence. But let's, 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.

• 57:30Speaker 05

  Understood.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  That's their responsibility. And, and, you know, I don't know, Jay-Z said it best. I have 99 problems, brother, and immigration's not one.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  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 their previous administration did. They had me deal with, uh, I was, we were getting sometimes 4,000 migrants a week. 8,000 every two weeks. Do the math.

• 58:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  And so, I don't want to go in and start telling them how to do their job in immigration, and I don't want them telling me how to do my job.

• 58:13Speaker 05

  Real quick.

• 58:14Mark Gagnon?

  Should legal immigrants be afraid to practice free speech in New York City?

• 58:18Speaker 02

  I'm glad you said that.

• 58:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, that's, that's an important question. And so, many, uh, when I'm moving around my immigrant communities, um, and they share with me, you know, what we're, we're afraid. We're afraid to go to school, church, work, et cetera. And I mean, why are they afraid? Because I've been saying the 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 giving the impression that all of a sudden ICE is going into our schools, taking out 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.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  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 you something exciting that might, um, 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 have hit 15 home runs in three games. Are they cheating? Yes. Let's go.

• 59:24Speaker 05

  It's awesome.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  It is awesome.

• 59:26Speaker 05

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

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Why didn't they change the bats before?

• 59:31Speaker 05

  Yeah. Why are they the only team that looked into this?

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Smart.

• 59:34Speaker 05

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

• 59:40Speaker 01

  We're not going to tell other people what happens. Like let them figure it out on their own. And they have some good migrants. The Yankees have some good migrants.

• 59:47Speaker 05

  Oh, that's true.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  They've always loved the migrants. And look at what they're doing. 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, right? With Stake, by the way, the leader in, you know, US social casinos, you've been on Top Sports Political Events, use promo code FLAGGER for your welcome bonus. Just letting you guys know that. But when ICE is, this has been happening. 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. That's true. It's a sanctuary stadium. Okay? Absolutely sanctuary stadium.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

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

• 1:00:34Speaker 05

  That was throwing you over the wall.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Retired in New Jersey, which is not a sanctuary stadium. That is a big problem for a lot of these Yankees. Okay? So point is Stake has got your back. If you want to go gamble, obviously you're going to gamble. The Yankees are questioning it. Are we going to win whatever the championship in baseball is? Yeah.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  The World Bowl. Are we gonna win the World Bowl? Are we gonna 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 the show?

• 1:01:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  We cannot ignore the Trump part of this. Because, 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.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Wait, what is that?

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, they, they had mothers and families placed on FBI watch list, terrorist watch list because of their advocacy around some of the things that they're teaching their children in school. They wanted to acknowledge, they call them terrorists. I'm telling you, you gotta see what that Justice Department did. And, and a lot of people want to ignore what, what, you know, they talk about my case.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  But when Biden, when Biden pardoned his son, he said, he said, the Justice Department has been politicized.

• 1:01:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:01:59Speaker 05

  We're not like the Biden people.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  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 that you must absolutely feel. Okay, so.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  And we're not hearing, we're not hearing, we're not, no one from.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  We're not hearing the same criticism.

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  No one from the Justice Department quit. None of them saying, I think what you're doing is wrong, so I'm quitting.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  You know, I'm telling you, read Cash's book.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

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

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  You're gonna know the name in the books.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm gonna 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 if we don't know who the fuck they are?

• 1:02:57Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  And why do you feel, why aren't you telling me? You know the names.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  I don't know, no, no.

• 1:03:03Speaker 05

  Are you scared? Dyslexia, baby.

• 1:03:06Speaker 02

  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, but it's all in the book. He, he does an amazing job of documenting of the case history. Like you look at the, the.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Which case?

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  Oh, cases, there's a couple of cases. Like he, he goes into, um, uh, what was happening in the Justice Department under this previous, the previous administration and how the, the, the number of people who were under investigation were just political people, you know? I mean, the book is a good book.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

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

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  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. Does that happen?

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  What people told me, people told me when I criticized what was happening to our city, uh, around the migrants in the silent seekers, they said, Eric, they got, they got many ways to come at you.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  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 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?

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  I, I think it's a combination of, you know, people use, people weaponize the 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, as a weapon against, uh, political opponents. You know, I mean, when you, when you, I was, I, I, I'm facing 35 years in jail.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  Wow. Think about it.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  I didn't know. For some upgrades? For some upgrades?

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Think about it, think about it. And it, and it, and it, and it cost me over three million dollars.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Personally.

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  Hold on, so.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  Think about this for a moment. You know what I'm saying? This is, this is, this is real shit, man.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  So, so these people would a hundred percent be totally fine with you being behind your bars for thirty-five years, completely broke, just so that they could send a message Yeah. to other states not to push back? Make an example?

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  Read Cash's book.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  And, and like, have you spoken about this outside of this podcast?

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  Now, here, here, here, here's what, you know, and this is the most difficult moment for me for the last fifteen months, because everybody knows me as a fighter.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:51Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Which is.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  Everybody knows.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Police don't love that.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  That I'm a, right, 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, you know? Because to, to watch my name be.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Be slandered like that?

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  I mean slandered, you know? I mean, you, you have people writing all sorts of, you know, he did a quipper crawl. He, he, you know, he's a criminal, uh, he's corrupt. And you have to sit back. You know, and I'm like, my, my attorney said, Eric, you know, you call me every morning. Don't even think about it.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  So, so here's a question. If you're saying that this, or Cash is saying that this, this like, um, these people exist in government, there's a permanent government, as you will. And by the way, like, I kind of 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? 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 permanently. Now Trump is in power, there'll be another person in power. Are they able to like influence that group?

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  Or does that group just lay dormant while he's in power and wait for another administration? Like, how does that work when the?

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  You can't handle the truth.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  You can't handle the truth, right, right, right, right. Running a country this complex comes with things that many of us don't want to know about.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  We need to be honest with ourselves.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  Some of these operations, some of these secret operations that takes place, they take place across countries. I mean, just the complexities of ensuring and keeping us safe.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:07:59Speaker 02

  And so when, when I came into office as the mayor, there were folks who were in agencies. Cause, because agencies run cities, you know, the Department of Traffic, Department of Sanitation, Police Department. That's who runs cities. There were people who were in agencies for 30, 40 years.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Never been elected.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  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. P, you there for 30 years, you like looking at them saying?

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  This motherfucker, why are you telling me? All right, go talk your shit.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  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 of that.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, so it's a win-win.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  It's, 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 and wow.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  Layers and layers of bureaucracy.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  And they just keep on growing and growing, growing.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  They know that, they know the people. They, because remember, you, I, I, we have a hundred and 14 billion dollar 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 said, wait a minute, what are you, you sending 3 billion to this? You sending 3, 4 billion to this? And so those permanent people and. 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.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  And we have seen that. Like I said, imagine you are, imagine you are a mother.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  That's fascism, right? I mean, definitionally, like if you're going after your political opponents and you're using the power of the government.

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  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?

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:10:18Speaker 02

  Because that's who we are. That's who we are as a country.

• 1:10:20Mark Gagnon?

  Okay, I'm curious. We get frustrated because like we look around and we see stuff not happening. And you just pointed out here one reason why things can't happen sometimes is people in place for long periods of time.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:31Mark Gagnon?

  And it prevents you from doing something. Why don't you air them out? Why don't politicians air them out?

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

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

• 1:10:49Mark Gagnon?

  They're not fired. But 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.

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

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

• 1:11:06Mark Gagnon?

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

• 1:11:10Speaker 05

  Oh, Eric Adams isn't doing anything.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Right, right. Because ultimately, there are the consequences.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  No, without a doubt. And we, and we have been, in spite of the layers of bureaucracy. And I want to be very clear, we have, 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 they committed, they dedicated, I've been able to give them a great contract. They were not getting contracts that they deserve, give them a good contract. They're hardworking people. But all you need are are a few people in strategic places that can slow up the process. You have to identify them, you have to remove them when when you can, you have to replace them with good people that you want. But I would, the big thing that I want you to understand, that mayors come and go, presidents

• 1:11:56Speaker 02

  come and go, governors come and go, permanent government is real. And whoever's trying to act like it's not real, they're lying.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  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 three thousand, three hundred thousand government employees that like, make this city operate.

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  It doesn't operate without them, we need them.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  And they don't get caught up in the madness.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  You know, if you you call 911, that ambulance and that cop is coming.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  You know, that person on the other line, they're doing their job every day.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  And this is like an unbelievable task to run the city every single day.

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  This is brother.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  The fact that, I mean, 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.

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  I'm glad you raised that.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  I understand 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, right? I think, like, as a normal human being.

• 1:12:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

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

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  Right, well said, well said.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  Should we look into permanent government in every municipality?

• 1:13:20Speaker 02

  Without a doubt.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  And see if there's some blow?

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  Without a doubt, without a doubt, listen.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  How do you even say that without people going, oh, they're trying to dog?

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  You gotta ignore the noise, brother.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  You gotta, you, you, you, you, my claim to fame is that I know I love this city.

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  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 gonna tell me that people should be sleeping on the streets. And you can call me whatever you want. I'm not gonna lie, I'm gonna sleep on the street. You're not gonna 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 gonna solve all the problems.

• 1:14:20Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it just doesn't.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  All over the country.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  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 waste.

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  They do agree. They do agree. And the thing is, I keep saying this, and people don't like it. They get upset. You know, the Trump derangement syndrome is real.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:50Speaker 02

  You can hate someone so much that even if they do something right.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  You're blind to it.

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

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

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 1:15:04Speaker 02

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

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  They drew a dick on his Tesla.

• 1:15:13Speaker 05

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

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  A white dick, too.

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  But think about that.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Now, to be fair.

• 1:15:22Speaker 05

  They should get 40 years.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  But yeah, so that is, that does happen.

• 1:15:28Speaker 02

  That's a hypocrisy. When you say, okay, I'm upset that you do indulge in your closing now jobs. But you know what? You should close down Tesla. What about those people that wrote there?

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

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

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  And I go, but.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Hoping that Tesla shuts down.

• 1:16:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

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

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:16:09Speaker 05

  It is an American car company.

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

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

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  Think about it. It's the irrational thought process that people are lining up. I just wanna hurt each other. I want you to feel pain. 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.

• 1:16:40Speaker 05

  All right, guys, we got. Let's get back to the show.

• 1:16:42Mark Gagnon?

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

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  When he first got elected, call, 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.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  SALT?

• 1:17:00Speaker 02

  It's just called a SALT tax. It was hard on New York, New York City. And we have communicated. I said, I was very transparent. I wanna work with the President, not war with the President. You don't win warring. If there are things I disagree, I'm gonna communicate. Say, listen, we disagreed, you know? They took 60 million, 80 million, 60 million away from us from FEMA funding for the migrant. 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.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  So I wanna work with our national leaders. I'm the biggest, I'm the mayor of the biggest city in the country, in the most important country on the globe.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  Talk that shit.

• 1:17:53Speaker 02

  How do we not work with the President? I mean, it's ridiculous.

• 1:17:57Mark Gagnon?

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

• 1:18:02Speaker 02

  No, no, we, we, anybody say Mar-a-Lago, you know, it wasn't Mar-a-Lago, it was, I think it was Palm Beach. Other golf course and we were having real conversations about the city. You know, we were having conversations conversations about what are the needs of the city. We have some real infrastructure 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 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 say, I want to revitalize the economy. I want to put a chip plant up in the Bronx where we can make the chips of and not be held hostage by Taiwan and others. And I said, we can build the whole.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 1:18:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, we could build a hole 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 the city continues to grow. Now, they critique me speaking with them. The governor went several times to see you.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  You know, other governors are saying.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  White woman privilege.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  No, but to that point, like, I think it's, I think a lot of times, like, we focus on.

• 1:19:11Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  Don't go bird watching the stuff in Park.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  So, so there's this 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, a 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.

• 1:19:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  And, and Americans, we love bigger, we love abundance, especially New Yorkers. Like, all of our families came here for more.

• 1:19:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  So we don't just want the boat plugged. Like, when you say, I want to build a chip plant in the Bronx, I'm like, yeah, that's what I want too.

• 1:19:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  And I think an important thing for all New Yorkers, because you could affect New York City, is.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:20:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

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

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  Like, how do we get young kids like me, went to public school, like Al went to public school, who, how do we get financial literacy at a point, and maybe even like, an injection of capital, like, is there a fund?

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  Love that.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  It could be 500 bucks, a thousand bucks for every kid born in New York City that's invested in the S and P 500, so that they, they start, one, feeling like, part of the success of this engine that runs New York City?

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  Like, how can we?

• 1:20:44Speaker 05

  And America.

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  Well, also in America, but like, I want to set the precedent in my city first, and then the rest of America go, oh, I'd like to do that.

• 1:20:51Speaker 05

  The engine that runs America.

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure, for sure.

• 1:20:52Speaker 02

  I love that. Firstly, right, we're the economic engine of the state and the country.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:20:58Speaker 02

  And so, what we're doing, my commissioner of, uh, D C W P, Deputy Commissioner of, I mean, Commissioner of Workers' Protection, we're now connecting and partnering with banks for, in every school. We're teaching our young people how to open up bank accounts, how to open up checking accounts, savings accounts, uh, we're gonna devil, uh, dive into the stock exchange, financial literacy, because the greatest impact on your life would be, is your personality and your, your finances.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:21:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:36Speaker 02

  And if you don't know how to manage your finance, and by the time of, you get out of school, you in debt, credit card debt, you're wearing all of your, uh, 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 to manage money. What we're doing in our educational system, we've put so much attention on, um, you know, your A B Cs. We, we did not put enough attention on developing the full personality of our children. We're teaching them meditation, breathing exercises.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:22:07Speaker 02

  Yoga. We're teaching them financial literacy. We're 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. If you don't know how to connect with people, you don't know how to communicate with people.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Huge advantage.

• 1:22:28Speaker 02

  It is. And if you don't know how to manage your money, you could, yeah, how many, how many athletes, ballplayers, etc. Makes a ton of money and then a couple of years after they had it again, they don't have, can you know, nobody told them how to manage their money.

• 1:22:41Speaker 05

  And when you don't have, my parents had money, then lost money. And I, when I remember 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'd own all the time.

• 1:22:53Speaker 02

  Right, no.

• 1:22:53Speaker 05

  But when you get it and you can have it, I'm buying everything.

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  I just want New Yorkers to feel like a part of the success of the city, you know? And 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, you know? But like, if the stock market is soaring, I want to feel like now, maybe because at 35, I fucking finally bought a stock. You know, I'm 41 now, but like, when I, I want everybody, when they see the stock market soaring and they see these businesses, they're 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.

• 1:23:30Speaker 02

  Man, what you saying is so important.

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:23:45Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  We can't leave people behind, especially in New York City. If every other city wants to do that shit, 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. This is the greatest city in history.

• 1:24:03Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying, brother?

• 1:24:04Speaker 05

  We still got it.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Nah, we still got it. But, but some, but some states, 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?

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying. Right, right.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:24:17Speaker 02

  Right, right, right. And that's, and that's what, and that's what, that's what, 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.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  This is New York, baby.

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  Nobody will argue about number one.

• 1:24:44Speaker 02

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

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  I think COVID hit the city in a, in a, in a big way.

• 1:24:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  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 fucking ship get?

• 1:25:03Speaker 02

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

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  That'd be cool.

• 1:25:10Speaker 02

  We're gonna start, start teaching them AI on a ground level. These are all new industries and if we start nurturing our babies while they're in second, third grade, they're gonna grow up in these industries. We wanna teach them game making, not only playing the game, but how to become an entrepreneur.

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  Writing code and shit.

• 1:25:26Speaker 02

  Right, to write 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're just gonna keep you down here, just be happy that, you know, survival mode. No, you gotta take people out of survival mode and take them, you wanna get to the point of that self-actualization.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

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

• 1:25:56Speaker 02

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

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  It's not yours. You might not have attitude.

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  So, so, so what makes someone a New Yorker?

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I, I, first, first of all, um, when you feel comfortable throughout the entire city, no matter where you are. You know, you, like, you, you, 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.

• 1:26:33Speaker 02

  If they do that, you know, so if you come in, um, if, if with your own attitude, instead of saying, I want to incorporate into the city. I want to bring something in the city. Cause this is, the diversity of this city is amazing.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:26:48Speaker 02

  You know, that's one of the joys of being, not only when I was the board president, but being the mayor. I mean, you can go and sit in a Sukkot, you know, during a Jewish holiday, Diwali.

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:58Speaker 02

  And one day you could go into Ramadan, um, celebration. Uh, you could go to an Easter celebration. You could just, you know, be all these parades. I love all these.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

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

• 1:27:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  You gotta pass through somebody's neighborhood, whether you like it or not.

• 1:27:18Speaker 02

  Like it or not.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  Little Italy in Chinatown bleed into one another. And so we gotta be around each other and it's a very unique experience.

• 1:27:25Speaker 02

  It is, it is, uh, and I don't think, I think it's, it's, it's a tragedy that people don't appreciate and enjoy the power of the diversity. Our, our educational process is not only the sterilized environment of a classroom, but it is in the community, the streets. If you take your children around and, 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's, talk like each other, eat the same food.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Such a huge advantage.

• 1:27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, the diversity is crucial.

• 1:27:58Mark Gagnon?

  How would the dismantling of the DOE affect New York City?

• 1:28:01Speaker 02

  It's a good question. We don't, we don't know.

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

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

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  So there's a good, there's a, there's a perfect example where it's just like. I remember when, remember when Rikers, remember the horrible situation that happened in Rikers? And people were like, "We gotta 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 is an issue that you could change.

• 1:28:44Speaker 02

  Love your question.

• 1:28:45Speaker 01

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

• 1:28:51Speaker 02

  You gotta do something.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Something has to, maybe it's not to take away the whole thing.

• 1:28:54Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  But if you don't believe in some change.

• 1:28:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  Then you're just politicizing an issue that's gonna end up hurting kids in their.

• 1:29:01Speaker 02

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

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:29:08Speaker 02

  I mean, when do you, when do you get a return on your investment?

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:11Speaker 02

  So let's switch to Rikers for, for a moment. I got rebaptized on Rikers with the inmates.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 1:29:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I went up with the inmates last year.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

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

• 1:29:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, Rikers Island is the New York City's jail.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  It's where men go to find their sexuality.

• 1:29:31Speaker 02

  No way.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  This is a bad guy. This is a bad guy. I'm telling you. Dangerous man. You can't hang out with a guy.

• 1:29:42Speaker 02

  I can see the New York Post headline tomorrow.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Mayor Adams baptized.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  Rikers is, is our.

• 1:29:51Speaker 02

  This is a perfect example of fantasy colliding with reality.

• 1:29:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:58Speaker 02

  And that's what a lot of people who would like this job, you know, you know, idealism collides with realism. So, last administration, they made the decision, Rikers is our jail system. They made a decision that they need to close Rikers. And we, we had a little over 3,000 people that were there. They wanna 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, they wanna, want to build, it was gonna cost us eight billion, now it doubled, 16 billion, to build it.

• 1:30:44Speaker 02

  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 thirty-six-hundred people. We have about seven thousand people there right now.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

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

• 1:30:59Speaker 02

  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?

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  So we don't criminalize people who are dealing with psychiatric disorder. We give them the support that they need.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:17Speaker 02

  And take care of them. But people are caught on the romanticism of, we close Rikers.

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  Because they think that it will do something. It's like, it's not solving your problem.

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  Brother, you got seven-one, seventy-one-hundred people. And so I asked them, well, what are you gonna do with the seventy-one-hundred? Why you can't just let them go? You know what you gotta do to go to Rikers now, David?

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  So, okay, so, okay, all right. So you, you become mayor, right?

• 1:31:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Um, you, do you know, like, what happened with Epstein? Like, can you figure out what happened? Because it happened in the tombs, right?

• 1:31:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no. It happened, he was in federal prison.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:31:54Speaker 02

  He was in federal.

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  What's the tombs?

• 1:31:56Speaker 02

  The, the tombs is downtown in, um, Lower Manhattan.

• 1:31:59Speaker 01

  But that's just like a, like a weekend or like a weekday jail cell, right?

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  It's a jail also. Any jail is bad. Nobody wants to put people in jail.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

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

• 1:32:09Mark Gagnon?

  FCC, right? Like, it's like right next to it?

• 1:32:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:12Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah, it's right next to it.

• 1:32:13Speaker 02

  President, the president is talking about releasing the Epstein information, you know?

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

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

• 1:32:29Speaker 02

  You, you, you always try to seek information.

• 1:32:31Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 1:32:32Speaker 02

  But if they release, if you, if you, as Obama said, if you say it, they gotta kill you.

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  God. Oh, wait, so do you know?

• 1:32:40Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I have no idea.

• 1:32:46Speaker 01

  The cameras malfunctioned, the guards fell asleep, there's nothing else you need to know, right? And nobody said we gotta get rid of that jail. It's just Rikers.

• 1:32:56Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  Okay, and then, and then what's the guy from, uh, the crypto guy, what's his name?

• 1:33:01Mark Gagnon?

  Sam Bankman.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Sam Bankman, he's in, he's also in federal?

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  So this is just a federal holding house that you don't have any jurisdiction over?

• 1:33:09Speaker 02

  The federal, the federal is a different system.

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  You know, you have federal jurisdictions, and you have state, you have city. After you, if you in Rikers, you have, you're doing, you're either waiting for trial.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  Or you're going upstate.

• 1:33:23Speaker 02

  Right, exactly.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Speaker 02

  So it's a different system.

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  Where is Luigi Mangione being held? Is he federal?

• 1:33:27Speaker 02

  Federal picked that up also, he's also being federal.

• 1:33:30Speaker 05

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

• 1:33:35Speaker 02

  That's what the federal government is doing.

• 1:33:37Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:33:38Speaker 02

  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, uh, back then, of someone using a silencer, he intentionally, uh, sort out that, uh, sort out the CEO and assassinated him.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so back when you were, when you were in law enforcement?

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  Did you ever have any, like, run-ins with the Supreme Team? Did you ever have, or like, G-Unit, like?

• 1:34:04Speaker 02

  You ever see the video, Supreme Team video?

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  Which one?

• 1:34:06Speaker 05

  With you?

• 1:34:07Speaker 02

  There's a video, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm in the video.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  Joey? Because like, you hear about these iconic, you know, gangs like this in New York.

• 1:34:15Speaker 02

  I grew up, I, I, listen, those guys.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  I know you're from around there.

• 1:34:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, those guys were larger than life, man.

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  What, so what was it? Can you 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 hood stuff.

• 1:34:29Speaker 02

  Folklore was real, man.

• 1:34:30Speaker 01

  So, and what?

• 1:34:31Speaker 02

  It was, it was, it was.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  Was it like, complete control of the neighborhood?

• 1:34:34Speaker 02

  Crack just, cocaine and crack just came on, online back then, uh, you know, Kilo, Tinka, uh, the whole, those whole team. These guys used to drive around with Rolls Royces and, and Nigga. And they just had a real lock on the drug scene, uh, in, in, uh, in the city. Then rap started to come around.

• 1:34:57Speaker 01

  So they're telling the stories of it?

• 1:34:58Speaker 02

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

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

• 1:35:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know what was interesting? The level of violence was not the same as you saw during the eighties. Going through the eighties and the nineties. Back then, you know, those guys were about making their money. They would have a beef.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  And then the inner gang, once that started happening.

• 1:35:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. Eighties is when you really saw the violence, because it was just so much money. It was a lot of money on the street. People wanted to take over areas, take over streets. But back during, you know, when you look around, seventy-five coming to the eighties, 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 crack cocaine.

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  Because of profitability or?

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  Profit.

• 1:36:01Speaker 02

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

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  The cost per kilo also, you can get a lot of money, like twenty grand for a key.

• 1:36:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  Oh, God, so it's just so profitable. They can transport easily.

• 1:36:16Speaker 02

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

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  So they were corrupting police officers?

• 1:36:26Speaker 02

  Seven, seven mark, mark, mark boys.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  This is the Brooklyn.

• 1:36:29Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, seventy-seven percent. Yeah, yeah, you had the Dirty Thirty, because guys were seeing so much money being made on the street, you know.

• 1:36:37Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:36:50Speaker 02

  Well said.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  Now, I'm not saying you have to pay every single politician, every single police officer a million dollars or whatever it is. But they can't be living like below the poverty line or at it, because it would be too enti- they have so much power. It would be too enticing not to do that.

• 1:37:05Speaker 02

  And 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 Maryland Commission and others did their review over some of the action, they said it's important to pay a law enforcement officer.

• 1:37:23Speaker 05

  The highest paid profession should be cops, teachers, doctors. These are positions you want the best people going to.

• 1:37:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:37:27Speaker 05

  And if I, if I'm a cop making great money,

• 1:37:30Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:37:30Speaker 05

  It, 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.

• 1:37:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:37:37Speaker 05

  I don't think it's worth it.

• 1:37:38Speaker 02

  Good point, good point.

• 1:37:38Speaker 05

  You're gonna weed a lot of them out.

• 1:37:39Speaker 02

  And, and even teachers, you know, you go someplace like Korea, teachers are held to an extreme high level of respect.

• 1:37:45Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:46Speaker 02

  Uh, here, you know, we gave our teachers great contracts, we gave our cops great contracts, but you're right, uh, you should make sure that they're receiving, uh, the suitable pay that they deserve, you know? Uh, that's what it comes down to.

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  Do you?

• 1:38:02Speaker 01

  Can you still give out keys to the city?

• 1:38:04Speaker 02

  Yes, you know, we didn't, we didn't get, we, we didn't give you a key yet?

• 1:38:07Speaker 05

  That's, that's true.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  I didn't ask.

• 1:38:11Speaker 05

  Now we talk.

• 1:38:11Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? I didn't ask. I didn't ask. I would never ask for something like that. I would just wonder if there's some keys around. I would never ask for something like that.

• 1:38:19Speaker 05

  I just want a rent control department.

• 1:38:23Speaker 05

  Forget the key.

• 1:38:24Speaker 02

  You want a key to the apartment?

• 1:38:26Speaker 05

  You want one key?

• 1:38:27Speaker 02

  You want a key to the apartment?

• 1:38:28Speaker 05

  Rent control department, but this man deserves a key to the city. Nobody rides for New York harder than this guy and this guy.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay, okay, quick, uh, quick, quick, couple of quick New York questions. Okay, which borough has the most attractive women?

• 1:38:40Speaker 02

  Uh, um, I think, um, all of them have great shorties.

• 1:38:47Speaker 01

  Political.

• 1:38:51Speaker 02

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

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  I bet. She's writing notes right now. He's going crazy right now. Don't give him a mic. No, we just locked up the next mayoral, uh, elections. So don't even worry about it.

• 1:39:08Speaker 05

  But it is Queens, though. That's it.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  Nah, you're tripping, you're tripping, okay. Uh, you, maybe the best strip clubs, but, uh, outside, I don't know. Okay, okay, okay, uh, okay.

• 1:39:16Speaker 02

  We need it, we need it in 11 in New York.

• 1:39:20Speaker 05

  See?

• 1:39:21Speaker 01

  This is my guy.

• 1:39:24Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? We need it in 11 in New York.

• 1:39:27Speaker 05

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

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  I, I spoke to some folks, we may be ruling out 11.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

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

• 1:39:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. That's true.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  We gave them so many places, they can't give us one little 11. A nice nightclub where you You don't have to feel like a scumbag in a strip club, but there's strippers there. Yeah, they happen to go for some reason. Yes, what a great coincidence.

• 1:39:47Mark Gagnon?

  It's also 24 hours.

• 1:39:55Speaker 02

  I've never been to 11.

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Of course, because it's too far.

• 1:39:59Mark Gagnon?

  Sounds good.

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  Of course. No, we're gonna work on that.

• 1:40:03Mark Gagnon?

  Why do places have to close at 4?

• 1:40:05Speaker 02

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

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  A 24 hour district with red lights. No, we do not need that. The last thing we need, New Yorkers, go to sleep. Go to sleep.

• 1:40:22Mark Gagnon?

  We need that, because then you have illegal afterparties and you don't want that.

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:40:26Mark Gagnon?

  Not gonna ever been to those, of course. You've never been to 11, I've never been to the afterparty.

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  Out of nowhere, unprompted, we need an 11.

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  A moment to think about. That is, listen, listen, you want to make New York City abundant, right? Like, that's one of the problems we gotta solve.

• 1:40:50Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  It's crazy. It's a disaster we don't have an 11.

• 1:40:53Speaker 02

  It is, brother.

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

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

• 1:40:57Speaker 02

  Heck, no.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  He would have a dream of it. That old cornball, that other guy with a nipple piercing. He'd be dancing on the pole in 11.

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  How are we gonna elect, how are you gonna have a nipple piercing to run for mayor of New York City? That's insane.

• 1:41:15Speaker 05

  Queens, maybe.

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  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 nipple ring, saying he's gonna run for mayor. This guy's gotta be crazy. Against Adams? Against Adams?

• 1:41:36Speaker 05

  You really want to make New York great, legalize sex work, small business.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not get too crazy. I think it's the move. No, we got, okay, okay, here's, here's one question. All right, so Canal Street has now become like an open air bazaar. When I was growing up, it's a souk. When I was growing up, you could get the fake bags.

• 1:41:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  But there was like a little like, I got my PlayStation hacked so I could play the fake video games and shit like, but you had to go down into one of the underground.

• 1:42:04Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  And it was a kind of nice undercover thing.

• 1:42:07Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:42:08Speaker 01

  And, and sometimes, and I asked the cops that were on the corner, I 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, we're kind of like clipped and aren't doing anything here. Do you, what do, what do we do about a circumstance like that? Like.

• 1:42:25Speaker 02

  You know, and, and Deputy Mayor Daughtry, Kaz Daughtry, he has done a great job. What we've done, we've gone after the motherload and gone after some of the warehouses.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  That are holding or making all the fake bags.

• 1:42:37Speaker 02

  So if you go and just round up who's on canal.

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  There's gonna be another person.

• 1:42:41Speaker 02

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

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

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

• 1:43:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

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

• 1:43:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  We don't like to be told what to do, but we still like, no, the police can handle some shit. But, but also it feels like, is the city doing anything to stop this? The fact that you're going after the motherload.

• 1:43:28Speaker 02

  Yes, that's the goal. Cause we, we've, we've done a number of sweeps and the guys.

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  It's the next thing.

• 1:43:33Speaker 02

  Right. So now we've hit several warehouses and we're now zuring 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 illegal cannabis shops are making money now. So we want to go after those motherloads and, and get it to close down.

• 1:43:54Mark Gagnon?

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

• 1:44:00Speaker 02

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

• 1:44:03Mark Gagnon?

  Cause they do that in the hood, like.

• 1:44:04Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:44:13Mark Gagnon?

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

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  But now they do.

• 1:44:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:19Speaker 01

  They're there.

• 1:44:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  They're there in the corner.

• 1:44:21Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

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

• 1:44:34Speaker 02

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

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

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

• 1:44:49Speaker 02

  And you can't, and you can't throw up your hand, you know, the complexity of solving the problem is not an answer.

• 1:44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:55Speaker 02

  Um, out, there's several investigations that are underway now of going after the large shipments.

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  Going after the shipments. Okay, um, what is the best bodega boner pill?

• 1:45:09Speaker 02

  You know, and you know, if I answer that, I'll be on the front page of the paper.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Okay, any other questions before Mayor Adams gets out of here? About to be second term Mayor Adams.

• 1:45:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, let me, can, can.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, please.

• 1:45:23Mark Gagnon?

  You are definitely running.

• 1:45:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 1:45:25Speaker 01

  As a Democrat?

• 1:45:26Speaker 02

  100% as a Democrat. I'm running 100% as, as a Democrat. And listen, look, I'm, uh, uh, it, it breaks my heart that, uh, New Yorkers 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 talking, we laughing, but I know if you go into the crevices of your mind, there's something in your life that, you know, you're, you're wrestling with. It could be a health issue, it could be a family member, et cetera. And I wanted them to say, listen, look at all of this guy's going through. And he's still getting up every day. And he's delivering for us. He's building the house and keeping our city safe.

• 1:46:11Speaker 02

  And I'm hoping that they would draw on it when they're dealing with their experience. Um, Saturday, man, it broke my heart when I had to go on Ocean Parkway. And the mother and the two children were killed in that accident. Then I had to sit in that room with the dad and talk with him. You know, I do that so often.

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:31Speaker 02

  And I gotta tell people that, hey, you know what? You're gonna get through this.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:38Speaker 02

  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 record, man.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

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

• 1:47:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:47:09Speaker 01

  And I think it'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.

• 1:47:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  I don't know if we're taking Greenland, but sending J D Vance to walk around. It's a lot of market 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 plant 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 gotta subsidize eggs.

• 1:47:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:47:55Speaker 01

  But no kid in New York City should not be able to afford an egg when they're, you know, to eat in the bay. Give us that information that you got, what you work on.

• 1:48:02Speaker 02

  If I had to say one thing where we failed that, 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 tabloids to tell our success.

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  Right, the word of mouth is what is more popular.

• 1:48:25Speaker 02

  We have to, we have to figure that out.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  The tabloids are not gonna be in your favor.

• 1:48:28Speaker 02

  Heck, no, you know.

• 1:48:29Speaker 01

  But you don't need them anymore.

• 1:48:30Speaker 02

  Right. Someone shared with me the other day that was very interesting, that they are, people forget that they are, they're business, they're in the business to make money. And if it bleeds, it leads.

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 1:48:42Speaker 02

  You know, so talking about we building a chip plant in the Bronx is like.

• 1:48:46Speaker 01

  Nobody cares.

• 1:48:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:48:48Speaker 01

  We do, New Yorkers do.

• 1:48:49Speaker 02

  And I'm the, I'm the most clickable mayor in the history of this city.

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:48:53Speaker 02

  I tell them why.

• 1:48:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:48:55Speaker 02

  I tell them why. I say, I made y'all, I made y'all career.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  Exactly, I'm paying their way. No, for real, for real.

• 1:49:02Speaker 02

  They, they sit around all day. I say, I made, 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.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  Facts.

• 1:49:14Speaker 02

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

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  Well, listen, we're very excited, and I, I appreciate you coming on here. I also appreciate you, like, like, I like the fact that you wanted to have that contentious conversation.

• 1:49:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  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, um, I don't know, controversy and stuff going on, and I 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.

• 1:49:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  Let us know. We would love to make sure New Yorkers know that there's.

• 1:50:01Speaker 05

  This guy really cares about the PR of New York.

• 1:50:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:04Speaker 05

  I'm ready to move.

• 1:50:04Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:50:05Speaker 05

  This guy really cares.

• 1:50:07Speaker 02

  No, no, it's, it's, it's a good product, and, listen, brother, man, you know, there, you know, God has been good to me, man. You know, you, you know, you go from being called the dumb student in school, you, you know, you get arrested as a child.

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:50:22Speaker 02

  Be beat by police officers.

• 1:50:23Speaker 01

  No way.

• 1:50:24Speaker 02

  Go on to become a police officer, captain, uh, becoming, you know, a lawmaker, uh, you know. Mommy, before she transitioned, she saw her 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.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Amen. Eric, what about the White House?

• 1:50:45Mark Gagnon?

  Are you?

• 1:50:50Speaker 01

  For next podcast. Man, everybody.

• 1:50:54Speaker 00

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