New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in an interview on Bloomberg’s Businessweek Daily, dismissed federal threats to deploy the National Guard, arguing crime is down and the city is already collaborating closely with federal partners. He highlighted more than 23,000 illegal guns removed and falling shootings and homicides, while casting blame on former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s bail and cannabis policies for public safety setbacks. Adams rejected progressive rival Zohran Mamdani’s proposals to defund the police and shutter Rikers, defended limited bail reform, and sought to reassure parents that ICE will not appear in schools. Campaign controversies, he said, won’t overshadow his record on jobs, tourism, and his “City of Yes” housing initiative, which he calls the most ambitious rezoning effort in city history. Adams pledged to stay in the race despite weak polling, saying only election-day votes will matter.
Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on Bloomberg’s “Businessweek Daily”
Myles Miller: And we’re sitting down with the mayor here in Gracie Mansion. And the first thing we want to talk about with the mayor is the National Guard. You know, Donald Trump said just yesterday, if these mayors can’t control their streets, we will. And he listed New York among the cities under review for National Guard deployment. Do you believe this is a real threat to New York?
Mayor Eric Adams: Well, the partnership between the federal government and the city and state governments is extremely important. And I think there’s a role we need. My role is to make sure New Yorkers are safe and the numbers are showing we’re doing that. And the partnership of making sure guns don’t come into our city. And that’s what we want to continue to do with the federal government. We already collaborate with the federal government every morning, 10 a.m. [inaudible] city, state and federal authorities to go after shooters and those who bring guns into our cities.
Miller: When he talks about the National Guard potentially coming here to New York and in the event that that happens, is there anything you can do to counteract that? I mean, you know, what would it look like if National Guard members you saw in D.C., 2,000 of them on the streets of Washington, if they were here, you know, on 90th Street?
Mayor Adams: Well, the goal is the relationship between the federal government and D.C. is different than the relationship between New York City and the federal government. And again, our communications with the federal government is we got this. We removed over 23,000 illegal guns off our streets. We see it. We’re witnessing record levels of decreasing crimes, homicides and shootings in the first six months and shooting victims in the first seven months.
And so we are very clear, always have been. I have never moved away from the public safety as the prerequisite to our prosperity. And we’re going to continue to do an amazing job. And if the federal government wants to communicate with us and ask us to go to other municipalities and help them see what we’re doing, we’re willing to do that because the safe America is a safe New York City and we want to help any way we can.
Miller: You know, I want to ask you about [the] November election as it relates to that. You know, one of your opponents, Andrew Cuomo, has said, if Mamdani gets in office, then Trump takes control of New York City. Then Trump does put the National Guard here. Do you think that could happen?
Mayor Adams: Andrew would say anything to anyone to get elected. He created this. He passed the cannabis laws. I had to close down 1,500 cannabis shops because of the failed law he passed. He did the bail reform. That’s the revolving door criminal justice system that we’re looking at. He closed psychiatric beds. So every time you see someone push someone on the subway track because of severe mental health illness or stab three innocent New Yorkers, you have to ask yourself, why do we close those beds?
Raise the Age. We’re seeing young people are victims of crimes more and more and they’re shooters as well. These are all of his bills. I had to fix his mess. And so Mamdani’s call to defund police, his calls to legalize prostitution, his calls to cause the empty Rikers Island, they’re two of the same people. New York has come too far to go backwards with either one of them.
Miller: When I heard the president talk yesterday about cashless bail, you know, I immediately thought of you because you have been one of the people who has talked about bail reform. Your police commissioner talked about bail reform on Friday with the friendly fire incident involving the officer. The president signing an executive order directing DOJ to look at these jurisdictions that have done cashless bail. What’s your take on that?
Mayor Adams: Well, I have been clear and I don’t believe if someone steals an apple that we should hold them in jail because they can’t afford to get out. But if you are possessing an illegal weapon, you commit one of the seven major crime categories in our city. [And] you are repeatedly an offender. We need to look at the criminal justice system that allows you to continue to go back and you repeat the crime.
We saw what happened with the Customs Border Patrol agent. These are repeated offenders. We just had a shooting over the weekend. The individuals involved had several gun arrests. That just can’t continue to happen. And so using bail appropriately, I think it would help us deal with the public safety issue we’re facing in the city.
Miller: The president said, you know, crime has continued to rise when they have cashless bail. Is that something that’s happened here in the city?
Mayor Adams: When you remove bail on those who commit serious crimes, it will impact your public safety. We are witnessing that over and over again.
Miller: The school system comes back next week. Should parents fear for ICE to be in their schools? You know, in Washington, that was a big fear as they went back to school yesterday when ICE saying that they may come to some students’ schools. We saw a student in Queens, six years old, deported by ICE with her mother.
Mayor Adams: With her family. And so we want to be clear. ICE has not been in our schools. ICE only way they could come into the schools with clear judicial warrants or if they are looking at a condition where someone is fleeing, running into the school, a dangerous person. But that’s the role of our police officers to do so. We have been extremely consistent around this.
Children should go to school. They’re not going to be fearful of having ICE come into their schools. Their directives indicate that as well. People should go to the hospital if they need medical care. They should call the police if they need police assistance. And I know personally what happens when you fail to do that.
My rookie year as a police officer, I had a Chinese immigrant that was afraid to call the police when he was being robbed. I took action while I was off duty, but he was extremely fearful. People can’t live in the shadows. That creates disorder. And we don’t want that.
Miller: Let’s go back to your career in the transit police. It’s where you met Ingrid Lewis-Martin’s husband, obviously someone you’ve known a long time. I just– you know, we heard from you on Friday. But when you hear some of the allegations in the indictment and, you know, indictments just show a piece of what is being alleged, what did you make of some of the allegations that you heard?
Mayor Adams: Well, first of all, let’s think about this for a moment. Like I said, Ingrid’s like a sister to me, and I’m pretty sure you have close relationships in your life. And the worst thing you want to do is not allow people their due process. And when you’re dealing with criminal cases, every word you say could harm that person who’s dealing with that case.
And I’m not going to do anything to harm someone that’s like a sister to me. I’m very clear. She’s in my prayers. She has an attorney. And anything that’s dealing with that case should be brought to her attorney. I would not do anything that’s going to be harmful to someone that’s like a sister to me.
Miller: How would you say your week was last week? Because you had the situation with Ingrid, Jesse Hamilton as well. And then you also had the situation with Winnie Greco. What are your thoughts on what happened with Winnie Greco? And then also, you know, I saw by Friday, it was a week.
Mayor Adams: Yeah. No, not to me. I had 237,000 migrants and asylum seekers. I inherited COVID. I inherited a city that was [inaudible] with jobs. I had thousands of illegal guns on our streets, ghost cars on our streets. Cannabis shops are open. People rode off New Yorkers. Not only was I dealing with those who were committing crimes, I had to deal with rats everywhere. Everywhere that we dealt with, we got up every day and we did the job. More jobs in our city–
Miller: But the red envelope in a potato chip bag. I mean, when you heard about this, what did you think of it?
Mayor Adams: First, I want to go back more jobs in our city’s history. Twelve months of tourism, twelve months of Broadway, the best in the city’s history. Unemployment drop, crime drop, illegal vehicles off our street, all of those things. I’m not going to be judged by a red envelope in a [potato chip] bag. I’m going to be judged by how I improve the lives of New Yorkers. It was a stupid thing to do. I don’t understand the conversation you had with the reporter.
I don’t have the history of it. It’s not something that we would do in our campaign. I made that clear. I don’t know what that was about. And now she’s no longer volunteering or she was never an employee of the campaign and she [is] no longer in City Hall. So only the reporter and Winnie can explain to us exactly what that was about. I don’t know what it was about and it’s not acceptable behavior on my part.
Miller: Let’s talk [about the] campaign, because we’ve talked about the campaign plenty of times. Private meetings, public meetings, you know, where have you. You’re polling in the single digits behind Mamdani. You know, I’ve heard you talk about, you know, the state of the race when you were running last time, but that was sort of during the primary. Now we’re in the general election. Tell me, so what’s your strategies to win in November and how you how you think you could pull through?
Mayor Adams: Well, a couple of things, as I said over and over again, when you look at this distance from the primary to the election, the same time period, Mamdani was at one percent. No one called for him to step out of the race. And if we did, we would have been premature because he won the primary. And we need to be clear that that seems to be a fact that everyone is missing. [We’re] also missing the fact that I was in third place in 2021 behind Andrew Yang, who was beating me by double digits.
Some polls have me in double digits. Some polls have me in single digits. Polls had Andrew Cuomo up by 10 percent before the election. He lost by 12 percent. He was up 36 percent. So when you start to talk about the polls, the only poll that matters [is] on election day, who’s going to have the most votes?
I must do what I’m good at doing, campaigning, getting my information out to the public so they can see the success of where we were and where we are. This city has turned around. I mean, if we want to be honest about it or not, and I have to explain that to the voters.
Miller: So the message is Eric Adams is staying in no matter what?
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Miller: You’re not signing any pledge?
Mayor Adams: Yes. I’m staying in no matter what. Who created the pledge? Andrew. One candidate that was at 1 percent in the poll, all of a sudden said, whoever’s up by a certain number in September should win. That’s all Andrew’s creation. Trust me when I tell you, he creates these scenarios so that people can believe he’s doing the right thing. He lost the race, $35 million, up by double digits, didn’t get out in campaign, and he lost the race. People heard his message already.
Miller: Let’s get to some Bloomberg topics here. One of your biggest accomplishments that you’ve stated has been City of Yes. Just tell me what it took to get that through, housing [is] a big issue for voters and for people who own homes here, who want to own homes here. You have a lack of places to put homes, but the City of Yes changed that. Just explain how that’s worked out.
Mayor Adams: In so many ways, many people talk about affordability, but never use their offices to actually produce affordability. Like I said, five people running for office, three people don’t have a record. One person is running from his record. I have a record. City of Yes is going to produce housing throughout the city, because housing New Yorkers is not just Manhattan or Brooklyn or areas that were gentrified. It’s the entire city. Never before have we witnessed this most comprehensive of housing and rezoning policy in the history of our city.
We have built, renovated, and planned rezoning for 426,000 units of housing in the next decade. I mean, this is unbelievable when you think about it. We did it in three and a half years. That number is larger than twelve years of Bloomberg, eight years of de Blasio combined in three and a half years. We are the most housing forward administration in the history of this city.
And we got projects off the ground that many have tried, like Willets Point, 2,400 units of affordable housing. Flushing Airport, hundreds of units of affordable housing, union built. And so City of Yes is part of the overall package that we’re doing. Five rezonings in each borough, 50,000 units of housing that’s coming out of that. So we know New Yorkers must be housed. But you’ve got to match housing with using the resources of [the] city to make the city affordable. Decreasing the cost of child care, universal child care, no income tax for low income New Yorkers, none at all. What we have done–
Miller: Well, that sounds like no income tax for low income New Yorkers sounds a lot like a Mamdani proposal. And you know that that requires going to Albany to get that done. People may say, you’ve been in office for nearly four years. How come you haven’t been able to get that done? Just make the case for how you could get that done with four more years.
Mayor Adams: Well, no, we already got it done. There is no income tax for low income New Yorkers. And then what you do is each year you go to Albany, they call it the Tin Cup Day for a reason. You go up there to beg for your proposal. But look at each year. Each year we got exactly the things we asked for.
Mayoral control, we got the no income tax, we got housing reform, renovating our office spaces into permanent housing, low income housing. We got the public safety initiative. We got the involuntary removal. So you’re seeing each year we brought back what we needed from the city. So in three years and eight months, we’ve done a great job of partnering with our Albany lawmakers.
Miller: And that’s Mayor Eric Adams talking directly to Bloomberg Terminal customers and listeners all around the world.
August 26, 2025 Manhattan, New York
Sources: NYC.gov , Big New York News BigNY.com