Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - NYC Mayor on Deep State Hit Job, Trump Relationship & Epstein Files

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

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

The mayor is the second most powerful position in America. Do you know what happened with Epstein? As Obama said, if you say it, they got to kill you. Oh wait, so do you know? No, no, no, I have no idea. So tell us what happened with the migrant crisis. Oh, great question. So let's talk about the migrants. This cost us seven billion dollars.

This was the tipping point where I decided I got to publicly criticize the Biden administration. 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. Do you think there's any connection to those two things? You're darn right I do. Do you know who you think it came from?

That's a great question. And I don't want to sound conspiracy theory, but there's a permanent government. Is this like what people refer to? And I think this word has been used too much, but like the deep states or whatever it is. 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. Which borough has the most attractive women? I think all of them have great shorties. There Adams everybody. This is awesome. Thank you so much. Born and raised New Yorkers Alex and I.

Far Rock. I probably know who your shorty is. I have a shorty. I'm probably. This girl has got to be so gassed right now. She's gotta be telling everything. I'm his shorty and I rock. I'm his shorty. Do we know who that girl is?

It's like, what's that story? What's that shorty that used to come on with the real? The real world. No, the truth. They asked the person, the panelist questions and they say with the real whoever is staying up, there was a kind of truth. Something true. Lie to me maybe? Yeah. Now I'll get the name of it to come to me when it come on.

So you know, probably everybody's running around and saying, I'm the shorty, I'm the shorty, I'm the shorty. You know, so... Oh, so you have a lot of other girls claiming that they're the shorty. So it's possible there could be multiple shorties on Far Rock. What did he say? What did he say? He made that shirt one time and he's like, it's too far.

We got girls in Jamaica. 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 will ever happen again. From my research, he's been in the show for a long time. He's been in the show for a long time. He's been in the show for a long time. 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 will ever happen again. From my research, he went from literally one of the dudes doing the squeegee on your car when you have to stop signing if you don't want it, to mayor of New York City. Give it up for Eric Adams, everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, is that true about the squeegee? You know, but back then, you had to be creative to, you know, just help the family.

Right. And you know, I think that is what the total sum of your life experiences 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 of all of your experiences. You get in here, sit down, and have real authentic conversations. That's why people connect with your show.

Because of, you know, it's just an authentic conversation. Dude, this is one of the things that we were, as we were doing like Prep For This, I'm watching all these videos from you, and I'm just an authentic conversation. Dude, 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? Like, does it hit you? Like it hits, cause you say some stuff,

like obviously the Shorty and 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 kids. Yes, okay, okay, okay. Sorry. Have you watched this?

Yes, yes, I love this piece. This piece is like... This is some of my best work, bro. Greatest hits. All right, let's get some, so break it down. I love this piece. As a baby doll. All right. Could be just some. Break it down. I love this. As a baby doll. All right.

Could be just a baby doll, but also it could be a place where you could secrete or hide drugs. I'll be fair. Over the pillows. See, you can feel it. Those are just pillows. Those are just pillows. Like a pillow like this with a button.

Oh, the button. It's a perfect invitation to hide something. I felt something bumpy. I'll reach in, see what it is. This is the pillow. Oh, damn. A pillow. A gun. Look how fat I was. I felt something bumpy. I would reach in, see what it is. Oh, damn! Look how fat I was.

Now, each one of those scenarios that you saw, the gun in the pillow, the baby doll, those were real scenarios. You bumped into people. 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 a warrant. They're taking everybody. Oh, they're taking parents? 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. 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. I don't know what that is.

It's sniffing, you sniff, back then you were sniffing coke. Back then. Yeah. Oh. That's a Capri Sun. So 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, this is real stuff, man. This is don't tell me the life you're living. I'm telling you the life in the... You're saying you're violating your kids' rights? I feel like in your house, your kids... How many times do I have to say that?

You know, your mom would tell me in a minute, man, boy, you don't have no rights. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know who you think you are. Because this is an interesting story, right? You started out as a kid, and, 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 how you were saying it. And now the question 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.

What's the ritual? I'm gonna tell you what the ritual back there when I was a child. We got some crystals for you. And I see songs have a lot of energy. And I want to share that. We got a lot to talk about an hour and a half. All right. You know, what type of stuff? Crackstone has tons of that. Oh my goodness. Yeah. The best way to start the morning.

But I used to start the morning, every morning praying, you know, God don't make me read. God don't make you read. Yeah, in school. Because I was, I was dying. Dyslexic. Right, right. And if I read something and stumbled over the words the whole day, you know, kids are cute but you know what?

No, they're ruthless. Yeah, yeah. They were, they were saying, let's act like we're Eric Reden. It was stumbled over the, the over the, you know, right. And so the whole day you would go to that. Look it up. Look it up. That's what I'm saying.

When you look at it, and when you have this election. It was like, put that to him. Right, right. It mixes up the characters. OK. 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 doing numbers back then before numbers were legal. What does that mean to people? Because I think running numbers means like what? every day. Then I just started doing numbers back then before numbers were legal. What does that mean to people? Because I think running numbers means what? There's some people that are running a gambling ring and you're making sure that they get those? Great question. Great question. How does that even work? Before the numbers in the lottery system.

I sound like I'm snitching right now. How does it work? Before the lottery system was in place, there was a, you look in a newspaper at the race tracks and you see these last three numbers, digits, and you could bet on what those last three digits were going to be. 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. They definitely don't have their own gambling rate or lottery system. So that's what the lottery would be. And if you could predict those numbers, they would be privatized. 50 cents, 25 cents would give you a certain dollar amount. 50 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 382, I had a dream last night and I saw 382, you're better than that. People bet all the time on those numbers and hinting. There was a, there were newspapers that were in the community, whole industry around numbers. On the numbers, like giving you advice on the numbers? And so, what I learned later in life, like I learned I was dyslexic in college

and I heard a young lady listening to a documentary on dyslexia. 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, 30 to 40% of them across the country are dyslexic or have a learning disability. Wow. So if you feel they're struggling in school, there's no other opportunity, like they go to, ah, that's interesting.

So the crime is not only what they did on the street, it's what we're doing to them. Right, so being able to diagnose these things earlier, same with like mental health, a lot of people say. Yeah. 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 that they're done. How do you even fix dyslexia? What do you do?

All you do is learn differently. Your mind process, cause the words are mumbled, the letters are mumbled, jumbled, mixed up. But once you learn how to process and learn differently, how you learn. You can reorganize. Exactly, exactly. And so that led to, like you said,

all that crazy stuff you were doing. I was saying, why am I sitting in school? Why am I going there just to, you know. So once you become the A student, now you go, I need to put those other people in jail. Like those other people. That's how you feel. Like why would these criminals take advantage of my disability and put me on other people. That's how you feel. Yes, yes, yes.

Why would these criminals take advantage of my disability and put me on the streets? That's how you feel. Thinking of getting locked up. And so, you know, it was, you know. You know how many dyslexic people you locked up? Think about it. That's what I'm saying.

Think about it. You know what I mean? He's excited about it. And I'm bumping to. Reach your ass out of this jail. I'm bumping to people all the time who are doing successful in business. When they hear my journey being dyslexic,

they all say to stop me and say, Eric, you know, I went through the same thing, I'm successful in business. Because once you push through that, you find that you can get through just about anything. So when people run around now yelling, booing, oh we don't like this, we don't like that, because you're in New York, 8.3 million people,

35 million opinions. A lot of opinions. I say to them, that's all you got? You know, all you got is to call me a name? Listen, I'm so used to being called names, I used to get called names every morning. You know, so you build, man. What's the best thing you've been called?

Like is there anything you've been called where you're like, nah, that's kind of funny. I don't know. Probably asshole is not the top one. You know? So you have that as an asshole. You know? People call, listen, hurt people hurt people and they hurt themselves.

It's not like, you know, I hate you, Eric. No, people are hating themselves. And they express that hate you know through how they treat people. Because we're in a place now where everyone is so mean-spirited man. Yeah. They we no longer, people don't do this like this is powerful when you can sit down. Have conversations. Right. Yeah. We should seek to understand so that we can be understood. 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. And social media makes it even worse. Yeah, because you're getting like patted on the back every time you do it. There's like a reward system built into it.

Right, you know? And it's a coalescing of everyone who has a ill feeling. You know, it's a place like, you know. Yeah, now you're not alone with your ill feeling. 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 said, just think of anything you think about about there's a population out there I said, let me just find people that like grass and I can't be

No, you don't like the weed It's it's unbelievable how many people call us around there and and first of all I do I feel people should have a right to smoke cannabis if they want. My concern, as I said it when I was running for office, is that we have a real educational problem. And our children starting their day, these teachers tell me, Eric, these kids are high all the time. If you start your day walking to school and you're smoking a joint, you sit inside the classroom, you're smoking a joint, you sit inside the classroom, you're smoking a joint during a period, these children are not going to be ready. 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. I feel like most people are supportive of that. Like I think most adults in New York would go, hey we got to keep weed out of the kids and we got to 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. 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 like, it's your fault, no matter what happens, it's your fault. Even if you don't have the power to change it. Especially the mayor, man. 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.

I didn't even know that the governor was a woman until like I'm on the, I've never known that we had a blind guy governor. I didn't even know that the governor was a woman until like a month ago. I've never known that we had a blind guy governor. I didn't know. New York is not a state, it's a city. 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.

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 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. And that's why civics is crucial, so people can understand who's responsible. For these different things. Right, because when you're the mayor, I don't care what it is, man. It's your fault. Guy stepped in to me a couple of months ago, man, saying, listen, I'm getting divorced.

You know, it's your fault. You had sex with my wife in Far Rock. Some vegan guy was walking around here. my wife in Far Rock. That's the case is so people say well you know the the trains don't are not operating when it's supposed to that's the case is. So people will say, well, you know, the trains are not operating the way they're supposed to. That's the state, man. That's not the city. Oh, so wait, the trains meaning like, you're talking to the eight subways.

The subway, I'm sorry, the two, three, four, and five. The state is in charge of that. The state is in charge of the MTA. Right. Our job is to protect the people. I'm in charge of the police in the system. And what we've done in the system is unbelievable. A lot of people, when I walk in rooms and I say,

tell me how many crimes you think, serious crimes you think happened in the subway system. People say 100, 200 a day, 300 a day. We have 4.6 million riders every day. Yeah. We have six felonies a day. Wow. 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 and deal with the mental health issues down in the subway. So people are attracted to that. 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 p.m. on April 12th. So hurry up and get tickets to that. Also, 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 ComedyWorks South in Greenwood Village. April 20th, my traditional 420 show

at the ComedyWorks 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, and June 21st, and August 1st and 2nd, Kansas City, Missouri. Get your tickets to those dates and more at AlkaSingh.com. Love y'all, get back to the show now.

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, Strasburg, Hoboken, Indianapolis, Buffalo Rally, Poughkeepsie, Portland, Fort Worth, Austin, Stanford, Philadelphia, Levittown, Chandler,

Arizona, San Diego, many more dates to come. I will see you guys all there. If any guy's named Chandler wanna suck his dick. Nope, Chandler's a good city with good people. You don't have to do that. I'll see you guys on the show. Could be a girl's name. TheMarkGagnon.com. I'll see you on the road. Thanks so much, love you all, bye.

So there's a good question, right? It's like, there are two things. There are the data, the facts, like the reality of what's happening, and then there's the feeling that people have. Right, without a doubt. And we gotta be careful that if people have that feeling, we don't make them feel stupid for having it,

because being scared in the subway is a real feeling. And maybe now that there's more 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 it to Uber, but it's just a convenient excuse. But no, some of the girls that work for us also say they have that feeling. When I grew up in the city, I was sleeping on the subway on the way to school. 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.

So now ask yourself, because I'm big on that, back in 2022 when I said, listen, we have to deal with the perception and the reality. People attacked me when I said that. They said, well, perception doesn't matter. I said yes It does Remember and so what happens so now we have to ask ourselves. Why do people feel unsafe in the subway system? Why do you think because every day we take the worst thing that happens And every day we blast it every day every. 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 yelling and screaming, you hear noise, you hear it's not cleaning up. You begin to say to yourself, oh I feel unsafe. I feel unsafe. And so what I have to do, as you said,

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. 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. Cause we know the omnipresence of their uniform

can deal with that perception. Now we got record decrease in crime, but that means nothing if people don't feel safe. Well, maybe it's a combination of both of those things. Like maybe it's telling people, hey we are gonna 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 or whatever you do are down 50%,

so look at this positive influence that's happening. And I feel like all too often it's people going, no, you idiots, look, crime is way better, and then they're like, don't call me an idiot, fuck you. And I get some pushback on above ground. I walk around New York City a lot. I moved here, oh wait. 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 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 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. Yeah. That's why it's just so weird hearing that because I'm like, yo, I think a lot of times

square back in the day. That's what I'm saying. I might be safer than it was in 1998. But I don't think go safer personally than it was in 2009. A lot of the sentiment is like, we went through a pretty tough time in New York, right? Right. It was like, there were a lot of things who are quite commonplace. You started stealing because you're dyslexic. I make some letters. Let me just start running numbers.

How could you read if it was a dance board? But when you go back... How could you read if it was a Jansport? 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. It was crazy. And so, understand, that's why civic is important,

because when you see some of, like right now, when I became mayor, we were having encampments all over, people living in cardboard boxes and tents on the side of highways. And when we came in, we said, listen, people are 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 power, finality, stale food, dyslexia, bipolar, schizophrenic. And so we came up with a real initiative that said, listen, we clean up these encampments and we put people in housing. We got a huge pushback, huge pushback. The city council passed a law that said

people should have the right to sleep on the streets. So when you have those governmental entities that are extremely left in their philosophies. What everyday New Yorkers want, they're pushing back. I'm fighting tooth and nail to do involuntary movement. Like you said someone, you saw someone injecting themselves undressed, screaming, not taking care of themselves. I'm fighting to say, I gotta get this person in care.

He doesn't know he needs care. These are the battles we have that fall outside to scope what the mayor can do. And real quick. I'm just curious. We have CCTV everywhere, but why don't we have any security cameras inside the subway cars? Oh, we do.

Like, we're gonna house, we're gonna, like right now, there's. 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 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 because that allows us to pick up on any illegal behavior. We caught the guy that burned the woman to death because of that camera and that footage. So we do. And eventually every train is going to have a camera. 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.

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 without a doubt we we have we have three issues that overshadowed our success. We turned around the city. No one thought I could do it and they told me it was going to take five years. We did it two years. There are three issues that have... I love that. I can't even tell you you didn't. I feel less safe and I feel stupid for feeling

less safe. I'm like, this guy told me to turn it around. There's no more rats. The rats are gone. We got all the rats out here. Well, they're indicators. They're indicators of a success of a city. 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 decrease in homicides, shootings, the seven major crime categories, fourth largest

terrorism 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 into permanent homes, in year one and year two in the city's history. Drop unemployment around all demographics in the city, but particularly black and Hispanics by 20%. So there are indicators 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 ratings, 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 going to invest in your city. They raised my bond and then came back out of all that we went through. They said, we still want to keep this bond rating high because this mayor has managed COVID, managed 230,000 migrants and asylum seekers that came into the city. So they've watched how I manage the city.

So just the bond thing is people can invest in cities. They're called municipal bonds, right? Yeah, a combination of bonds. You have their industry bond rate is Fitch, S&P. These are guys that look at your cities and say, okay, what are we going to say to our investors? How well is this city being managed? And the fact that the rating maintains.

They say it, they scrutinize, they're hard, they look at everything, they have you manage your money. And they said, this guy has managed this city. You raised the city's credit score, take that racists. So tell us what happened with the migrant crisis. Great question, great question. Great question. Just think about it. 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. 100%. Random act of violence. One guy dealing you know, dealing with severe mental health issues that should not have been on the street,

stabs three people. Those shocked everyone. 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. Repeatedly. They made up their mind. We have 575 people that are- They made up their mind. They don't break the law.

You put them in jail, they're like- No, I'm committed to this. Can't stop on you. You can't have 575 people who are arrested for shoplifting, and they have been arrested over 7,500 times. 36 people who have assaulted people in the subway system have been arrested over 16 hundred times. With this revolving door system and trying to convince our lawmakers in Albany that yo, this is a problem, you know? And they're real problems.

So who can do that? Because I think a lot of people blame you for that as the mayor, right? And that's gotta be frustrating because you're like, yo, I'm not the DA. You guys elected the DA. Right. It's not like you even placed them there, right? So who decides? The judges have to get on board, but there was a great deal of reform passed in Albany that it was, conceptuallyually it was a great idea.

What was the concept? That was when you hear bail reform, discovery reform, raise the age reform. This is a lot of reform because we don't want a heavy handed criminal justice system when everyone is being locked up for no matter what they do. You want to give people an opportunity to have a life after making a mistake.

Exactly. But if they're repeat people, like you said, they're committed to that. 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. So what would start talking about those who are victims of these crimes. So what would your solution be? Because three strikes doesn't seem that fair either. So like, what would your solution be? It's not so much saying three strikes, two strikes. The judges must use a determination. Is it a danger releasing you? Right. Is it a danger releasing you? The judge has to make that call. Is it a danger releasing you, putting. Is it a danger releasing you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The judge has to make that call. Is it a danger releasing you, putting you back in society? Yeah.

If you're arrested in a short period of time for repeated burglary, repeated burglary, you making up your mind, listen, you can let me out as much as you want. I'm going to continue to do the crime. We have to prioritize law-abiding citizens over the ones that are breaking the law. The safety thereof. And that's what we don't do. Yeah. That's what we don't do. 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. We did. We did. Right, right. We're gonna talk about it.

Well, we can. But yeah, the 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 their court. So they're trying to solve that problem. And that's why I'm a big believer in nonviolent crimes. If you are a believer in it. I'm a believer that we should not be being heavy handed.

With the nonviolent crimes. 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. So we don't want to be heavy handed. And those are the alternative to incarceration,

give people the support they need. Because a lot of people think, OK, well, shoplifting is a victimless crime. That's not true. No, there's not. If that right aid closed down, Ms. Jones now has to get on the bus and go to get a drug store that's a mile away from her now that cost her money. The people who wrote to that right aid

are now losing their jobs in the same process. It impacts your economy. 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. So out of nowhere, we started getting in a large flow of migrants. Now, this is a city of immigrants. And it's a city that has always been open to immigrants as a reason that the Statue

of Liberty sits in our harbor. Sanctuary city, right? Right. It's a sanctuary city. Which is another separate issue. I think what you're saying, culturally, migrants aren't shocking to New Yorkers. I always tell people this. You can't even tell who the migrant is. Right.

But continue. So we started getting in bus slows. By design, right? Right. Right. From Texas. It was coming from Texas, but it was the failure that we didn't secure our borders. We were allowing everyone to come into 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 Daring Gap. So I went down there to see why people come in and try to explain to the government that New York City the streets are not Paid for gold because everybody think you come to New York City. Everything is fine. Yeah, so right Delicious meal. Don't gross me out. Don't gross me out. I'm still grossed out over there. It's vegan.

Okay, go ahead, go ahead. And so, people got upset, because they said, man, what you doing? You know, you letting everybody come into the city, you're paying for them. Very reasonable. Right. So what people didn't understand, I couldn't stop the buses from coming in.

The federal law said, you can't, 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. Yeah.

Give us a siphon. The federal law said, 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. That's the sanctuary city law. Right. But that wasn't built for migrants. No, it wasn't.

It was built for our homeless population. Exactly. Exactly. Hoping that you would take people from the homelessness, you know, going through a rough time, and then they would be housed. Without a doubt. Over 40 years in existence.

Yeah. And so... 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. 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. No, they shouldn't either. Right, right. No one should have to go through. I think 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. I don't know if that's how Koreans feel. 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 board. How dare you? It's like, we're not dealing with it. So who are we to say what the issue is?

And so 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 wanna. So now this is the dunk culture we're talking about. 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 somebody who was like working with them. You were hand chosen by the way.

It's not like everybody's a surrogate. 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, let's work together, and they go, no thank you, we're going to send the buses. Exactly. That's some cornball shit. I don't like wheels.

I'm not a fan. And so we lost an opportunity because when I went down to El Paso and I saw people sleeping on the streets in 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 to speak with the lawmakers. I met with the president twice,

President Biden twice around this issue. And his people, they were giving him misinformation. They were not being honest to him. Who were his people? That's, think. Yeah. Who are his people? There was 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, maybe they told him that he just forgot he was old. You know what I mean?

It's possible. But no, but I'm just curious about these people, because that's what we've heard a lot about sometimes with the Biden administration. I don't want to make this a political thing, but 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 what's going on, where's the disconnect here?

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's 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 believe in that philosophy. As part of government? Right. Here's what I said to the administration. I said, listen, right now people are coming into the country 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 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. It's a fantastic idea. And we're controlling the flow. You're not coming in and view part of a gang, which they were doing. They say,

hey, the border's open. Let's go. Alright guys, let's take a break for a second because I want to make sure that your energy is up whenever you need it. And you know who's gonna do that? America, America in a can, veteran owned. That's right, okay? Veterans came back from defending our freedoms and they said, you know what America needs? America needs to enjoy this country

for more hours of the day. They went to these other places, they were like, these places suck. I get why they sleep all the time, take a little siesta, do whatever the fun. But America is so incredible, we're going to help Americans enjoy more hours of the day. How do we do that?

Obviously you have the Black Rifle coffee, but now you have Black Rifle energy. Some of you don't like coffee. I get it. Some of you don't like coffee. You will grow up one day. This right here, the Black Rifle energy, absolutely fantastic. Project Mango, right? Probably some of those veterans went on that project. We don't have to talk about the details, but there's a lot of things they probably did. Maybe destabilize the nation

because we needed to get the mango rights to a certain... I'm not going to get into it. Yeah, yeah. This is not about politics right now. My point that I'm trying to make is the Black Rifle guys, they are coffee connonoisseurs They are getting the best beans in the world. Okay, I'm not talking about the ones sneaking into our country. I'm talking In the world they do not approve any of these jokes, okay, but they do believe in free speech They also have the best energy in the world. It's black rifle energy. Look at project mango. We also got the Ranger danger What is this one Ranger Barry range also Ranger Barry Also Ranger Barry, there's a lot of different go check them out You consume them black rifle coffee comm slash flagrant use the code flagrant 30% off your first purchase

I mean, I can't believe that they're giving 30% off the first purchase black rifle coffee comm slash flagrant use the code flagrant You can also find black rifle coffee energy and energy drinks and gear in grocery and convenience stores near you. Now let's get back to the show. Alright guys, let's take a break for a second. Call of Duty! Yes. Some might say the greatest video game in history. A lot of times people talk about Verdansk.

They talk about it, they go, oh man, remember that original map? How do we get that back? Yeah. Well, they heard your inner thoughts and it's returning towards them. Woo! A lot of veterans. It is the rich. So what you need to do, okay, is you need to right now, if you're one of those OG Call of Duty folks or you're a new Call of Duty fan and you're like, I need to right now if you're one of those OG Call of Duty folks or you're a new Call of Duty fan and you're like I need to understand why this thing got so successful I need to understand why this thing was so iconic I understand why

this game just had a stranglehold over the world well the reason is Verdansk it might be Verdansk it might only be Verdansk that's it to be honest it might be the single most important thing. Whoever developed that map should be the highest paid person in gaming history. Okay? We're saying it right now. There are new gameplay updates and the return of the Verdansk era weaponry. Very important. It's going to be epic.

So download Call of Duty Warzone for free and drop into Verdansk on April 3rd. Callofduty.com slash warzone slash flagrant. And remember, it's rated M for Mature. Now let's get back to the show. This was me when I was in Ecuador. Ecuadorians's get back to the show. 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. So they're looking for reprieve from the gang violence. Right. And then they came here to New York. And they were like, they over here too? Yeah.

That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Gotcha. too. That's exactly what I said. Gotcha. And that's what happened. People were like, when I said, when I go, because I spent the night in a migrant 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 say, the gangs are here. They're preying on us. And so when I say that, listen, you're a gang member, you're a recognizable terrorist, you commit crimes, you can't be here. You cannot pray on migrants and you cannot pray 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, I'm 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. They said, we want to come here because you 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. Almazar, the first Dominican deputy mayor in the history of the city. They came, spent the day with her. They met me at Gracie Mansion, had dinner.

They say, we gotta apologize to you. Wow. 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, closed, educated 40,000 children, put people on the pathway for citizenship. What we did with 230,000 people, 190,000 have left Al-Qaeda and went on to their next journey. What we did, no one in the country was doing.

But when you pick up the papers, you walk away and say, oh, this guy hate immigrants. This guy's anti-immigrant. Yeah, but I think that's one of those things where it's very easy politicized. I got frustrated at that too. All of us are kids of immigrants on this podcast, every single one of us.

So this idea that we are not supportive of immigration is kind of absurd. Also, coming in New York, you've heard those criticisms in New York, you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? Somebody from Maine is going to tell me about immigrant. I'm a New York immigrant. If anything, you almost do the opposite where it's like, oh, they're putting migrants in hotels and they're putting them up and they're taking over city blocks. So it's almost the opposite where it's almost

too accommodating. That's what I was saying. But now people don't talk about that. So it's like you either hate immigrants or they're staying at the Four Seasons. Right. But I 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, 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. Without a doubt, without a doubt. 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. What you just stated, and here's the impact of this. This is what's deep about this moment. That they were not standing, they were standing in tents. Randall's Island, Creedmoor, we put up a tent, Floyd Bennefield, tents. I went to go to these tents. Now it was the best we could do in the circumstances. Roosevelt Hotel was our

intake center. So you go to Roosevelt first and then you go to Roosevelt. You go to one of these other locations. Gotcha. But once the narrative hits the news, you go to Nick Game, sit in courtside, migrate to America, you sit courtside and fight. That was not the reality. But then, this is how, this is what angered me. This was the tipping point where I decided I got to publicly criticize the administration, the Biden administration. Yeah, when did that happen? Because that was very brave, I thought.

The money, this cost us $7 billion. Now we have a fixed budget. Yeah. 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 lights, your gas, your budget for your repairs. All of a sudden the roof caves in, you want your insurance

company coming to give you your payment. I think that's very reasonable. And if the insurance company tells you, hey, we're not giving you anything. Now you got to take it out of somewhere. So I had to take $7 billion out of the services for our city. The long-term impact of that is what troubles me. Because I could have taken $200 million of that to go to chronically absent children, because we have a lot of children that are chronically absent after COVID. I could have taken $500 million and went to my adult care. 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 got to pay for it. Right. Yeah, I understand what that feels. You know what their response after going there all the time? What? They say, Eric, this is like a gold bladder.

It's going to hurt now, but in the past. I said, then you piss it out. 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, criticize them, right? A little bit afterwards, all of a sudden, the Justice Department looks into Eric Adams. Now listen, I don't want to get conspiratorial

here. I do. But we're going to get conspiratorial. They look into Eric Adams 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. And I wear an air ring. Exactly. It's discriminatory. I think that they were targeting you because you're bald and maybe you're going to get the hair cut. And I wear earrings. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's discriminatory. So this is what bothered me the most.

It was the dollar amount. Right. If you are being corrupted, it better be more than 100 fucking thousand dollars. Please God, now listen, I know there's a level of corruption in government all over the place, but if you were the mayor of New York City,

have some fucking respect for yourself. 100 million dollars in New York? It's got to be 20 million or something. So can you, do you think there's any connection to those two things? You're darn right I do. You know, the timing of it, the leaking, the public embarrassment and humiliation. What was the leaking? 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.

And then all of a sudden they start… Ending up in the same paper over and over again. The New York Times over and over again, over and over again. And a lot of people never read the indictment. Of course not. Anyway, keep going. They never read the indictment. The whole premise of their indictment, I was the bar president at the time, the Turkish

embassy was going to open, the president was coming, and they were going through the bureaucracy, the madness of it. If you've ever built a thing or renovated in this fucking city. Right, right. And I ran on the platform that government must be more fluid and it can't be bureaucratic. Yeah. 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 their expectation. All of this is in the indictment. Let me know and I'll manage their 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. So they said, well, you know what?

The federal government said, well, they gave you upgrades throughout the years and we're going to attach that to when you call them and say you a bride upgrades on a floor on the plane on a plane and say that you were bride they use all of this these numbers for upgrades you buy an irregular coach class ticket but the fact that you get bumped up right means you in their pocket exactly why did you get bumped up? Because I didn't even know that secret. Who hasn't flown? Who hasn't flown and said, hey, I see you got an empty seat in business. You know what I'm saying?

But to take down a city mayor of the largest city in America, and you know what I'm saying? But to take down a city mayor of the largest city in America, and then when you looked at the text messages that were leaked a few weeks ago of them talking about it, and hey, the US attorney, he may have a political agenda here. Right, right, right. They found their text messages and their communications. So it exposed their agenda. Yes, right, right. They found their text messages and their communications. So it exposed their? Yes, yes, yes. And that gets leaked by whom?

No, the judge ordered it to be released. Oh, to be released. Right, right. Oh my God. The judge ordered it to be released. But you know, if you really wanna understand. And they've dropped this case, right? Well, nobody will prosecute it?

The US attorney said it was a weak case. The.S. attorney said it was a weak case. The new incoming U.S. attorney said it was a weak case. They put in to have it dismissed. The judge said, basically, I don't want to dismiss it on my own opinion. Let me get an independent person to look over and make the determination what I need to do. 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. We believe he should agree with the independent person what he said. Listen, I did nothing wrong. How do you, you know what I mean? I lived a public life for over 40 years. And I know that, listen, everyone in New York, you're scrutinizing and watch.

I know I lived my life, I did nothing wrong. This was traumatizing to my family. But you in public life, you have to fight hard. Now, the real test for me was 15 months ago when the indictment came down, I could have easily said, you know what, let me just... I resign. Right. People would say, oh, you need to resign. I was like, I'm not going anywhere. I didn't have to wrong.

People were leaving you, right? Right. People were leaving you aside. Right, right, right. And now what are they going to do? Right. You know, that's how true folks are. Because who else would hire somebody that left at the first sign of trouble? Listen, look, God, you know, I don't know your spiritual belief,

but my belief is clear, God is good, man. You know that? And God, God, and all the time, God is good. Look at you, man. I sound like a Baptist preacher. You know, so, you know, but we have delivered in the midst of that. Yes.

You know, because- But it is a shot at your political career. Is it frustrating to not, or do you know who you think it came from? Is Biden aware of this, or is it the people that are underneath Biden? Is it completely separate from the- That's a great question. That's a great question. There are a lot of people, 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 what book is a great book, man? Everybody should read the book. Cash Patel's Government Gangsters. You should read that book, man. Cash breaks this down.

What is he, and is this what some- He's now the FBI director. Of course, of course, of course, we like 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. It's not you too much, it's real brother. Oh really?

It's brother, think about it. It's not you too much. It's real, brother. Oh, really? It's brotherhood. Think about it. Who's part of it? Like, what, are there current senators and that kind of stuff, or is it people that we don't even know but they're always existing? You know, I have never seen anyone do such a good job of defining that deep state. You should have him on. I would love to.

Tell him to come on. You should have him on. We would love it. The way he... He's probably listening right now, right? The way... Because he was in. It's like me talking about what happens in NYPD after 22 years. 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, 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 prosecutorial powers. Now imagine the Southern District, right? Southern District of New York. That's one of the most powerful U.S. Attorneys' offices. In their mind, they say, we're sovereign.

You know what that means? What do you mean they said they're sovereign? They don't have to answer to anyone. They don't have to answer to the President. They don't have to answer to the U.S. Attorney in Washington, Attorney General in Washington, they believe they're a sovereign entity. You're not elected. Imagine an entity believer, they don't have to answer to anyone but their entity. You have to answer to the people. And ultimately the people that we put in power. 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 to Mar-a-Lago. The went to my bar and then all of a sudden. He had your back at that Catholic dinner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 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, which I thought was more effective. Cause he could have went and made a big deal of it. He was like, yeah, 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're doing. And I've always wondered if he felt, and people are going to say we're apologizing for Trump or whatever, but I've always wondered if he felt like, oh, they're doing the same thing to him. Come on, brother.

You tell me. Come on, come on. Listen, people say, this is what those who have Trump derangement syndrome are saying. Because there's some folks, I'm not the type of cat that I respect the office. The presidency is in office, it's representative of our country. Presidents come and go, like mayors come and go. I'm a big believer, I'm a patriot.

I believe in the American flag. My uncle died at 19 defending this country. 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 office. I respected Biden to the fullest extent. I respect the office.

And so when President Trump was on the campaign trail, before he was elected, he was saying, look what they're doing to this man in New York. He said, this is wrong what they're doing to this man in New York. He never asked me for anything. I believe he personally saw what they did to, 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, because of everything he had on his campaign trail, he didn't have to come out on his campaign trail and say, this is wrong, they're doing to Eric. They 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. He said, look what they're doing to this man in New York. So there was never, they say, well, there was a quid pro quo. You are now trying to be hard on immigration. I said, show me what I said 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.

That's the same thing that I've been saying. And let me just drop this on you that a lot of people don't realize, you know, ICE is a law enforcement organization. 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 make people not like ICE, that's your opinion. But it's a law enforcement organization. That's not criminalized law enforcement organization. And there's some people coming into the country to commit

crime. But you had them 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 pronounce it. Right, exactly. Which was a brave thing to do because what happened to him was fucked. Right. 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

ICE. Well, our city, you know, this is some good stuff for your listeners. Our city is not allowed by law to collaborate with ICE for any civil enforcement. We can't do it. The law says that. But the law allows us to collaborate for criminal enforcement. If somebody's committing a crime, we can collaborate them. We have joint task forces with FBI, Homeland Security, all of these entities that we collaborate with all the time to go after dangerous people terrorists And other dangerous people so we can't collaborate by law if it's just for civil enforcement Okay, so what do you what what do you think of what we're reading? I don't know what's real

It seems like students leading protests with green cards getting deported in your city Yeah, yeah, how do you feel about that? And I wanna 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. My uncle died defending this country and I dare anybody to go on, desecrate our statues, desecrate our war memorial, destroy property.

That's not acceptable to me. So that tone didn't come after Trump was elected. I was saying this pre-election, that's not acceptable to me. So those people who they rounded, they got for 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 law, handing out terrorist paraphernalia.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. Gentle pushback. No, no, no. Respectful. Do a hard pushback, man. Okay, good. This is a resident of your city. Yes. He's at Columbia. So temporarily he's a resident of your city.

Right. Wouldn't it be, wouldn't the onus be on you to look into what happened? Was it lawful? Was he breaking laws? No You you you you filled deaf to America You know what? If he's saying all that, cool. Yeah, we don't have evidence. But unless 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. Understood. That's their responsibility.

And, you know, I'm not saying that the federal government controls immigration. I'm saying that the federal government controls immigration. I'm saying that the federal government controls immigration. I'm immigration. The federal government controls immigration. Understood. That's their responsibility. And, you know, I don't know who Jay-Z said it best. I have 99 problems, brother, and immigration is not one. 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 the previous administration did.

They had me deal with, we were getting sometimes 4,000 migrants a week. 8,000 every two weeks due to mass. And so I don't wanna 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. Real quick. Should legal immigrants be afraid

to practice free speech in the U.K.? I'm glad you said that. Yeah, that's. Yeah, no, that's an important question. And so many, when I'm moving around my immigrant communities and they share with me what we know, what we're afraid. We're afraid to go to school, church, work, et cetera. And why are they afraid?

Because I've been saying the same thing. Go to school, go to the 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 our children, going to hospitals. 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. 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 might 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. Is that awesome? It is awesome It's awesome. It's legal cheating, which is what we all do. That's everybody. Why didn't they change the bats before? Yeah, why are they the only team that looked into this? Smart. 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. We're not gonna tell other people what happened. Like let them figure it out on their own. And they got some good migrants. What's up? The Yankees have some good migrants. That's true. They've always loved the migrants. And look at what they're doing. They're fucking hitting home runs. 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, U.S. social casinos, you've been on

top sports, political events, used promo code flagrant 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 If you leave a couple strikeouts Jersey which is not a sanctuary Problem for a lot of these things. Okay, so point is steak has got your back If you want to go gamble, obviously you're gonna gamble the Yankees are question it

Are we gonna win whatever the championship in baseball is? Yeah going to gamble the Yankees are questioning. Are we going to win whatever the championship in baseball is? Yeah. The World's the World Bowl. Are we going to win the World Bowl? Are we going to win the Super World Bowl? Yes, we are. Okay. Just like we have all throughout our childhood. This is what we do. Great city in the entire world. Can we get back to the show? Yeah. We cannot ignore the Trump part of this, because what Biden's Justice Department did was unbelievable. You place mothers on FBI watch lists because you are worried about what they're being taught to children in school. Wait, what is that?

Yeah, you know, they had mothers and families placed on FBI watch lists, terrorist watch lists, 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 got to see what that Justice Department did. And a lot of people, when ignored, when, you know, they talk about my case yeah but when Biden when Biden pardoned his son he said he said that was the justice department has been politicized yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like it is a tricky thing because you know, I'm partnering my kid 100% if I have that power But at the same time I understand the the frustration

Absolutely feel okay. So we're not here. We're not hearing when no one for here the same criticism No one from the Justice Department quit None of them say I think what you're doing is wrong. So I'm quitting. Yeah, you know, I'm telling you recashes book wrong so I'm quitting. I'm telling you, read Cash's book. This is the thing that I think is really frustrating. We know your name, we know Biden's name, we know Hunter's name, we know Trump's name. These people that you were talking about or Cash was talking about, none of us know their names. You're going to know their name in the books. Okay, I'm going to look because 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? We don't know who the fuck they are. Right, right. And why do you feel, why aren't you telling me? You know the names. Are you scared? I don't know, no, no. Dyslexia, baby. No, no, no. On your 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 does an amazing job of documenting the case history. Like you look at the- Which case? Oh, the cases. There's a couple of cases. Oh, got it, got it, got it, got it. Like he goes into what was happening in the Justice Department under this previous, the

previous administration and how the number of people who were under investigation was just political people. You know, I mean, the book is a good book. Do you get a nudge, like when you start speaking out? Yes. 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. People told me when I criticized what was happening to our city around the migrants and the silent seekers,

they said, Eric, they got many ways to come at you. Really? Right. And is this commonplace within politics? Did you experience this at borough president when you had strong opinions? Were you like, hey, if you go against the administration, 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? 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 a weapon against political opponents. I mean, I'm facing 35 years in jail. Think about it. I didn't know.

For some upgrades? For some upgrades? Think about it. Think about it. And it cost me over $3 million. Personally. For some upgrades? For some upgrades? Think about it. Think about it. And it cost me over $3 million. Personally. Right.

Hold on. So. Think about this for a moment. You know what I'm saying? This is real shit. So these people would 100% be totally fine with you being behind bars for 35 years, completely broke, just so that they could send a message to other states not to push back? Is that the idea?

Yeah. Read Cash's book. Wow. And have you spoken about this outside of this podcast? No. Here's what, and this is the most difficult moment for me for the last 15 months, because everybody knows me as a fighter. Everybody knows this guy never stopped fighting.

This guy was in the police department and he was criticized in the police department while he was in the police department. Everybody knows 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 watch my name be slandered like that, I mean, slandered, you know, I mean, you, you have people writing all sorts of, you know, he did a quipro crawl. He, you know, he's a criminal. He's corrupt. And you have to sit back, you know, he did a quipro crawl, he's a criminal, he's corrupt, and you have to sit back. And I'm like, my attorney said, Eric, you know, you call me every morning, don't even think about it. So here's the question, if you're saying that this,

or Cash is saying that this, like, 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. Right. 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 exists, right? Kind of permanently. Now Trump is in power, there'll be another person in power. Are they able to influence that group? Or does that group just lay dormant while he's in power and wait for another administration? How does that work when the- That's a great question, great question.

First of all, I think it was Jack Nicholson and I think a few good men, we said, you really don't want to know the truth. You can't handle the truth. You can't handle the truth. Right, right, right. Running a country this complex comes with things that many of us don't want to know about. Of course. We need to be honest with ourselves.

Absolutely. Some of these operations, some of these secret operations that take place, they take place across countries. I mean, just the complexities of ensuring and keeping us safe. Absolutely. And so when I came into office as the mayor, there were folks who were in agencies, because agencies run cities, you know, the Department of Traffic, Department of Sanitation, Police Department, that's what runs cities.

There were people who were in agencies for 30, 40 years. Never been elected. Right. 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, if you there for 30 years, you like looking at them saying,

that's motherfucka, why you telling me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, go talk your shit. Right, right, right. Wow, and then you ultimately deal with the failures of those unelected officials. Now, if those unelected officials do something good, you do get the benefit. Yeah, no, so it's a win-win. It's, but there are most circumstances, elected officials. Now, if those unelected officials do something good, you do get the benefit.

Yeah, no. So it's a win-win. 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. Layers and layers of bureaucracy. And they just keep on growing and growing and growing. They know the people. Because remember, we have a $114 billion budget. 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, you're sending $3 billion

to this? You're sending $3, $4 billion to this? And so those permanent people, 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. And we have seen that. Like I said, imagine you are a mother. 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. 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. 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. Because that's who we are. That's who we are as a country. Okay, I'm curious, we get frustrated because like we look around and we see stuff not happening,

and you just pointed out here's one reason why things can't happen sometimes, is people in place for long periods of time, and it prevents you from doing something. Why don't you air them out? Why don't politicians air them out? No, and you do. And you're able to remove those who are not have workers protection. And then you've got a lot of laws to protect people.

You can't just fire just to be fired. 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. Why don't we put a name and face to these you know bureaucratic kingpins. Because we look at it as like, oh, nothing's getting done. Oh, Eric Adams isn't doing anything. Because ultimately, you bear the consequences. No, without a doubt. And we have been, in spite of the layers of bureaucracy,

and I want to be very clear, 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're committed, they're dedicated. I've been able to give them a great contract. They were not getting contracts that they deserve.

Give them good contract. They're hardworking people. But all you need are a few people in strategic places that can slow up the process. You have to identify them. You have to remove them when you can. You have to replace them with good people that you want. But the big thing that I want you to understand that 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. So just on that like dealing with the bureaucracy and I think it's important that you said that right there are like 300,000 government employees that like make this city operate. Yes, without a doubt. It doesn't operate without them. We need them. And they don't get caught up in the madness. Yeah. You know, if you call 911, that ambulance and that cop is coming.

Exactly. That man is out there in the crowd in the public. They're doing their job every day. And this is like an unbelievable task to run this city every single day. This is like an unbelievable task to run this city every single day. This is brother. I mean, anyway. So I have a lot of, like, unbelievable amount of respect for them. And 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- I'm glad you raised that. I understand how people feel about, like, 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 as a normal human being. 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 mean that there's more money for other programs? Those people need to get hired for those other programs as well. It's not like we're just going to cut jobs forever. Right. Well said.

Well said. Should we look into permanent government in every municipality and see if there's some blow? Without a doubt. Listen. How do you even say that without people going, oh, they're trying to doze. You got to ignore the noise, brother. My claim to fame is that I know I love this city 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 going to tell me that people should be sleeping on the streets. And you can call me whatever you want. I'm not going to let them sleep on the street. You're not going to 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 have to go in being your honest, authentic self. And that's what we do every day. We're not going to solve all the problems. 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. Yeah, it just doesn't-

All over the country. 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. 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. You know, the Trump derangement syndrome is real. You can hate someone so much that even if they do something right. You're blind to it.

Right. You know that? And you can like or dislike Elon, but you don't have any right blowing up someone's Tesla. Right, exactly. You don't have any right. Breaking the law. I mean, who do you think you are?

You don't have any right going in and destroying. They drew a dick on his Tesla. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. A white dick too. A small white dick. Now, to be fair, they should get 40 years. But yeah, so that is, that does happen. That's a hypocrisy. When you say, okay, I'm upset that you are doing Doge and you're closing down jobs, but you know what?

You should close down Tesla. What about those people that work there? Dude, I literally said that I was on this guy's podcast and I was like, listen, I totally understand you, Theo Vaughn's podcast, and I was like, I totally understand that people who are critical of Elon, there's reasons to be critical. Everybody should have the freedom to be critical. Right, right. And I go, but hoping that Tesla shuts down.

Right. Like, I understand you're upset that people lost jobs. It doesn't improve the situation if you make more people lose jobs, right? Yeah, he's the richest guy in the world. He's not he's gonna be okay, right? The people that work there so you're upset these people lost jobs. You're like, I know the solution more people Yeah, think about it. You see this is the is the Irrational thought process that people are lining up. I just want to hurt each other

I want you to feel and and and and God forbid if you say I'm not playing that game Okay, then I'm gonna cancel you cancel me Alright guys, we gotta talk about your website if you have a business of any kind entertainer brick and mortar It does not matter, you need a website and you need to build it with Squarespace. They make it easy to create a beautiful website to help you engage with your audience. You can sell anything from products to content,

to time, to tour dates, and you can do it all on your terms. They also have Squarespace payments, so you can take payments, manage your payments all in one place. Onboarding is fast and simple. Get started in just a few clicks and start receiving payments right away. Plus you give your customers more ways

to pay for their product. They can pay with Klarna, ACH, direct debit, Apple Pay, and Clearpay, just to name a few. Also they have design intelligence. Artificial intelligence is making everything easier. Why not use it to build your website? It empowers anyone to build a beautiful, more personalized website tailored to their unique needs

and craft a bespoke digital identity. That means personalized. And last but not least, Squarespace can help you with SEO. Every Squarespace website, SEO, people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies to do this for Google. Every Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions and auto-generated sitemap and more.

So you show up more often to the people who matter. So go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash flagrant to save 10% on your first purchase of a website or domain. Now let's get back to the show. What's up, Noodle Dicks? It's that time.

We wanna talk about optimizing, optimize your dick game. And you know how you do that with Bluechew? They've been riding with us longer than any other, would I say riding us? Yeah. If I was riding with Bluechew, I would have a better experience. If I fuck dudes and they use Bluechew,

it would be a fantastic experience. If you fuck dudes and you want them to have Bluechew, it'll make your experience better. If you fuck anybody and you wanna have a better dick game, blue chew is the way to do it. And you can get your first month of blue chew for free when you use the promo code flagrant. Just pay $5 for shipping.

That is a promo code flagrant. Visit bluechew.com, get all your details, important safety information, but bluechew.com, set your dick game up. Let's get back to the show. I'm curious, what is your relationship like with Trump now? Do you guys correspond on a frequent basis? When he first got elected, called, hey, President, congratulations.

New York is important to you. It's important to me. We've 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. SALT? It's just called a SALT tax. It was hard on New York City. And we have communicate. 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'ma communicate. Say, listen, we disagreed. They took a 60 million, 80 million, 60 million away from us from FEMA funding for the migrants. We disagreed on that.

But the goal is how do we sit down, like I did with Biden. 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. So I want to work with our national leaders I'm the biggest I'm the mayor the biggest city in the country in the most important country on the globe That shit how do we not work with the president? I mean it's ridiculous How is it like going down to Mar-a-Lago? Are you guys like playing golf and kicking it? No, no, no, we we everybody say Mar-a-Lago, you know, it wasn't Mar-a-Lago,

it was, I think it was Palm Beach's other golf course. And we were having real conversations about the city. You know, we were having conversations about what are the needs of the city. We had some real infrastructure problems that we had to face. We're dealing with our BQE that's almost about to, we don't get it fixed, it can 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 saying, I wanna revitalize the economy. I wanna put a chip plant up in the Bronx where we can make the chips and not be held hostage by Taiwan and others. And I said, we can build the whole. That's awesome.

Yeah, we can build a whole and build our jobs, teach people the technology. So I was sharing with him, it was a 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. And we want to make sure that this city continues to grow. Now they critique me speaking with them. The governor went several times to see him. Other governors are saying-

White woman privilege. But to that point, I think a lot of times we focus on... That's some crazy shit. It is, isn't it? It is, isn't it? Don't go bird watching stuff from Park Day. 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. And Americans, we love bigger, we love abundance, especially New Yorkers. All of our families came here for more. So we don't just want the boat plugged. When you say, I want to build a chip plant in the Bronx, I'm like, yeah, that's what I want too. And I think an important thing for all New Yorkers, because you could affect New York City, is 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, how do we include them in the most powerful driving force in New York City, which is the stock market? How do we get young kids like me, went to public school like Al, went to public school, how do we get financial literacy at me, went to public school like Al, went to public school, how do we get financial literacy at a point and maybe even like an injection of capital, like is there a fund, it could be 500 bucks,

a thousand bucks for every kid born in New York City that's invested in the SMP 500, so that they start one feeling like part of the success of this engine that runs New York City. Like how can we? And America. Well, also in America, but like I want to set the president in my city first and then the rest of America go-

Oh, no. I love that. The engine that runs America. Oh, for sure. I love that. Firstly, right, we're the economic engine of the state and the country. And so what we're doing, my commissioner of DCWP, Deputy Commissioner of Workers Protection. We're now connecting and partnering with banks in every school.

We're teaching our young people how to open up bank accounts, how to open up checking accounts, savings accounts. We're going to dive into the stock exchange, financial literacy. Because the greatest impact on your life is your personality and your finances. If you don't have, if you're not, you know, you could be academically smart, but if you're not emotionally intelligent,

you're going nowhere. And if you don't know how to manage your finance, and by the time you get out of school, you in debt, credit card debt, you're wearing all of your wealth on 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 your ABCs. We did not put enough attention on developing the full person of our children.

We're teaching them meditation, breathing exercises, 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 can 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 connect with people, you don't know how to communicate with people. Huge advantage. It is, and if you don't know how to manage your money, you could, how many athletes, ballplayers,

et cetera, makes a ton of money, and then a couple of years after they're out of the game, they don't have, nobody told them how to manage their money. And when you don't have, my parents had money, then lost money, and when I remember when 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 things.

They're not thinking about what they don't have all the time. But when you get it, you can have it, by buying everything. I just want New Yorkers to feel like a part of the success of the city. When I was young, it was easy because we had sports teams that were successful. So when the Yankees won, I won.

But like if the stock market is soaring, I want to feel like now maybe because at 35 I fucking finally bought a stock. I'm 41 now. I want everybody when they see the stock market soaring and they see these businesses that are 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 You mean what you say 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 right right right we can't leave people No, we can't. 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. Mm-hmm. They like is deserved. It's a great city in history You know what I'm saying, brother? We still got it. Nah, we still got it. So, so, so.

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? Like, I've been to New York state. That's what I'm saying. Right, right. You know what I mean? Right, right, right.

So, and that's what, and that's what, that's what I, 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. You know what I'm saying? And 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.

It looked at me as smart. Nobody argues about number one. Right. But we stopped feeling as though we're number one. I think COVID hit the city in a big way. Right. And I think that we're coming out of it and we're recovering,

and I think it's a monumental task that you have, but I think it's really important, as we plug those holes in the ship, how big can this fucking ship get? 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. That'd be cool.

We're gonna 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 want to teach them game making, and not only playing the game, but how to become an entrepreneur. Writing code and shit. 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 law hierarchy of need, food, shelter, clothing. Don't worry about self-actualization. We're just going to keep you down here. Just be happy that you know, survival mode. No, you got to take people out of survival mode and take them, you wanna get to the point of that self-actualization. How long do you live here to be considered a New Yorker?

I don't think being a New Yorker is based on time, I think... It's not yours. You might not have the attitude. So what makes someone a New Yorker? What is the attitude? First of all, when you feel comfortable throughout the entire city, no matter where you are, you know, you...

You will have folks who will move into a community and then all of a sudden complain about, what is that loud noise coming from that building? It's the church. They do that. So if you come in with your own attitude instead of saying, I want to incorporate into the city, I want to bring something to the city.

Because the diversity of this city is amazing. You know, that's one of the joys of being, not only when I was the bar president, but being the mayor. I mean, you can go and sit in a sukkah, you know, during a Jewish holiday, Diwali, and one day you can go to Ramadan celebration. You could go to an Easter celebration.

You could just, you know, all these, you could just, all these parades, I love all these parades. And it's real diversity, it's not like in California where there's a lot of diversity, but everybody lives in their own enclave. Right. You gotta pass through somebody's neighborhood. Whether you like it or not.

Like it or not. Little Italy and Chinatown bleed into one another, so we gotta be around each other, and it's a very unique experience. It is, it is, and I think it's a tragedy that people don't appreciate and enjoy the power of the diversity. Our educational process is not only

the sterilized environment of a classroom, but it is in the community streets. If you take your children around 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 look like each other, talk like each other,

eat the same food. Such a huge advantage. Yeah, oh, the diversity is crucial. How would the dismantling of the DOE affect New York City? It's a good question, we don't know. Oh yeah. That's a great question, we don't know the answer yet, but I would challenge you and your listeners to go across the country and look at the reading and writing and math results of all of these cities. Man, you got

places where people are like 30% reaching academic standard. something is wrong. So there's a perfect example where it's just like, I remember when Rikers, remember the horrible situation happened, 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. Love that question, man. Love your question. But maybe that's the thing with part of education. It's like how that is maybe run is an issue that you could change. Love that question, man. Love your question. But maybe that's the thing with part of education. It's like if we're looking at the numbers and they aren't to where they need to be. Gotta do something. Something has to,

maybe it's not take away the whole thing. Right, right. But if you don't believe in some change, then you're just politicizing an issue that's gonna end up hurting kids in their education. And especially when you are spending such a high number per student. Right. Where's it going?

When do you get a return on your investment? Yeah. So let's switch to Rikers for a moment. I got re-baptized on Rikers with the inmates. Oh really? Yeah, I went up with the inmates last year. So can you explain Rikers to the people not from New York that are watching? Yeah, Rikers Island is the New York City's jail.

It's where men go to find their sexuality. You know what? This is a bad guy. This is a bad guy. I'm telling you. Dangerous man. You can't hang out with a guy like this. I don't know what I'm saying. I just need a New headline tomorrow. Mary Adams baptized. This is a perfect example of fantasy colliding with reality. And that's what a lot of people who would like this job, 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 had a little over 3,000 people that were there. They want to 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 want to build, it was gonna cost us eight billion, now it doubled, 16 billion to build it.

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 3600 people, we have about 7,000 people there right now. So you're building four more jails that... All right, keep going. 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 so we don't criminalize people

who are dealing with psychiatric disorder. We give them the support that they need and take care of them. But people are caught on the romanticism of we close Rikers. Because they think that it will do something. It's like it's not solving your problem. Brother, you got 7,100 people.

And so I asked them, well, what are you gonna do with the other 7,100? Well, why you can't just let them go? You know what you gotta do to go to Rikers now and then? Yeah, bro. Bro, bro, bro, bro. So, okay, so you become mayor, right? Yes.

Do you know what happened with Epstein? Can you figure out what happened? Because it happened in the tombs, right? No, no, no, no. It happened, he was in federal prison. Oh, what's the tombs? The tombs is downtown in Lower Manhattan. But that's just like a weekend jail cell.

It's a jail also. Any jail is bad. Nobody wants to put people in jail. Fair, fair. But he was at federal, so you wouldn't have any jurisdiction. The president is talking about the president jail. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that.

I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're mayor to go, yo, tell me, tell me who did it or tell me what happened. Like, can you ask those questions? You always try to seek information. Okay, good.

But if they release, if you, if you, as Obama said, if you say it, they got to kill you. God. Oh wait, so do you know? No, no, no, I have no idea The cameras malfunctioned Nobody said we gotta get rid of that jail Okay And then what's the guy from the crypto guy? What's his name Sam Baker Sam Bankman? He's in he's also in federal Yeah, so this is a federal? Yeah, yeah.

So this is just a federal holding house that you don't have any jurisdiction over? The federal is a different system. Right. You have federal jurisdictions, and you have state, you have city. After you, if you're in Rikers, you're either waiting for trials.

Or you're going upstate. Right, exactly. So it's a different system. Where is Luigi Mangione being held? Is he federal? Federal picked that up also. He's also being federal. Sorry, did I hear, I think Joey's telling me,

right before they said they're seeking the death penalty for Luigi? That's what the federal government is doing. We don't make that call, the federal government, to intentionally assassinate someone with his. I don't even remember any time in my law enforcement history back then of someone using a silencer intentionally sort out the CEO and assassinated him.

So back when you were in law enforcement, did you ever have any run-ins with the Supreme Team? Did you ever have, or like G-Unit? You ever see the video, Supreme Team video? Which one, with you? There's a video, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Joey? No, no, no.

Because you hear about these iconic gangs. I grew up, I know you're from around there. Those guys were larger than life, man. So what was it, can you explain, obviously, without putting yourself in any kind of position, but can you explain, we hear them in almost folklore. We hear them through like rap stories and- Folklore was real, man.

It was in- Was it like complete control of the neighborhood? Crack just, Cocaine and Crack just came online back then. Kilo, Tinka, those whole teams, these guys used to drive around with Roll Royces in NYCHA. And they just had a real lock on the drug scene in the city. Then rap started to come around. So they're telling the stories of it. Right, right, right, right.

And then when you were in law enforcement, was the law enforcement scared of them? Did they pose a threat to laws for it? Did they try to work with law enforcement? Like, how did law enforcement even go about handling a violence? Yeah, and you know what was interesting? The level of violence was not the same as you saw during the 80s, going through the 80s and the 90s.

Back then, you know, those guys were about making their money. They would have a beef. And then the inner gang, once that started happening. Yeah, right. 80s is when you really saw the violence, because there was just so much money. There 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, 75, coming to the 80s, 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, okay. Because of profitability or before? Profit. For whatever reason, you know, even heroin wasn't, you know, it didn't bring that level of violence going into the 60s I would assume that the cost per kilo also you can get a lot of money like 20 grand for a key. Yeah

Oh god, so it's just so profitable. It's odorless and can transport easily. 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. So they were corrupting police officers. Yeah, 77 mock boys. This is the Brooklyn one, right? Yes, 77 precincts. Yeah, you're the dirty 30. Because guys were seeing so much money being made on the street.

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

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

I would think the highest paid profession should be cops, teachers, doctors. These are positions you want the best people going to. And if I'm a cop making great money, the idea that I might mess around and do some corrupt stuff or treat somebody badly and it might cost me this job, it pays me well, I don't think it's worth it. You're gonna weed a lot of them out. And even teachers, you know, you go someplace like Korea, teachers are held to an extreme

high level of respect. Here, we gave our teachers great contracts, we gave our cops great contracts, but you're right, you should make sure that they're receiving the suitable pay that they deserve. That's what it comes down to. Can you still give out keys to the city? Yes. We didn't give you a key yet. That's true.

That's how we talk. I didn't ask. I didn't ask. I would never ask for something like that. I would never ask for something like that. I just want a rent controlled apartment. Forget the key. You want a key to the apartment.

I want one key. You want a key to the apartment. Rent controlled apartment. But this man doesn't have a key to the apartment. He's got a key to the apartment. He's got a key to the apartment. He's got a key to the apartment. He's got a key to the apartment.

He's got a key to the apartment. He's got a key to the apartment. He's got a key to the apartment. He's got a key to the apartment. He's want a key to the apartment. But this man deserves a key to the seat. Nobody rides for New York harder than this guy and this guy. Okay, quick couple quick New York questions. Okay, which borough has the most attractive women? I think all of them have great shorties. Good political answer. Good political answer. You know how many times you go viral? I drive my team crazy. I bet. She's writing notes right now. He's going crazy right now.

Don't give him a mic. We just locked up the next mayoral election, so don't even worry about it. But it is Queens though. You tripping, you tripping. Maybe the best strip clubs. But outside, not right now. Okay, okay, okay. We need an 11 in New York.

Talk! This is my guy. You know what I'm saying? Why don't we have an 11 in New York? I spoke to some folks. We may be rolling out of this. Think about the things we gave Miami. We gave them Carbone. That's true.

We gave them so many plays. They can't give us one little 11. A nice nightclub where you don't have to feel like a scumbag in a strip club, but there's strippers there. They happen to go for some reason. Yes, what a great coincidence. That's all, that's 24 hours.

Yeah, that's the key. That's the key. That's the key. You see? Why do places? Now, I've never been to 11. Of course, that sounds good. That's because it's too far.

That sounds good. That's because it's too far. Of course, of course. Now, we're going to work on that. What are we going to say? Why do places have to close at 4? Yeah, no, we need a 24 hour district, and these community boards.

This guy. This guy. A 24 hour district with red lights. No, we do not need that. This is the last thing we need. Yo, New Yorkers, go to sleep. Go to sleep. We need that.

Because then you have illegal after parties and you don't want that. Right, right, right. Not going to ever have a bento. Of course. You've never been to 11, I've never been to the after party. Out of nowhere, unprompted, we need an 11. A moment to think about, that is it.

Listen, listen, you want to make New York City abundant, right? That's one of the problems we've got to solve. That's true. It's crazy. It's a disaster we don't have an 11. It is, brother. I know that other guy running for mayor wouldn't make an 11. Heck no.

He could have a dream of it. That old cornball, that other guy with a nipple piercing. He could dance on the pole with a nipple piercing. That's a nipple piercing. I know. How are we going to let you have a nipple piercing and run from mayor of New York City? That's insane. Queens, maybe.

No, another nipple piercing. That's a lie. Listen, listen. I didn't say who it is, so we didn't even know who it is. Yeah. 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. Nah, wash. You really want to make New York great legalized sex work? Small business owners? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not get too crazy. I think it's the move.

Oh, man. Okay, okay. Here's one final 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, but there was like a little, like I got my PlayStation hack so I could play the fake video games and shit,

but you had to go down into one of the underground walls, and it was a kind of nice undercover thing. And sometimes 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 can 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 going to do anything. Do you, what do we do about a circumstance like that? And Deputy Mayor Daughtry, he has done a great job.

What we've done, we've gone after the mother load and gone after some of the warehouses that are holding or making all the fake bags. Exactly. So if you go and just round up who's on canal. There's going to be another person. Exactly. So we've hit a couple of locations. If you were to go online, you'll see we've taken millions of dollars in supplies we're still doing

investigations we want to go after this feeder if not you're just really you know I mean locking the person up but this is important information to get out to the people because like I I remember seeing it every single day and I think why to there I think two things I would think that like the average person walking around here feels that the police do not have authority right which I think New Yorkers we don't want to feel like that right we don't like to be told what to do but we still like the police handle some shit right but but also it feels like is this city doing anything to stop this?

The fact that you're going after the motherlose. Yes, that's the goal. Because we've done a number of sweeps. And then it's just the next day. So now we've hit several warehouses, and we're now zooing in. That's the same thing we did with the illegal cannabis shops. We started going after the motherlose,

and we closed down I think it's about 1600 of them. And now the legal cannabis shops are making money now. So we wanna go after those mother loads and get it to close down. Why not just increase the presence of police on Canow? Just have a bunch of police always stationed on Canow. Yeah, but you know, if you, and we do. Cause they do that in the hood.

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. You know what I mean, like, if there was a cop right there in the corner, they're not even gonna set up. But now they do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're there. They're there in the corner. They know if you confiscate the merchandise, they're gonna go right back and get a new shipment of it and just be back out there. But there maybe is a point to that, like if you confiscate every single day for six months, eventually they just start going. You like the manpower that's takes, man.

That's some serious manpower. That's another thing. And also you, two guys go confiscate one person, then everybody else on the block is like, all right, we're good. You would have to have a hundred cops confiscate the 200 people that are throughout Canal selling things. And you can't throw up your hand. The complexity of solving the problem is not an answer.

Out there's several investigations that are underway now of going after the large shipments. Going after the shipments. Yes. Okay. What is the best bodega boner pill? You know, if I answer that, I'll be on the front page of the bill. Okay. Any other questions before Mayor Adams gets out here?

About to be second term Mayor Adams. Yeah, well, let me... Yeah, please. You are definitely running. Oh, yeah. As a Democrat? 100% as a Democrat. Oh, I'm running 100% as a Democrat.

And listen, look, it breaks my heart that 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 talk and we laugh at it, 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 he's keeping our city safe. And I'm hoping that they would draw on it when they're dealing with their experience. Saturday, man, it broke my heart. 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. And I got to tell people that, Hey, you know what? You're going to get through this. 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 to 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. I think you guys can do,

I think that there is a version now with social media of posting the accomplishments yes, 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 right I don't know if we're taking Greenland but sending JD Vanceance 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 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 plan 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 got to subsidize eggs. But no kid in New York City should not be able to afford an egg. Give us that information that you got what you want. That's how big, 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. Right, the word of mouth is what is more popular. We have to figure that out. The tabloids are not going to be in your favor. Heck no. You don't need them anymore. Right. Someone shared with me the other day, that was very interesting, that they are, people forget that they are, their business, they're in the business to make money and if it bleeds it leads. There we go. You know, so it's talking about we're building a chip plant in the Bronx. It's like...

Nobody cares. Right. But we do, New Yorkers do. And I'm the most clickable mayor in the history of New South. No. I tell them all. No. I tell them all.

I say, I made y'all career. Exactly, they're paying their way. No, for real. For real. They sit around all day. I say, 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.

Facts. All of your careers are going to be made because of me. No one knew who you were. Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, we're very excited. And I appreciate you coming on. I also appreciate you like, like I like the fact that you wanted to have that contentious

conversation. Yeah, I like it. You know, I think that's good. I think that's important. I think it's something that New Yorkers, I think we identify as is like we're not afraid of having a tough conversation. I'm glad that you address a lot of the controversy and stuff going on and cleaned it up.

And if there are things that you guys need help with in terms of disseminating information to the city, not on behalf of you or your organization, but on behalf of what the city is accomplishing, let us know. We would love to make sure New Yorkers know that there's a... This guy really cares about the PR of New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm ready to move. This guy really cares about the PR of New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm ready to move. This guy really cares.

It's a good product. And listen brother, man, God has been good to me, man. You go from being called a dumb student in school, you get arrested as a child. Really? Beaten by police officers. No way. Going on to become a police officer, a captain, becoming a lawmaker. 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. Amen. Eric, what about the White House? Oh, you.