[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Speaking of local coverage, if it's Wednesday, it's time to catch up with WNYC and Gothamist lead Mayor Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim. Every Tuesday, as most of you know, the mayor holds what they call an off-topic press conference, which just means that reporters are allowed to ask him directly about issues of the week of their choosing. It was mostly business as usual this week, business as usual, in this case meaning the first time in weeks that the focus wasn't primarily on investigations and indictments of or surrounding the mayor, but there were a couple, including a question for the mayor about Donald Trump's apparent support for him. Is it now mutual? On that and more, hey, Liz, happy Wednesday.

Elizabeth Kim: Happy Wednesday, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: The news conference got started and I watched it yesterday with an acknowledgement of this moment in New York sports. Mayor Adams acknowledged he's a Mets fan, even though he wore that hat that had both Mets and Yankees logo recently. He rightly said that the Mets had a good run but that, as a New Yorker, he would be rooting for the Yankees in the World Series. That's certainly appropriate for the mayor, and here's where he made news. He said if he attends a game at Yankee Stadium, he'd buy his own ticket. Why did the mayor mention buying his own ticket if he goes to the World Series?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, because it's likely an ethics violation. Some of your listeners might remember that in 2010, then Governor Patterson was fined $62,000 for accepting World Series tickets, so this is not something that the mayor can take lightly. He cannot just accept tickets. These tickets are very, very valuable, as I'm sure the listeners know, and he basically acknowledged that. He said this is a result of COYB or the Conflict of Interest Board. He would likely, if he did go, he would pay for his own tickets, or more likely, he's going to stay at home and watch it with his son, who's a Yankees fan.

Brian Lehrer: Think he'd get booed a lot this year? We've seen that with Giuliani and others when they've gone to games.

Elizabeth Kim: I think so. The mayor has been heckled, but that's nothing new for mayors. De Blasio was heckled, so I think we should point that out. I think there's been a lot of attention on the mayor getting heckled at public events. I mean, certainly, this is a uniquely trying time for a New York City mayor to be indicted on federal corruption charges.

Brian Lehrer: Right? He also congratulated the Liberty after their first WNBA championship, yay, and promoted the ticker tape parade that they'll have tomorrow morning. By the way, I will just mention to our listeners that that parade starts at 10:00 tomorrow morning, so do we. We're going to go live to the parade here for part of tomorrow morning's show. Now, Liz, your question to the mayor yesterday was about crime stats. I want the listeners to hear how you asked the question, and then we'll play the important part, the beginning of the mayor's response.

Elizabeth Kim: Hi, Mr. Mayor.

Eric Adams: Liz, how are you?

Elizabeth Kim: I remember you saying that New Yorkers have to not just be safe, they need to feel safe.

Eric Adams: Yes.

Elizabeth Kim: One of the points that Dan Doctoroff made in his opinion piece was that crime must come down. He said from 2019 to 2023, there was a jump of nearly 33% in the seven major murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, grand larcery, and auto theft. The police department has failed to bring down crime. I know there are ways to play around with the numbers, and I'd like you to comment on that, but why is there this gap between the numbers that you're presenting and the way that some experts like him and everyday New Yorkers feel about crime?

Brian Lehrer: That was Liz's question, and the mayor started his response by saying this.

Eric Adams: Well, okay, I'm not quite sure why he's a public safety expert, [chuckles] but the numbers don't lie. I inherited a city January 1, 2022, where we had a 40% increase in crime. 40%. When you do an analysis, I didn't make up that the shootings in August, they were the lowest numbers in recorded history.

Brian Lehrer: He says the numbers are clear. The numbers don't lie, so what do you make of that response? How can we explain this because I left that news conference confused? How did the mayor and the former deputy mayor, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, who as Mayor Adams rightly said, is not a criminal justice expert, he's an urban planner? How is it that the mayor and the former deputy mayor have different numbers on crime in New York City?

Elizabeth Kim: It's not that they have different numbers, but it's the time period in which they're measuring and what they're measuring against. What Dan Doctoroff-- and he was the deputy mayor for economic development- so maybe the mayor has a point. You might not consider him a public safety expert, but what he's looking at is he's looking at a period between 2019 and 2023. That 2019 number is very important because that's before the COVID outbreak started, right. We all know that that really changed crime, not just in New York City, but in other big cities across the country. There's been a lot of examination and thoughts by experts into why that happened. Why did shootings go up?

It's true, we have not-- overall- returned. When you're looking at those seven major crime categories, we have not returned to pre-pandemic levels, although I think the expectation was that it would take time to get there. That was something that I thought about a lot when Mayor Adams came into office because he was coming in basically prioritizing, basically rooting his whole mayoralty into this idea that he is the expert on public safety and he knows how to bring down crime. Now, crime, as if you speak to experts, especially social scientists, there are a myriad of factors that affect the levels of crime.

Now, the mayor has brought up some of his stats to talk about those stats. He brought up August. August had the lowest number ever recorded. Now, what's important to say, though, it's ever recorded for that time of year, so we're talking about August, right? We're not talking about year-to-date. He was talking about shootings and murders have dropped to some of the lowest numbers recorded for that time of year., but I don't think we should dismiss that either because why is August important? August is important because that's when crime and shootings and murders-- violent crime, I should say- typically go up.

What we're seeing this year, what we've seen this year is we saw August numbers that were more akin to maybe like winter months. That isn't an unsignificant statistic for the mayor to try to tout, but that's why you see these differences. I think another thing he said were robberies were the lowest in recorded history. but keep in mind, he's talking about robberies versus something like larceny. When you're talking about robberies, robberies involve the use of force. Larceny is something like pickpocketing, so I think it's very important to examine when people talk about crime, specifically what kind of crime they're talking about and what's the time period and what are they comparing it against.

Brian Lehrer: All right, one more topic from yesterday's Mayor Adams news conference, and it pertains to Donald Trump and Eric Adams. Trump was in town for the Al Smith dinner last Thursday, something that's been going on for many, many years. Politicians come and roast other politicians and themselves and things like that, usually with some comedy involved. but at one point, Trump had this to say about Eric Adams.

Donald Trump: Mayor Adams, good luck with everything. They went after you.

[laughter]

Donald Trump: They went after you, mayor.

Brian Lehrer: "They went after you, mayor." Trump will be back in New York for a rally at Madison Square Garden. Funny place for him to have a rally by some lights in a blue state that's obviously not going to vote for him. The mayor was asked-- we're going to play a little exchange here- of the mayor being asked by NJ Burkett from Channel 7 about Trump's support for him as someone who the Biden Justice Department is going after for political reasons.

hat.

NJ Burkett: What do you make of his support and some of the things that he said at the dinner the other night? Some Democrats say you ought to disavow. You haven't really disavowed his support.

Eric Adams: Well, listen, this is the season where the silliness comes into politics. I remember when I was running for mayor, the last two weeks or so, I made a comment of people of color, and it became articles after articles after articles about "Eric don't consider Chinese people as people of color." I mean, this is where we are right now. The New Yorkers need to hear the issues and I'm just not going to get back and forth on comments that are made on both sides. Let's hear the issues. Let's vote for the candidates and exercise the right to vote.

Brian Lehrer: Once again, no outright disavowal of Trump's apparent support and Trump's stand that, "The Biden Justice Department is going after Eric Adams because he raised questions about them just like they're going after me, Donald Trump."

Elizabeth Kim: Right. The speculation is that Adams could possibly benefit from a Trump victory. That it might be possible that he could get pardoned or perhaps Trump can stop the ongoing investigations, so that's why there's a lot of scrutiny being put on the mayor's rhetoric at this moment as we're heading toward the election. Here you have the Democratic mayor of the biggest city in America declining to use an opportunity to condemn Donald Trump. Instead, you hear him. He offers a very milquetoast endorsement of Vice President Harris. He doesn't even say her name. and that's not the first time this has happened. He was asked about the election, I think, at the prior press conference and again, he did not say Vice President Harris's name.

Brian Lehrer: Elizabeth Kim, our lead Eric Adams reporter who joins us most Wednesdays after the mayor's weekly Tuesday news conferences. Thanks for today, Liz. Probably talk to you next Wednesday.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.