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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Coming up on the show today with the Federal Reserve Board expected to cut interest rates this afternoon for the first time since the pandemic. We'll explain what that means, how it could affect the economy overall, and affect you personally. We'll invite calls from any of you with businesses, looking to buy or sell a home, or with savings accounts that bear interest, or anyone else with a story of how interest rates affect your life. 212-433-WNYC, but not now. That'll come up later in the hour. We'll continue our WNYC Centennial series today, "100 Years of 100 Things", with thing 22, 100 years of Robert Moses and his enduring influence on New York, and 50 years of the iconic book about Robert Moses, The Power Broker by Robert Caro. Very excited for that discussion coming up later, again with lots of input from you, and the great Errol Louis from New York 1 as a guest.

With us now, as usual on Wednesdays, after Mayor Adams Tuesday news conferences, is our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, with excerpts and analysis, and to take your calls. Major topics yesterday were the investigations into and resignations of people close to the mayor. Even the question, can his mayoralty survive?

The police shooting in the subway that started as a fare evasion stop, and Liz has her own new reporting that we'll discuss on how residents of Harlem are feeling about the mayor these days. Definitely, a core constituency when Mayor Adams got elected in 2021. Voters in Harlem, and obviously anyone listening from Harlem, anyone else will be welcome to call in on any of these things. You can call in now, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Call or text. Hey, Liz, happy Wednesday.

Elizabeth Kim: Happy Wednesday, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with the incident in the subway. Remind our listeners what happened, and why it wound up with a police shooting that injured the suspect, two bystanders, and a police officer.

Elizabeth Kim: Sure. This occurred on Sunday at Brooklyn station, the Sutter Avenue station. What police say was this was a fare evasion arrest, but they also say that the man was wielding a knife and threatened officers. Police wound up firing shots in the train station, and they wounded not only the man they were pursuing, but also a police officer and two bystanders.

Now one of those bystanders was shot in the head and is in critical condition, and as you might think, the incident is raising questions about the use of force. It's also about the setting, right? Subway stations are heavily trafficked environments. What critics are asking was, was it worth it? Was this the appropriate use of a gun for a fare evasion arrest? The mayor was pressed on this yesterday.

Brian Lehrer: Here is the mayor totally defending the officers and the policy of using the police to enforce fare evasion underground.

Mayor Eric Adams: I think those officers took great strides to bring a person with an over 20 arrest history that we could talk about. My heart goes out to his parent. No parents want to lose a child, but this was a bad guy. I saw the video, I saw the steps those police officers implemented. Over and over again, trying to reason with the perpetrator. Some people said, well, you shouldn't be enforcing fare evasion. No. This is not a city where any and everything goes.

There's a reason there's a fare on our subway and bus. If lawmakers want to make the subways and buses free, then fine. But as long as there are rules, we're going to follow those rules. He was not shot for fare evasion. He was shot because he had a knife, and he went after the police officers after repeatedly asking him to put down the knife. I thought those officers responded accordingly. All shootings, you do an analysis to determine what we can do differently, but those officers stopped a very dangerous person who was committing a crime.

Brian Lehrer: A very dangerous person who was committing a crime, said the mayor, but let's take a couple of pieces of those, Liz, and look a little more closely. All the police knew when they started an encounter with him was that he evaded the subway fare. If we accept the mayor's premise that the fare should be enforced, what are the critics saying about alternatives to using armed NYPD officers that could still be effective?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, one option which the MTA has used is hiring private security guards. Listeners might have seen these individuals at several subway stations, and the reason why they're there is because there are people on the MTA board who are very adamantly opposed to having the NYPD police fare evasion. For this particular reason, the NYPD are armed. This was a case where exactly it started as a fare evasion arrest, although the mayor says that the man was wielding a gun and threatening officers.

Brian Lehrer: A knife.

Elizabeth Kim: Oh, sorry, a knife. What ultimately happened is four people were wounded, two of them critically. The man himself, who the police pursued for fare evasion, was shot in the stomach. He's in critical condition. As I said earlier, an innocent bystander was shot in the head.

Brian Lehrer: What about the moment of the shooting itself? The mayor said he saw the video. I haven't seen the video. I don't know if you've seen the video, but he said he was shot because he had a knife, and he went after the police officers after repeatedly asking him to put down the knife. Was he going after the police officers, or was he running away from the police officers and just flashing the knife to try to stop them from chasing him? Do we know?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, that by itself is another question, Brian, and it's another perpetual problem in these situations, which is why have the police not released the video? You heard the mayor say I saw the video, but the public has not seen the video.

Brian Lehrer: This is a body cam, official NYPD video. Right?

Elizabeth Kim: Exactly. There are certain incidents in which we do get the video very quickly. The NYPD decides to release it very quickly, and there are other incidents in which the public doesn't get to see the video until several weeks later, months, or if not, ever. That was another question that was put to the mayor, and he didn't really have a very good answer for it. I think he kind of punted and said there's a process behind it, but he also suggested that the way that the NYPD makes the decisions on these videos has resulted in there being less civil unrest than in other cities, which kind of raises your eyebrows. Well, what is it about this video that you think would prompt any kind of civil unrest?

Brian Lehrer: Right. Are there no rules, are there no standards on paper for when they're required to release videos to the public?

Elizabeth Kim: I don't believe so, Brian, because this comes up time and time again, when reporters ask, can we have the video? Sometimes they release it very quickly. Other times, no.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe this is for City Council or the state legislature to put some rules on that and establish circumstances under which, for whatever reasons, it's legitimate to withhold a video of a very public incident like this from the public, and ones where they are not. I guess we'll see if anybody picks that up.

Last thing, they tased him first, and it seems we hear these stories over and over again in conjunction with controversial police shootings. A person gets tased, and it doesn't stop them. Did the mayor talk about that, or have you done any other reporting on that? The public that doesn't follow police work or police technology closely might ask themselves, do tasers ever work? Or did they work only in certain circumstances or in certain kinds of bodies or something?

Elizabeth Kim: My colleague, Bahar Ostadan, has done some reporting on this, and she has a story on Gothamist. Yes, tasers were problematic, and the mayor was asked about this, and he went through the technicalities of what it takes for the taser to actually work. It has to strike your body in a certain way. I myself, I don't know exactly what happened in this situation, but it's a fair question. Is this an effective tool for police officers?

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call on this incident before we go on to the investigations and the mayor's responses on that yesterday and any new developments on that. Robert in Queens. You're on WNYC. Hi, Robert.

Robert: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. I just wanted to say that this impunity in regards to fare evasion, I think, leads to these type of incidents. If either the barriers to enter the system were impregnable to fare evasion, or if the penalty was severe enough to deter people from evading the fare, you wouldn't have an incident like this. The MTA loses what, $800 million a year? I might be a little under over. I'm not sure, but I think was roughly the same as the revenue they wanted to garner from congestion pricing.

Compared to other cities, the fare, especially the unlimited MetroCard, is very affordable. I think the people who aren't paying, it's not a matter of affordability. They wouldn't pay no matter what. It breeds this kind of culture of impunity. Like, I worked in Uptown, on 110th street, in Lexington, and I get off the subway and people are shooting up drugs, right? When you get off, people are living in there, like it's a tent city.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let's separate these issues and keep it to fare evasion for the sake of this conversation. Liz, he says it's affordable compared to other cities. Some low income people may feel like the fare is a stress on them. That's not an excuse to evade the fare as opposed to get a reduced fare MetroCard, which people can get based on income and things like that. There are technological fixes to fare evasion that the MTA talks about and maybe has started to implement to some degree, certain kinds of floor to ceiling gates instead of the turnstiles that you can literally jump. I don't know if this is your beat, which is City Hall rather than MTA, but could this conversation be made moot?

Elizabeth Kim: I think so, Brian. The idea is an incident like this highlights what can go very, very wrong. When police are in charge of preventing fare evasion. Like Robert pointed out. Can we not go to other types of deterrents? Like you said, the floor to ceiling gates, maybe raising the penalty, perhaps, but certainly--

Brian Lehrer: Which is what he brought up, of course. If you don't get a ticket for fare evasion, well, then you have to show up to pay the ticket.

Elizabeth Kim: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: Or you go down another rabbit hole that winds up in controversial police contacts, which is you jump the fare, they stop you and ask you for IDs, you have a previous unpaid ticket for fare evasion, and then you get arrested.

Elizabeth Kim: Correct. Correct. That's all correct. I think that this is the worst case scenario that we have, right, where people end up being shot as a result of this situation, where police were involved in trying to stop someone who was trying to evade the fare. Again, the police are saying there was more to it than that, but it begins with the premise, should police be doing this kind of work? If you say yes, well, what kind of training and rules should they have in place in doing these kinds of arrests?

Brian Lehrer: Julie in Brooklyn has a different perspective on this from Robert in Queens, who we just heard from, and Robert, thank you for your call. Julie, you're on WNYC now. Hi.

Julie: Hi. I just wanted to say that we live in this city with the hugest income disparity, and it's just apparent to me from his call that he doesn't understand that there are people who cannot afford. It's actually quite expensive to ride on the subway every day, and we need to go in exactly the opposite direction and eliminate the fare for the subway so that people don't get criminalized if they can't get to work or wherever they need to go, because they have to worry about if they jump the turnstile or something, that they're going to get arrested or shot. That's just my perspective on it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, or to the other part of the point that he was starting to make, living in the subways or sleeping in the subways, because they feel they have nowhere better to go, but that's really a very separate conversation than the fare evasion. One more on this. Sarah in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sarah.

Sarah: Hi. I live near the 72nd and Broadway station, and I see many, many young kids, teenagers, people who clearly can pay. I shouldn't say clearly, but it appears they can pay. It's an epidemic right now. Children, young teens are jumping over the turnstiles and are paying. These are not situations where they can't afford it, and yet it sort of feels like if they think they can get away with this, what is the next thing that they will think, unfortunately, that they can get away with?

I don't support ex-mayor Giuliani, but somehow the quality of life policing does bring a semblance of order and takes away the fear that many people have in using the subways in terms of raising the penalties. You have to catch them first. The security guards, these are other things that have been mentioned, they just stand there. They don't try to stop anybody. Even the police sometimes stand around and talk.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you a follow up question. Do you assume you ride the subways? Do you also feel a fear that maybe after an incident like this, showing you what can happen with the way it's being enforced, that you might be shot by a police officer as a bystander?

Sarah: It feels like it is very remote. Of course, I don't want to be shot, but I feel like, and the other situation is, which has already been mentioned, the fact that if the police try to use the non-lethal force, the tasers, the fact that they don't work 40% of the time. It means that maybe we need to have better non-lethal force. The idea of these doors that are going to prevent people from turnstile jumping, it's very expensive. It'll take forever. The subway system is losing money today. They can't afford to put in these very expensive things at this point.

Brian Lehrer: Sarah, thank you very much for your call. We appreciate it. Well, various perspectives on this and actually calls are still coming in. I'm going to extend this part of the segment with our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, a little bit more, and take at least one more call. On the teenagers as the indicator, I don't know. High school students get free MetroCards anyway, don't they?

Elizabeth Kim: That's correct, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: They may be jumping for sport, and teenagers will be teenagers, so I don't know what that's an indication of.

Elizabeth Kim: I would ask listeners to consider how different this conversation would be if a bystander was killed in this incident. We don't know what this person's situation is now. He's still hospitalized and he's in critical condition. I think that the question that you put to Sarah, does this now make you afraid that, let's say, you're just you're just walking into the station, and you're just seeing someone else, be arrested for fare evasion. This idea that there is even this remote possibility that you might be caught in gunfire I think should be alarming to a lot of New Yorkers.

Brian Lehrer: Desiree in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Desiree.

Desiree: Hi, Brian. My comment partially, is just what your guest just said. How do you know you're not going to be caught in gunfire? Those police officers, whether they were pursued, whoever they were pursuing, they shot into a enclosed train car where someone is just sitting down, going about their day, and now the police are in the car, releasing bullets, and somebody got shot. We do not know his condition. They just, say, critical. He could be mere brain dead, God forbid, but we don't know.

Brian Lehrer: I think it wasn't in a subway car. It was in the station, but still, it's an enclosed space, but go ahead.

Desiree: Right, you can't go anywhere. I think it's unacceptable that the mayor, that the NYPD would somehow try to justify that it is okay that bystanders got caught up in this, and it's not the first time it's happened. It's very telling that they're not releasing that camera footage. Very telling, because when the camera footage shows that they are largely looks good to the public, they will run and release it, but now they have to go through protocol. I think that the NYPD and the mayor really have a lot to answer for in this.

I think that unfortunately, because this happened in Brownsville, and it didn't happen over in Bay Ridge or in Bensonhurst or the other side of Brooklyn, they're feeling very justified in making these justifications because people are going to say, oh, it's Brownsville. I'm glad that you're talking about it, Brian, but that it's not going to get looked at the same way and people aren't going to look at it, and see themselves or their family that this could happen to them. They're encouraging us to go into the subways, but then the police are down there shooting. That's a problem.

Brian Lehrer: How would you enforce the fare effectively without using the NYPD?

Desiree: I don't know. Maybe the MTA the same way they have those roving teams of people who give out tickets for the bus when you don't have your ticket, and I've seen them. Why don't they have that for the trains? Why don't they have that?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's interesting. Desiree, thank you very much. Yes, that's a good question. There's a lot of fare evasion on the buses, even much more than in the subways is my understanding. I've been on a bus when one of those inspectors has walked through on one of the select bus service lines where you take your receipt at the dispenser at the bus stop, and they walk on and they check to see if you have the receipt. I don't know if you can do that in our sprawling subway system, but it raises the question again of maybe there are alternative ways that could be effective and without this threat of shootings that injure innocent people or even the perpetrators.

Elizabeth Kim: That's all correct, Brian. I just think that it seems as if this is the worst case scenario and this is something that the city wants to avoid. True, maybe perhaps some of these other deterrents cost more money, but I would think that that is a worthwhile investment compared to this worse alternative.

Brian Lehrer: We'll take a break. We'll continue with our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim. Well, turn the page to what most of the news conference was about yesterday, the investigations into the mayor, the resignations of top aides of the mayor. Can his mayoralty even continue effectively with him distracted, allegedly distracted. He denies that as much. We'll take your phone calls on that. Plus the clips that Liz brought of people she interviewed in one of the electoral strongholds for Mayor Adams in 2021, Harlem, and what people there are saying. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, with our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim. As usual on Wednesdays after the mayor's weekly Tuesday news conference, and your reactions to the excerpts and analysis that she comes with. 212-433-WNYC. Call or text 212-433-9692, and let's get to the investigations into the mayor and his people and your news story. Interviewing people in Harlem, where did you find people to ask their opinion of the mayor?

Elizabeth Kim: I want to say, Brian, it's not so much that Harlem was a stronghold for the mayor in the 2021 primary. He did do very well in majority Black neighborhoods like Southeast Queens, Central Brooklyn. Harlem is changing as we all know. It's undergone a lot of gentrification, but overall, the mayor is perceived, and polling supports this as having a very strong base in Black New Yorkers. What happened was Sunday was the African American Day Parade, which runs through Harlem. The mayor marches in it. A lot of other elected officials march in it. It's an annual event.

It was a very good opportunity to go and watch the mayor. It's the first time that the mayor had appeared since his chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, abruptly quit over the weekend. I also thought this was a great opportunity to talk to Black New Yorkers, many of them who grew up and have lived a long time in Harlem, just to gauge their opinions on the investigations, but also just generally how they think Mayor Adams is doing.

One of the things that the mayor is getting increasingly frustrated with is the fact that he's being asked over and over again about these investigations. He maintains that this is not what New Yorkers care about, that New Yorkers care about policies, and what's he doing on affordability, on public safety. In many ways, this was an opportunity to kind of test that in an environment where you do see a lot of longtime New Yorkers, especially civically engaged New Yorkers come out for an event like this.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a clip you have of 65-year-old Latonya Smith, who you describe as a lifelong Black Harlemite, who says why she won't be voting again for Eric Adams.

Latonya Smith: The investigations are not for nothing. Obviously, there's something, like in the cut that's been done. I remember last year when they took his phone. Then I'm looking at his cabinet. Everybody's like, all these people are stepping down, so there's something to it. It has to be.

Brian Lehrer: Here's another of Latonya Smith.

Latonya Smith: I did a lot of advocating before the elections. Like, hey, we have to vote for Adams. I give him a chance, blah, blah, blah, but it's like, soon as he got in, he started going left, like, I don't see being that I've been in the Harlem community since 1961, the same apartment, and right now.

Elizabeth Kim: In Harlem?

Latonya Smith: Yes, the apartment right there by Central Park, and now, I'm being pushed out.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, you also have a clip of someone named Smalls with a different point of view. Who's this?

Elizabeth Kim: This is Herman Smalls. He's a 60-year-old fitness trainer, and he had quite a different take on the investigations.

Brian Lehrer: Here it is.

Herman Smalls: Whenever there's an investigation, I try to widen the lens, because at first, who's launching the investigation? Now I believe it's the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now, if we look at the history that agency has had with the Black community, specifically leadership with COINTELPRO and up to the current. I don't know if you're familiar with the Uhuru verdict. He was found guilty on three and innocent or non-guilty on other three, but I don't want to get away with this. Stick with Eric Adams. This could very likely be a coup, wouldn't you say, to take out all the head of a particular administration on accusations? Last I checked, the man was innocent until proven guilty.

Brian Lehrer: Right there, just those two different Harlemites. You have quite a range of opinion, and this is an unscientific survey, obviously-

Elizabeth Kim: Totally.

Brian Lehrer: -from critics or supporters of the mayor. Did you come away with an overall impression that was newsworthy in your opinion?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, I would say that these are the two dueling sentiments in a place like Harlem. There are people like Latonya Smith who look at the investigations, and they say, well, they can't be for nothing. Then you have people like Herman Smalls who understand that there has been a history of Black people being unfairly targeted by not only law enforcement, but he also says the media as well.

I think what is interesting, though, is to sort of push people not just on the investigations, but what they think about the policies. Because I think assuming that nothing more comes of the investigations, and I think this has been one of the frustrating and puzzling parts of this investigation that the mayor himself actually spoke to yesterday. It's been 10 months since the FBI seized his phones, but we still don't know with any certainty. What is it? Is the mayor going to eventually be accused of anything? Is anyone in his inner circle going to be indicted?

These are still unknowns, but I think for many New Yorkers, and I think the mayor is right on this, what they're looking at is their everyday existence in New York City, and how have their lives? Have their lives improved under Mayor Adams? You have someone like Latonya Smith. I think this should be more worrying for the mayor than the investigations is someone like her who is civically engaged. Three years ago, she participated in a "get-out-the-vote drive" for Mayor Adams, but she's now disenchanted. Why? Because she's 65 years old. She says she can't afford to retire, and she can't afford the annual rent increases on an apartment she's lived in since 1961.

Brian Lehrer: In yesterday's news conference, you quoted some of that to the mayor from Harlemites, and he responded like this.

Mayor Eric Adams: It's interesting to me that you found a Harlemite. You didn't find the thousand along the route that says, keep doing what you're doing there.

Elizabeth Kim: Cheering for Tish James.

Mayor Eric Adams: Okay. Of course, you know, because that's how we are. When I read these books on how we perceive things and how we feel things, we as human beings, because of the fright and flight mindset, we always look at the negative because that's the sense of survival.

If you were at that parade and you walked away with that, hey, these folks up in Harlem don't see what this mayor is doing, then I don't know what parade you were at because that was definitely not the energy. Hold on, I'm going to get to the overall concept because you were able to find one, and you could find one in everything.

Brian Lehrer: What was that follow-up you were trying to shout at the mayor there?

Elizabeth Kim: I wanted him to speak to her actual concerns. The mayor is suggesting that somehow I found a unicorn in this parade of, like, thousands of spectators, that somehow she was the only one that was unhappy with his policies. That's just not true, and that's borne out by polling where people have expressed dissatisfaction, including Black New Yorkers, about some of the mayors policies, including budget cuts, including his handling of the migrant crisis.

I wanted the mayor to speak to what she was talking about, and he did. He talked about how he has implemented policies along to address affordability in the city. He spoke about his City of Yes plan, which is all about updating the zoning code, so that he can build more housing. Now, Latonya Smith actually spoke to that. She's very savvy. She does read the news, and she said to me, I know the mayor wants to build more housing, but I'm talking about myself. I already have an apartment. What is he doing to help those stay in their apartments? I think that that is also an issue that the mayor needs to think about, especially as he approaches reelection next year.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Lewis in Brooklyn reacting to those clips of Harlemites and the mayor that we just played. Lewis, you're on WNYC with Elizabeth Kim. Hi.

Lewis: How you doing, Brian?

Brian Lehrer: Doing all right. What you thinking? Yes, we got you.

Lewis: No, I'm just thinking that the mayor is kind of minimizing that people's opinion. I watched the whole press conference, and he's talking about, like, oh, it's one person that you found, but that's a feeling throughout the city. His major support is in Jamaica. I'm in Brooklyn right now, but I live in St. Albans. That's close to Jamaica, and people are feeling the same thing. Now you cannot find parking over there because people are going further and further, and you see the towers coming up in Jamaica, that claim to be affordable, that are empty, that you see the signs on the windows, the affordable housing, but they're not affordable for that area.

Every time we get that short fixed, and whenever there's something that the people with money have something that they want, the mayor seems to give in small class sizes. I went through the junior high school process, and everybody wanted small classes, but that's not where that mayor put his foot down. You see that he's fighting that. Yes, he wants more housing build, but so did that last mayor, and he spoke honestly about what was the problem that people don't want their houses built in their neighborhood.

Brian Lehrer: Lewis, thank you very much. Call us again. Very interesting call, Liz, backing up the clip of Latonya, thinking the mayor has been a failure on affordable housing, that he caters too much to richer people who want things done for various reasons. Maybe he was referring to developers and, what kind of mix of affordable or affordable for whom? Raising the issue of small class sizes, which the mayor has fought that mandate from Albany. He wasn't talking about investigations, but somebody who was disillusioned from really the mayor's own neck of the woods, Southeast Queens, that stronghold that you mentioned before.

Elizabeth Kim: That's correct, Brian. Even Latonya Smith told me, and I was a little taken aback by this. She said that she is looking at the other candidates who will be running for mayor next year. She told me that she wants a mayor who will represent everyone, not this one percent elite, and that surprised me, because Mayor Adams has worked very hard to promote himself as having an agenda for the working class. He often calls himself the first working class mayor of New York City, and for someone like Latonya Smith, to view him as a mayor for the elites, I think should be very concerning for Adams looking ahead.

Brian Lehrer: One more call from Harlem. Sproul in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sproul.

Sproul: Hi, Brian. I'm a big fan and long time, first time. I moved up to Harlem 25 years ago. I live on 124th near Lenox. I voted for Mayor Adams in the primary and the general, but I have to say that me, my neighbors were all pretty disappointed in him. I'm going to focus on just quickly on two issues. I was invited to join a mayoral task force on the opioid crisis and lifestyle issues here in Harlem, and it includes 25 residents from 110th to 140th. We're all experiencing pretty awful conditions here on 124th Street. We have three treatment centers, open air, drug market, people sleeping, defecating, doing drugs, dealing, everything.

I know the mayor knows about this block because he's walked down it with some of my neighbors. I hear about all of these blocks around Harlem experiencing the same thing. The liaison to the mayor's office for this task force hasn't reached out to us in two months, and he was supposed to be a liaison with agencies to help rectify the problems. The other issue is transportation. We took a big hit with congestion pricing here in Harlem, where 75% of households don't own cars, and bus service and subway service will decline. We have no protected bike lanes here, and the mayor is required by law to put those in all over the city.

Brian Lehrer: In other words, you want the congestion pricing.

Sproul: I think it would help Harlem a lot, because 125th street is a disaster. Adam Clayton Powell, where perfect spot for protected bike lane is very dangerous. There have been a lot of deaths and injuries. Those are two areas where the mayor could make an instant impact, and he hasn't. It's not just me talking. I've been exposed to a lot of my neighbors experiences as well.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, congestion pricing is up to the governor, but the mayor has been kind of non-committal on it and not fighting for it, certainly, but I hear you're raising a number of issues. Sproul, thank you very much. You call us again, too. More on the investigations. He said this in the news conference yesterday about whether he's now too distracted by all this to do his job well.

Mayor Eric Adams: Ten months ago, my phones were taken. When you look at what has happened in those ten months, it's right up there. We are moving this city forward. I was elected to move this city forward, and that's what we're doing every day. If you look at the numbers and you look at the analysis, you can't walk away with that this mayor has been distracted and has not continued to move the city forward.

Brian Lehrer: He added this.

Mayor Eric Adams: Someone said at the announcement that this administration, our hallmark is not being distracted. Stuff come up in the city, and we're not going to be distracted. One of the distractions is answering the same question over and over and over and over again. Like you're going to get a different answer. I'm just not going to do that. I got a city to run.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, is he distracted?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, he certainly said that the questions about the investigations have become a distraction. I thought that that was part of his opening remarks yesterday at the presser. I thought that was interesting because in the prior press conference, last week, he delivered a virtual address in which he seemed a little bit more chastened, and he had to acknowledge that these investigations have raised some questions and that New Yorkers are concerned.

I think that he decided to take up maybe a little bit of a feistier tone in part to maybe go on offense a little bit, but, of course, the mayor doesn't dictate what the press corps asks him. Part of the dynamic of these pressers is that reporters will ask what they want about. They will repeat questions. They will ask them in different ways because the mayor will try to dodge the questions.

I think the irony of it, and what we've heard from the callers is, he's saying, don't ask me about the investigation. Lets get back to what matters to New Yorkers. I don't think that the questions are going to be any easier for him to answer based on some of the sentiments that we've heard from New Yorkers who sound like they're pretty disenchanted with the mayor.

Brian Lehrer: Do you know why the chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, resigned? She obviously feels uncomfortable continuing to defend the mayor. He hasn't been charged of anything. He says he's not a target of the investigations, according to law enforcement. She feels uncomfortable with something that he's doing, which raises a public concern in and of itself.

Elizabeth Kim: She also felt the need to do it in a hurry. Basically, in her three-sentence letter to the mayor on Saturday, she said that she couldn't effectively do her job anymore, and that's all we know publicly from her. There's been some reporting that says that sources within the administration said that she was pressuring the mayor to let go some of the members in his inner circle who have had their phones seized. The mayor would not corroborate that. Yesterday, he said these are private conversations, but what we do know is that she left on a Saturday. She didn't give the mayor any notice. That's unusual, right? She's his chief counsel. She's also leaving him in the middle of a federal investigation, multiple federal investigations, in fact. I think that that was remarkable was how she did it, and that has raised a lot of questions and speculation about why.

Brian Lehrer: Let me tack on one more call here from, I think, probably a very good hearted New Yorker who heard the clip that you brought of the Harlemite named Latonya, who's concerned about being able to afford the rent in her Harlem apartment where she's lived for a long time. Anya in Manhattan wants to chime in, in case Latonya or anyone else in a similar situation is listening right now. Anya, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Anya: Hi. Good morning, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good, thanks. What you got?

Anya: Yes, I was just calling on behalf of the partnership to end homelessness. We work with people like Tanya every day of the week to prevent homelessness, and so if there is anything that we can do, whether it's helping her navigate, benefits that she might be entitled to, or if she needs help with rental assistance, she can give us a call. It's 212-645-3444, and that obviously goes for anybody else in her position as well.

Brian Lehrer: I'll invite you to give that again because phone numbers go by quickly on the radio, and there probably are a lot of people listening who need rental assistance.

Anya: It's 212-645-3444

Brian Lehrer: That's the partnership to end homelessness?

Anya: That's the partnership to end homelessness. Unfortunately, there are way too many people in the same position in New York at the moment.

Brian Lehrer: Anya, thank you. You have a good heart for calling that in, in response to that clip. Liz Kim, thank you as always. Probably talk to you next Wednesday after next Tuesday's weekly news conference from Mayor Adams.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

 

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