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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and right now we continue our month of May round of one-on-one interviews with the New York City Democratic primary candidates for mayor. Our theme for this round is economic recovery meets economic justice. We know that any new mayor will have to guide the comeback from COVID after so many hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost in the city.

We also know the economic devastation was not spread evenly across the board in the city. We know that fighting economic inequality was how Mayor de Blasio got elected eight years ago and yet that work already had many miles yet to go even before the pandemic. Economic recovery meets economic justice. With us today on this Brooklyn Borough President, Eric Adams.

The big news for Adams this week ahead of tonight's first debate, the New York Post endorsed him for mayor on top of a big picture of Adams on the post-app, it says, "New York City stands at a crossroads, where we continue to surrender our streets to homelessness, filth crime, and guns to betray our children's future to push away residents, businesses, and wealth."

It goes on to praise Adam's experience and his proposal to cut many city government agencies' budgets by 3 or 5% and says, "We enthusiastically endorse Eric Adams for mayor." We'll address the posts endorsement to the big news for Adams the last few days. Borough president always good to have you and welcome back to WNYC.

Eric Adams: Thank you, Brian. I look forward to the conversation not only now, but also your participation in the debate this evening.

Brian Lehrer: Congratulations, I think, on your New York post endorsement as a Democrat with presumably Democratic Party values, do you even accept the New York post endorsement considering their usual positions on New York city and world affairs?

Eric Adams: Yes and I don't know if many people caught the Post statement that we disagree in many areas. Throughout the years, I have been extremely critical of some of the positions that the Post newspaper has taken. They've been critical on my democratic values, but we are at a state where we must unify as a city. Something that's lost in history, Brian, the New York Post actually endorsed Barack Obama also and I think that when the country or city is in a [unintelligible 00:02:41] turbulent period, people look at who's best fit to do the job and get us back on track and I know I can do that.

Brian Lehrer: I've been around long enough to remember how the New York Post used to write about you. I looked some of that up and here's an example, Adam Brodsky, the Post's deputy editorial page editor today also had that position back in 2004, when he wrote a column called Adam's Agenda - A Cop and A Gadfly.

For our listeners who don't know you were a Lieutenant in the NYPD at the time and founder of the group, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. You were calling out racism on the NYPD among other things the group did, but here are some of the lines that Adam Brodsky wrote about you in the Post back then, "What about his charge of discrimination on the force?" In a way he's right. The NYPD brass does appear to discriminate against whites. Then he went on and he backed that up with some stats from his point of view.

Then he says, "When Lieutenant Eric Adams blows the whistle on the police force, surely he wants everyone to pay attention, but the question is pay attention to what? Non-existent racism or him." Then later it says, "Two years ago, he tagged police commissioner Ray Kelly, with a similar slur saying the commission neither has the know-how nor the desire to address those issues that affect our communities of color." Quoting you. At the time, Kelly had been serving under Mayor Mike Bloomberg for a whole three months. That's when the New York post deputy editorial page editor from then and now, Adam Brodsky, in 2004, so who changed? You were the New York Post?

Eric Adams: I believe that history is the judge of that when you do an analysis of what I was raising in 2004, you will see that I was accurate. You will see that a million Black and brown children were being stopped and frisked in the city unjustly, you will see how racism was pervasive in the police department. I believe what you just read is so important because you have many people who just discovered of this movement of police reform, believe that I did not have a significant role. The editorial pages across the city demonized me for many years.

I believe history clearly has shown that I was accurate. I was in an agency. We should never forget that; I was in an agency challenging that agency while I was wearing that uniform. My life was in jeopardy, my career was in jeopardy, but I knew from the state of being beat by a police officer, that I had an assignment to go in and change the police department and you're seeing a continuation of that now. I did not change. I'm still talking about those same issues now.

Brian Lehrer: One more thing on this, that's been in the news this week, some of your rivals are pointing out that you were a registered Republican from 1995 to 2002. There's anticipation that that'll come up in the debate from one camp or another. Is that true that you're a registered Republican then and if so, did you vote for Mayor Giuliani in 97?

Eric Adams: I've never voted for any Republican. I am a Democrat. My mother was a Democrat. My granddad was a Democrat. I'm a Democrat. I have been a Democrat for over 20 something years, and I have democratic values of not only as a registered Democrat now and for that period of time, but also what I have fought for fair housing, education, ending inequalities, fighting for police reform. The long record of my values are clear, and we should understand this. People can examine my record because I do have a record. Many people were MIA during some of these real battles that we have had in this city in this country.

Brian Lehrer: Why were you a registered Republican at that time?

Eric Adams: I shared this over and over again, I was truly troubled and angry of what I saw on the ground from the political electives across this country, putting in place the crime bill that really, when we talk about the prison reform movement, this was based on that crime bill or the Rockefeller Drug Laws, something that I protest against as a Sergeant at Rockefeller Plaza, and then went to Albany to co-sponsor the bill to repeal that law.

How we were dealing with crime on the street every day. I watch crime in our streets where we did not see the leadership in this city, state, and country ignoring the violence in the inner cities. It was my protest move that I did, but I've always maintained democratic values, never voted for a Republican, and I'm proud to be a Democrat.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Why would you be the best mayor out of this group of candidates to manage the city's economic recovery from COVID and to address the inequities in who got hit economically by the pandemic?

Eric Adams: The first thing is to understand that it's not about who got hit after the pandemic or during the pandemic because to understand that far too many people, Black, brown and immigrants, and poor New Yorkers were being hit pre-pandemic. The reason we have not witnessed the needle moving at all is what I continue to talk about Brian. Our city's inefficient, those inefficiencies are leading o the inequalities. Our cities are made up of agencies and that those agencies are not aligned with the real mission of ending inequalities, then we're going to be back here over and over again.

My conversation as the next is to go upstream and stop causing these problems. All my colleagues that are running, they're talking about new programs downstream of how do we pull people out of inequalities. That's why my people plan is one of the areas that I want to look at, is in the immense wealth and persistent poverty gap that we have in this city and there are clear areas on how we can carry that out.

Brian Lehrer: When you say upstream, what's an example of that? I'm thinking, for example at the neighborhood level, we did some segments this year on West Farms, the neighborhood in the Bronx, that was one of the hardest hit by both COVID unemployment and COVID cases and deaths. Do you need to go neighborhood by neighborhood like that? Do you need to go by identity group, race, gender, income to see all the inequities and craft policies that address, I don't know where upstream is and downstream is but that address, those inequities by group, or neighborhood?

Eric Adams: Yes. Let's look at that whole concept of upstream-downstream. When you look at according to one Texas study, 30% of our inmates are dyslexic, and we pull them out of jail, that's downstream. If we have dyslexia screening in every school in our city, then we will identify those children who are dyslexic, put them on the right educational instruction and pathway that they could become productive citizens, instead of waiting until they turn to a life of violence, believing they can't learn and find themselves caught in the criminal justice system, homelessness, lack of employment.

That is how we respond to those issues now, and we look at my plan that is on my website, 100 plus steps forward for New York. I talk about how do we deal with the employment issue. Pre-COVID, we had 300,000 jobs that we could not fill because there was a skills gap. Eric Adams as mayor, we're going to create a single platform application system using a GIS system to look at every community, find out what jobs are available, and that we are attempting to build based on employers and connect them to the communities where we are looking for job seekers. They will fill out one application, we will look at the skills they need and tie in our workforce development centers to actually give those individuals the skills they need to fill the job.

Right now we should just connect the system. We don't analyze in real-time and that is why we can't wrap our hands around the entire employment crisis that we're having is based on particular neighborhoods.

Brian: What do you see as the hardest sector of the economy to bring back in general and what do you see as the next mayor's role in that as opposed to letting the market for things like tourism and performing arts and restaurants simply recover on its own after the virus hopefully keeps receding?

Mr. Adams: Small businesses, we must zero in and lean into small businesses. If we are honest with ourselves, the first round of PPP that we received from the federal government ignores small businesses. The application process was too cumbersome. There was no real support on the ground and we must be proactive in wrapping ourselves around small businesses.

There are several things we must do. Number one, we must ensure there's a direct link to the small businesses on the ground by creating a local banking network, use the CDFIs to really help those small businesses have access to the federal stimulus. Number two, we should empower our local chamber of commerce, allow them to do the backbone work for small businesses, give them an allotment of money so that my baker, my small restaurant, we can pick up the work of doing all of their compliance, their payrolls, all of those things that don't allow small businesses to focus on just their primary small business.

Then we should re-examine our procurement for goods and services. We spend $22.5 billion a year. Instead of spending it in our city, where our tax dollars should be made, we spend much of that outside our city and state. We're not recycling our tax dollars here in the city. We need to stop being a place where it's too expensive, too bureaucratic, and too difficult to do business in the city, instead of helping small businesses. All of our agencies that are connected to small businesses are doing just the opposite. You should not be afraid when a city agency walk into your small business, because they are going to fine you or to hurt you. You should be encouraged because they're there to help you.

Brian: Let me ask you a question I'm asking all the candidates in this round that has to do with helping the workers in small businesses as well as big businesses. Mayor de Blasio ran and won in 2013, as the candidate most focused on fighting economic inequality, as you know, and his signature policies included universal pre-K, and a paid sick leave law, both of which have been implemented and I think are very popular. The paid sick leave, unlike pre-K, is not a city expense, it's a regulation on private sector employers. That's where a lot of structural inequity takes place, I think you'll agree, among different groups of hard-working people across the economy.

The fight for the $15 minimum wage was about that. We now have that in New York. Now there are issues like for gig workers to be treated as employees by big companies like Uber, but also to pay the usual minimum wage or closer to it for workers dependent on tips. The small business restaurants hate that. Do you have anything like that in mind as pay and benefits standards for employers in pursuit of more economic equality in the city, because sometimes small businesses and big businesses alike don't like those things?

Mr. Adams: We must balance what we do for everyday workers and to not destroy small businesses. I thought it was a smart decision in the city council to create micro businesses because when we think of small businesses sometimes we don't realize they are micro-businesses. They are a small business who will have anywhere from 10 to 15 employees. When you make changes city-wide it may impact those businesses differently. We need to be conscious of that.

I'm not a stranger to low pay. I was a dishwasher as a child, and I know how important it is to receive a proper minimum wage. I fought with 32BJ and other unions as we push for the $15 minimum wage. I was at the airport several times fighting for those airport employees that are battling for minimum wage and to make sure they have fair health care.

We must make sure workers are able to sustain themselves and move into middle class because if we don't, that is going to come out of taxpayers' dollars. By ensuring that we ensure that we have proper health care, proper days off for sick, proper vacation, and proper pay, we will not have a burden on those low-income, middle-income New Yorkers and that is part of my plan to continue to move that forward.

We must be there for small businesses. What we're doing now in this city, we're hurting the bottom line of small businesses. When you walk into a small business and you have a $5000, a $10,000 fine, you are hurting the bottom line of small businesses and that is passed on to those employees that we're attempting to help.

Brian Lehrer: Lou on Staten Island. You're on WNYC with Brooklyn Borough President, Eric Adams, running for mayor. Hi Lou.

Lou: Good morning Brian, thanks for taking my call. Mr. Adams, I want to ask you this question, given your personal experience with police violence as a child growing up in this town, what do you plan on doing with the CCRB? In other words, are you going to allow that organization to get subpoena power so that you can actually bring to for some of these problems because without subpoena power, the CCRB will remain toothless?

Brian: President?

Eric Adams: It's so important, I want to answer his question, Brian, but I also want to go back to a question you asked that was very important about employees. There are ways we can also help employees, such as increasing the reduced fare MetroCard. My plan for the earned income tax credit, low-income employees, and making sure that we use the earned income tax credit. We can also make sure to have adequate health care, making sure New York City Cares is expanded and explained in the various languages of the city.

There's a way we can put money directly back in the pockets of everyday employees that we are failing to do so. To answer the gentleman's question from Staten Island, CCRB must have adequate subpoena powers and proper investigators because we want a fair system. The only way you can ensure that investigations are conducted properly is to have well-trained investigators that are knowledgeable on how to get to the facts of a particular accusation on police misconduct or misbehavior.

I don't believe we should allow the Internal Affairs Bureau in the police department to continue to investigate the serious allegation of criminality. I believe that should be handled outside the police department like the Department of Investigation because the relationships in the police department, I don't think allows one to have an independent investigation with the Internal Affairs Bureau don't handle those investigations.

Brian Lehrer: I'll give you a little breaking economic inequality news. One of your rivals Shaun Donovan just held a news conference and said he's challenging the other candidates to share concrete plans to end homelessness because he says he's the only candidate with the plan that would actually do something. I'll give you first opportunity to respond to that. What's your plan to end homelessness?

Eric Adams: If there's one term you're going to hear over and over in this race is I'm the only candidate that-- Everyone use that quote, but I believe that when we talk about who's the only candidate that is able to do something, I'm the only candidate that's going to keep this city safe, both proactively and dealing with the imminent threat. I'm clear on that.

When we talk about homelessness, I'm hoping that Shaun really broke down the three levels of homelessness, children, and families. That is the largest population. Now that's increasing in our shelters, single adults, which is including those who are returning citizens from being incarcerated and then mental health illnesses. Each one of those areas, you must have a separate approach.

Dealing with children and families, unless they fit the steps vouchers and other city vouchers, they do not reach the real costs of apartments. We need to increase those vouchers. We need to have a real mission of preventing families from being evicted and removed from their homes. That's the hemorrhaging that we must stop immediately.

Then we must cycle families into apartments and we must have a time analysis with HPD, what apartments do we have online? Are they the same apartments that HRA is actually stating we need? Make sure that those apartments that's in the 130 AMI bracket that are not filled, we need to allow families to drop down a number so that they can fill those apartments by dropping down the income band.

Third, returning citizens and single adults, we need to convert our hotels out of boroughs, that we're making into shelters. Let's convert them into kitchenettes, a new SRO, modern SRO policy, so we can get them in their own permanent houses not in shelters. I was the first candidate that called for that. I'm glad to see others also hopped onto this call.

Lastly, mental health illnesses. We have a revolving door system, a downstream mindset. We wait to someone that is homeless, street homeless, carries out an action, we arrest them. That's why we have 48% of the people at Rikers have mental health illnesses. If those who don't commit a crime, we take them to a psychiatric center. We have reduced the beds, we give them medicine for one day and we put them back on the streets.

We need to partner with institutions like Fountain House where we can allow these men and women to live in dignity, wraparound services, supportive housing and allow them to be able not to stay on the streets.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. Sally in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Eric Adams. Hi Sally.

Sally: Hi. I have a question for you. Deek has sent out a workforce profile and I wanted to know what specifically would you do to combat the Black women in city agency that are the least paid and the most overlooked for promotions in levels of executives.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Sally. Borough president, do you agree with her assessment?

Eric Adams: Yes I do. Sally, thank you for that question. This is not an opinion that Sally has, this is a fact. When we look at the report that was put in place by then counseling woman, Letitia James, it showed how women were paid less, particularly Black and brown women were paid at a lower rate wage and many of them were heads of households.

Let me tell you what our report also revealed. There was one office that paid women 13% to 14% higher than men, the only office. That was the Brooklyn Borough president's office under Eric Adams. What I'm going to do is stop this long history of showing men at the top end of government, with the top salaries and the lower clerical workers are being paid less and not receiving the proper environment to continue to move up through city employment.

We can do that. That's within our span of control. We want to do a real-time analysis and give our direction to every agency on what is your pathway to increase the opportunities of women, particularly in those discretionary appointment position. There are far too many men and it is clear that we don't have the diversity that we need at the top.

I did this as the Borough president, I'm going to do it as the mayor of the city of New York. We cannot have city employees that are living in shelters because their salaries are not able to sustain them in middle-class New York. That is not going to happen under my leadership because this is not political, it's personal. My mother was a cook in a daycare center and we ate what the students ate because she had to bring home that food as leftovers because she could not provide for her six children. This is unacceptable. It was like that 45 years ago and it needs to stop now. That's my promise and commitment to leave that as a legacy here in this city.

Brian Lehrer: We're almost out of time. Let me ask you about one other story in the news. You know that Andrew Yang has been in the headlines for his pro-Israel tweet with the new conflict flaring there. Critics say he should have at least acknowledged the Palestinian suffering and the conflict too. He got disinvited from at least one eat celebration.

I'm seeing that the Islamic Leadership Council of New York has quote officially, this is from the tweet from them "Officially withdrawn its endorsement from mayoral candidate, Eric Adams. Muslim grassroots leaders rescinded the endorsement following the Adams campaign failure to condemn Israel's aggression." What's your response to that?

Eric Adams: First of all, you and I both know Brian in a city like New York with 8 million people, you have 20 million opinions. We received communication of some of the various Muslim groups that have known me for over 35 years. They reinforced their support for me. This particular coalition have decided to make that decision that is not representative of all of the Muslim groups in this city.

Muslim organizations and groups, they know me for so many years. In 2001, they know about how I stood in front of the federal penitentiary on third Avenue to call for the release of young Muslim men who after the terrorist attack, they were incarcerated unjustly. They know the fight that I have performed around the women who wore hijabs and they were attacked. I was there to stand with the community. They know even when the police were infiltrating a mosque and really disrupting the peaceful services there that I stood from over 15, 20 years ago.

I have a real history with the Muslim community. I strongly believe that children should not die on both ends. I think the actions of adults should not take the lives of innocent children. We should call on all violence to end in the Middle East and in Israel so that we're not seeing innocent children die. I'm really troubled about that and New York should lead the way and add their voice to that.

Brian Lehrer: Are you ready after having been a cop and a state Senator and a borough president to have a foreign policy as mayor of New York? People on all sides seem to expect them to.

Eric Adams: They do. New York City is the most important in America and America is the most important country on the globe. Of course, New York is going to have to weigh in because here we are extremely diverse and we have residents who come from all over the globe, but we need to be thoughtful and measured so that we don't aggravate the actions that are happening abroad.

That is what I'm going to do as the mayor be a fair place of all New Yorkers is to understand we can raise healthy children and families in a safe environment. We should not have incidents like we saw yesterday where a police officer was shot, we should not have three-year-old children are shot in Times Square or one-year-old children murdered from gun violence in their societal scene.

Public safety is a prerequisite for prosperity. I'm going to keep the city safe, affordable, and opportunity to grow our economy so that we can have the city that we expect.

Brian Lehrer: Brooklyn Borough President, Eric Adams, see you in the debate tonight. See you on TV, see you on Skype, seven o'clock. Don't be late.

Eric Adams: Thank you. Take care. Good to see you.

Brian Lehrer: Again, listeners, there is the first Democratic mayoral primary televised and radio-vised debate tonight at seven o'clock live on New York 1, and here on WNYC, I'll be one of the questioners along with New York 1 Tara Louise and Joseph Velasquez from the city tonight at seven. We'll get your reactions on the phones tomorrow morning here.

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