Eric Adams Talks with David Remnick

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The New York City mayoral primary, which culminated in a vote held in June, was full of surprises, including the introduction of ranked-choice voting to a confused electorate, and the presence of Andrew Yang, a newcomer to municipal politics who quickly attained front-runner status. But the winning Democrat was no surprise. Eric Adams is the borough president of Brooklyn and a former state senator, making him an establishment favorite. He was also, for more than two decades, a police officer. With policing at the center of public attention since last year’s uprising of the Black Lives Matter movement, Adams occupies a unique position in the debate. He was a firebrand in the N.Y.P.D. and an advocate for Black officers; and he was, as a teen-age boy, a victim of police abuse himself. But Adams is also a strong defender of the police department. He has spoken about the correct way to implement stop-and-frisk policies, which have been previously carried out in ways that were ruled unconstitutional. He rebuked candidates to his left who talked about defunding the force. And he made the national spike in violent crime part of his candidacy, when others focussed their platforms elsewhere. The nation’s cities face a budgetary crisis, the COVID crisis, a crisis of confidence in policing, and more. Adams doesn’t seem fazed. “We need to be very honest that our city is dysfunctional. And it always has been for a large number of New Yorkers,” he told David Remnick. “I could take you throughout the city where the conditions have remained the same through mayor after mayor. What I must do is stop the dysfunctionality of a city that has normalized being dysfunctional.” Remnick spoke with Adams on July 21, 2021.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.1	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We just had the primary election for the mayor of New York City, and the winner, the very likely next mayor, is Democrat Eric Adams. He's the borough president of Brooklyn and a former
0:22.9	state senator. But most importantly in this race, Adams was for more than two decades a police
0:28.4	officer, and perhaps no debate in our society is more divisive than questions about policing.
0:34.4	And here Adams holds a truly unique position. In his youth, he was beaten by police.
0:41.2	When he joined the NYPD himself, he was a firebrand and an advocate for black officers.
0:46.4	But now he's a sympathetic figure to the police department, a kind of law and order candidate.
0:52.2	He rebuked other candidates who spoke of severely cutting police budgets,
0:56.4	and he made the national spike in violent crime a big part of his rhetoric. Assuming that Eric Adams
1:02.5	wins the general election, which is overwhelmingly likely, he'll take over a city that faces
1:08.1	multiple overlapping crises that might daunt any politician. Mr. Adams, you there? Yes, I am. There you are. What you do is you go to the voice memo, you turn it on, you start a voice memo and start recording, and just hold the phone up to your ear as if we're talking on the phone. Yep, now I'm recording. Now, am I, do the interview. Am I holding it up like this?
1:29.6	Like we're on a phone call. All right, that sucks.
1:35.9	Well, you know, life is hard.
1:38.4	Then you get elected mayor.
1:40.1	No, exactly. You're the one that wanted to have the second hardest office in the whole country.
1:45.4	You can get out of it now if you want.
1:49.8	I know one woman who'd be pleased.
1:55.0	Now, a couple, it seems very recently where New York politics was being talked about as the center of, you know,
2:04.5	the ascent of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the left in general. Along comes you, Eric Adams,
2:12.3	and you're being celebrated on the day we speak in the most conservative column in the New York Times by Brett Stevens
2:18.5	as something of a savior and a repudiation of the left. Do you see your likely assent to the
2:28.9	to Gracie Mansion and to City Hall as a repudiation of the left in New York City.
	...

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