During a press briefing on Tuesday, NYC Mayor Eric Adams (D-NY) was asked if former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) was siphoning moderate voter support.
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00:00So, back in October of last year, you defended ACS.
00:05There was a horrific death of a four-year-old boy.
00:07ACS.
00:07Yeah.
00:08But so now we're here again, not even a year later.
00:12You said at that time you wanted to have a review of what happens, but it didn't happen again.
00:16No young New Yorker should die like this.
00:18So now we have another instance.
00:19A four-year-old girl who died over the weekend or was found dead over the weekend.
00:23ACS had door knocks.
00:24Clearly, it seems like they did not properly do their job.
00:27So, in the review from the last case, what is your administration doing to prevent these from happening?
00:32Because it's the buck stops with you.
00:33And then secondly, on your mayoral race, are you concerned at all?
00:37You and Andrew Cuomo are kind of aiming for that same kind of voter base, the moderate.
00:42Are you a little bit concerned here that if this becomes a four-way race between you, Cuomo, and then the Working Families Party,
00:48whether that's Lander, Middani, and then Curtis Lewa, that you're taking away votes from somebody like Cuomo leading to a far-left candidate,
00:56which you clearly don't agree with, taking over the city hall?
01:00No, I'm not.
01:01And if anything, he's taking votes away from me.
01:03I'm the mayor.
01:04You know, why is he in my race?
01:06You know?
01:07You know?
01:08I mean, like you said, am I taking votes from him?
01:12I'm the mayor.
01:12You know?
01:13So, if anything, I was here already.
01:15You know?
01:16Why are you in my race?
01:17You know what I'm saying?
01:19Go find—go find—it's like almost when you have a house somewhere and someone is trying to move in.
01:24It's like, go find your own house.
01:27You know?
01:27So, think about that for a moment.
01:30You know, you taking votes from him.
01:32Oh, how about him taking votes from me?
01:33I was the moderate first.
01:35I didn't pass bail reform that saw these problems.
01:38I didn't have a nursing home crisis.
01:42I didn't do a disproportionate amount of, you know, issues around the problems with dissemination of vaccines and testing.
01:54I'm not living in my daughter's house.
01:56I have my own house in New York.
01:58You know?
01:58So, I mean, you said, Eric, are you taking votes from him?
02:04I mean, what are you doing on my block?
02:05If you're going as an independent into the general, it's seemingly going to pit you two against each other for those same votes.
02:15What I'm saying is that, are you worried, though, that even though—say it happens either way.
02:18He takes votes from you, you take votes from him.
02:20It could end up with somebody like a Lander who we know you do not like or a Mindana who you do not adequately agree with at all.
02:26Well, I don't find some—based on his—remember, I'm running on my record.
02:33He's running from his record.
02:35When you looked at what he allowed the far left to do when he was in office, I'm not sure he wouldn't allow that to do again.
02:44You know?
02:44And then when you look at the fact, during difficult and tough times, I didn't abandon the city, no matter how difficult it was for me, no matter how hard it was for me.
02:57I said to the people of New York, I was elected to serve you, and I'm going to continue to serve you, whatever happens to me, and I'm going to continue to do that.
03:08But what we should never do, we should never discount the electoral process.
03:14The process ends in November, and everyone who's in that race must go through that process.
03:22We're not coordinating anyone.
03:25We're making everyone go through the process.
03:28And I'm looking forward to getting reelected on an independent line as a Democrat.
03:36That's what I'm looking forward to.
03:37Yes, I'm sorry.
03:39Yeah, yeah.
03:40I can't—you know, that's another one of those—that's another one of those circumstances that I continue to say.
03:48Those of you who cover these stories, you know, you should spend time going with the employees that do this work.
03:58You know, because you can't really cover these stories without going through it.
04:03And I really will encourage you to go out and spend a day with an ACS employee.
04:10Because here it is, you get employees who are criticized for taking children away too prematurely.
04:17You get criticized for why didn't you take a child away.
04:22You get criticized because why did you knock on that door so hard?
04:26Why did you take the door?
04:27You get criticized for not taking the door.
04:31You—if you go out and spend time with them and see how they have to make these decisions, how they have to do this investigation, that is why I take my hat off to them.
04:42The hundreds of thousands of interviews, of meetings, of sit-downs, of having to use that sixth sense to make these determinations.
04:53And so it's horrific to have a baby left in the house, her mom passed, her sibling passed, and the ACS.
05:03You think an ACS knocked on that door and said, I'm not going to do the investigation?
05:06I'm not concerned with what's happening behind that door.
05:09That's just not the reality.
05:10You know, I've embraced ACS since my days of borough president.
05:14I marched across the bridge with them.
05:16I heard them call for reform.
05:18I saw the commitment and dedication.
05:20I saw how traumatized they are when they lose a child or a victim of this.
05:26This is painful, you know.
05:27And we see it as just being professional, but it's not as personal to them.
05:32Many of them go through a great deal of trauma when a case like this happens.
05:38And so I stand with my employees in ACS.
05:42I know their commitment.
05:43I know their dedication.
05:45We're going to do an investigation, find out what happened here, and do our best to prevent it from happening.
05:50And God knows how many cases they save.
05:52You never hear about the lives they save.
05:56You hear about a life that is lost, but they save thousands of lives because of their actions.
06:05And, you know, how many people stand up and applaud them?
06:08How many times do we, like I said, with Lisa, the nurse, and these officers, when was the last time we wrote a story that applauded the men and women of ACS that have saved the lives of children?
06:22When was the last time we wrote that?
06:24When was the last time that we said they went on hundreds of thousands of cases and you don't have any laws?
06:32When was the last time we did a deep dive into the trauma of being an ACS employee?
06:37And when was the last time you guys just went out with one of them and said, let me just do some house visits to you?
06:41Let me walk into a community where there was just a shooting last week, and I'm still going to knock on that door.
06:47Like, when have you ever gone out?
06:49I know you write about when we have a loss of life, but have you ever gone out and saw the work of being an ACS investigator, an ACS employee?
06:59I mean, that is how—that's why I go out with police officers.
07:04That's why I go out with transit workers and others.
07:07Because I said, before I make decisions on your life, I need to go out and see what is your life.
07:12You guys are writing about the lives of people who are saving the lives of people, and you never even walked in their shoes.
07:19You never even experienced what it is to knock on that door and look in that household and say, I've got to make a judgment call.
07:26Am I going to take this child?
07:28And then if you take the child, you have a whole new group of saying, you prematurely taking children away from parents and breaking up households.
07:36This is real, folks.
07:39You got—did you get my brother in the back?
07:42Yes, yes.
07:43How are you?
07:44I'm good.
07:44How are you?
07:44Good, good.
07:45I got two questions for you.
07:47I didn't used to have hair that long, man.