NYC Mayor Eric Adams Defends His Crime Rhetoric Against Criticism from Fellow Democrats: ‘The Polls Were Clear — New Yorkers Felt Unsafe’

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) pushed back against critics within his own party in a chat with CNN’s Dana Bash, arguing that their worries his rhetoric on crime was harmful to Democrats were unfounded and he was simply responding to his constituents’ concerns.

On Sunday’s episode of State of the Union, Bash asked Adams for his takeaway from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s recent re-election loss, and how the issue of crime had dominated the campaign.

Adams replied that he viewed big city mayors as a separate entity from either the Democratic or Republican party, and described mayors as “the closest to the problem,” with their focus on “public safety,” which he described as “a prerequisite to prosperity.”

“People want to be safe,” said Adams, and if they don’t feel like they’re actually safe, “you’re going to lose control of your city.”

Bash asked him if what happened to Lightfoot was “a warning sign for you here in New York?”

“To the contrary! I think it’s a warning sign for the country,” he replied, mentioning how he had highlighted the issue not just during his campaign but during his first year as mayor, showing up at crime scenes and talking to New Yorkers because the issue was important to them.

Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) was saying “that the rhetoric that you talk about a lot with regard to crime kind of feeds the narrative and helps Republicans make the point that there is too much crime, and that hurts Democrats,” said Bash. “Your response?”

“You know the difference between a comment like that and what I say?” replied Adams. “I listen to Americans and New Yorkers. The polls were clear — New Yorkers felt unsafe and the numbers showed that they were unsafe. Now, if we want to ignore what the everyday public is stating, then that’s up to them. I’m on the subways, I walk the streets. I speak to everyday working class people. And they were concerned about safety — we zeroed in on that, unprecedented, historic numbers of felony arrests, removal of guns on our streets, closing homicide cases.”

“We have a recidivism problem in New York,” Adams added, with “far too many people,” about 2,000, who had been “repeatedly” caught committing crimes, released, and repeat. “If we don’t take them off our streets, they’re going to continue to prey on innocent people.”

Watch above via CNN.