Transcript with time code.
[00:00:00.00] – Mayor Adams
I’m going to step down. I’m going to step up. I am going nowhere. I’m the second black mayor in the history of the city.
[00:00:15.04] – Chris Cuomo
Mayor Adams, over the weekend, reiterating he will not step down, even after four of his deputy mayors resigned in protest. That’s about half of them, after Trump instructed the federal charges against the mayor to be dropped. Now, there’s the new twist. The mayor is the mayor of New York City. The governor of the state has power over him by the state constitution and a law that puts into operation her ability to get rid of anybody she wants, including the mayor of New York City. There’s process, but Governor Cathy Hochul can do this. She has a right. Is it right? That’s what I want to talk about. She had meetings today with big shots about what should happen with Adams. Now, there’s a reason that no governor has ever used this power before. In fact, we’ve never even really gotten this close. Maybe FDR did back in the ’30s, but the guy resigned. I wanted to bring in former governor of New York, David Patterson, who I’ve been listening to my whole life, always has a better perspective, and it’s great to see you. Just please first put up the picture of him playing basketball with my pop so that people will think I’m not teasing him.
[00:01:22.01] – Chris Cuomo
That’s the governor when he was in the legislature doing what he does best, cutting to the basket, not playing defense. When I say he ran past me many times on the court, now you know I’m not kidding around. I’m not kidding around about this, gov. It feels wrong. You educated me to something right before we started. I want to give you credit for. I say he should have pardoned him. You said, I’m missing the politics, the move, which was that this entire problem, this entire discussion with all of these people involved, is directly the fault of the Justice Department who dismissed the charges against Mayor Adams could have just left well enough alone, but then they decided to put without prejudice, which really means we can bring this back whenever we want to.
[00:02:10.03] – Governor Paterson
Mayor Adams’ lawyer said, That doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know what he was reading, if it didn’t mean anything, why did they write it? They wrote it because if they felt that Eric Adams was starting to become too independent of them, starting to go on his own, as he has done at other points in his career, that they would be embarrassed and he would mess up their plan to really drag every migrant out of New York that they possibly can.
[00:02:40.09] – Chris Cuomo
The straight move was for Trump to pardon him. You say Can’t pardon him because then he’s got no hooks in him, whereas this deal says we’ll reconsider after the election. So it basically makes Adams have to play ball for now through the duration of this cycle.
[00:02:57.13] – Governor Paterson
Right. If you are a defendant in a trial, people can criticize you, but you’re talking about your life. You’re talking about your ability to continue to work. And so it would put anybody in a position where they would be compromised. Right.
[00:03:14.26] – Chris Cuomo
Then we have the political question, does Governor Hochul have the right? Yes. Is it right, in your opinion, to be holding these meetings and contemplating taking out the mayor?
[00:03:26.01] – Governor Paterson
Well, I think that she does have the right. I don’t mind that she brought some people together to talk to her about the right because one person, one governor, can’t always make all the decisions themselves. She brings in a lot of people who have advice to give her. However, where’s the picture of Eric Adams punching a policeman? Where’s a picture of Eric Adams shoplifting? There’s no evidence. There’s no evidence. There is a perception that many of us have that he’s cooperating with the federal government pursuant to the fact that they dismissed his case. But in my opinion, other than the fact that they make these allegations about him, I haven’t heard of him actually doing something. I will say this one thing. It is interesting that the deputy mayors seem to be stopping short of saying something when they resigned. If I were the governor, and this is what happened actually with Franklin Roosevelt, when he was a governor, he had hearings about Jimmy Walker before they worked it out, and Jimmy Walker went to London, was never seen again. But my point is that I don’t see why they would remove this person from office when if so many Democrats have a problem with what he did, there’s this place for them.
[00:04:49.09] – Governor Paterson
It’s called a primary, and it’s in June, and you can vote him out and pick another person to be the Democrat candidate for mayor.
[00:04:56.28] – Chris Cuomo
Hearings, it’s like the worst part. More process that seems about weaponizing the law to create a political end, even within its own party, which seems to be a specialty of the Democrats?
[00:05:09.10] – Governor Paterson
You might be right, Chris. I’ll take it back.
[00:05:11.16] – Chris Cuomo
No, I don’t mean it that way. I mean that if you were to hold hearings, we’re not in the 1930s anymore. We know what those look like. It’s like these guys are prosecuting each other every five minutes.
[00:05:23.07] – Governor Paterson
Yeah, that’s right. But what I’m just saying is there had to be some examine examination of evidence rather than people coming in and saying, Well, he said he was going to do this and that with the migrants, and he didn’t do it, or he criticized Biden too much about the immigrants. Biden had the right- That’s not a crime.
[00:05:44.04] – Chris Cuomo
But if that’s the beef that he’s working with the federal government. Isn’t this sanctuary city thing going to lose any way in court? A state can’t get in the way of federal operation of law.
[00:05:54.03] – Governor Paterson
This is the problem that states like Alabama and Mississippi had in 1965. They thought they could just ignore the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but the federal government and the federal courts upheld it, and New York would be placed in that same situation.
[00:06:12.15] – Chris Cuomo
Governor Patterson, does Sanctuary City Sanctuary City’s or no? If the federal government said, This is in contravention of our immigration efforts.
[00:06:22.22] – Governor Paterson
Sanctuary City would be seen that way based on how the courts are ruling now.
[00:06:28.17] – Chris Cuomo
Be a violation. Governor Patterson would be doing the same thing Governor Hochul is and at least giving a nod towards deciding this mayor’s fate, or would you say, No, let the people decide?
[00:06:40.06] – Governor Paterson
I think I would have given everyone that had something to say a chance to come in or a few people that would echo what Governor Hochul has been hearing the past week or week and a half, I’d hear them out. But if I didn’t hear something that was clear and convincing, I would let Mayor Adams go ahead, run in the primary, and let the best candidate win.
[00:07:01.29] – Chris Cuomo
Al Sharpton was one of the meetings. Why?
[00:07:06.00] – Governor Paterson
I think they felt that they didn’t want this to be necessarily an assault on the Black community, if you had some members of the black community there and you still wanted to move Mayor Adams, I don’t think it would be taken as an affront. If there was no one there that appeared to be representing the whole community, there might have been a little controversy.
[00:07:32.17] – Chris Cuomo
What a mess. Meantime, everything in the city, at least optically, is going in the wrong direction. But Governor Patterson, thank you for setting me straight. Thank you for the perspective, as always. I know I pulled you out of dinner, and I know you’re going to hold me to it that I owe you a dinner now.
[00:07:45.25] – Governor Paterson
I’m very happy. So is my wife, Mary.
[00:07:48.12] – Chris Cuomo
It’s good to have you here, Gov.