NYC Gazette

J.R. Giddings: Audience, we have Mayor Adams here on The Reset Talk Show with his monthly updates good morning. Welcome back to the Reset Talk Show, Mayor Adams, and how are you?

Mayor Eric Adams: Good, good, brother. And I'm a fan of Dr. Abner. She just really laid it out and you don't even need me to talk about that area of plant-based. Her common sense approach. And what I think, I know we have a series of topics, but I wanted to just touch on that plant-based part. And what I think is the disconnect is that people really need a mind shift, and they need real examples. I don't know if we know the power of food because we have never been really taught the power of food. Our ancestors understood that, but we've become so Europeanized that we embraced the diets that also came with the colonizers. And although we come from regions where the most healthy food is grown and produced, we have been given the colonizers' food, and they have taken our food and we've shipped it out. You go to South, Central America, the Caribbean, a lot of the produce, a lot of the products are being shipped out of the country, and McDonald's and Kentucky Fried and fast food are coming in. And we really, really think of it.

And some people know my journey. Woke up, doctor told me I was going to be blind in a year. I had tingling in my hands and feet. They said I had permanent nerve damage. I was going to lose some fingers and toes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. Just really the Black package, the Black American medical package. My mother died from heart disease, diabetes, from all sorts of arthritis. And it wasn't until I stumbled onto plant-based eating, stumbled onto it. They gave me a pamphlet that said ‘How to Live With Diabetes.’ I went to Google and I put in one word different how to reverse diabetes instead of how to live with diabetes. And all this information came up. I dug into it. I stayed up that whole night, J.R. I was so blown away about that there was a way of reversing my diabetes.

And I met this doctor down in Ohio, Dr. Esselstyn, who said, "Listen, it's not your DNA. It's your dinner." And so I changed my dinner, brother. In three weeks, my vision came back. Three months later, my nerve damage went away. I had an ulcer at the time that also went away. No medicine, only food. And those who believe that they are imprisoned with taking medicine every day, that's just not true. Many of the ailments we are feeling, if you just change your diet… Or let's just say modify your diet. If you modify your diet, you are going to see an unbelievable improvement in your health.

And those doctors that tell you that you could treat the symptoms, not the underlying cause. I always say we have a mop, mop, health sick care system. You have a hole in your pipe. Instead of the plumber coming in and fixing the hole, they give you a mop every week to wipe up the water. You don't want to wipe up the water. You want to fix the hole. Stop that medicine every day, all day. You are hooked. You are hooked on life.

The real drug dealer is not the cat standing on the corner. It's the three piece suit pharmaceutical industry that has our families hooked on drugs for life. For life. Every day, all day. This is the best hustle going in life. Your diabetes, you start off with metformin, you go to insulin, injecting yourself. Then you go to your limb amputation, then you go to kidney failure, then you go to heart disease. And all the way along the track, people are making more and more and more and more and more and more money.

And so Dr. Abner just, she laid it out. And just a modification. Just a modification. Just do one week, plant-based. And let me finish with this, on this topic. Food is like crack. That first week that I went plant-based, man, I went through withdrawals. I was dreaming about fried food, man. I was having cold sweats. I would smell food. I mean, I went through withdrawal. You have to get the withdrawal. So anyone who looks down on someone who's addicted to drugs, darn it, you're addicted to food. Taking a dangerous substance that you know is no good to you and you can't stop taking it is no different than if the dangerous substance is alcohol, heroin, crack cocaine, fentanyl, or fried food. I know people don't like to hear it, but brother, it is real. Addiction is addiction.

Giddings: You know, Mayor Adams, I got to say this. Keeping it real is keeping it real. And you just laid out the facts. And to call out the pharmaceutical companies, that is major. I'm more impressed now, you being the mayor of New York City and the leader of New York City. What I want to do quickly, we cannot be long here, Dr. Giddings, I'm sure you want to ask Mayor Adams a question about this plant-based rollout, but very, very, very short.

Dr. Shelleyanne Giddings: Good morning, Mayor. It was great…

Mayor Adams: How are you, doctor?

Dr. Giddings: I'm great. At the rewards. It was a treat. So I come from the pediatric perspective, and I agree with you wholeheartedly because my motto is preventative medicine is key. And basically, I hear what you're saying about the doctors, but I think a healthy child brings a healthy adult. And so that's what I preach in my practice.

And so, in my practice, I get two patients. I not only get the child, but I get the mother or the father. So I'm hitting it from both perspectives. And a lot of the times, as Dr. Abner said, I don't say plant-based, et cetera, just healthy diet. And we give them options. And I'm known as that type of a physician because if they hear it, then they'll think about it. And some parents will come back, "Oh, they didn't want to come in for their physical because they didn't follow some of your instructions." I say, "That's fine. That means they're listening to it and they're hearing it." Right?

So I actually went through your comprehensive program, was super impressed. And I know you offer it in schools and jails, et cetera, but one of my questions was, do you go all the way down to preschool and daycare and all of that? Because the diets there are horrible. And I know you mentioned schools, so I didn't know where it began.

Mayor Adams: Great. That is a great question. And first of all, I tell people all the time, "So what if you stumble? So what if you didn't follow all the rules?" Listen, let's not beat ourselves up. We are perfectly imperfect. That is who we are as human beings. And we have been inundated. Everywhere you go, you are constantly being reminded of bad food, bad things, and you know what? You're not going to be perfect. There are days that I say to myself, "Eric, you know weren't supposed to eat that." So, you know better. But you just keep trying. That's all.

And so what we've done, doctor, is that we are now, we started out... Because you have to start out, you know, you can't force people and beat folks up. We started out with meatless Mondays, when we wanted to introduce people to good-tasting food that is meatless on Mondays and healthy. Because food has to look good, it has to be good, but darn it, it has to taste good. Nobody's going to eat bad tasting food. And that is what we are exploring.

Then we went into Plant-Powered Fridays where we encourage… So two days a week, our children are receiving good, healthy, good-tasting food. And we're having them come in and examine, taste the food, come up with different recipes. And so we are starting down to the earliest child that comes into school. We are introducing this also into our day cares, pre-Ks. Because this is a slow moving change because we're changing cultural norms that people are so used to, but we want to show people you can get the taste you are used to by doing it in a healthier way. And that is our goal.

And then partnering with… We tell people all the time, you got to partner with your doctors. This is not about self-medicating yourself. Don't just say, "Well, listen, I'm throwing out all my medicine. I'm not taking…" No. You need to partner with a doctor that believes in disease reversal, first of all. If the doctors say... Like my mom's first doctor, he said, "If you tried to get off your medicine by going plant-based, I'm releasing you as a patient. I'm no longer going to have you as my patient." And I had to give her another doctor who slowly looked at her medication, and slowly, as her ailment improved, he was able to wean her off. So it's a partnership with a doctor that believes in healthy food and not just medicine. Until you get to where you can get to. You have to listen to the prescription, take your medicine and do it the right way, not just try to do it all on your own. But we are starting early as we do this and we're really excited about what we're doing. Default menus in hospital plant-based, our schools, what we're doing, our good food purchases, using our buying power to buy more healthy foods and all of our agencies where we feed people. We're really excited about what we're doing to take upon this challenge.

Dr. Giddings: Thank you. And kudos to you for collaborating with the London mayor. That was huge. And also the program for continuing education to all the providers. I mean, I think you're making such a huge impact and I'm really, really excited about what you're putting out there. So thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you.

Giddings: Thank you Dr. Giddings. Quickly, we have to move so fast this morning because we have the most important mayor in the world. I'd like to introduce our newest panelist to you, Mayor Adams. And he is Dr. Rodney Armstead. He is the chief medical officer of CINQCARE and care medical practice. Dr. Rodney Armstead, meet our Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: How are you, doctor?

Dr. Rodney Armstead: It is a pleasure. You have been just what New York needed. So I'm just honored to meet you and I'm just delighted to be part of the panel and I applaud you for the plant-based program that you launched. I think that's an extraordinary opportunity, as the doctor laid out earlier, to just impact people in a thoughtful, but like we said, in a very intentional and peel back the onion way. And I think we can get there and make a huge difference.

Giddings: Dr. Armstead, quickly tell the mayor about CINQCARE in one minute.

Dr. Armstead: One minute…

Giddings: CINQCARE Is important.

Dr. Armstead: One minute. Here we go. CINQCARE evolved out of the opportunity that we saw with health disparity, particularly in New York. Let me see, we anchored in New York, particularly [inaudible] Brooklyn. The bottom line is changing the way healthcare is delivered through a community-based delivery system where you fundamentally provide the care closest to people and that's in the community that they live in, and ideally in the home. With a set of support services that really helps the providers to be able to provide the kind of care. So virtual visits, telephonic, in-home nursing, in-home nurse practitioner, coordinated care plans, working with payers and directly with the federal government through Medicare and Medicaid, to assist folks, really with chronic illness in the very ways that you are basically trying to do with your food-based program. That's what CINQ is about.

Mayor Adams: I would love to learn more about this and we need to be honest with ourselves. I remember when I was a police officer, people would criticize the Police Department and some of my fellow members would get upset. I said, "Listen, they're not talking about you individually. They're talking about a system, they're talking about a culture. This is not about you." And I tell folks when I go visit hospitals, other places, and I'm critiquing the institution of medicine in America. It's not about the doctors who are dedicated to saving the lives of people, the nurses, the orderlies. No, we are talking about a system. The American healthcare system is a sick care system that's profit generated. The goal is not wellness and we got to be honest about that. The goal is a profit generated system. And until we move it, and shift the mindset to wellness, like the doctor was saying, what she does with her young children that she sees, the system must make a shift. And this is one of the largest Health + Hospitals systems in the country.

So my edict to Health + Hospitals is that we need to shift this system’s [inaudible]. And when we do that, it's going to cascade throughout the entire country. Our medical schools have to teach differently, who lobbies our medical schools to address what is being taught is the meat and dairy industry. Those lobbyists are pushing back against plant-based. We don't teach disease reversal. You ask these doctors and ask, they get pain management instructions, they get all of these hours on how to manage pain and health, but in their medical school, they got to go out on their own to learn about these different plant-based, the different methods of healing. This is not being taught in our institutions. They stumbled onto them. So we need a cultural revolutionary shift from how we treat medicine, and the role of health and wellness in our country.

And check this out. J.R., there was a report too, when I ran to be mayor and I started talking about the connectivity between food and mental health issues, you should have seen how they wrote about me. They said, "This guy is a nut. How's he going to be the mayor of this city, and he's talking about what we eat deals with our mental, how we feel, depression, bipolar disorders and others?" Now they just came out with a major study that says food is connected to all of these disorders, these mental health disorders that people are dealing with. Because if food can mess up your heart, your lungs, and your kidneys, then why are we so naïve to believe… Your brain is in your body. It's in your body. So if it can mess up every other body organ, it can mess with your brain.

And so, I know there's a lot on this topic, but we are moving in the right direction and we are going to push people into uncomfortable conversations. Because our grannies, our aunties, our brothers and our sisters cannot continue to be in their lives by operations and surgeries. Every one of my siblings are going through a major medical issue. My sister is dealing with her cancer, my other sister is dealing with mental decline, my other brother is dealing with his cancer issues. I mean, all of us. You sit around the table and we are praying for Aunt Mary in the hospital who's dealing with a major crisis on Thanksgiving, and then we dig in to eat the food that caused Aunt Mary to get in the hospital in the first place. Come on. You know what I'm saying?

Giddings: Mayor Adams, you are spot on and we are resetting. And this is why we have this platform because we know you could come here and always speak directly to the people. I am sure what just came from you today has piqued the interest of the average listener on this platform. Mayor Adams…

Mayor Adams: Oh, let me say this J.R., let me tell you this. We got to figure it out… I do a lot of interviews and I do a lot of discussions. I do a lot of radios, I do a lot of podcasts, I do a lot of that. This is the most powerful communication network we have right now with the qualities, the professionals you bring on, the information. We got to figure out… I know you got a million folks right now, brother, you got to get loud, we got to get you your own national talk show. The people you have on here, I mean this is real talk. When Jordan was born for the first three months he had to eat liquid food because his digestive system was not prepared to handle solid food. This is a solid food conversation. There's too many liquid food feeders that are on the various networks and publications. Man, they're feeding people junk food, brother. You giving people solid food and this got to grow, your powerful reset show needs to... It is time for you to go beyond, brother, because you got some powerful people on here, real talk, for real people, during real times to deal with real crises that we are facing. We're not getting this anywhere else. Where else are we getting it?

Giddings: We have some of the best minds in the country on this platform. I say it every week. We have some of the best minds. Mayor Adams, so we have to pivot because this is a very important conversation we're about to have before we bring in the pastor. The asylum seeker crisis, where we are right now.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Giddings: Could you speak to that? And there's a part B. Okay? There's a lot of pushback coming not only from the Caribbean, but all the other cultures that are seeing the opportunities that are given to the asylum seekers. Go ahead, Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: Right. Okay. First we need to dispel the myths from realities. And the myths is that, "Okay, hey, the asylum seekers are getting everything that we don't get." I met a brother the other day, I was visiting a homeless shelter on Randall's Island. He stopped me and said, "Asylum seekers are able to have all these things that I'm not able to get here in my shelter." I said, "Brother, you can go in the same shelter they're in. Wherever the asylum seekers are, it's not only for the asylum seekers. Anyone could go there, anyone can go there." We need to be clear on that. And whatever an asylum seeker is getting, every other shelter is getting. There's nothing asylum seekers are getting that any other person who was here beforehand can't get and anyone who's a new arrival can get.

So this whole myth that is coming from various different sources that are just want to create chaos in our city is given the appearance that, okay, asylum and migrant seekers come to the city and they're getting something special. No, they're getting the same thing any other New Yorker wants. And in fact, they are not getting what other New Yorkers get. The asylum seekers are not getting access to FHEPS vouchers that allow our everyday New Yorkers who are homeless to get apartments. They're not getting all those other resources that everyday New Yorkers are getting. We are meeting the minimum requirements that every person who comes to this city, we give to. It doesn't matter who it is. So the myth out there that… You know, people who are in pain find creative ways to displace their pain and some of that pain is to say, okay, we're treating asylum seekers special. No, I treat New Yorkers special. I'm focused on the residents of the city, and I'm living up to my legal responsibilities that is in our constitution that I have to live up to at the same time. And so don't let anyone kid you that long-term New Yorkers can't have access. They could go live in any of those HERRCs that the asylum seekers are in.

They could go to any of the other shelters that asylum seekers are in. They could go anytime they want and live there and be a part of the asylum seeker population and see exactly what they're getting. And trust me, they're going to run back to where they are because they're going to realize it is nowhere anything special than what we're given any other New Yorker.

Giddings: Thank you, Mayor Adams. Moving quickly, go ahead, pastor, your question for the mayor.

Pastor Louis Straker, Jr: Well, J.R., I really have two questions for the mayor, and I'd like him to answer unrelated, one or the other. Mr. Mayor, just thank you so much for all the hard work you do. I tell you this migrant crisis, you are handling it with such grace and dignity. And I know it's not easy as there's a lot of political pressure, but you're the man that's built for this job, and so we thank God that you're in this position. We were talking earlier about this, and one of the things I pointed out is that a lot of these folks, especially the Caribbean community, they're not as upset with New York as they are with the federal government, understanding that there are certain things that are given to asylum seekers that some of these folks coming from the Caribbean which are not asylum seekers, they are really illegal immigrants. They have overstayed their visa. So they aren't open to getting some of the things that an asylum seeker that gets protection or provisions from the government. Can you just speak to that, as to if you agree with that assessment that there is a difference between an illegal immigrant, someone who's overstayed and someone who's coming through the proper channels?

Mayor Adams: Yeah, thanks. And that's so important. And what people must understand is that local municipalities, local cities, I have no authority over the immigration policies, no authority at all. I don't determine who gets a green card, who gets an extended visa, who has the right to work, none at all. The federal government handles that. And they handle asylum seekers, people who are seeking asylum differently in their procedures, and those who are trying to either get an extended green card or those other entities, and they came here to do so. But that is beyond my scope and my power and authority. That is the federal entities that control that. What the federal government does to me is that we are going to let people in, and you have to pick up the tab to do so. So people who are coming here through the asylum seeker migrant process, they're coming here, they're not allowed to work.

It is my obligation and the city's obligation to pick up their food, shelter, clothing, education, everything on the dime of taxpayers. That's wrong. And the plan that all of the bordering states have figured out, they're saying we are going to allow people to come in through the federal government and we're sending everybody to New York. And we went to FEMA and said, "FEMA, you guys got to pick up the tab for this." And FEMA allocated $350 million and gave large sums of the money to those bordering states. And the bordering states are using the money that FEMA gave them to bus people to New York and to fly people to New York. New York got a smaller amount of the money. So we are getting no resources for the most part. We have spent over $1 billion so far. It's going to cost us anywhere from $4.3 to 4.5 billion.

That money has to come from somewhere, and we're not getting any help to do so. And so pastor, to answer your question directly, the federal government has different ways of processing people who come to the country through the asylum process, through the green card process. They control that, and that is beyond my control at all. I have no authority at all. I have to deal with what they put in my city and handle it appropriately. And it's been a difficult job. I'm being very honest with you. A week and a half ago, we got 4,200 people in one week. This week, we got 900 people on one day. We're getting on the average of anywhere from 300 to 500 people a day. We've run out of space, where to put people. And then whenever we try to find creative ways, people are pushing back and saying, "Well, we don't want it on our block. We don't want it in our community."

Hey, listen. But the bottom line is we have to go somewhere. And if we don't go somewhere, then people are going to be living like in other municipalities, on the streets, in train stations. All that we've done to get people off the streets, out of our train stations living. The federal government has now created this crisis, and it's really undermining our whole city. That's what I need New Yorkers to understand. This is undermining all the progress we have made because of the failure of our federal government.

Pastor Straker: Thank you for breaking that down, Mr. Mayor. Another question, unrelated. We had a massive 32 gang member takedown. The DA and NYPD worked together to bring down this gang of 32 individuals wreaking havoc in our city. Two of them were led by, or rather, it was led by two prominent Brooklyn rappers. I think the name is Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow. And they used their art form to fund their criminal enterprise. And I was so glad to see that the DA was really working behind this because we had parents… And working with The God Squad, I buried some of the children, especially the mass shooting on Hawthorne, Theodore Senior. I buried and did the funeral, The God Squad. And we were waiting… Many of these mothers are waiting for their cases to be solved. So when this went down, it was something that we were very happy to see that the DA and these things were being addressed and being taken care of.

The question I want to ask you is, when you look at these drill rappers and you look at their videos, you look at how they're using their art form to fund their criminal enterprise. You look at their videos, they’re shooting up their guns, the crime, the gun violence, the vulgarity. Do you believe that the labels should be held accountable, and YouTube, these media outlets should be held accountable for the distribution, or that there should be some type of banning of these artists? I don't want to say the music form in itself because it's the lyrical content and the creative content that actually makes it what it is. Drill music is just music, but do you believe that these type of artists promoting these kinds of things should be banned and that the labels should be held accountable, YouTube should be held accountable, media outlets should be held accountable.

Mayor Adams: Thank you for that. J.R., can you have your team let me on on my phone. I'm trying to get on also because I'm going to have to get to the car and I want to make sure I answer the pastor's…

Giddings: Right. Definitely. Definitely.

Mayor Adams: Pastor, you are dead on, brother. When I came out last year and talked about drill music, people wanted it to appear as though I was saying ban drill music altogether. Hold on, let me adjust…

[Crosstalk.]

Mayor Adams: Because the reception. People are trying to attack me for saying I was trying to say ban drill music altogether. And that is not what we were saying. What we were saying is that some of the drill artists were using drill music as a retaliatory shooting. And that's what you saw in this investigation. So for example, someone shoots one gang member, then they make music advertising and taunting the other gang member that, "We shot your people. We shot your people, and we are going to come after your people." And so that is the issue that we were facing. And so this investigation revealed exactly what I was trying to say. Now the DA did not use any lyrics, but clearly when you look at the taunting, the aggravating and the disrespect and talking about how people were killed… And so I'm with you. We're doing a major event with Dr. Vasan to look at social media and the role it's playing.

All of us remember the story of the Trojan horse where it went into the fort and the people were hidden inside. Social media is a Trojan horse for our communities. We were able to close our doors as children and not allow toxic and bad things that come inside our home. Social media is now in our children's living rooms, out their phones, in their schools. They're learning how to steal cars. They're learning how to use drugs. They're learning so many bad things. We got to really look at what the record industry and what social media is doing to our families. It's dismantling our families. And that's something that we're going to do at this summit we're holding in a few days. But you're right, we need to turn our attention to social media. These guys had millions of views, millions of views, influencing young people all over the country to do retaliatory actions. And we got to push back on that. And brother, I want to tell you, you touched on something and I think you and other pastors need to talk about it more.

All of these folks who are talking about how do we make sure these repeated offenders to this dangerous violence, how do we protect them? How about how do we protect innocent victims? These guys had so many arrest and shootings, they were terrorizing our communities. And no one wants to talk about that. No one wants to talk about the small number of people who are extreme recidivists, who have made up their minds that innocent bystanders are going to be the victims of their violence. And I just refuse to ignore it.

I'm going to fight for a fair criminal justice system, but I'm also going to fight when we're dealing with repeated dangerous offenders like we took down in that gang take down that they need to be held accountable.

Giddings: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before you leave, I have two great highlights here that I definitely want to push to the forefront right now. We have Nicole Jordan-Martin, who was just named to Crain's Business 86 professional notable healthcare leaders. I think that's a huge compliment. I think that's a huge accomplishment and we just have to heal Nicole.

And then we have Aliyah Abrams who just secured the national record at the 400 meters in the Bahamas and originally from New York City. She's Guyanese. And she has the fifth-best time in the world in the 400 meters, and that's a big accomplishment.

So I just wanted to share that with you. I just want you to say, keep it up guys. I know you lift everyone up. So I just wanted to bring that to the forefront.

Mayor Adams: Yeah, no, thank you, brother. And I'm so proud of them and I want to connect them to the Olympian from Korea who I met a few days ago. I want to bring them to City Hall. We could give them a proclamation. I am just such a fan.

I believe in health and wealth. I couldn't run for anything. That's why they kicked me off my track and field team. But I am so proud of them. And we all need to be proud and we need to lift up our young people who are real examples because we have so many young people doing some great things and we only highlight those who are doing the bad things. But I want to bring them to City Hall and really give them a proclamation on how proud I am of what they've done.

Giddings: Okay, Aliyah, could you just say good morning to the mayor and we're very proud of you. We are going to get back into you in a minute.

Jeff, please hold on. We're coming to you. I know you have to run. Aliyah, say good morning to the mayor. Aliyah's another 400 meter runner. She's professional. She just did the Olympics and now she is trending. She is breaking all sorts of records. Aliyah, go ahead, say good morning to the mayor.

Aliyah Abrams: Hi, good morning. I'm so glad to be on the show again and to hear from the mayor, of course. Thank you for your support and all to the panelists as well.

Mayor Adams: Thank you, Aliyah. And you got to show me the skills of running.

Giddings: Aliyah, I'm definitely going to connect you because listen, you deserve your proclamation and Mayor Adams will make it happen. 

Nicole, say hello to the mayor, of course, I know you guys are always in touch, but that's a great accomplishment. So we have to lift you up as well.

Nicole Jordan-Martin: Thank you, J.R. Good morning, Mayor Adams, great to see you again. And I really appreciate the recognition from Crain's of course. And this is my life's work is to continue to serve others and help them have the best health and wellbeing that they can.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you for mutual admiration, and I thank you for what you are doing.

Giddings: Mayor Adams, I can't thank you enough. This is why, and I continue to say it, this is why I went out on a limb and I endorsed you before anyone else endorsed you because I understood the type of person that you are, how straight you are, how you deliver on your promises. And my goodness, look where we are. And now we're pushing to get this platform to the next level.

And I would be remiss if I didn't let the audience know, we're over 800,000 listeners right now. Mayor Adams came to the Reset Awards last week, Saturday or two weeks ago whenever it was, he was on a 15-minute schedule and he stayed one hour and 15 minutes, an hour taking pictures in the lobby with everyone that wanted to take a picture with him. This is how real it gets. Mayor Adams, I say it all the time, you are our leader. Thank you for your time.

Mayor Adams: Thank you, brother. And people need to really be clear, and I say it over and over again J.R. because I want it to resonate with folks. 32 years ago, 32 years ago, I woke up in a cold sweat because God spoke to me. And he stated that you are going to be the mayor January 1st, 2022. And he gave me two missions.

One, he stated, you must tell everyone you meet so that when you get there, they won't think you got there because of yourself. And I went from every time telling everyone I met, it got so bad that people used to think, "This guy's on medication." Everywhere I went. When I became a sergeant, I said, "I'm going to be mayor on January 1st, 2022." When I became a state senator, I said it. When I was sworn to borough president, I said it.

And the second mission was, he said, "Write down and all the things you are seeing that's holding people back. Keep a journal." And every night before I got into bed, I wrote in the journal of my observations of what people went through. I am not here because I'm the best. I'm here because I'm blessed. I'm so perfectly imperfect. God took a perfectly imperfect person to show an example.

One that is… Have a learning disability, one that was arrested, one that lived on the verge of homelessness, one that had all the failures. He could have made some academic genius, some person who graduated from from Ivy League school or something. No, he said, "I'm going to take this broken child and use him as an example of how great God is."

And he spoke to me again a few months ago when he says, "Look at my people, Eric. You need to start talking about God and why God needs to be in their lives." And that's where the last few months you've been hearing me talk about God. Because the same voice I heard 32 years ago, I heard again. And if that voice was right to make me mayor January 1st, 2022, he's right by telling me it's time for us to bring God back in our lives.

I'm a child of God. I'm a creation of God, and I'm going to stay on that pathway until I'm no longer here in the physical, in the presence.

Giddings: God bless you, Mayor Adams. I'm so touched and I'm always enthralled when you join the platform. You join the platform every month and every single time there's a little bit of jitters because hey, the mayor's going to be on and he's going to grow this platform a little bit more and he's going to say the right thing, he's going to do the right and every single time you come through. Listen to what you put into the universe. I thank you, Mayor Adams. I truly thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank all of you and take care, okay?

Giddings: Have a good day.

Original source can be found here.