Mayoral Candidates Cross Examine Each Other Directly during Debate

By Yehudit Garmaise

      Mixing up the usual debate night model of one moderator asking questions of all eight mayoral candidates, at one point in last's night second debate, each candidate was instructed to pose one question to another candidate in a “cross-examination.”

       In one notable exchange, Wiley asked Adams, who was chosen many times to be asked questions by the other candidates, how he can talk about carrying a gun to church and carrying a gun as mayor.

      “Eric, isn’t this the wrong message to send our kids who we are telling not to pick up the guns?” Wiley asked Adams.

      “When we look at the record of ending the over proliferation of guns in the state of New York, you have to say Eric Adams,” said Brooklyn’s borough president and a former state senator. “The legislation I passed and pushed in Albany to deal with high-speed ammunition.”

      Adams then pointed out SNUG, an initiative that provides funding for anti-gang, anti-violence programs.

     “I fought for that funding,” Adams said. “If you look at my voice throughout my entire career of public safety: that has been my message: that public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity.

     Wiley questioned whether “role-models should be carrying guns, and she responded by saying, “I’m a Mom in a community where we have right rates of gun violence, and it is just as simple as we don’t want guns all over our city with off-duty police officers carrying guns into our churches.”

   “When anyone on this stage is the mayor, and you walk into a mosque, church, or synagogue, you know those guys who are walking in with you?” Adams said. “They are carrying guns.”

     “And they are on-duty,” Wiley responded. “They are detail to protect the mayor, not someone off duty, walking around with guns, Eric.”

     “[I was an] off-duty transit cop on the train,” shared Adams, who drew a sharp distinction between legal guns and illegal guns. “I hear an Asian hate crime taking place. I hear the yell of the Chinese man. He was being assaulted and robbed because he was Chinese.

   “I was able to stop those armed perpetrators from carrying out their actions while off duty. The state law states that police officers can carry off duty because they have to respond 24-hours-a-day to any crime that is taking place in the city.

    “I am proud any time I do that.”

    “They are trained and can be held unaccountable,” said Adams, who contrasted trained, off-duty police officers who carry guns with criminals who carry guns illegally.

      In another interesting exchange, Donovan asked Yang, “You have said you want to be the anti-poverty mayor, but you have proposed a so-called universal-based basic income that would just would reach a few New Yorkers.”

   “A lot of people nationwide though cash relief was a pipe dream until we got the $1,200 [stimulus] check, the $600 [stimulus] check, and the $1,400 [stimulus] check, which my organization, Humanity Forward, directly lobbied for,” Yang responded. “And we can make New York City the anti-poverty city, starting with $1,000,000,000 down payment in cash relief to help people who are struggling the most stay in stable and secure environments.”