Valuetainment - July 14, 2025


＂Don't Complain, Do Something!＂ - Eric Adams REVEALS The Crime Crisis That Pushed Him Into POWER


Episode Stats

Length

8 minutes

Words per Minute

198.9611

Word Count

1,647

Sentence Count

109

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg joins Jemele to discuss his transition from a registered Republican to an Independent and why he decided to run for President in 2020. He also discusses why he chose to leave the Democratic Party and become an Independent.


Transcript

00:00:00.120 You chose to become an independent.
00:00:03.320 When I look at your history with your past,
00:00:05.500 last night I'm at a local Italian restaurant
00:00:08.320 that I go to all the time, Casa D'Angelo,
00:00:10.060 and I'm there and I can't leave the place.
00:00:11.460 Everyone's asking me,
00:00:12.520 I saw you're going to have the mayor on,
00:00:14.360 let me tell you.
00:00:15.700 They were sitting in the entire family.
00:00:18.220 I want to give these guys the right shout out
00:00:21.260 because they'll know that we were talking yesterday.
00:00:23.940 It was the Shortino family, right?
00:00:25.680 Anthony and Michael.
00:00:26.600 And the family's sitting there,
00:00:27.380 the wife, the mother, everybody.
00:00:28.580 Let me tell you, you know, we're Republicans,
00:00:31.660 but this is our, we can't have Mamdani.
00:00:34.240 We're going to be getting behind him.
00:00:35.520 He's a good guy.
00:00:36.160 He's got to do this.
00:00:37.120 Then the other table, New York.
00:00:38.380 Because, you know, South Florida is a lot of New York.
00:00:41.060 And you're seeing this surge.
00:00:42.820 You're seeing this number taking place
00:00:44.440 with the level of interest
00:00:46.200 on what's going to happen in New York City.
00:00:48.900 But Mamdani is the lead today.
00:00:51.260 And when I think about you,
00:00:52.720 and I think about, you know, your past,
00:00:56.180 what you've done, how you came up,
00:00:57.640 and I went and looked up
00:01:00.200 if you were always registered a Democrat.
00:01:02.400 You were a Republican, 95, 97 to 2001.
00:01:05.980 So you were Republican for four years
00:01:08.240 and then you switched to Democrat
00:01:10.160 and then you became independent.
00:01:11.740 And when I ask around,
00:01:12.720 people who know you, who like you,
00:01:14.600 I don't know a lot of people that don't like you.
00:01:16.940 Almost everybody I talk to, they like you.
00:01:19.300 We have a friend, Alex Spiro.
00:01:20.480 I'm sure you know who Alex is.
00:01:21.180 Oh, yes, I do.
00:01:22.040 We spoke this morning.
00:01:23.200 He said, let him know that, you know,
00:01:24.940 Alex is a heavyweight.
00:01:27.120 You know who Alex is.
00:01:28.120 It doesn't get any heavier.
00:01:29.160 No, it doesn't get any heavier than Alex.
00:01:31.220 No, no, Alex is as heavy as it gets.
00:01:33.940 Yeah, he's represented everybody.
00:01:35.600 That's right.
00:01:35.880 You, Trump, Musk, a lot of Jay-Z, a lot of guys.
00:01:38.160 So the question becomes, you go Republican,
00:01:43.440 you go Democrat, now you're independent.
00:01:45.700 I ask, why did that happen?
00:01:48.000 They said, well, you have to understand New York politics.
00:01:51.760 You know, this is as Republican of a Democratic
00:01:56.240 and independent candidate you'll have,
00:01:57.820 but if he goes as a Republican, da-da-da-da-da.
00:02:00.120 I said, you know what made Trump attractive is the following,
00:02:04.220 and I'm just going to talk openly,
00:02:05.720 and I'd love to see what you're going to say.
00:02:06.800 So he came out and he said, look, this is what I am.
00:02:11.600 Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
00:02:13.560 So everybody's like, okay, I know how to get behind him
00:02:16.100 because I think this is the worst time ever
00:02:18.940 to be wishy-washy to try to win everybody over, right?
00:02:22.500 Especially in the city you're in.
00:02:24.360 And when I look at this, I'm like,
00:02:26.420 you don't give me Democratic vibes.
00:02:28.420 Even when you were doing the Sanctuary City,
00:02:30.260 I'm like, dude, this guy knows this is not going to,
00:02:32.440 like, you know, you even saw,
00:02:34.220 why are we giving away the money?
00:02:35.300 And the moment you started saying that,
00:02:36.620 they came after you immediately.
00:02:37.820 We got to take this guy out, right?
00:02:38.900 I'll say it.
00:02:39.660 So what caused you to go from being a registered Republican,
00:02:45.420 not for a split second, for four years, five years, six years,
00:02:49.080 to a Democrat, then an Independent?
00:02:51.140 And so let's think about this for a moment because you're right.
00:02:53.580 So our city, both Dems and Republicans,
00:02:58.500 have different feelings on different topics.
00:03:01.140 And what you will find throughout those entire years,
00:03:03.820 I've been consistent.
00:03:05.540 Public safety.
00:03:06.660 We have to be safe because that is the prerequisite to our prosperity.
00:03:11.300 And I have been always focused on that.
00:03:14.280 My moderate Dems, even progressive Dems,
00:03:17.760 my moderate Republicans, even conservative Republicans,
00:03:21.240 with independents, they all say,
00:03:23.720 you've always been clear that our city must be safe,
00:03:26.600 my children must go to school safe,
00:03:28.240 I must be able to live on a safe neighborhood.
00:03:30.560 That is the foundation of my run.
00:03:32.840 Party lines and party labels don't define a person.
00:03:36.520 You know, I may be a blue Democrat,
00:03:39.200 but I'm red, white, and blue.
00:03:40.660 I love this country.
00:03:42.080 I had a 19-year-old uncle that died in Vietnam,
00:03:44.900 defended this country.
00:03:45.900 He didn't agree on everything,
00:03:46.880 but he said, well, my country called, I responded.
00:03:49.320 That's the energy that I come from.
00:03:51.600 So when you look at someone like Michael Bloomberg,
00:03:53.980 who was one time a Democrat before he ran Republican Independent,
00:03:58.200 Donald Trump was a Democrat at one time,
00:04:01.240 you know, before he ran Republicans.
00:04:03.360 Those of us who love the country,
00:04:05.360 we use the vehicle to continue to serve the country.
00:04:08.780 The vehicle doesn't define who we are.
00:04:10.460 But why were you Republican 97-01?
00:04:12.560 We saw, I was a police officer at the time,
00:04:15.560 and we saw an unbelievable lax criminal justice reform.
00:04:21.580 We were doing some of the things that we're doing now,
00:04:24.840 allowing people who commit crimes.
00:04:26.700 There was a repeated revolving door.
00:04:29.020 And as a police officer, I was seeing this all the time
00:04:31.140 and telling those who were in office
00:04:33.380 that these laws are not the way we should be going.
00:04:37.240 And the Republican Party started defining clearly
00:04:39.900 the whole public safety agenda.
00:04:41.900 I have a straight public safety, business-friendly,
00:04:45.740 law enforcement agenda, and that's why I did it at the time.
00:04:48.680 Why did you leave it in 01?
00:04:49.560 Because 01 is when Giuliani and Bernard Carrick
00:04:52.020 and the late Bernard Carrick,
00:04:53.500 they're cleaning up the streets, right?
00:04:55.120 Yeah, he was a good friend of ours as well, yeah.
00:04:56.960 So why 01?
00:04:58.880 Was it after 9-11 when you switched back
00:05:01.220 to the Democratic Party, or was it before 9-11?
00:05:03.340 It was when I switched back,
00:05:05.260 was around the time when I said,
00:05:07.180 you know what, this is a Democratic town,
00:05:09.500 almost similar to what Michael Bloomberg did.
00:05:11.900 It's a Democratic town, you need to be on a Democratic party
00:05:14.700 if you want to get elected to get something done.
00:05:17.280 If you want to get elected to get something done,
00:05:19.780 you have to understand what vehicle to use
00:05:22.180 to get elected to get something done.
00:05:23.400 Did somebody knock on the door and tell you to switch,
00:05:25.620 or was that like, hey, Mayor Adams,
00:05:28.060 if you, you know, Eric, Captain Adams,
00:05:30.280 if you do this, I think you can end up being a mayor,
00:05:32.280 you can have a political career.
00:05:33.680 Was it just a decision you made?
00:05:35.180 Was it an event that took place with Giuliani and Carrick?
00:05:37.980 What was it that got you?
00:05:38.800 Some of my mentors, when we sat down
00:05:43.620 and I saw what was happening in the city
00:05:45.780 and what direction we was traveling in the city,
00:05:48.240 they said, Eric, don't only complain about it.
00:05:51.000 You need to get into your elected office
00:05:52.740 to do something about it.
00:05:54.320 I had a young man who was 11 years old.
00:05:56.640 He was arrested two or three times for robbery,
00:06:00.040 and I was doing midnight tours of duty,
00:06:02.320 and I walked into the precinct,
00:06:03.480 and I saw him in there.
00:06:04.240 He was spitting at everyone, cursing at everyone.
00:06:07.080 And throughout the night, I befriended him,
00:06:10.080 and I asked him, what's going on?
00:06:11.820 He broke down and started crying.
00:06:13.560 His dad was in jail for homicide.
00:06:15.780 His mother was selling her body on the streets,
00:06:18.020 hooked on crack cocaine,
00:06:19.260 and he was out of school for three months,
00:06:20.880 and no one knew about it, that he was out.
00:06:23.320 And I realized that putting handcuffs on these children
00:06:25.820 is not going to solve the problem.
00:06:27.620 And when I spoke with many of my mentors,
00:06:29.900 they said, listen, you did time in the street
00:06:31.880 as a police officer, you see the end of the problem.
00:06:35.220 Now I'm going government to reverse the problem,
00:06:37.560 and that put me back on the pathway.
00:06:39.580 Got it.
00:06:39.940 So the inspiration was to leave the Republican Party for that,
00:06:44.540 but it was also, if you're going to have a political career in it,
00:06:47.560 you know, join the Democratic Party.
00:06:49.880 They're going to have your back.
00:06:50.800 You'll have a career politically there.
00:06:52.220 Now, you went there, okay?
00:06:54.360 And that always had my back.
00:06:55.800 I was always the outsider.
00:06:57.060 Nowadays, more than ever,
00:06:58.680 the brand you wear reflects and represents who you are.
00:07:01.620 So for us, if you wear a Future Looks Bright hat
00:07:05.360 or a Valuetainment gear,
00:07:07.040 you're telling the world, I'm optimistic,
00:07:09.680 I'm excited about what's going to be happening,
00:07:11.260 but you're a free thinker, you question things,
00:07:12.920 you like debate.
00:07:13.820 And by the way, last year,
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