The Istanbul of America

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Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Why Do I Care? I'm your host Toby Favillara. And I'm Alex Trevay. And today we'll be talking about Eric Adams and his bribery scandal. So without further ado, let's get right to it.

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Everyone knows that New York City is the Istanbul of America. Istanbul of America, huh? Oh yeah. So I guess he was feeling cocky when he said that, just, you know, waving around the fact that he takes money from foreign countries. But I don't know, what do you... I mean, you know, Eric Adams has famously said this about I think every ethnic minority. He said that...

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You know, New York City is the Zagreb of America, capital of Croatia for those not locked in on geography. I mean, he says this about every ethnic group in New York City whenever he does any public event. But it's just, it's so funny that this has now come back to kind of bite him, especially with, you know, what we're dealing with right now and his Turkish connections, Toby. Yeah, so a little bit of background is that the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, he's been indicted on some federal corruption charges.

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that started from this investigation that started back in 2021. So what this investigation kind of focused on was whether or not Adams and his campaign received some illegal donations from these foreign countries, particularly the Turkish government. And what these investigators really focused on was his role in pressuring the fire department to approve this building that the Turkish government really wanted to be approved despite failing fire safety checks and all of that stuff.

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And then if he did that after he did that, he got some, you know, some nice little upgrades on Turkish Airlines. So I guess using your power to make the fire department approve a building can get you first class Turkish Airlines. I mean, I guess I got to try that soon. But, you know, this is our classic quid pro quo, you know, corrupt politician. It's like we're back in kind of like the 1880s, 1890s with our New York City mayors.

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which for some might be exciting, but for others is kind of terrifying. Yeah, no, it's pretty terrifying the fact that he would do this and the fact that I guess he denies it still to this day. It seems very, I thought we took a step forward as a country and not doing corruption and not doing illegal and shady stuff, but I guess not. So a little bit more about some key events that led up to this indictment was that in November of 2023,

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The FBI raided the homes of Brianna Suggs, who was Adam's chief fundraiser. And then they also raided some key associates, associates connected to his campaign. So what they did is they seized phones, they seized documents, and they also seized a folder labeled Erica Adams. So then in November, twenty twenty three, once again, they also a little bit later in that month, they seized Adam's phones and his iPad.

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So this kind of has been known about for a little bit of time, but it really hasn't kind of blown up in the way that it did until recently. It had been an ongoing investigation, but we didn't know exactly for what. We kind of knew what it was about, but then they really kind of released what it fully was about. And then to make matters worse for Adams, in February of 2024,

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pled guilty to funneling these illegal funds into the Adams campaign. So that was like, oh, something really did happen here. And then finally, September, 2024, these federal agents, they expanded the investigation. They're also looking to his ties with other countries, including Israel, China, Qatar, South Korea and Uzbekistan. So that's kind of the timeline of why we got here. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, just on those illegal funds,

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For those of you who don't know New York campaign finance law, New York has a matching funds finance law where essentially the public will pay eight times any donation up to $250. So what the Adams campaign was doing is they were putting in what's called straw donors, whereas you have lots of people donate $250 after being paid off by a larger person and then those funds get 8x'd. And so he defrauded.

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the New York taxpayer to the tune of $10 million. And that's just, I feel like in New York they could probably have used that $10 million for a lot of things, you know, whatever, cleaning up the streets or public infrastructure, you know, kind of making improvements, maybe, I don't know, moving the Yankees somewhere. Yeah, I mean, or even like, you know, keeping their libraries open, which they had infamously.

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closed on weekends because Eric Adams wanted to pour more money into the NYPD, you know, just so they can get trained by foreign governments on how to oppress their own civilians. But you know what, that's okay. Yeah, and I guess what the most striking thing to me is is that he was this like police, like he knew he knew what he was doing, like plain and simple. And he was involved in the police department for so long at such a high level, it really kind of

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I guess begs the question of like, were there other things that he was involved in? This seems very, like you said, like, you know, 80s, like classic police scandal. But the fact that this happens at such a high level and kind of not necessarily unnoticed, but got away with it for a good amount of time. It just it's it's so crazy that we're still having these types of, you know, incidents. But I guess, you know, power corruption. You get what you get.

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And I mean, just being mayor of New York City for some reason seems to attract the most clinically insane people on planet Earth. And then as to how Adams has responded recently, so that would be kind of when we're recording this. This is Friday. He pled not guilty and he was able to walk away and he was able to keep his passport, which I guess is what you expect. Right. Like he's not going to kind of make a run for it.

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He's maintaining his innocence. He thinks he's done nothing wrong. He had a recorded message that said that he is innocent. He says he's gonna fight these charges and he said that he's gonna refuse to resign. He also is pulling to Trump and saying that these charges are politically motivated and that he's gonna kind of fight off these political attacks and keep on doing what's right for New York City and the country. So.

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Despite all that, there have been some calls for his resignation, as you would expect. There are some pretty prominent figures, like AOC. She's called for Adams to step down. And he just, despite, he's just, you know, he's maintaining his innocence. He says he's going to fight these charges, which, yes, he has the right to, obviously, you know, innocent till proven guilty. I'm not saying that he doesn't have the right to. But-

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The fact that he thinks that he a is going to be able to maintain this, like, I guess, remotely a successful, you know, position to power like he his he's not going to get anything done. Right. Like his legacy, his reputation is just like tarnished forever. Yeah, I mean, it interferes with his ability to be mayor. And really, the only thing that I think has stopped Kathy Hogle from recalling him from this office is the political capital. Yes. You know, he pulls at 27% approval, which is

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Terrible, but he knows that he is a figure in the black community in New York City You know a city that has out of 8.8 million people 2 million black Americans in it And you saw you know yesterday at that news conference He stood up with black leaders in the city and proclaimed his innocence So, you know, he's kind of telling the rest of Democrats in the state Like you got to leave me in this office or else like stuff is gonna happen for you guys electorally Especially in a year where winning back house seats in New York is so critical

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to regain the house. Yeah, and kind of speaking on that, politically this could not have come at a worse time for Democrats, especially New York Democrats, which have kind of, not even kind of, they've been an absolute mess recently. They are all over the place. And the fact that this is happening in the most prominent city in, dare I say, the world, and that Democrats kind of don't really know what to do. Like, of course we would expect AOC to, to,

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call on him to resign, because that's something that AOC would do. It's AOC. But we have to look at, to like other leaders, some leaders that are in more close elections, and like we said, leaders in districts with a high population of black voters who could really use this support. He, like you said, he is popular among these black voters and he needs, or whoever would be running in these tight races, need that support. So it will be interesting to watch how the Democratic Party kind of

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follows this happening. It couldn't happen at the worst time. That being said, there is a very stark difference between how we could imagine a Republican party kind of handling that. Yeah, I mean, we actually like we see the Republican Party handle this all the time. You know, just last week, you had Republican senatorial candidate, it was found out that he had laundered millions of dollars through a through Banca Azteca in Mexico, which is actually used by the cartel.

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So like, you know, this is not something that is new for American politics, but it's new for the Democratic Party. And we year after year have watched the Republicans do nothing about their corruption and just blatant spending violations. But now it's up to the Democrats to say, hey, this is the expectation from now on. You know, how they respond here is really going to guide party policy on this for, I think, a long time. Yeah, 100 percent. And I guess the fact that.

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if we look presidentially at the top of the ticket, Kamala's kind of running on like a prosecutor versus convicted felon message. What message is this sent to the voters who might see it as, oh, like you're accusing Trump of doing all these things, but you know, Eric Adams is doing it, Senator Mendez was doing it. Like, is this kind of something that happens to both sides? And if the Democrats don't have a strong enough or swift enough.

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reaction to these charges, is that going to hurt them electorally? It very well could. And we really have no way of knowing that until we kind of see what happens. And like I said, this is still kind of early in this long, it's going to be pretty long, legal process. It's going to be interesting to see how long Democrats stay patient and how long Democrats don't make a decision. But I think maybe a nightmare scenario is that...

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you know, that something big happens, like the domino effect, it finally, you know, collapses right around, you know, end of October, right before the election. I think that might be the worst-case scenario for Democrats. Yeah, I mean, I think we say that, and it's easy to look at it as a really bad thing now. I just, like, part of me wonders, how much is America gonna care about this in a month? You know, like, I feel like, if I'm, like, somehow a swing voter,

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in Pennsylvania or Arizona or Wisconsin or Georgia or North Carolina, Michigan. I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, God, Eric Adams really has put a stand on the Democratic Party. And I just, I don't know that's how the swing voter is going to think. I think they're going to go look at the gas pump and say, oh, it's 279 today. It looks like a vote for Kamala. Right. I think that's just kind of the political reality we live in. And something big is going to happen in October. We know that there's always stuff that comes down the pipeline. So I think this Adam story will be prevalent, but not.

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not the deciding factor in this election. Yeah, I think it's gonna be important, more so among New York and New York Democrats. I think there's gonna be a major shakeup at some point within the New York Democratic party, and I think there should be. I think it's been on a downward spiral since Cuomo. And I think that there needs to be a reset.

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there needs to be new leadership. They need to kind of reassess, what do we want as New York Democrats? Do we want to be competitive? Do we want to try to gerrymander our way to more house seats? Do we want to, you know, how do we want to govern and how are we going to use our power as, you know, one of the most populous states in order to govern that way? Yeah, and I mean, especially when you look at party leadership too, Hakeem Jeffries is the Democratic party leader in the House. Chuck Schumer.

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is the majority leader in the Senate, right? Democrats from New York have control of the Democratic Party right now, and they're kind of failing. I think my feelings on Kathy Hochul are well thought about, but I think she's a god-awful governor. And I think, yeah, there have to be huge shakeups for New York because we cannot risk it going red anytime.

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Ever because that would be a death sentence at the Democratic Party Oh 100% and the fact that there have been Republicans in some of the Trump campaign kind of viewing New York as being remotely Competitive should be kind of a warning sign. Do I think and the end is gonna end up being competitive? No, not necessarily, but the numbers are not The numbers the way that the polls look it doesn't look too solid, but I do I think that In the long run, New York is gonna be a safe Democratic Stronghold for some time

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being? Yes, absolutely. I 100% think so. I think there are large, you know, amounts of educated voters. There is a large, you know, the vast majority live in these like urban settings in which Democrats really thrive. It's, you know, in not New England, obviously, because New England is better than New York, but it's close enough that you kind of have this like East Coast kind of democratic stronghold base.

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And that is something that you can really count on if you're a Democrat and you're looking at the map. You don't think that's gonna shift anytime soon, but if you have to spend money there, that's not a good sign. And like we talked about, so the governor has the ability in New York to remove Adams from office, right? This is gonna, there's gonna be a formal process, but do we think that she is going to be willing to kind of use that power that she has in order to remove him from office?

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I think absolutely not. I mean, Hokel has always been a staunch ally of Eric Adams, Mayor Eric Adams. And I just think that she does not have the political savvy or know how to really be able to navigate her way through that kind of situation, nor do I think she has the people around her who can do that either. I think that would take a certain type of leader and a certain type of communicator. And I don't think

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the New York Democratic Party has that kind of person right now. Yeah. And if I'm her, I'm kind of looking she doesn't have to run for reelection for three more years. She is able to do whatever she wants, really, kind of without much political damage. If you're thinking about it three years away, that's a long time. If she chooses to remove Adams from office, people are going to forget about it. If she doesn't, people are going to forget about it.

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So she really doesn't feel pressure. And honestly, I would be very surprised if she doesn't sit back and just wait to see what other Democrats do, some other higher ranking Democrats, what they do. Yeah, 100%, yeah. So we're gonna take a quick break. After that break, we'll be back to discuss why do you care about these charges and what does this mean for the larger picture of campaign finance in American politics?

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alright everybody welcome back it's time for the water like a section we're going to discuss why do you care about these issues in what can this mean for kind of the larger issue of campaign finance reform and what does it do to u.s. politics into the i care because this is a symptom of a larger breaking of the democratic system that we've seen over the last couple decades for those of you who may not know citizens united first federal election commission

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in 2010, Supreme Court case, it allowed corporations to donate essentially as much money as they want to, to PACs. It allowed corporations to act as if they were people. And this opened the floodgates for political spending in America. It's why we see billions of dollars poured into our presidential campaigns, and why we see tens of millions of dollars in things like house primaries, right? Which is just unfathomable to think of back in the 2000s.

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And it concerns me for the future of our democracy, because the reality is that when money is involved in politics, our voice counts less, right? And you can see that with Adams, right? He barely won his mayoral election. It was an extremely close fight. And without this matching funds money that he stole from the New York people, him and his campaign, they stole that money. Without the money that he stole from the people of New York, he would not have won that mayoral campaign.

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You can see the direct impact and it goes deeper than this too. If we're looking at races across the board right now, look at like John Tester in Montana, there is a flood of money coming in from huge right-wing super PACs to try to get them out of that seat because they know that Montana is a place, one that has a history of lots of stuff with campaign finance and dark money, which is a whole other story for another day, but also that it's viable.

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and that in America you can buy elections. And I think that's what we have to reckon with at this point. And that the Democratic Party, in order to fight against this, needs a new playbook. It needs to either be legislative reform, where we have public opinion on our side saying, we want campaign finance reform, or it's time to play dirty. It's time to just let the gloves off and say, if the Republicans are going to do it, maybe we need to do it too in order to make this a fair fight. That's not a road I want to go down, but I think it's a viable one.

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that some democratic leaders might look at in the future. Yeah, and when we talk about the amount of money that have been spent in modern day politics, if we look just a 20 year difference, this is adjusted to inflation as well, the amount of money that was spent in total in the 2020 election was gonna be, was $16 billion in total, congressional races and presidential races. When you compare that to the election of 2000, which is the tightest election that we have.

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Potentially ever seen or one of the tightest elections we've seen Definitely in recent modern politics that was only five billion dollars So what happens and why is there such a massive boom? in this it's because There is more money in politics than there ever have been and this is so unbelievably scary because money is power

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That's how it works. If you have money, you can outspend your opponent. If you have money, you can buy so many ads and so much paid media that you can make people kind of forget about what you did that wasn't popular. And this is something that many powerful organizations understand, right? When we look at the NRA, for example, kind of prime NRA, they have the ability to make representatives

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high ranking representatives not vote to make changes after some very, you know, earth shattering mass shootings. And they have the ability financially to basically bribe members of Congress to vote against these changes, these changes that would save lives, and then have the ability to make their constituents not remember because of this.

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amount of money that they're just kind of throwing in to the, you know, to the campaign. And yes, Democrats spend a lot of money, but the difference is for Democrats, a lot of it is grassroots. A lot of it is just like $20 donations compared to $20,000 donations. And that's where the big differences between the two parties. If you don't see the issue in money in politics.

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I don't really know what to say, but the more money that gets spent in politics, the less likely it is that your elected officials care about you. There has been a shift in which elected officials used to care about their constituents, but now they care about their super PACs, or who's going to give them money. And that shift has been so unbelievably dangerous for us as Americans, us as citizens, but also people.

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across the world, right? If you look at the Koch brothers shoveling money to be sure that there's no new green infrastructure and these bills that are going to help protect the climate because they want to be able to keep their money, keep their oil. It's dangerous for America, it's dangerous for the US, it's dangerous for the world and the rest of the world, they don't do this. They don't do this. If you go to a swing state and you turn the TV on, you're just going to see constant ads.

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just non-stop ads being blasted at you. And what this does is it makes it so candidates are able to ensure that the only thing that you know about them is exactly what they want you to know about them. They are able to hide up their decisions that aren't good, I lack of a better word. They can hide their stupid decisions because they can pay enough money that you're gonna be unable to kind of remember what they did if you even paid enough attention.

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Yeah, and I mean, end of the day, long story short, this depoliticizes America, right, instead of encouraging people to get out the vote and understand who they're voting for. It doesn't do that, right? It takes the power away from the people. It's a tool that historically is used by authoritarian regimes, depoliticization. And it's something that I think in this century, we all have to be extremely, extremely cautious of.

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Yeah, and there was a bill that was introduced, I guess, I don't remember when it was kind of earlier in Biden's Biden's, you know, power, Biden's presidency. So it was 2020, 2021. And that was going to be the For the People Act or HR one. And what this was going to do, it was a very large

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banned voting rights, they were gonna change these campaign finance laws, they were going to ban partisan gerrymandering, and they were gonna have some ethics rules for these office holders. And what happened is that it just kind of died. Like there wasn't enough support because if you are a powerful company, a powerful PAC, and you see a bill that's gonna kind of get rid of your power, what are you gonna do? You're gonna shove so much money to get that.

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kind of taken down. So I think that this would have been a absolutely monumental bill that would have shaped

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Politics in America for not centuries decades, right if getting rid of partisan gerrymandering having ethics rules having limited impact of these finance like you know a bill I think that this bill is something that as Democrats as Americans, frankly, we should really Lobby Congress to get back on the floor if there's a Democratic trifecta There needs to be this this needs to be a key talking point Democrats need to champion this bill because if they don't

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they are going to be outspent they're going to be out gerrymandering gerrymandered they cannot play nice anymore because the republicans are done trying to play absolutely you know you can't fight fascism with holding hands and rainbows you gotta bring out the big guns and those are indeed the big guns yeah and it's just

25:15

It's something that should have been done a while ago. And the fact that it wasn't done is just crazy. And there is the question of if this gets passed, is there going to be an obstacle via the Supreme Court? Probably, almost definitely. Because the Supreme Court, they see happiness in the world and they try to get rid of it. The Supreme Court sees something that's good in the world and they try to get rid of it. Because that's just how it works. No offense to the Supreme Court, but kind of offense to you, Clarence Thomas, I'm just gonna say. But...

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If this is something that keeps on manifesting, the only option might be at some point is to try to get, this is once again very abstract, is you might need to get a constitutional amendment and that's something that's gonna be almost impossible with the amount of money because for local elections, little money goes a long way. And it's something that needs to be addressed soon because the longer you wait, the harder it will be to address.

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and kind of the point of this look i guess what i was saying that in summary of what i was saying is that this is something that needs to be solved now or else it's going to be almost impossible to solve

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Yeah, I mean we're at what in political science we call path dependency The you know decisions that we make at crucial points like in this election put us on a trajectory for our future and it is Incredibly difficult to return back to this point once you have changed anything And so what we have to have here is progress we have to fight and as Kamala says we have to win Yeah, so in summary

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Why do you care about Eric Adams? You care about Eric Adams because this is a symptom of a larger disease that has infected US politics and that is money being spent in money that is impacting how our elected officials govern and how they govern us. Because us as regular citizens are never gonna have the ability or the capital to kind of fight these big corporations. So we need...

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to hold these elected officials accountable for what they do. We need to hold these foreign governments accountable for what they're doing to our elections. We need to stand up. We need to say, this isn't okay, this isn't right. And we need to make large systemic change that is going to reduce or eliminate the power of money in US elections. Absolutely. Folks, it is time for a change. So that being said, that's it for

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