Mayor Adams doesn’t push back when talk show host floats idea of blacklisting NYPD critics

Mayor Adams didn’t challenge the notion of creating a blacklist of people who are “bad mouthing” the NYPD during a Tuesday morning talk show appearance that touched on ongoing criticism of the department.

Adams, who was speaking on WABC’s “Sid and Friends,” was responding to remarks from the show’s host Sid Rosenberg, who attacked City CouncilwomanTiffany Caban for sharing a how-to-guide on how children should interact with police.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if some of these members like Tiffany Caban no longer got to enjoy police coming to their house when they’re in trouble?” Rosenberg said.

“Now, cops wouldn’t do that. You’re a former cop, Eric. You guys are too good natured. You wouldn’t do that,” he continued. “But I don’t know about you. I’ve had enough. I’m sick and tired of people like Tiffany Caban — people on our City Council in New York — badmouthing police to the point that they do.”

Adams, a former NYPD captain who rose to prominence as a cop criticizing the department, responded: “I agree 100%.”

When asked about the remark after the talk show ended, Adams’ spokesman Fabien Levy said the mayor was agreeing with Rosenberg’s line about being “sick and tired” — not the idea that a blacklist should be created to discriminate against people who criticize the NYPD.

But during his appearance on the talk show, Adams didn’t push back on Rosenberg’s suggestion.

“You are 100% correct,” he told Rosenberg, following his earlier comment. “Do you know what I was told as a child? ‘Eric, if you have a problem, you go over to that police officer, you go over because he’s going to do what is right. And for someone to take those who crossed the line and do what is wrong and give the appearance that the thousands of officers that are running toward violence to keep us safe are all bad people, that is just wrong. It’s the wrong thing to do. It’s the wrong seed to plant in our children, and it could be actually harmful to our children as they grow up.”

Asked why Adams didn’t push back on air, Levy said that the mayor wasn’t going to get into fights over every controversial comment made in his presence.

“Police are going to protect everyone in this city no matter what,” he said.

The subject of Rosenberg’s ire was literature Caban distributed over social media that says “Police are nice to some people, but they are not nice to everybody. All people can be hurt by police.”

Republican City Council challenger Kelly Klingman has seized on such remarks and recently attacked Caban on Twitter for the post, which also states that while on TV show depictions “usually, police are doing good deeds ... in real life, police don’t follow the rules in the same way for everybody.”

Caban, a progressive Democrat who represents Astoria, has gotten into hot water before over her rhetoric around policing, including last year when she and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) recommended against using the word “overdose” on 911 calls out of fear of attracting the cops.

The Queens councilwoman did not take long to respond on the topic Tuesday, saying that every Black and brown family in the city is familiar with “the talk” parents have with their kids about interacting with cops.

“There is nothing remotely controversial about saying that police aren’t nice to everyone. Every Black and Latino family in New York City knows about ‘The Talk,’” she said. “The mayor himself has spoken compellingly about how police brutalized him in his youth, and he made a name for himself counseling young Black men on how to minimize the risk that they would suffer police violence. If I’m to be blacklisted for sharing a post to this effect, the mayor will unfortunately have to blacklist himself as well.”

City Council spokesman Mandela Jones also pushed back on Adams’ response.

“The idea of blacklisting a New Yorker from receiving city services because you disagree with them is anti-democratic,” Jones said. “It has no place here, and any suggestion that it does is irresponsible.”

Adams has been open about being beaten by cops when he was a teen and about his attempts to reform the NYPD from within, but more recently he’s taken a critical tone when it comes to people calling out the department, suggesting last week that those who criticize the NYPD for running over budget when it comes to overtime costs might be “anti-police.”

“No one gets riled up with overtime in parks, in HRA. Nobody gets riled up in overtime anywhere else but the New York City police department,” he said last week, referring to the Parks Department and the city’s Human Resources Administration. “That’s all we focus on — NYPD. So is it anti-overtime? Or is it anti-police? And if it’s anti-police, shame on us.”