NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Amid a break from fundraising and building his transition team, mayor-elect Eric Adams came bearing gifts on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" Tuesday night, including rolling paper and what he implied was a bag of marijuana.
"One of my best gifts, as you know, marijuana is legal. I have raw [rolling papers]. I have bamboo and I can't give you this gift, I'll give it to you later," Adams said as he held up a bag, of what looked like a small bag of what marijuana would be stored in.
"I did not know," Colbert said. "I'm not aware, Mr. Mayor. I'm not into that scene."
"Marijuana is legal and Eric supports its safe personal use," Adams’ campaign spokesperson, Evan Thies, told The New York Post. He added that the mayor-elect didn’t actually purchase any cannabis for the show.
Other gifts Adams gave in his first-ever late-night appearance included a blanket, a t-shirt and tickets to "Chicago" for the entire audience.
Earlier in the interview, Adams teased his recent late night club outings, joking that Colbert got it wrong and that he only made a stop late on election night to Zero Bond.
Adams quickly corrected him, informing the CBS late night host that he had gone to Casa Cipriani and Sugar Hill as well.
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"I am the mayor. This is a city of nightlife. I must test the product," he said. "I have to be out showing I want New Yorkers to come back."
Adams shared his daily routine — a 5 a.m. wake-up, meditation, exercise, drinking a green smoothie, "ready to hit the ground running" — comparing his differences with his soon-to-be predecessor, Bill de Blasio.
Quoting the Nobel Peace Prize-winning South African cleric Desmond Tutu, who said, “We need to go upstream and find out why [people] are falling in [the river]," Adams said he too wants to go "upstream" to prevent New Yorkers from "falling in."
"We create the crises, and I'm going to take my city upstream, and we're going to be a model all over this country on how to run cities," he said.
The former NYPD captain-turned-Brooklyn borough president, who spoke of being "abused" by cops as a teenager, said he wants to reform the "ecosystem of public safety" throughout the city.
"I'm going to tell my police officers I have your back, so do your job, but darnit, if you don't understand the nobility of public protection, you're getting out of my department," he added. "You will not use that job to abuse people. Abuse is real. We're going to change the ecosystems of public safeties ... we have to redefine policing and what it means in our country and our city. And I'm going to get it right. We're not going to be heavy-handed. We're going to show how we can have a partnership between police and community. I know we can get it right."
Adams didn't want to define himself within the Democratic Party, yet he took credit for the progressive ideology before it was popularized by some elected officials.
"Long before people discovered this term called progressive, we were leading the way, and what progressive is all about," he said. "So I don't want people to put me in a box. There are some things I'm conservative thinking about, moderate thinking about, ultra-left thinking about, that is who I am. I tell New Yorkers and Americans, don't let people define you. I know who I am, I don't need any title. I'm Eric Adams."
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