Mayor Eric Adams rides subway with Trump's Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy
NEW YORK (WABC) -- President Donald Trump's Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who's used an expletive to publicly describe the conditions of the New York City subways, rode the subway with Mayor Eric Adams.
The mayor wanted Duffy to see for himself. The U.S. secretary of transportation recently described the city's transit system as a kind of "hole," beginning with the letter "s," citing a spate of violence that included the death of a woman set on fire on the subway by a migrant in December that was seized on by the Trump administration as a talking point, as evidence that riders are on edge.
Duffy has threatened to withhold billions in federal funding from the MTA, claiming crime is out of control.
But NYPD Transit Chief Joseph Gulotta explained that crime is down to historic lows, including a citywide drop in crime over the first three months of the year, thanks to a massive police redeployment.
Major offenses are down 18%, the second-lowest level in 27 years. No murders in the subway system over the first three months is the first time that has happened since 2018 -- there were 10 murders in the subway in 2024.
Adams, joined by Gulotta and members of the PATH (Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness) teams, rode a packed B train for roughly 12 minutes, from downtown Brooklyn to the East Village.
He spoke to Duffy about decreasing crime underground and initiatives the city has been taken to make people feel safer.
The mayor told Duffy about the city's involuntary removals of homeless living in the subways, deconstruction of subway encampments and his backing of the Supportive Interventions Act, which would codify the state's legal standard for involuntary hospitalization.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has been a partner in that effort, with state money used to place two police officers on every train during the overnight hours starting in January, and the city deploying more officers on platforms and trains.
But the Trump administration is currently battling the MTA and the state over the future of congestion pricing.
Duffy goaded the MTA, accusing the agency of wasteful spending.
"I'm going to make an offer to MTA," Duffy said. "I know a few people in D.C. who are very successful at rooting out fraud, waste and abuse. It's called DOGE. So, I'm going to offer folks from DOGE to come down and take a look at what MTA is doing."
The secretary repeated his opposition to congestion pricing, which has already reduced traffic and raised millions for the kinds of service improvements Duffy is demanding.
"The governor is forcing people into the train system, into the MTA, because she's priced them out of using these roads. That's fundamentally unfair," Duffy said.
But Mayor Adams, who has conditionally supported congestion pricing, did not dispute the secretary, saying instead, they could agree to disagree.
"We don't have to agree on all aspects of it, but we're going to agree that New Yorkers should have a safe way to move around the city," Adams said. "And now this is the job of the governors, that my job is to sit down with the administration to say, this is how we are using this our system."
Neither Gov. Hochul nor MTA Chairman Janno Lieber were invited. The governor's spokesman insisted that Duffy "has no idea what he's talking about" and slammed his visit as a "field trip."
The visit was part of a larger tour of the city's critical infrastructure projects Friday morning.
The mayor took Duffy to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, where the three level section through Brooklyn Heights is deteriorating faster than expected and must be rebuilt. Other city transportation projects also in need of federal money were discussed.
The visit also comes amid the mayor's newfound closeness with the Trump administration, one that absolved him of his federal criminal case but also resulted in him not participating in the democratic primary and running for a second term as an independent.
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