Eric Adams: A New York State of Bind

I’ll start this post out by making the point up front: New York City Mayor Eric Adams needs to call it a term and bounce. 

He can no longer be effective in his position. 

He is now a political lightning rod and nothing more. But I’ll tell you why I’m saying this.

A few years ago, I sat down with the newly inaugurated Adams for a conversation on his strategy to bring the city back after the coronavirus pandemic almost crippled the economy and saw a spike in crime.

It was quite a feat because I was one of the first journalists to get an interview with him and his office was interested in doing something with Black media outlets, one of which employed me at the time. Adams seemed confident, determined, and smart. He spoke about a range of issues from attacking crime to dealing with prisons, to education, and even healthy food. He jokingly called himself a “nightlife mayor” because he sought to make the city a destination for partiers again.

Fast forward three years and it’s a different scene. He has been embattled with allegations of bribery and fraud after he was accused of taking more than $100,000 worth of gifts from Turkish nationals in exchange for political favors. These are allegations that date back to 2022, when he first took office. He has denied the accusations, but last September he was indicted on five separate corruption charges. But that’s where the mess begins. Multiple people on Adams’ staff have resigned over the past few months including NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, Schools Chancellor David Banks, and Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright just to name a few because of a kaleidoscope of political drama connected to him. Adams does not appear to be the man I sat with in City Hall that day. In fact, I hardly recognize him.

The mayor, who said in 2018, when he was Brooklyn Borough President that “Donald Trump is trumping us” now goes to kick it with him in Palm Beach.

Now, this was a complete flip from just six months ago when he clearly said he was “rocking with” the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz Democratic ticket.

He also blasted Trump loyalist Republicans for causing the migrant crisis that recently flooded the city with thousands of migrants sent from border states, but who had no place to go when they arrived.

But he’s dancing to a different tune now thanks to the U.S. Justice Department. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered Adams’ criminal case dropped, but that set up suspicions of a quid pro quo situation in which it seemed like he was willing to allow the Trump administration to sidestep New York’s sanctuary city rules and go after immigrants with impunity, pretty much claiming that anyone from south of the border is a criminal, including children.

This pissed off several people in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to the point where they turned in their resignations, most notably Danielle Sassoon, who made her feelings clear:

I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached in seeming collaboration with Adams’s counsel and without my direct input on the ultimate stated rationales for dismissal.

Mayoral Mockery

I’m shortening this as much as I can to cut through the B.S., but this all came down to calls for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to remove him from office, which would be unprecedented in city history. She declined to do that at least for right now, choosing instead to set up a structure to basically micromanage him.

Now all this comes as Adams, appeared on live television with Border Czar Tom Holman discussing what their plans would be to weed out illegal immigrants in New York. And I can’t think of a more spitting insult for him to absorb with a smile.

“Up his butt”? Really? Essentially he called the second African American Mayor of New York, the largest, most economically important city in the United States, one of the most powerful cities in the world, “boy” to his face and he just grinned.

This is not the man I spoke to about affordable housing solutions, education, and financial literacy. All it took was getting caught up in allegations with the Turkish government and a deal with the devil to change your tune.

This year, Adams is up for reelection and all signs point to him remaining in the race for mayor. But I don’t think he’s got a snowball’s chance of winning because he’s lost the faith of 8 million people and that’s a hard thing to do, even for the worst politicians.

The only way I see him staying is if Trump interferes in a municipal election and installs Adams, keeping him there to further his agenda. That would completely upend any semblance of autonomy in New York, but Trump has already shown he couldn’t care less about any law or rule that doesn’t favor him. People who think they are “king” often feel that way.

But this is all the more reason he should be gone. The only legitimacy he could now have is a superficial one propped up by a megalomaniac who has unleashed a fascist sympathizer on the operations of the federal government. Adams would be little more than one of his henchmen.

Adams related to me how he cared about New York, how he felt its future would be bright if every New Yorker was willing to work in tandem for that goal. If that’s truly how he feels, then he should do the right thing and walk away. 

Madison Gray is a New York City-based writer and editor whose work has appeared in multiple publications globally. Reach out to him at madison@starkravingmadison.com.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article erroneously said several resignations came from the New York District Attorney's office. They were in fact from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.