Photo: Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Last week, former president Donald Trump rubbed elbows with prominent New Yorkers and political figures at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in Manhattan, an event typically attended by presidential candidates ahead of Election Day. While delivering his comedic remarks, Trump made a point of mentioning a different politician he was sharing the dais with that night: Eric Adams.
Trump joked about the mayor’s pending legal troubles, quipping that he’d never met a vegan who liked Turkey so much. But he also seemed sympathetic to Adams, suggesting they were both targeted by the Biden administration. “I’d like to poke some fun at Eric, but I’m going to be nice. I just want to be nice because I know what it’s like to be persecuted by the DoJ for speaking out against open borders,” Trump said. “We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so were you, Eric.”
On Tuesday, a reporter asked Adams whether he’d disavow Trump’s comments about him, but the mayor declined to engage with the subject. “New Yorkers need to hear the issues, and I’m just not going to get back and forth on comments that are made on both sides,” he said during his weekly press availability.
It wasn’t the first time Trump has indicated some measure of support for Adams. Trump made similar comments in late September following the news that federal prosecutors had indicted the mayor on corruption charges, implying that the indictments stemmed from Adams’s past criticism of the White House over its handling of the migrant crisis. “I watched about a year ago when he talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city and the federal government should pay us and we shouldn’t have to take them,” Trump told reporters in Trump Tower. “I said, ‘You know what? He’ll be indicted within a year.’ And I was exactly right because that’s what we have.”
Adams has maintained his innocence since the charges against him were unveiled. Though the mayor has yet to go as far as Trump in alleging a grudge from the Biden administration, Adams previously suggested that he was being targeted in a pretaped statement to New Yorkers released ahead of the indictment’s release. “I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target — and a target I became,” he said in the clip.
The mayor often stressed his ties to the national party, previously calling himself the “face of the Democratic Party” and the “Biden of Brooklyn” shortly after being elected in 2021. But in recent years, that relationship has come under intense strain after the mayor’s direct criticism of the White House over immigration, as well the investigations swirling throughout his administration. Adams did go to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago but was not given a speaker slot. The mayor downplayed the snub, saying, “This is not the Eric show.” The New York Post issued a report floating the idea that Adams could be open to a potential legal reprieve from a future President Trump, citing unnamed sources in his camp. In the past, Trump has shown an openness for pardoning Democratic politicians accused of wrongdoing, including former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who had their prison sentences commuted during his tenure.
In the days since the dinner, Adams has avoided making a direct comment on Trump’s apparent support, or rejecting his overture outright. Last week, the mayor was asked about the possibility that a Trump presidency could result in the charges against him being dropped. “I don’t speculate. I’ve made clear who I’m supporting, and I’m focused on that,” he said, referring to his endorsement of Kamala Harris for president.
Adams similarly cited his support of Harris on Tuesday, chalking up questions about Trump’s comments to the waning days of the political calendar. “This is the season when the silliness comes into politics,” he said.
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