Mayor Eric Adams has stood out among Democrats by meeting with, and failing to criticize, President Donald Trump. But not so long ago, he called Trump an “idiot” and likened him to a buffoon in a fiery Martin Luther King Day speech delivered to his political base.
Adams’ criticism, made in 2018 when he was Brooklyn Borough President and Trump was in his first term, came at an annual MLK tribute at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Seven years later, Adams cancelled plans to speak at the very same event this past Monday so that he could attend Trump’s second inauguration in Washington D.C.
Trump in December said he would consider pardoning Adams, after saying earlier that they were both victims of vindictive investigations because of their opposition to former President Joe Biden’s immigration policy, an assertion disputed by prosecutors. Adams announced this week that he would not publicly criticize Trump, claiming he wanted to build a constructive relationship for the sake of the city.
Although he had criticized Trump in the past, it was rarely with the words or the relish he displayed at the BAM event in 2018. He has attended the BAM event for 10 years straight, but his dramatic speech came days after Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole” countries in an internal meeting on immigration.
“Donald Trump is trumping us. He’s playing three-card monte. He has us so busy watching the idiot behavior of his buffoonery that we are missing the entire task,” Adams said, as he urged an audience that included many of the city’s and state’s top political office holders to remain focused amid the distractions he attributed to Trump.
A video of the event shows him holding a string of three enlarged playing cards, as he implored, “Don’t be distracted by the three-card monte of today.”
Adams took particular aim at Trump’s denigration of Haiti and Africa, at one point comparing the relevance of Trump’s comments to those of a crackhead on the street.
“Imagine you walk down the block and some crackhead tells you you’re not successful. What the hell you care about a crackhead telling you that?” Adams said during the nine-and-a-half minute speech. “Why is someone from Haiti or Africa concerned of what Donald Trump’s opinion is of that? I could care less what he thinks.”
‘Straight Answers’
Adams, a onetime Republican turned Democrat, endorsed Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris in their campaigns against Trump, but he has not been known for being a vocal critic of the president.
On Thursday, though, the New York Daily News reported that Adams labeled him a “white supremacist” in a Tweet on October 1, 2020, when he was borough president.
As mayor, and under federal indictment for alleged corruption since September, Adams’ stance on calling out Trump’s behavior has shifted.
On Tuesday, a day after attending Trump’s inauguration, Adams told reporters at his weekly press briefing at City Hall that he plans to express any disagreements with Trump only privately in the hopes of “working” rather than “warring” with the new administration.
Mayor Eric Adams answered questions at City Hall about President Donald Trump’s initial immigration orders, Jan. 21, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
This included an unwillingness to express an opinion on a number of controversial executive orders Trump signed on his first day since returning to office — including pardoning those who attacked law enforcement officers at the national’s capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and signing an executive order to halt birthright citizenship.
Adams’ silence drew a rebuke from a number of Democratic leaders, including City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who posted on X that, “New Yorkers deserve straight answers from their leaders,” and called the birthright executive order “unconstitutional.”
The mayor maintains that he took the same approach with Biden as he is with Trump, when it came to their different views on immigration. Adams said he initially sought to handle their differences through private meetings in Washington.
“You shouldn’t start out [of] the gate criticizing,” Adams said on Tuesday. “You should start out trying to collaborate, trying to cooperate.”
But with the flow of migrants starting to peak in 2023 and with few federal dollars coming to support the city, Adams bluntly said in April of that year that “the president and the White House have failed New York City on this issue.”
Asked about Adams’ willingness to publicly challenge Trump at the 2018 MLK event, a City Hall spokesperson said the mayor saw during Trump’s first term that the open hostility between elected officials in New York and the president often yielded poor results for the city.
“During President Trump’s first term, partisan bickering — by both the former mayor and former governor — often got in the way of getting things done to benefit the lives of New Yorkers,” said the spokesperson, Kayla Mamelak Altus. “Mayor Adams has been clear that will not happen on his watch.”
The White House press office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Road to Mar-a-Lago
After Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee in July, Adams said early on, though not immediately, that he supported her candidacy.
But that included few shows of public support, and he was left without a speaking slot at the party’s national convention the following month.
In early September 2024, the office of the Manhattan US Attorney indicted Adams on charges that included bribery for allegedly conspiring to solicit illegal donations from foreign nationals affiliated with Turkey, in exchange for favorable government actions. Adams has maintained that he did nothing wrong.
He continued to say he supported Harris throughout her abridged campaign, but he rarely identified her by name at his weekly press conferences at City Hall — arguing that city attorneys were concerned it would be a conflict of interest to discuss politics in a government building.
In early October, Trump said he understood Adams’ predicament, because they were both being persecuted by Biden’s Justice Department for their opposition to Biden’s “open borders” policy.
“We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric,” Trump said at an annual charity dinner in Manhattan.
Adams returned the favor later that month, defending Trump from Democrats — including the Harris campaign — who sought to label the former president a “fascist.”
Since Trump won the election in November, Adams has claimed more directly that his indictment stemmed from his criticism of the Biden administration, even as prosecutors from the US Attorney’s office have said their investigation of Adams started in 2021, before he became mayor.
Over the past week, Adams flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump — to discuss city business, according to Adams — ahead of the inauguration.
At his press conference Tuesday, Adams was asked about that conversation.
“The president loves the city. He’s from New York,” said Adams. “And, you know, being able to see a mayor that loves the city, from New York, I think it was a good synergy.”
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