It would seem that it is time to add another topic to the list of those that Eric Adams will not address: his relationship with Donald Trump. Between his comments about gun violence, health care, and housing in today’s off-topic press briefing, New York City’s mayor remained evasive on questions relating to the 45th President, citing a variety of reasons for not giving answers, and when that was untenable, even skipping over questions from reporters outright.
The mayor set the tone early on in the briefing when asked about his recent statement that he did not think the former president was a fascist. “I’ve heard those terms hurled at me by some political leaders in the city, using terms like Hitler and fascist,” Adams said at a press conference on Saturday, “my answer is no. I know what Hitler has done, and I know what a fascist regime looks like.” Today, Adams said that he found it “insulting” to be fielding questions on “this silly item” at the expense of issues affecting New Yorkers, like housing affordability or kids dying from surfing on subway cars. “I’m not going to engage in that,” he concluded. He accused the press corps of “being in a bubble” disconnected from constituents’ concerns, and called on “everyone to turn down the rhetoric” and be ready to unite behind whoever wins the presidential election next week.
Referring to a recent story from the New York Post, one reporter asked whether his lawyers were “angling” for a Trump victory, to which the mayor said, “no one from my legal team was doing any form of angling,” and that the facts of his case will speak for themselves, before referring questions to his lawyer, Alex Spiro. Spiro is also representing Elon Musk, currently the richest man in the world and a significant backer of Trump’s presidential campaign. La Voce also raised a question related to Trump in the briefing, seeking the mayor’s opinion on the defamation suit against the former president from the Exonerated Five (previously known as the Central Park Five) based on his comments during a debate with Kamala Harris on September 10th. The mayor demurred on this as well, saying that he would not want to “jeopardize that case.” A reporter from Politico was skipped over outright for asking when the last time was that Adams had spoken to Trump or his team.
The Trump campaign rally at Madison Square Garden last Sunday came up frequently. Asked whether his feeling had changed on whether or not Trump is a fascist given the amount of racist rhetoric at the rally, Adams offered palliative answers with little commitment. He warned against writing off an entire group of people based on the rhetoric from “some of the people,” and called broad comments made about any group “inappropriate.” He warned against increased tensions and inflammatory rhetoric writ large without singling out either side of the political divide, saying what’s needed is to “turn down this noise.”
One aspect of that story, however, eventually brought about a tense back and forth between the mayor and the press corps, as Adams defended John Chell, NYPD’s chief of patrol, for his interview on Newsmax in full uniform. Adams gave Chell a spirited defense, commending him for speaking to a news outlet that is outside the mainstream, even if many members of the press corps didn’t like it, saying “if the rule is that we don’t talk to any outlets that we don’t like, then let me get out of here.” The line had the whole room laughing.
But the joy didn’t last long, as the reporter who originally asked the question about Chell pressed further, asking if it was appropriate for him to interview with a news source that has engaged in misinformation. Newsmax narrowly avoided a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems by issuing a public apology to the company, admitting that it had no evidence to back up claims it had aired repeatedly that Dominion had engaged in voter fraud in the 2020 election. The mayor answered with another pithy one-liner: “he wasn’t interviewed by the Daily News, was he?” Many members of the press corps groaned, with some immediately calling Adams’ comparison of the two outlets “inappropriate.”
Liz Kim of Gothamist followed up briefly later on, asking the mayor if he distinguished between Newsmax and other more mainstream outlets like CNN or NBC, and whether he was willing to sit down with Newsmax for an interview. “I would go on whoever is going to hear the success of this city and report it.”
The most recent polling available for mayor Adams still finds that a majority of New Yorkers (53%) want him to resign.
