'Donald Trump felt Eric Adams's Pain'
On the Republican president and the Democratic mayor of his hometown
Wearing a tuxedo and white tie on the dais of a Manhattan ballroom, New York City Mayor Eric Adams sat silently as Donald Trump publicly threw him a bone.
“I know what it’s like to be persecuted by the DOJ for speaking out against open borders,” Trump told Adams, who is facing federal bribery charges, during the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner a few weeks before Election Day. “We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric.”
There was no sign of visible approval or displeasure at the remark from the mayor, as one prominent Democrat in the room recalled. Adams — who has pleaded not guilty to charges that he accepted free perks from Turkish officials who later sought help opening a Manhattan skyscraper — looked straight ahead as Trump went on with his speech.
“Donald Trump felt Eric Adams’s pain,” said John Catsimatidis, a supermarket mogul who knows both men and was at the dinner.
As I reported last week in The Wall Street Journal, people who know both Trump and Adams have pointed to the moment as the beginning of surprisingly warm relations between the Republican president-elect and his hometown’s Democratic leader.
Adams’s team contacted Trump’s aides during the transition, and the mayor subsequently spoke with the president-elect about areas where the city could collaborate with the administration, according to a city official. Last week, the mayor met with incoming border czar Tom Homan for about an hour at Gracie Mansion.
“We’re going to protect the rights of immigrants in this city that are hard-working, giving back to the city in a real way,” Adams said after his meeting, as reported by The City. “We’re not going to be a safe haven for those who commit repeated violent crimes against innocent migrants, immigrants and long-standing New Yorkers.”
Adams’s aides he would work with anyone to help better the cit for New Yorkers, and doesn’t expect anything in exchange.
Murad Awawdeh, head of the advocacy group New York Immigration Coalition, said he had hoped Adams would deliver a message during his meeting with Homan that New York was built and enriched by immigrants.
“He is supposed to serve in this moment, not collude,” Awawdeh told me.
Taken overall, Republicans said Adams’s response to Trump’s election made sense. The GOP candidate’s vote totals in the city increased by 20% between 2024 and 2020, though Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, easily carried New York City and the state this year.
Before winning elective office in 2006, Adams worked as a police officer for more than two decades and registered as a Republican for several years in the late 1990s.
“He’s got some legal troubles and a pardon could help,” said Chapin Fay, a GOP strategist who advises candidates in New York. “I also think the federal government is going to force some things [on immigration], and Adams is taking a posture where he’s going to try to do what he can to help.”
THE QUESTION: Who has better Buffalo wings – Duff’s or the Anchor Bar?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: Mario Cuomo ran for New York City mayor in 1977. He lost the Democratic Party primary to Ed Koch and was again defeated by Koch in the general election while running on the Liberal Party line. (Andrew is Mario’s kid.)