Join our New York News e-mail e-newsletter to get information, updates, and native insights delivered straight to your inbox!
Democratic Mayor Eric Adams will attend Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington, DC on Monday, his staff introduced early this morning.
Fabien Levy, Adams’ deputy mayor for Communications, revealed in a social media submit that Trump’s staff invited Adams in a single day.
“In the early hours of Monday morning, the Trump administration reached out inviting Mayor Adams to attend the inauguration at the incoming administration’s request,” Levy mentioned. “Mayor Adams accepted on behalf of New York City. As the mayor has repeatedly said, America has chosen a new national leader and we must work together to build a safer, stronger, and more affordable in New York City.”
Kayla Mamelak-Altus, one other mayoral spokesperson, mentioned Adams drove right down to DC someday after midnight after recieving the invitation by means of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s nominee for particular envoy to the Center East.
The announcement got here after Adams’ press workplace despatched out a public schedule Sunday night time displaying he deliberate to talk at a sequence of Martin Luther King Jr. Day occasions within the Massive Apple.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends a service at St. John’s Church on the inauguration day of his second Presidential time period in Washington, U.S. January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Shortly after Levy’s assertion went out, his workplace issued a brand new schedule displaying Adams would seem on the inauguration and never the native MLK Day occasions. It’s the first time since 2013, when Barack Obama started his second time period as president, that Inauguration Day fell on MLK Day.
The mayor’s sudden transfer comes after weeks of him saying he was nonetheless deciding whether or not to attend Trump’s inauguration given his busy native schedule for MLK Day. It additionally follows a Friday assembly between the mayor and Trump on the incoming president’s golf course in Palm Seashore.
Hanging over all of Adams’ interactions with Trump is theory that he’s looking for a pardon from the president-elect within the case that he will get convicted on federal corruption expenses. Adams is about to face trial in April over the 5 legal counts and will face jail time if he’s discovered responsible.
The mayor insisted on Saturday that he didn’t focus on his authorized case with Trump within the Friday assembly.
Trump has publicly sympathized with Adams’ case, stating with out proof that the mayor was politically focused by outgoing President Biden’s Justice Division and expressed openness to pardoning him final month.
Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s operating towards Adams on this 12 months’s Democratic mayoral major, alleged in a social media submit that the mayor’s journey was purely motivated by his alleged need for a pardon.
“Imagine if Mayor Adams applied the same focus to making our city safer and bringing down our cost of living as he does to getting himself a pardon,” Lander mentioned.
One other mayoral challenger, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn), took the same shot at Adams in his personal submit.
“”Life’s most persistent and pressing query is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” Myrie wrote, quote MLK. “Dr. King urged us to put community above self. New Yorkers deserve a Mayor who puts our city’s wellbeing above his own exoneration.”
