Mayor Eric Adams.
Credit score: Ed Reed/Mayoral Images Workplace.
Mayor Eric Adams alleged on Tuesday that Metropolis Council Speaker and mayoral challenger Adrienne Adams has fought him on a number of coverage points as a springboard to run for his job, regardless of her exhibiting scant curiosity within the position previous to a number of months in the past.
Most lately, the 2 Adamses at Metropolis Corridor (who haven’t any relation) have clashed over First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro’s government order permitting federal immigration authorities again onto Rikers Island for the primary time in a decade. The council sued final week to dam the transfer, prompting a state decide to grant it a short lived restraining order that bars federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement from organising store there no less than till Friday.
“This is not the first time the speaker has been hostile to the things we want to do,” the mayor stated. “I mean, we now learned why she was trying to block everything I do.”
Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams at a mayoral discussion board on April 3, 2025.Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
Speaker Adams’ spokesperson, Mandela Jones, responded that the speaker had no plans to run till allegations surfaced in February that Mayor Adams’ legal professional engaged in a quid professional quo with the Trump Justice Division to get his federal corruption case dropped.
“The mayor says a lot of things that are not true,” Jones stated in a press release. “Anyone can see that Speaker Adrienne Adams was not planning to run for mayor, until Eric Adams embarrassed and undermined New York City by trying to hand City Hall over to President Trump. Unlike our current mayor, Speaker Adams isn’t auditioning for a job on the Trump reality show.”
Speaker’s late bid for mayor
The mayor’s implication that Speaker Adams has lengthy used an adversarial stance towards his insurance policies to launch her personal bid for his workplace stands in sharp distinction to her previous statements and actions.
Speaker Adams, who’s term-limited from operating for an additional time period within the Metropolis Council, had proven little to no real interest in operating for mayor after spending the previous three years main the town’s legislature; on many events, she advised reporters that she had no plans to take action.
Much more notably, the speaker solely entered the mayor’s race after being pushed to run by different Democratic pols and union leaders involved concerning the mayor’s alleged dealings with the Trump administration and as a backlash in opposition to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the front-runner within the June 24 Democratic main.
Speaker Adams additionally entered the mayor’s race fairly late, on March 6 — a call that has hampered her means to qualify for public matching funds as rapidly as different candidates.
The mayor made the feedback for example that regardless of their previous battles, he and the speaker have been in a position to agree on a metropolis finances deal over every of the previous three years. The 2 sides should go a spending plan for the approaching fiscal yr by a June 30 deadline.
Mayor Adams additionally stated it was “problematic” that the speaker kicked two members off of her finances negotiating staff following their endorsement of Cuomo for his mayoral bid.
“The fact that two electeds lost their seats (on the budget committee) because they didn’t endorse the candidate, that’s a real issue,” the mayor stated. “We’re in the middle of negotiations. We can’t use our authority as an elected to in any way benefit ourselves.”
On the time, Jones advised Metropolis & State that Speaker Adams had eliminated the lawmakers — Queens Democrats Selvena Brooks-Powers and Lynn Schulman — as a result of “members of council leadership lost confidence that these members shared their values.”
