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The polls say Mayor Adams is a sure-fire loser in November and wall-to-wall reports have him dropping out of the race or leaving City Hall early to take a job in the Trump administration.
He tells me neither is true and that he has never spoken to the president about a job.
My impression after a fast-paced interview with him Monday is that quitting and defeat truly are far from his mind.
“I will finish my term,” he said emphatically, and insists he still has a chance at re-election.
“I feel strong and I’m not giving up,” he added.
“It’s too early to throw in the towel.”
We were sitting in Gracie Mansion, and the mayor’s upbeat mood was a match for the bright, sunny day.
He barely flinched when I asked what he would do differently if he could rewind the clock to 2022, when he took office.
His quick answer came with conviction.
“Some of my appointments and hires,” he said, “I would have done differently, out of the gate.”
City Hall shake-up
He didn’t mention names, but didn’t have to.
While shake-ups at City Hall and even the White House are common, the extent of top departures under Adams was unusual.
The drip, drip of key members leaving, some under clouds of investigations, conveyed a sense of disorder.
From the mayor’s perspective, a greater problem was the web of lingering issues connected to COVID. He talks of how he spent a long time in “mayor classes” before and during his 2021 campaign, meaning he felt prepared — “but COVID changed that.”
He lost people he assumed would take jobs and remembers telling his staff, many of whom were working 13 and 14 hours a day, “We still gotta move the ball.”
He laughed at his own memory and said, “History is going to be really kind to me, when you write your book on me!”
The city was still partially shut down, and some school reopenings were slow and contested.
“But I was worried about the learning gap growing, so I’m just going to have to be criticized because we have to open all schools,” he recalled feeling.
He cited three big early problems: COVID, crime and the wild influx of asylum-seekers.
Did he doubt his ability to do the job?
“There was not one day when I felt I couldn’t do it,” he insisted.
He segued to another roadblock that complicated matters: “I remember the day I was indicted. I left that court and went to a senior center.”
Life according to Adams goes like this: Keep moving because “80% of things you believe are going to happen to you negatively are never going to materialize.”
“I know I’m my mama’s child, and she never gave up.
“When it’s hard, I hear her voice,” he said.
Indictment of system
Mention of the federal indictment, connected mostly to donations for that first race, brought a laugh, and he said it taught him a great lesson, which he called “the trilogy” of power.
He listed mayors, the media and prosecutors last, which he likened to vultures.
I agreed in his case.
Damian Williams, the head of feds’ Southern District when Adams was indicted, foolishly wrote an op-ed that made him look like a head-hunting amateur pol.
Williams’ plan to run for office was reportedly well-known among other prosecutors, some of whom scoffed at his naked ambition.
Adams insists the prosecution, which the Trump administration dropped, was out of bounds.
The case involved FBI agents seizing the mayor’s electronic devices and numerous leaks from prosecutors, which damaged the mayor’s political standing.
He believes he can still recover because he’s been in the public eye, going back to his NYPD days, for nearly two generations and has a reservoir of trust and respect from many New Yorkers.
Which brought us to the elephant in the room: Zohran Mamdani, the leader of the pack for the November election.
Where, I asked, does he fit into the city?
Adams answered with a litany of charges that made the most powerful and complete argument I have heard anyone make against the 33-year-old radical.
“Most New Yorkers don’t fully understand how much damage he can do,” Adams began.
He said some state officials believe they could absorb the dislocations of a Mayor Mamdani, but he believes they don’t know how much power a mayor has.
While most mayors fight to retain control of city schools, Mamdani wants to turn it back to the Legislature.
To Adams, that means he “wants to give school control to Michael Mulgrew,” the head of the teachers union.
He next cites Mamdani’s plan to decriminalize prostitution.
Adams scoffs, saying: “As a cop, I remember seeing these little boys and girls, 18 and 19 years old, selling their bodies on street corners.”
He turns to Mamdani’s pledge to empty Rikers Island, saying: “It holds 7,400 of the most dangerous people in our city.”
Because of lenient courts, “you have to work really hard to be sent to Rikers now.”
‘They hate families’
He is especially alarmed by Mamdani’s handlers.
He says of the Democratic Socialists of America, “They hate families. This is their social experiment and there would be so much damage that it would take years for New York to recover.”
He adds another idea — Mamdani is making promises he knows he can’t keep.
“We’re not talking about a person who is not intelligent. He’s diabolical.
“He knows he can’t do all this stuff, an increase in millionaires’ tax, and Hochul said no. When he talks about rent freezes, he knows others are going to have to pay, so he can’t do that.”
Adams calls it a “snake oil approach” that aims to scare people and claims Mamdani is “intentionally misleading people, and that angers me.”
The mayor was just getting warmed up and moved to another concern — Mamdani’s cadre of young voters.
He believes a “significant portion” are involved in the anti-Israel protests.
He cited an infamous subway scene after the Hamas invasion two years ago where a group of thugs on a subway shouted, “If you’re Jewish, get off this train.”
He believes critics of Israel make up a large proportion of Mamdani’s base and cites the candidate’s outrageous defense of “globalize the intifada.”
To Adams, that reflects a larger problem he sees in Mamdani supporters: “They are not American patriots.”
By way of comparison, he cited his Uncle Joe, who fought and died in Vietnam even though he didn’t agree with much of America’s politics.
“But when the country called, he went to Vietnam and he served because he knew we have the greatest country on the globe,” Adams said passionately.
He believes many on the far left “don’t want to wear the Team America” jersey.
He adds, “If you don’t agree with them, they will curse you out, disrupt family dinners. They just have no respect.”
Sadly, he’s right. Which is why New Yorkers of common sense must band together to defeat Mamdani.