A pro-business retired cop sparks liberal revolt in first few weeks as mayor

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That dynamic, which is shaping up after a particularly fractious contest to lead the City Council, threatens to burden the city’s new executive with policy challenges at a time when most mayors are at the peak of their power.

“He was not my first pick,” said Stanley Fritz, political and campaigns director for Citizen Action of New York, a left-leaning nonprofit. “I have serious concerns about how close he is with the police department and [Police Benevolent Association] President Pat Lynch who is, best-case scenario, not very friendly to Black and brown people and, worst-case scenario, a full-blown white supremacist.”

“Having said that, I want to see him succeed because if he does well, the city does well. But his general attitude toward progressives is concerning,” Fritz said.

Like Adams, Fritz is a Black man focused on racial inequities in New York. But where he and like-minded liberals see solutions in a smaller police force and restrictions on real estate projects, Adams has signaled a different approach. The new mayor — a Democrat who joined the Republican Party for seven years in the 1990s — wants more cops on patrol amid a spike in shootings and has spoken enthusiastically about development.

That tension is emerging in the 51-member City Council, a legislative body that welcomed an energized progressive bloc of roughly 10 lawmakers into its fold this month.

Against this backdrop will emerge a budget negotiation likely to test the mettle of dueling camps over NYPD funding as Adams looks to beef up police presence in subways and on increasingly dangerous city streets. He also has signaled a desire for more real estate development across the city and an acceptance of charter schools — issues that threaten to further erode his relationship with far-left Democrats.

“I think you’re going to start to see a number of progressive groups and elected officials stop giving him this honeymoon or grace period, considering he is not taking it,” said progressive political consultant Camille Rivera, who worked for an opposing mayoral campaign.

The friction on display mirrors a national feud within the Democratic Party between the left and centrists most recently over calls to cut police budgets.

Adams, a 22-year police officer who ran a tough-on-crime campaign, is banking on support from a crucial contingent of Council members from both parties who either share his views on policing or are willing to compromise on the divisive subject. POLITICO spoke with eight members, most of whom expressed a desire to build a productive relationship with the new mayor, despite ideological differences.

“We’re not interested in fighting his administration. We want to work collaboratively, and I think that we have been honest about that,” said Bronx Democratic Council Member Diana Ayala, whose bid for speaker failed after Team Adams raised concerns about her position on a central tenet of his policing agenda. “We have strong objections to some issues and it would be nice to be able to sit and discuss those in an adult way, but I think ultimately it doesn’t help to have both sides of City Hall at odds.”

Yet even before he was sworn in on New Year’s Day, Adams had already rankled progressives and mainstream Democrats by vowing to reverse a ban on solitary confinement in Rikers Island jails. And last week Ocasio-Cortez publicly chastised the new mayor for referring to cooks and Dunkin’ Donuts employees as “low-skill workers.” (He subsequently derided Ocasio-Cortez as the “word police” and said he meant “low-wage workers.”) Finally, left-leaning city and state lawmakers are pushing him to reinstate a remote learning option for students, which he opposed before agreeing to consider the approach following pressure from the teachers union.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks during a news conference. at the U.S. Capitol December 8, 2021 in Washington, D.C. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

Despite the early tension, Adams senior adviser Stefan Ringel depicted a rosier picture of the emerging relationship, noting the friendship between the mayor and the new Speaker Adrienne Adams, despite his unsuccessful efforts to install a different ally in the job.

“Mayor Adams is excited about governing in partnership with Speaker Adams and the City Council,” Ringel said. “He enjoys close relationships with a broad coalition of Council members across the ideological spectrum, and is ready to work with anyone who genuinely wants to sit at the table with him to work on the issues facing our city. When campaigning ends, governing begins [and] we’re ready to govern.”

Progressive professionals are, to varying degrees, less convinced.

Bill Neidhardt, a left-leaning consultant who worked as press secretary to former Mayor Bill de Blasio, does not share his former boss’ affinity for the new mayor.

“He is a conservative. That’s what the first week has proven — conservative and problematic,” Neidhardt told POLITICO. “He’s signaling that this is going to be a conservative tenure that needs to be really closely monitored, and something that the City Council needs to be ready to push back on.”

Neidhardt pointed out that Adams’ position on solitary confinement — which the mayor’s team says is more nuanced than news coverage has let on — was opposed by Adrienne Adams, a relatively centrist Democrat.

On Dec. 21, the speaker and a majority of the Council sent a letter to the mayor outlining their concerns. The missive was not well received.

“Those who are romanticizing this issue, I’m asking them, go do a week on Rikers Island. Spend time there. Then you come out and tell me that dangerous [people] should walk up and down and not be held accountable,” Adams said.

The intra-party dispute is somewhat unconventional: Adams, the city’s second Black mayor who won with deep union support, often speaks about his time as a dishwasher and one of six children whose single mother held low-wage jobs. His biography makes him an uneasy target for the left, as he is keenly aware.

“I was a dishwasher. I went to school at night. My mom was a cook in a daycare center,” Adams said during a TV interview last week, when asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s response to his remark about “low-skill” workers. “The blue-collar workers run this city in a real, productive way. So the word police are going to try to criticize. Eric is so focused and disciplined, and won’t be distracted by Twitter.”

And after receiving the Council letter, he implied politicians who lack a law enforcement background have no standing to challenge him.

“The one thing that’s different from everyone that signed the letter and Eric Adams? I wore a bulletproof vest for 22 years and protected the people of this city,” he said. “And when you do that, then you have the right to question me on safety and public safety matters.”

Adams’ policies have endeared him to centrist Democrats and Republicans — another source of scorn for left-leaning legislators. Billionaire Republican donor Jeff Yass, for example, gave $500,000 to a political action committee supporting Adams’ run. And after clinching the election, the new mayor received praise from supporters in the orbit of former President Donald Trump — including his son.

“It is so great to have a new mayor in New York who wants to fight crime and keep schools open,” Eric Trump tweeted on Jan. 3. “Wishing [Eric Adams] incredible luck! This is a breath of fresh air for New York City.”

Adams has responded in kind, appearing at fundraisers, parties and dinners hosted by Republicans. He also gave prominent City Hall jobs to two members of the GOP: former City Council Member Eric Ulrich, who supported Trump, and ex-Staten Island Borough President Jimmy Oddo, a political moderate who had a good relationship with de Blasio as well.

Queens Democrat Tiffany Cabán — a member of the Democratic Socialists of America — said the Council hopes to collaborate with Adams on shared goals, but pledged to hold the line on key issues.

“The body is there to be a check on the mayor’s power and administration,” Cabán said. “And I think particularly with policing, we are going to see a lot of tension.”

‘You Can Tell I Have Swagger’: New NYC Mayor Eric Adams Gets Hilarious ‘SNL’ Treatment

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The team at Saturday Night Live (Jan. 15) had a hilarious welcome for Eric Adams, New York’s new mayor, roasting him over his promise to bring a little swagger back to the pandemic-beleaguered city.

“New York is back, baby,’’ said comedian Chris Redd, who played Adams, 36, a brash former New York City cop. “The city’s never had a mayor with so much swagger before. I mean, y’all see me outside — the peacoats, the scarfs, the shine on the bald head, yo. You can tell I have swagger. Keeps me healthy. See, the city’s been suffering from what I like to call a swag-less existence.”

Almost immediately after opening the floor to questions, Redd warned reporters that he does “not do chaos,” according to the New York Daily News.

“I was a police officer for over 70 years,” Redd exaggerated. “If I get startled I start kicking people’s a–es.”

That’s when his press secretary, played by host and West Side Story star Ariana DeBose, interrupted him to reassure the audience that Bill de Blasio is the ex-mayor.

“He will kick your a–,” she said, the report notes.

Redd also tackled Adams’ plans to keep students in schools amid the pandemic, saying students need to be in class “to learn about life,” rather than from their “swagless parents.”

“As a mayor that is so saucy, just dripping in swagu, it hurts my heart,” he said. “It’s dangerous to have your kids out there with no swag.”

Redd also addressed a January 4 news conference, when Adams landed in hot water for comments about blue-collar workers, saying, “My low-skill workers, my cooks, my dishwashers, my messengers, my shoe shine people, those who work at Dunkin’ Donuts… They don’t have the academic skills to sit in a corner office.”

Redd rewrote the script, saying, “By unskilled workers, I meant folks with trash jobs. I mean trash lives. No wait, what I mean is if you were better at life, you would have a desk,” he said. “We in a society, OK? And there are kings and queens and then there are everybody else below that, the dirty people.”

Following a slew of JFK jokes and plans to make 28-year-old Saweetie his Marilyn Monroe, Adams assured the SNL viewership that New York City is in “good, Black, Paul Bunyan hands. We’re going to beat this virus together. I believe that.”

I ate like Eric Adams for a week

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In 2016, New York City Mayor Eric Adams woke up blind, went to the doctor and discovered he had diabetes. It’s a story Adams likes to tell because there’s a happy ending: after radically altering his lifestyle and committing to an aggressively healthy, plant-based diet, Adams reversed his diagnosis. The mayor’s success story and subsequent advocacy for a plant-based diet even inspired the launch of The Plant-Based Lifestyle Medicine Program at New York City Health + Hospitals/Bellevue in 2018. (For a more thorough medical professional’s take on Adams’ diet, check out this article from Politico New York.)

While plenty of people are curious about what the city’s first vegan mayor’s plans are for keeping New Yorkers healthy – former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ill-fated soda tax still continues to haunt us – I was curious to learn more about what it’s like to eat like Adams on a day-to-day basis. Would I start feeling the kind of boundless energy that allows him to function on less than four hours of sleep a night? Or would I be completely dysfunctional when deprived of the opportunity to devour a whole wheel of brie cheese while standing in front of my refrigerator? Even if it all went up in flames, I figured I could gain a new appreciation for the kind of discipline it takes to be a New Yorker who doesn’t eat bagels.

Using Adams’ cookbook, “Healthy At Last: A Plant-Based Approach to Preventing and Reversing Diabetes and Other Chronic Illnesses,” as my guide, along with a well-placed source/food guru on his staff, I embarked on a weeklong project to do my absolute best to eat like Adams. Following Adams’ diet, as described in “Healthy At Last,” means skipping meat, fish, dairy, eggs, or as Adams puts it: “nothing that has a face and a mother.” It also involves avoiding processed foods, salt, sugar and cooking with or adding oil to your food – Adams says he sautés his food with broth, wine or water. Eating mostly fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains is the ultimate goal.

Day 1

Oatmeal with sliced peaches and a few lightly salted nuts for breakfast, a depressing bowl of chickpeas with rice vinegar and dried herbs, and then dinner was a recipe from “Healthy At Last:” a sliced polenta and black bean dish that was actually delicious!

As bland as the lunch chickpeas were, the worst part of the day was waking up to find my partner had purchased rolled oats for our oatmeal – Adams only eats steel cut. Steel cut oats are less processed but I like to imagine the mayor demands a cereal as chiseled as he is.

Day 2

One cup of Oatly yogurt with sliced banana for breakfast, a triumphant return to chickpeas for lunch (this time with some chopped up celery, fresh parsley and a lot of lemon juice), and then dinner is a vegan Chipotle burrito bowl. Sure, it was vegan but its high salt content left me feeling as though I had betrayed Adams, a feeling that stuck with me longer than my Chipotle food baby.

Day 3

A single banana for breakfast because I’m in my minimalist era, leftover polenta and beans for lunch, but things fall apart at dinner after I crash a friend’s barbecue. All I could eat were two skewers of grilled zucchini, and to add insult to injury, they were absolutely slathered in olive oil.

I also had plans to meet up with friends for drinks, which had me scrambling to text my source in Adams’ administration, “is BEER ok?” I did get the go-ahead and had one bottle (it’s just fermented barley juice after all) but later on I referenced my copy of “Healthy Living” to be met with this line: “(I)f you’re hankering for a beer, maybe try making a smoothie instead.” Next time Eric, next time.

Day 4

For breakfast, my partner tried to prepare a smoothie based on a recipe shared on Adams’ Twitter. I say he tried because he also objectively failed. The smoothie looked like dirt and it tasted like dirt.

A veggie bowl with pumpkin, kale, zucchini and quinoa, some apple and parsnip soup and a few chickpea fries served for lunch at a vegan restaurant. Canned corn, a package of Tex-Mex flavored shredded jackfruit and some avocado and nutritional yeast (Adams calls it “nooch”) for dinner.

Day 5

Another smoothie to start off the day but this time it’s edible! Lunch is another veggie bowl, made up of brown rice, roasted butternut squash, peppers, onions and more nooch. Dinner is more brown rice with some seitan and steamed broccoli that I was too cowardly to try sautéing with water.

Day 6

A hearty vegan lentil soup from the cafe around the corner for breakfast, a random medley of kidney beans, kale and jalapenos for lunch, and back to the vegan restaurant for a dinner of raw vegetable sushi and a chai smoothie.

I was craving some kind of dessert and after consulting my bible (“Healthy At Last”) learned that Adams will eat a singular date when he’s looking to satiate his sweet tooth. Except sometimes that’s actually too much sugar for him, so he’ll cut the date in half and save the rest for later. I was impressed by how delicious my medjool date was, but I must confess I did not cut it in half.

Day 7

One peach and an apple for breakfast as things get down to the wire, and leftover kidney bean medley for lunch. Dinner was some lentil rotini pasta with vegan pesto from the farmers market, which contained loads of olive oil and probably salt, and a side of roasted sweet potato topped with nooch. The last thing I ate before the clock struck midnight was a carton of fresh blueberries. Sadly, I never got around to eating Adams’ dessert of choice, which happens to also be his preferred last meal on Earth: his homemade ice cream, which contains frozen banana, peanut butter and cacao powder. Sounds like I really missed out.

Final thoughts

My biggest takeaway from this food journey was how frequently I failed. Not because I’m so unaccustomed to eating vegan, but all of Adams’ dietary idiosyncrasies were exhausting to keep up with. Every meal was a reminder that some ingredient I would normally use is too salty, too processed or discreetly contains too much sugar. Not to mention the inherent discomfort in conveying to a waiter that it’s not just less oil, you don’t want the chef to use oil at all. Some good habits were formed: I learned not to conflate vegan with healthy, and I successfully curbed some emotional eating tendencies, but you will never catch me forgoing olive oil again. Mostly, I felt like I gained a window into the mayor’s psyche. Adams likes to say that his transition to a plant-based diet wasn’t restrictive, instead it expanded his palette to a whole new universe of flavors. I think that’s an admirable angle, but I also think this is a man who exalts in control. The discipline required to maintain this routine is staggering, and it’s something political adversaries and allies alike should keep in mind if Adams brings even half this energy to policymaking.

Eric Adams unloads on criticism of hiring brother, deputy mayor

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Mayor Eric Adams unleashed on reporters over criticism of his recent controversial hires — including putting his own brother in a six-figure post — saying in an extended answer Friday he will abide by a conflict board ruling but ultimately he can hire who he wants because, “I’m the mayor.”

“When other mayors hired their law partners, they hired the people they knew from school that they came up through the ranks, there was nothing to say about it,” Adams said at an unrelated press conference in Queens, appearing to bristle after days of scrutiny over his staffing.

“But I have the audacity to hire blue-collar people. Everyday folks who are union members, retired members. It’s like who you think you are putting these blue-collar workers, these everyday [hardworking] people … you know, ‘Who do you think you are, I didn’t think you could do that.’

“I’m going to hire the best people for the job that I’ve known throughout my years in government and their talents,” Adams said.

“And the reason I can do that is because I’m the mayor. I’m the mayor of the City of New York. And it’s gonna take a while before people realize that I am responsible for building a team to end the inequality in our city.

Adams pointed out how past mayors hired “people they knew from school” and didn’t get similar blowback. Lev Radin/Sipa USA

“So if I want to hire a team to end the dysfunctionality of this city, I’m going to do that and I’m not going to allow people to dismantle my ability to build the right team, no matter who it is at the time. Let me finish my my comment. And so I’m hearing all this critique of what I’m doing, but those who have followed me on the campaign trail, you heard three things from me: stay focused, no distractions and crime.”

The response came to a question about an alleged proposal during the transition to replace the City Hall screening security with armed civilian employees instead of uniformed cops, similar to other New York City buildings. The proposed plan, which was reported by NBC, never moved forward after being quickly shot down.

The story comes in the wake of Adams tapping his brother, a 56-year-old retired police sergeant, to run his security detail. News of his brother’s appointment to the NYPD was first reported by The Post last week when Bernard Adams confirmed he would serve as a deputy commissioner.

Bernard Adams was hired to run his brother’s security detail. William C. Lopez/NYPOST

He was later bumped down to executive director with a lower salary more in line with a police inspector, a uniformed rank that has historically overseen the mayor’s police detail.

Adams also faced blowback for appointing former Chief of Department Philip Banks to the deputy mayor of public safety. Banks, whose brother was also named the head of NYC schools, was an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the largest NYPD corruption scandals.

Adams was not done though, adding, “I am so focused on stopping 19-year-old girls from being shot in Burger King. I’m focused on not having a Rikers Island with 55 percent of the people who have learning disabilities and people are being displaced out of their homes. All that other stuff, that noise — it’s not going to get in my way. I have a job to do. That’s what I was elected to do. And I’m going to carry that out.”

Adams was asked later in the briefing if he wasn’t setting up a system where there “are one set of rules for you and another set of rules for public workers” regarding the potential conflict of interest over hiring his brother.

Banks was an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the largest NYPD corruption scandals. AP Photo/File

“No. One city, one standard,” Adams said. “And lets be clear that COIB will make the determination and that is what I’m going to follow. I made that over and over again, I’m going to hire a best. I’m going to make sure that they have the most skills as needed, and they are the best fit for the job and there’s one standard and every New Yorker out there must know we started up hiring up of some of the best people around ethics and rules.”

“So we’re gonna let them [COIB] do their job and I’m and I’m happy to say that, and I’m also happy, you know, listen, I am blessed to have a brother who’s qualified, who’s smart, who has excellent credentials, who has the ability to protect his brother and I’m just, you know, I’m just blessed to be able to have that and you know, COIB will determine the rest.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams has a few choice things to say about Chicago…

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Another prominent New Yorker is throwing some shade at Chicago.

New York Mayor Eric Adams, who assumed office at the start of the year, made a talking point of Chicago having to shut down its schools for four days because of a standoff with the local teachers union over COVID-19 safety concerns.

“This is not Chicago. We are working with the UFT,” he said on Friday, referring to the United Federation of Teachers union. Adams has pressed to keep New York schools open, despite the recent virus surge due to the omicron variant.

On Thursday, Adams did discuss the possibility of offering a remote-learning option at New York schools. But even then, he tried to frame his city’s approach as being different than that of the Windy City. “This is not Chicago, this is New York, where we are communicating with each other because we’re both emotionally intelligent and we can resolve this,” he said.

“‘This is not Chicago, this is New York, where we are communicating with each other because we’re both emotionally intelligent and we can resolve this.’” — New York Mayor Eric Adams on working with the teachers union in an effort to keep schools open.

There has always been a rivalry between the two cities when it comes to their respective statures. Some note that Chicago’s “Second City” moniker may indeed stem from its positioning in relation to the Big Apple.

Of course, there are plenty of people who will defend Chicago’s place in the American firmament. One writer gave a dozen reasons why the Windy City is far superior to New York, pointing to everything from its lower costs to its transit system.

There’s also Chicago’s pre-eminence in certain sports — for example, basketball. Led by Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls won six championships in the 1990s. The New York Knicks, by contrast, have not won one since 1973.

Perhaps the biggest bone of contention between the two cities has to do with a certain culinary specialty — namely, pizza.

Chicagoans swear by their deep-dish style. New Yorkers by their classic, well, New York-style pies. In a memorable rant, New Yorker Jon Stewart, back in his Comedy Central days, took deep-dish to task. “Deep-dish pizza is not only not better than New York pizza, it’s not pizza,” he declared unequivocally.

Regardless of such rivalry issues, many cities are having to contend with the issue of trying to stay open as virus case numbers surge. On Friday, the Culver City Unified School District in California announced it was closing schools next week to give students and teachers time to “recoup and recover” from the virus, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.