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Spotlight: How far will Eric Adams go for a presidential pardon?

Trump and Adams: New York’s worst-received buddy comedy

January 28, 2025 Jesse Goodman

New York Mayor Eric Adams watches the 60th Presidential Inauguration from Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: Angelina Katsanis/Pool via AP

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Ted Cruz once called Donald Trump a “pathological liar.” Rick Perry called him a “cancer on conservatism.” Vice President J.D. Vance called him “America’s Hitler.” All three rallied to Trump’s side once he gained political power, trading loyalty for personal or professional gain.

Welcome to their ranks Trump’s newest ally: New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Like his Democratic (and many of his Republican) constituents, Adams once spoke out vehemently against the president. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2018, Adams claimed that Donald Trump was “playing three-card monte. He has us so busy watching the idiot behavior of his buffoonery that we are missing the entire task.” In a post on X from 2020, Adams called Trump a “white supremacist.”

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2025, Adams ditched his scheduled New York City event plans to attend Trump’s inauguration. He met privately with the president at Mar-A-Lago. He has refused to criticize Trump publicly, even as other politicians have ramped up resistance in the wake of unprecedented civil and constitutional abuses. Earlier this month, Adams sat down with far-right pundit and MAGA mouthpiece Tucker Carlson, a man Adams once said “perpetuates racist, anti-immigrant propaganda,” for a 50-minute interview, in which he griped that the Democratic party had “abandoned him.”

The mayor’s changing sentiments extend beyond partisanship — he has changed course on immigration policy as well, a signature issue for President Trump. As the 2025 mayoral election competition heats up, some are wondering why Adams would flout his party and cozy up to political adversaries in the middle of a highly competitive reelection bid, in a city dominated by Democratic voters.

Many of his constituents think the answer is obvious: the mayor is in deep legal trouble, and he needs Trump’s help.

“The difference between [other Democrats’] posture towards Trump and [Adams’] posture … is that he’s the only one of those Democrats currently under federal indictment,” one New York Democratic consultant told The Hill.

While his rival mayoral candidates gear up their campaigns in April, Adams will be in court, standing trial against federal charges of bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals.

The indictment, issued in September 2024, alleges that Adams obtained more than $10 million in illegal campaign contributions and leveraged his position in government to solicit personal benefits, such as $100,000 in luxury travel and accommodations. To conceal these activities, Adams and his associates allegedly created false documentation and used encrypted messaging applications to obstruct federal investigations.

“With the mayor, his legal case sort of hangs over everything that he’s doing, whether fair or unfair,” said Democratic strategist Chris Coffey.

Adams’ best legal hope may just be a presidential pardon. And his best hope for a pardon is to employ the same strategy others have used to gain political power and influence: kowtow to Donald Trump.

Even long-standing allies of Adams, such as Reverend Al Sharpton, find the mayor’s transparent attempts to curry favor with Trump suspicious. On the MSNBC show Morning Joe, Sharpton wondered how anyone could avoid raising their eyebrows at the situation. “I think that this will cause a lot of us to say, what is this all about?”

Trump has said he’d be open to granting a pardon, announcing publicly that the New York City mayor has been “treated pretty unfairly,” and likening Adams’ legal battles to his own.

Adams has argued that his dealings with Trump are solely for the benefit of the city. A Jan. 17 statement addressed the criticism of Adams’ Mar-A-Lago visit. “To be clear, we did not discuss my legal case, and those who suggest the mayor of the largest city in the nation shouldn’t meet with the incoming president to discuss our city’s priorities because of inaccurate speculation or because we’re from different parties clearly care more about politics than people.”

But critics aren’t buying it. “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,” City Comptroller Brad Lander wrote on X.

The mayor’s about-face arrives at a pivotal moment in New York City’s relationship to the federal government. As we wrote in a previous Spotlight article, local cooperation with federal law enforcement is a crucial piece of Trump’s deportation efforts. At the moment, city and state officials are orchestrating a united front to defend the ideals of the state against a president who seeks to undermine them. Adams might just be the weak link.

Since Trump’s election victory, Adams has said he is willing to work with Trump to discuss deporting illegal immigrants who’ve been convicted of crimes. He has praised Trump’s crackdown efforts and dodged criticism of the president’s most egregious actions, such as repealing a decades-old policy that protected immigrants in “sensitive” locations like schools and houses of worship.

Earlier this month, Adams sat down with Trump’s extreme right-wing “border czar” Tom Homan, who has promised mass deportations. Reports suggest they spent the meeting discussing ways to rewrite New York’s sanctuary city laws.

“His goal is the same goal I have,” Adams said about Homan at a press conference.

Adams has indicated he could use his own executive orders to roll back sanctuary laws in the city. Following the meeting with the mayor, Tom Homan told the New York Post that Adams would also consider using an executive order to reopen the ICE office at Rikers Island jail.

“People who commit these violent crimes must be addressed and that’s our conversation with ICE,” Adams said, in direct contrast to his position when running for mayor.

In 2021, Adams won the mayorship on a promise to support and uplift the city’s immigrant community. The same year, he introduced the WeRISE (Raise Immigrant Safety and Empowerment) plan, which expanded protections and resources for immigrants.

“We should protect our immigrants. Period. Yes, New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams administration.” he wrote in a post on X from Oct. 2021.

And yet, when asked a couple of weeks ago about Donald Trump’s attempt to abolish birthright citizenship — a long-standing pillar of immigrant rights — Adams was evasive. “You shouldn’t start out [of] the gate criticizing,” Adams said at a press conference. “You should start out trying to collaborate, trying to cooperate.”

Even Tucker Carlson agrees something is different with the mayor. “New York Mayor Eric Adams is sounding a lot like a Trump voter these days,” he posted on X following his interview with the mayor.