Eric Adams on re-election campaign's future: 'I'll make the right decision' for New York City
- - Eric Adams on re-election campaign's future: 'I'll make the right decision' for New York City
Ben KamisarSeptember 28, 2025 at 12:11 AM
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NYC mayor Eric Adams attends the ceremony to mark the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025, in New York. (Seth Wenig / AP)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams wouldn't commit to seeing his re-election campaign through to Election Day during an interview on MSNBC's "PoliticsNation," accusing the media of stunting his campaign's growth and adding that he will make the "right decision for the city of New York."
Adams has repeatedly faced rumors he could drop out, amid multiple media reports that allies of President Donald Trump are considering ways to convince him to leave the race in order to boost former Gov. Andrew Cuomo over Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman. Earlier this months, Adams held a defiant press conference saying he'd stay in the race and that he's received no "formal offers" from the White House.
But during his Saturday interview, Adams lamented the media coverage of his campaign, arguing it has hurt his ability to mount a competitive run.
"If someone constantly reports, even when you say otherwise, that you're leaving the race the next day, you're leaving the race the next day, you lose your funders and your donors. And so it's been a real challenge for me to raise the money that I need to run for office," Adams said.
"Is the real agenda to cover me the same way you are covering the other candidates or to undermine my campaign?"
When the show's host, the Reverend Al Sharpton, replied by asking if there was "no circumstance" under which Adams would withdraw from the race, Adams replied: "No, I can't say that."
"I've been sitting down with my team, having our pathways, finding out how we get the money into the coffers to do the commercials, to do the mailers, to pay for our team and staff," he said.
"We've got to make the right decision. I'll make the right decision for the city of New York, a city I love."
Mamdani has polled well ahead of the rest of the field in public polling of the city's mayoral general election, with Adams struggling to eclipse single digits. He's also trailed both Mamdani and Cuomo significantly in campaign fundraising and spending.
The mayor's political future has been derailed first by corruption charges and then by the Trump administration's decision to drop them, which soured Democratic voters with the incumbent mayor. Prosecutors accused him of taking more than $100,000 in free airfare and luxury hotel stays from wealthy Turkish nationals during his time in local government, arguing he carried out official favors in return. Adams, who repeatedly denies any wrongdoing, subsequently chose instead to run an independent bid instead of seeking the Democratic nomination.
Asked about Trump and the decision to drop the charges against him, Adams thanked the president for his "help" in helping to dismiss the "bogus charges" against him and repeatedly said he did not discuss the case directly with Trump. But he criticized the idea that he is under the Trump administration's "thumb," said that Trump had never "asked anything from me," and cast his critics as racists.
"What you have witnessed over the last three years and eight months is a consistent narrative that has been created: The second Black mayor is corrupt, the second Black mayor is incompetent," he said.
He also invoked then President Joe Biden's decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, to cast doubt on the Justice Department's decision to indict Adams.
Source: “AOL Politics”
