Mayor Eric Adams insisted on Tuesday that President Trump is “someone that’s finally listening” to him on combating the city’s migrant crisis, citing it as an example of how he believes their warm relationship is benefiting the Big Apple.
Hizzoner’s comments, made during his weekly news conference, came just hours after his office announced that the Trump administration is moving to recoup the rest of the migrant crisis aid — $106 million — awarded to the city under former President Biden. Adams’ administration has vowed to sue to block the move.
Adams insisted that his cozy relationship with Trump has benefited the city by leading to a dramatic decrease in the number of newly arrived migrants and collaboration with federal immigration authorities to go after migrants who commit violent crimes in the five boroughs.
But when faced with questions about Trump’s latest clawback of the city’s migrant aid, Adams attacked the action without specifically criticizing the president for taking it.
“We’re getting things that I need and we’re going to fight if we believe that money is getting recalled back from us in a real way,” Adams said. “We’re getting cooperation.”
Adams has railed against the former Biden administration for allowing well over $200,000 newly arrived migrants to flow into the city since 2022 and leaving it to pay most of the over $7 billion tab.
Congress, under Biden, allocated roughly $233 million to the city as reimbursement for some of what it spent on sheltering and providing for migrants, but Adams has frequently complained that the feds should have covered far more of the bill.
The mayor has continued to slam Biden for not reimbursing the city for nearly enough of the $7 billion it spent on the migrant crisis even since Trump’s administration took over in late January rather than criticizing the current president for clawing back what little aid it did receive under his predecessor.
“Let’s be clear on our math: They’re trying to claw back $200 million, and we are fighting for that $200 million,” he said. “But then let’s look at $7 billion we lost in the previous administration.”
Adams’ remarks continued a trend of him refusing to criticize Trump, even when the president has taken actions that negatively impact the city. He maintained that while Democrats angry over Trump’s re-election want him to fight the president, that is not something he is interested in doing.
“We need to be honest with that fact that there’s some people who are just angry because the election did turn off the way they want, and because of that, they just want this verbal war,” he said. “I don’t want a verbal war. I want to be able to produce for our city.”
The mayor’s comments come nearly a week after Trump’s Justice Department succeeded in getting his federal corruption charges dismissed with prejudice — meaning they cannot be brought back.
The DOJ’s move to scuttle the case followed months of Adams refusing to go after Trump and expressing a willingness to work with him. He also met with Trump at the president’s Palm Beach golf course a few days before he took office and attended Trump’s inauguration at the last minute.
The federal judge who threw out Adams’ case, Dale Ho, in his ruling appeared to agree with allegations that the mayor’s attorney traded his cooperation with implementing Trump’s immigration agenda for the president to drop his charges. Ho wrote: “Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.”
Since the Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss Adams’ case, he has met and appeared on TV with Trump’s “Border Czar” Tom Homan and pledged to issue an executive order allowing federal immigration authorities to operate on Rikers Island once again.
Still, Adams argued there is “no connection” between his cooperation with Trump’s immigration crackdown and the dismissal of his case.
“I don’t even know the connection between charges and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement),” Adams said.
