Mayor Adams successfully requested Trump WH meeting hoping to score win for NYC as he faces slim reelection prospects: sources
Adams jetted to Washington, DC, on Friday for a rare White House confab with Trump, where he's expected to bend the president's ear on the now-paused Empire Wind One project, Medicaid funding and state and local tax (SALT) deductions, a source briefed on the meeting told The Post.
The source said the embattled Adams, who faces a steep uphill reelection battle, is not only looking for a win, but also for his budding ally Trump to give him some credit.
The mayor wants to show that his strategy of cozying up to Trump and not joining most fellow city and state Democrats — and his opponents in the November mayoral race — in criticizing the president will bring about wins for the Big Apple, according to the source.
'It's a real substantive thing, he has to show he's getting something out of him for being nice,' the source said.
'The fact he can go sit down with the president is an amazing thing that no other mayor can do right now.'
3 Mayor Eric Adams announced in an X video that he'll meet with President Trump in the White House.
X/NYC Mayor
The anticipated meeting with Trump — roughly scheduled for 3 p.m. — also comes hours before a deadline for the Department of Justice to unseal documents in Adams' now-dismissed corruption case.
Adams dropped out of the Democratic mayoral primary and is running for reelection as an independent after his popularity cratered, in part because of his corruption case that the Trump administration successfully — and controversially — moved to scuttle.
The mayor's wooing of the New York City real estate mogul-turned-president started during the federal criminal case — a pivot that many critics, including his electoral challengers, cast as Adams putting himself in Trump's pocket.
Those close to the president have noticed Adams' overtures.
'Adams has been on a mission to make MAGA connections,' said a source close to White House.
3 Trump has largely welcomed Adams' political overtures.
REUTERS
3 White House meetings between presidents and New York City mayors are relatively rare.
WILL OLIVER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The source speculated Adams could be trying to drum up favor with Trump, pointing out that the president loves Democrats-turned-Republicans, and that they could potentially be eyeing strategies on how to flip New York red.
Hizzoner only served up bare-bones details about his visit with the president and Trump administration officials in an X video he took from a flight headed to DC.
'We're looking forward to finding ways that we can collaborate together to address infrastructure and other funding items,' he said in the video, as his fellow flight passengers gawked in the background.
Though now loath to publicly criticize Trump, Adams hasn't always been so shy.
He had called Trump an 'idiot' in 2018, likening the president to a 'crackhead' spouting nonsense on the street, The City reported.
But Adams has considerably changed his tune in recent months, though he bristled Thursday at British journalist and Post columnist Piers Morgan questioning why he doesn't just 'become a Republican.'
Adams said he's only aligned with protecting New Yorkers.
'I was aligned with what President [Joe] Biden did that was correct. I'm aligned with whatever President Trump do[es] that's correct,' an irritated Adams told Morgan.
Adams has been noticeably absent from the campaign trail as he has all-but-admitted he's relying on the profile of his office to garner attention.
Trump and his second White House administration have largely spared Adams from the fire they've thrown toward Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA amid an ongoing fight over congestion pricing.
White House sitdowns between New York City mayors and presidents are relatively rare.
Adams had met with former President Joe Biden at the White House in 2021, before he was elected mayor.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio met with Barack Obama in 2015, as did his predecessor Michael Bloomberg three years earlier.
— Additional reporting by Diana Glebova
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