Eric Adams slams socialist Zohran Mamdani's ‘false promises' as sure to harm lower-income New Yorkers
A dubious Eric Adams slammed his main mayoral rival Zohran Mamdani's socialist proposals as a bunch of 'false promises' sure to harm the upstart's lower-income supporters.
Adams, in a newly released interview, made clear his disdain for Mamdani's arguably pie-in-the-sky solutions stemmed from his own hardscrabble childhood.
Advertisement
4 Mayor Eric Adams attacked mayoral rival Zohran Mamdani's 'false promises.'
Michael Nigro
'I truly believe the worst thing you can do as New Yorkers are struggling is to make broken promises,' he told The Post's Miranda Devine for her 'Pod Force One' podcast.
'I saw that as a child. My mother was raising six children. Oftentimes she would get those broken promises never to resolve the issues we were facing — and that is what (Mamdani's) doing,' Adams said.
Advertisement
Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington. Subscribe here!
'I think it's unfair to New Yorkers, and it's unfair to the direction that the city is moving in now, and it is in the right direction.'
The attack against Mamdani — who clinched the nomination of Adams' Democratic Party in the mayoral primary by running a campaign relentlessly focused on affordability — didn't stop there during the mayor's wide-ranging conversation with Devine.
4 Mamdani is the mayoral frontrunner.
James Messerschmidt
Advertisement
Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent on the 'Safe and Affordable' line, zeroed in on Mamdani's marquee proposals, arguing they simply won't work out in reality.
The socialist's promise to make buses free 'sounds good,' Adams acknowledged.
'But it costs $3 billion and mayors don't have the ability to raise income taxes,' Adams said.
Full Episode
Advertisement
'(Mamdani) stated he's going to raise income tax on the high 1% of New Yorkers, when at the same time he's saying that billionaires should not be in our city, so he can't raise the income taxes, so he's making these false promises.'
Likewise, Adams argued Mamdani's plan to build a city-owned grocery store in each borough and freeze rents on rent-regulated apartments will eventually end up hurting working-class New Yorkers.
4 Mamdani's campaign relentlessly focused on affordability.
Getty Images
'If the cost of running a building is higher than the rent roll of the building, then you're going to see eventually lack of repairs, lack of quality of life, and again, that is going to hurt low-income New Yorkers,' Adams said.
Hizzoner also knocked Mamdani's repeated support for shuttering Rikers Island in 2027 and opening the doors to controversial borough-based jails in the Big Apple.
Under that plan, though, whoever is in City Hall will have to relocate roughly 3,000 inmates, since Rikers has more than 7,000 people behind bars and the borough jails are only set to accommodate just over 4,000 accused criminals.
Advertisement
Mamdani has been scant on details on how to address the shortfall of beds with the Rikers replacement, only saying he'd work with the various district attorneys to release more people or enroll them in pretrial intervention.
4 Adams argues Mamdani's proposals will end up hurting working-class New Yorkers.
Lev Radin/Shutterstock
Adams, a former NYPD captain, likened the plan to empty Rikers to the state's 2019 bail reform legislation — which he maintains has let criminals run free in the city.
'If he empties out Rikers Island, those dangerous people are going to go back into the communities that they inflicted violence in in the first place, and they're largely black and brown communities,' Adams said.
Advertisement
'So, the individuals he's stating he wants to help, he's actually hurting.'
Adams knocked former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who signed bail reform into law. Cuomo is mounting a political comeback by running as an independent in the November mayoral election — after getting trounced by Mamdani in last month's Dem primary.
And the mayor took time to slam another rival, too, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
Advertisement
'When I look at the candidates that are in the race, one has no record,' he said, referring to Sliwa, who has never held an elected office.
'The other is running away from his records,' he said about Cuomo, 'such as bail reform of 15,000 of our seniors dying in nursing homes and other issues.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
6 in 10 voters view Democrats negatively: WSJ poll
The Democratic Party is viewed negatively by 63 percent of American voters — the lowest approval rating of the party in more than 30 years of The Wall Street Journal's surveys — according to a new poll from the newspaper. The survey found that while voters disapproved of President Trump's handling of a variety of issues, they generally said they trusted Republicans more than Democrats to take care of those issues in Congress. On tariffs, for instance, voters disapproved of Trump's policies by 17 percentage points, but trusted Republican lawmakers more than Democrats on the issue by seven points. Only 8 percent of voters viewed Democrats 'very favorably' in the poll. President Trump himself had an approval rating of 46 percent. The Wall Street Journal poll follows a survey from CNN released Thursday which found that just 28 percent of voters viewed the Democrats favorably. Democrats are confronting widespread voter malaise and perceptions that the party is listless ahead of the 2026 midterms as key parts of the party's national infrastructure have been rocked by infighting. Still, they are seeking to capitalize on Trump's more unpopular policies. They hope the GOP's 'big, beautiful bill,' with tax cuts favoring the wealthy alongside significant cuts to Medicaid and other social services, could galvanize voters. A slight majority — 52 percent — of voters in Friday's Journal poll disapproved of the bill. The ongoing controversy over the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — a flashpoint for MAGA voters that Democrats have sought to exploit — may also come into play as members of Congress head home for the August recess. The Journal's poll found that voters were highly skeptical that the Justice Department had thoroughly investigated the issue, with 65 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of Republicans saying they had 'no confidence' in the department's review. The poll of 1,500 registered voters was conducted between July 16 and July 20 with a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points. It was conducted by Democratic pollster John Anzalone and GOP strategist Tony Fabrizio.
Fox News
3 hours ago
- Fox News
Chuck Todd blasts podcasters for platforming Hunter Biden, 'spectacle' hurting Democrats
Former NBC News anchor Chuck Todd condemned media outlets for platforming former President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, arguing he is a hazard to himself and the Democratic Party. As Democrats struggle to chart a new course after their defeat in the 2024 election, the one thing many can agree on is that the Bidens should step away from public life. Hunter Biden was in the news again after he spoke on Andrew Callaghan's "Channel 5" podcast last weekend and Monday's episode of former DNC chair Jaime Harrison's "At Our Table" podcast, making headlines for wild tirades defending his father and blasting his critics. Todd responded on his own podcast by declaring, "I will never book Hunter Biden," and explained why. "Number one, he's not the candidate. He wasn't on the ballot. Anything he says in defense of his father, I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter. He's a son defending his father," he said. Todd reserved his full ire for those who platform Hunter, saying, "I have a real problem with the folks that are booking him. If you've chosen to book Hunter Biden, you've chosen to book spectacle. You're not interested in - and you know, the two interviews that have gone viral were both designed to get attention, not to surface new facts, not to give you a better understanding of what may have happened. It was just, 'Let's give him a platform to settle some scores that maybe he wants to settle.'" He continued, "I don't think this does Hunter Biden any good. I don't think this does Joe Biden any good. It certainly doesn't do the Democratic Party any good. That's why it's surprising to see the former DNC chair start a podcast and decide that the best way to market it is Hunter Biden." "It's a choice who you book," he argued. "I make choices. Everybody makes choices. It's a choice who you book. If you're putting Hunter Biden on, you know what you're doing. Look, I think there's a lot of things going on there." "I don't like it when politicians use the media or campaigns or voters for their own therapy." Todd added he's a big advocate of going to therapy, "but let's not do it in public. Try to deal with your issues amongst yourself." "This is ultimately why I was critical of Joe and Joe Biden for running in the first place, because their family wasn't ready for this," he added. "And I think Hunter Biden's behavior now post-election is more proof the family wasn't in a position… this is why running for president can do major damage to a candidate's family." After surviving the death of his first wife and daughter in 1972, the death of his eldest son Beau in 2015 hit Biden very hard and Todd argued the family didn't take enough time to grieve and recover from it before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign. In the past, the Bidens seemed to be "the poster child" of balancing public service and supporting one's family to Todd. "But that was a family in crisis internally," he said. Fox News Digital reached out to the "Channel 5" podcast, the "At Our Table" podcast, representatives of Joe Biden, and the legal representation of Hunter Biden, and did not receive an immediate reply.
New York Post
4 hours ago
- New York Post
NYC Board of Elections asks Brooklyn DA to launch voter fraud investigation after Post expose
The city Board of Elections asked Brooklyn prosecutors to open an investigation into possible voter fraud Friday after The Post revealed two absentee ballots in a close primary council race were cast on behalf of deceased people. The BOE said it was asking the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office to look into two incidents surrounding the District 47 race, including the votes cast in the name of people who died over a decade ago and another 22 ballots that were deemed as 'potentially fraudulent.' The BOE didn't say what made the more than two dozen ballots suspicious, but that the votes had been invalidated following an internal investigation, which was then referred to the Brooklyn DA. Advertisement 3 After The Post revealed two absentee ballots were cast on behalf of two deceased individuals in a close primary council race, an investigation has been launched to determine possible voter fraud. Michael Nagle The razor-thin margin primary between Brooklyn Republican Party Chair Richie Barsamian and entrepreneur George Sarantopoulos could be decided by only a handful of votes. Unofficial election night tallies had a mere 32-vote difference between the two candidates. The 22 ballots were discovered during a manual recount process earlier this week a source told The Post, adding that lawyers from the BOE had been reviewing them in recent days. Advertisement Sarantopoulos was maintaining a 16-vote lead as of Friday, gaining two ballots in a manual recount that started Tuesday, sources said. He had been maintaining a 14-vote lead as of Wednesday, according to a statement from his campaign. A source who spoke to Barasamian — who as head of the Brooklyn GOP gets to appoint BOE employees — about The Post's original reporting Tuesday, said that the candidate confided he was 'very worried.' The Barasamian campaign did not respond to a request for comment Friday. Advertisement 3 The city Board of Elections (BOE) asked the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office to look into the District 47 race to look into the two ballots of those cast that were registered in the name of two individuals who died over 10 years ago. Facebook/ George Sarantopoulous Sources said multiple people from the Brooklyn BOE who were involved in the south Brooklyn GOP primary had been reassigned from their roles during the internal investigation. 'The workers from that section were reassigned pending the results of the investigation,' Brooklyn Democratic BOE Commish and retired NYPD detective Frank Seddio told The Post. Personal devices and computers were seized from BOE employees as part of the probe, sources said. Advertisement The BOE previously the election would be certified next week after the manual recount of votes is completed. 3 The BOE also wants another 22 ballots looked at that were deemed as 'potentially fraudulent.' Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post 'While any attempt to compromise the electoral process is deeply troubling, this case underscores the strength of the Board's existing safeguards,' the BOE said in a news release. 'These irregularities were identified early, investigated thoroughly, and resolved swiftly – demonstrating the Board's commitment to upholding the integrity of our elections.' A representative for the BK DA said the office doesn't comment on investigations. The Sarantopoulous campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
