The video has aged badly. In January 2018, Eric Adams is not yet mayor of New York, but elected from a simple arrondissement. The one who then constitutes one of the city’s rising stars of the city tackles President Donald Trump, who makes his first mandate at the White House. During a speech, he criticized “the silly behavior” and the permanent “buffoonery” of the American billionaire. The extracts from this speech in the form of happening have been exhumed by the American press in recent days, when Eric Adams is closer to the Republican.
Figure of the Democratic Party, Eric Adams has been mayor of New York since 2021. This ex-policeman experienced a meteoric rise, embodying at the time of his election a form of renewal in the face of the unpopularity of the councilor in place, Bill de Blasio . His professional past has also reassured a number of voters, while the city was experiencing growing insecurity. But four years after its beginnings, the euphoria now seems far away. Especially since the politician is one in a delicate situation, a few months before a new election …
Multiple corruption scandals
Before this new ballot, the Democratic mayor plays big. Last September, he was charged for corruption by American justice, which suspects having hidden illegal donations of construction companies based in Turkey to finance his 2021 electoral campaign. A principle prohibited in the United States, in the ‘Optical to protect yourself from foreign interference. These donations also coincide with the obtaining of authorization by Turkey to build an imposing skyscraper against the UN headquarters, in the middle of New York. At the same time, the city’s prosecutor’s office has also announced several other corruption surveys linked to different relatives of Eric Adams, including one of his assistants, one of his main councilors, the police manager … many of them had to resign.
Eric Adams denies the facts in block. His defense? He would be the victim of a machination, orchestrated after having openly criticized the migration policy of Joe Biden. New York has experienced the arrival of a large number of migrants in recent years: at least 200,000 people since 2022. “The president and the White House have dropped New York city on this issue,” he said deplored in April 2023, before taking a position several times against Washington on the subject. The one who has long nicknamed “the Joe Biden of Brooklyn” was then at the open war against the Democratic President.
Without any evidence, the mayor therefore claimed that his protrusions against the power in place were linked to the opening of legal proceedings against him and his relatives. “I always knew that if I defended my positions for all of you, I would be a target-and I became a target,” he said after the announcement of his indictment. Problem: the survey opened against him is actually a year before his first statements against Joe Biden, the acting prosecutor of the South York district, Danielle Sassoon, confirmed on Wednesday.
An opportunity for Trump
Faced with these accusations, Eric Adams is no longer in the smell of holiness in his own camp. During the last Democratic Convention, the elected official of New York had not been authorized to speak on stage. The figure of the left wing of the Democratic Party, the representative of the Bronx and Queens Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also asked for her resignation. “I do not see how the mayor Adams can continue to govern New York. The flow of resignations and vacant posts threatens the work of the municipality,” she said in September.
Donald Trump, for a while, spotted Eric Adams’ conflict situation with his party for a while. The new American president, returning to power after a campaign where he has continued to criticize his rivals Democrats, has gripped his hand to Eric Adams. In December, making a parallel with his own legal troubles, he considered that the mayor had “been treated in a rather unfair manner”. While recognizing “not knowing” the allegations drawn up against the ex-police officer, he confirmed to consider granting a grace to the elected official, like that granted to more than a thousand people involved in the ‘Invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. “I will do it,” said Trump at the time.
Thus, in recent months, Eric Adams does not hesitate to court the Republican. In December, he received Tom Homan, one of Donald Trump’s friends. This ex-director of the agency responsible for border control and immigration (ICE), erected by the tenant of the White House as a “border tsar”, is responsible for hardening American migration policy. The meeting had aroused the indignation of part of the Democratic camp and the pro-right associations of man, taxing this close to Donald Trump of “xenophobic”. “We have the same wish [avec Tom Homan] To take us to those who commit violent acts, “simply justified Eric Adams during a press point after this discussion.
Last minute guest to the nomination
Donald Trump’s inauguration has further marked a new step in the proximity of Eric Adams with the American president. The mayor of New York was invited at the last moment by the billionaire team to attend the ceremony in Washington. A trip which intervened a few days after a previous interview between the two men, not far from the personal residence of Donald Trump, in Mar-A-Lago, Florida. After a one -hour meeting, Eric Adams then thanked the new American head of state and then say “to rejoice” for “working with him for the good of all New Yorkers”.
This meeting, coupled with his presence at the Capitol for the enthronement of Donald Trump, seems to accentuate his break with the Democratic Party. On Tuesday, the mayor was even further, by accepting an interview with the far-right journalist Tucker Carlson, known for his anti-immigration conservative diatribes and his climatoscepticism. During this exchange, as during his other speeches in the past months, the councilor refused to criticize Donald Trump and his ideas-despite his thunderous beginnings in the White House.
Release of the Paris Agreement, a special operation against migrants, appointment of Elon Musk to the government … No measure taken has been disagreed by Eric Adams. To the point of turning it from the Democratic camp to the republican camp? “Regardless of the party I participate in or for which I vote, I will defend American values,” he elected in December, questioned on this subject. Tuesday, during his interview with Tucker Carlson, he in any case concentrated his attacks against his political family. “People often say: ‘You don’t seem like a democrat’ or ‘you seem to have left the party’. No, the party abandoned me and it abandoned the working class”, he once again tackled.