NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams said late Wednesday he has not talked with President Joe Biden in 2023 — a striking admission for someone who was once on a list of the president's top surrogates and who is seeking federal help for the city's migrant crisis.
Adams told CNN that he and the president have not conferred since Biden was in New York last year, but added that his team has been talking with White House and other immigration officials about the flow of migrants to New York City shelters. He said he still supports the president’s reelection.
“I believe he's moving the country in the right direction, and we need to continue to move in the right direction,” Adams said. “And I can separate what I believe [is] an issue that we disagree on.”
The two initially seemed to hit it off.
When still the Democratic nominee, Adams visited the White House and referred to himself as the "Biden of Brooklyn." And in 2022, the year Adams officially became mayor, Biden visited New York several times, including an appearance with Adams about fighting crime and seizing guns. Ahead of the visit, Adams mused: “I’m sure if you were to ask him what is his favorite mayor, he would clearly tell you, ‘It’s Eric.’” In March of this year, Adams was listed among 20 Democrats who would sit on a national advisory board and serve as key validators for the president’s bid for a second term.
However, a month later the mayor’s frustrations with the asylum-seeker situation boiled over.
At an April press conference, he said the White House had failed the city, a statement that kicked off weeks of pointed criticism of the president from Adams on an issue that will be top of mind for voters during Biden's reelection campaign.
In May, when the Biden campaign released a list of 50 surrogates for Biden, the outspoken New York City mayor was not among them.
The fraying of relations between the two comes as the city is taking on an ever-growing role in the migrant crisis. On Wednesday, Adams said his administration could spend up to $12 billion providing services to arriving asylum-seekers and again pleaded for assistance from the federal government — albeit in terms less hostile to the White House.
So far, the mayor’s entreaties to Biden for work authorization, funding and a more coherent resettlement strategy at the border have gone largely unanswered, though the president dispatched Tom Perez, the director of White House intergovernmental affairs, to meet with Adams on Thursday morning about the issue, according to a New York Post report.
