AMNY: Mayor Eric Adams will not be at the first Democratic primary debate in the 2025 NYC mayor’s race on Wednesday night because he is running as an independent in the general election.
But if he were attending, Hizzoner told reporters at City Hall Tuesday, he would ask frontrunner Andrew Cuomo one question: “Where is your consistency?”
During his weekly City Hall news conference on June 3, Mayor Adams insisted that Cuomo is now running on reversing many of the actions he took during his 11-year tenure as governor — a position he resigned from in 2021 amid numerous allegations of sexual misconduct that he denies.
The mayor contended that as governor, Cuomo contributed to many of the city’s problems that he now says he will address if he is elected to City Hall.
Hizzoner slammed Cuomo over pledging to advocate for a $20 minimum wage in the city, after rejecting a similar proposal from former Mayor Bill de Blasio over a decade ago; saying he will address the city’s overlapping homelessness and mental health crises, even though he defunded a crucial state housing voucher program in 2011 and took pyschiatric beds offline; and promising to crackdown on crime, despite signing the 2019 bail reform laws that some say say made the city less safe.
“I spent so much time fixing the governor’s mess,” Adams said. “I had to correct what he put in place. And now he reached the point that, I mean, he would say any and everything to get elected. How about just being honest?”
The mayor is hardly the only candidate to argue that Cuomo’s campaign is at odds with many of his own actions as governor.
Other top contenders — including Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, who is in second place; City Comptroller Brad Lander; and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams — also charge that Cuomo hurt the city through his policies in Albany.
Mayor Adams also took aim at Cuomo’s upbringing as the son of the late former Gov. Mario Cuomo, arguing that he hails from a “dynasty” and thus had advantages most other elected officials do not. Furthermoe, Adams said Cuomo’s background has allowed him to coast on his father’s name and stay in a “cocoon” that has sheilded him from scrutiny.
“He never really had to campaign for anything. The Cuomo name goes so far because people really adored his dad,” Adams said. “He was always allowed to be in his cocoon. No one’s really had to scrutinize him. He’s always moved from one location to another location with this whole cocoon…It’s so easy to pick up the phone and call people when you are a Cuomo. You really are so far ahead of so many people.”
