Mayor Adams to meet with Zohran Mamdani today for first sit-down since his election win
Mayor Adams was scheduled to sit down with Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday, marking their first meeting since Mamdani won the race for City Hall last month.
“It’s so funny that you would ask that,” Adams, who leaves office Dec. 31, said at an unrelated news conference Tuesday in Harlem when asked if he planned to meet with the new mayor. “I’m seeing the elected mayor today at noon, and we’re going to give him a document of our transition.”
Adams — who is in the process of trying to get a job after the town hall — made the remarks less than 10 minutes before noon, so the talk probably wasn’t expected until later in the day. Spokespeople for Adams and Mamdani did not immediately respond to requests for more details.
It is common for outgoing mayors to meet with their successors as part of the transition process, although these meetings usually take place shortly after the election. Tuesday’s planned meeting comes nearly a month after Mamdani won the Nov. 4 mayoral election.
In late September, Adams abandoned his own re-election bid as he faced record approval ratings amid fallout from his federal corruption indictment. He then supported Mamdani’s main opponent in the mayoral race, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and harshly criticized Mamdani, calling him the “king of gentrifiers” and a socialist “silver spoon.”
Democratic socialist Mamdani, for his part, spent time on the campaign trail portraying Adams as a corrupt politician from the past.
“As New Yorkers struggle to afford the most expensive city in America, Eric Adams and his administration are too busy stumbling over corruption charges to come to their defense,” Mamdani said in August after the mayor’s former chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, was indicted for a second time. “Corruption is not only about what a politician gains, but also what the public loses. »
During the appearance in Harlem, Adams said that during their meeting he would provide Mamdani with examples of his administration’s accomplishments.
“I want him to continue on this path,” Adams said, “and I think the best level of appreciation is duplication, and I think they’re going to duplicate a lot of the things we’ve done.”
Since Mamdani’s election, tensions between him and Adams have continued, with the outgoing mayor taking steps that risk blocking key aspects of his successor’s agenda.
For example, Adams’ team says he should make new appointments to the Rent Guidelines Board before leaving office, in an effort to block Mamdani’s pledge to freeze rents for the city’s 2 million stabilized tenants.
Last week, Mamdani’s transition team gave Adams’ office a list of more than 170 City Hall employees who will be laid off on Jan. 1 if they don’t resign by then, a move that drew a rebuke from the outgoing mayor’s spokesperson. It’s common for new mayors to hire their own staff, but last week’s bloodshed was seen as unusual in its scale, given that it targeted non-political appointees, some of whom are holdovers from the de Blasio and Bloomberg administrations.
“We weren’t even specifically appointed by the mayor. We just work for the city as a whole and thought we would be safe,” a City Hall staffer told the Daily News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Since Mamdani’s election victory, Adams has taken trips abroad to Israel and Uzbekistan, escapades that are at least partly related to his efforts to find a new job, according to sources familiar with the matter. He is considering taking a job with an Israeli construction company, and it is still possible that President Trump will nominate him for a U.S. ambassadorship, according to sources.
During Adams’ absence, officials in his administration engaged in the transition process with Mamdani’s team, sources said.
Adams is expected to make another trip – to New Orleans – this week.
This story will be updated
