President Joe Biden and his aides kept their distance from New York Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday after their former ally was indicted on sweeping federal corruption charges.
Aside from one condolence call, Biden has not spoken to Adams in any substantive way in nearly two years, according to a pair of White House officials granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. That rift stemmed from Adams’ frequent criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of the influx of migrants into the nation’s largest city and long predated the federal investigation.
In the wake of these developments, Adams was dropped from Biden’s re-election campaign advisory board before it was announced last summer. News of the federal investigation first emerged months later, culminating in charges filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. White House aides noted that the president had been in New York for three days this week for the United Nations General Assembly but did not make time for Adams.
Adams, just a few years after hailing Biden as his political model, has now taken a page from Donald Trump’s playbook. He suggested the investigations into him are politically motivated, and appeared to blame his clash with the White House for making him a target.
“Despite our pleas, when the federal government did nothing because its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system without any relief, I put the people of New York above party and politics,” Adams said in a video statement released after news of the indictment had become known. .
The White House denied any coordination between the White House and the Justice Department. “DOJ is handling this case independently,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press conference Thursday. “I won’t go any further than that.”
Jean-Pierre also sidestepped the question of whether Biden shares the view of several New York Democrats that Adams should resign.
Previous ethical yellow flags in the mayor’s career — an alleged bid-rigging scandal and a self-promotion nonprofit — weren’t enough to stop Biden from ever embracing the Black, politically moderate former police officer who was a good fit for the The president’s own political personality after he captured City Hall in 2021.
Adams boasted of himself as “the Biden of Brooklyn,” comparing his victory in the more liberal Democratic primaries to the way Biden defeated more left-leaning candidates a year earlier. Biden eagerly appeared at events with Adams, whose background as a police officer was welcome at a time when crime was rising across the country during the pandemic.
Biden hosted Adams, then Brooklyn Borough President and mayoral candidate, at a gun violence event at the White House in 2021. And the following year, just a month after Adams was sworn in, Biden appeared with him again at an event in New York City on combating violent crime.
Two former administration officials involved in planning the February 2022 event said it was largely about needing law enforcement and elected officials to validate the president’s approach to reducing crime.
Biden, they noted on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, has long been especially accommodating to local officials who travel, despite staff concerns about the political risks of appearing with certain elected officials or their associates. who would often end up in photo lines with the president. In Adams’ case, some staffers questioned his character but acknowledged the political rationale for hosting an event with the mayor and NYPD officers, the two former officials said.
But that relationship changed after Adams began criticizing the president’s handling of the migrant crisis, which the mayor described in hyperbolic language as an existential threat to the nation’s largest city. Adams said the costs and toll of the migrant crisis will “devastate” his city.
“The president and the White House have failed this city,” Adams said last year, a statement that many Republicans and conservatives have used to attack the Biden administration.
The mayor’s signature bravado occasionally frustrated White House aides, including when he declared himself the “new face of the Democratic Party” and only encouraged speculation about a future presidency in the White House.
Despite his criticism and antics, which White House officials found annoying, the administration continued to work with the mayor’s office to address the migrant crisis, a White House official said. The White House also worked with the city on other issues, despite the West Wing largely ignoring the mayor himself.
Since their argument, the president himself has continued to avoid Adams and has rarely spoken about him, the two White House officials said. The two men spoke in March, when Biden called Adams and offered his condolences after a city police officer was killed. But the mayor was quickly seen as a potential headache breaker in Biden’s inner circle and no effort was made to repair the relationship, the officials said.
“It’s been a long time since any of us have really thought about him,” one of the White House officials said.
White House aides, the two officials said, have not dwelled on the scandals threatening Adams’ political future and do not believe the arrest will have any impact on Biden’s term or Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign .
