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On Thursday morning, less than a day after having his federal bribery and corruption charges dropped, Mayor Eric Adams announced he will run for reelection this year—but as an independent, skipping the crowded Democratic primary in June.
In a six-minute video filmed in a darkened room, Adams declared that while he is still a Democrat, his reelection campaign has been held back by the federal corruption charges, which he described as a "bogus case" and "false accusations." (The judge who dismissed the charges against him yesterday didn't see it that way. "Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions," Judge Ho said at the beginning of his 78-page opinion and order. Ho also added that "neither the dismissal of the indictment nor the length of this opinion, should be understood as any kind of statement about the merits of the allegations against the mayor in the indictment.")
— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) April 3, 2025
"I know that the accusations leveled against me may have shaken your confidence in me, and that you may rightly have questions about my conduct," Adams says in the video. "And let me be clear, although the charges against me were false, I trusted people I should not have, and I regret that."
Adams adds that running as an independent is the right thing to do, as the other parties include "leaders pulled at by the extremists on the far left or the far right."
"There isn't a liberal or conservative way to fix New York, but there is a right way and a wrong way," he says. "And true leaders don't just know the right path. They have the guts to take it. I've always put New York's people before politics and party, and I always will."