It's easy to see why some of the biggest corporations in the world have turned to Randy Mastro in times of crisis. With his dulcet, gravelly voice, and his genial, whiskered smile, the first deputy mayor gently bends reality to his will in the way that only very expensive lawyers can. If he tells you that it was Chevron, and not Ecuadorian farmers, who were actually the victims of a miscarriage of justice, or that using facial recognition technology to eject people from Madison Square Garden is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, you might start to believe him.
On Tuesday morning, Mastro faced a more difficult task: convincing New Yorkers that Mayor Eric Adams has "a remarkable record of achievement."
"When I say history will be kind about the achievements of this administration, I don't think there's any question about it," Mastro told Max Politics podcast host Ben Max at a New York Law School breakfast event, noting the recent reduction in crime and the Adams administration's ambitious affordable housing targets as things New Yorkers will remember Adams by—and not his federal indictment and the subsequent presidential intervention, or the stench of corruption and cronyism that has followed his administration since the day he took office and has led to the mayor's record-low approval ratings.
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