Early yesterday morning at the City's municipal building, across the street from City Hall, two meetings were taking place at the same time. At one meeting, Comptroller Brad Lander was huddling with New York state Attorney General Letitia James; Public Advocate Jumaane Williams; City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams; and Kathryn Wylde, the head of the influential business group Partnership for New York. They were discussing major issues that employers were having as they tried to allay fears from New York's workers, students, and homeless residents about Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, especially amidst conflicting guidance from City Hall. What steps could the City take to protect them better? And what power did their group—a sort of government in exile, conspicuously missing the mayor—actually have?
A few floors down from that meeting, and at exactly the same time, Eric Adams was instructing his top staff, including the schools chancellor and the NYPD commissioner, not to say shit about shit: Don't criticize the Trump administration. Don't interfere with ICE enforcement. Don't do anything, he explained, that would piss off the Trump administration and thus potentially jeopardize the City's federal funding.
But there was a more nakedly self-serving explanation for Adams's instructions. Since Trump's election, Eric Adams has been desperately trying to save his own skin via some presidential bootlicking, and on Monday night, that all paid off: The Trump Department of Justice ordered federal prosecutors to drop the charges against Adams.