NEW YORK — (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams appears open to switching parties to become a Republican, as he declined to rule out a future change in political allegiances during a pair of interviews Friday that came as he has increasing warmed to President-elect Donald Trump.
The comments from Adams, the top Democrat in one of the country's most liberal cities, riled critics who have grown concerned over the mayor's increasing willingness to throw his support behind Trump and his hardline immigration policies.
Adams, who faces federal corruption charges, was a registered Republican in the 1990s and early 2000s but has spent his political career as a Democrat.
In a Friday morning interview with the local cable news station NY1, Adams was asked if he would consider a return to the GOP. The Democrat appeared to leave open the possibility of a switch.
“The party that’s the most important for me is the American party,” he said. “I’m a part of the American party. I love this country. This is the home of the free, the land of the brave.”
In another interview about a half-hour later on PIX11, Adams said he would run for reelection as a Democrat but still appeared to leave some wiggle room for his future.
“So no matter what party I’m on or vote on, I’m going to push for the American values," he said. "And I think America has told us, stop the squabbling, leaders, and start leading us out of the crisis that we’re facing.”
Adams won office on a centrist platform and has spent significant time as mayor quarreling with the progressive wing of his party. But his rhetoric has taken a noticeable rightward turn in the weeks since Trump's election victory, particularly on immigration, with Adams boosting the president-elect's platform and appearing enthusiastic about the incoming administration.
Rather than restricting cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as he once promised, Adams recently expressed a willingness to roll back the city’s so-called sanctuary policies, and he plans to meet with Trump’s top border official over concerns about what the mayor said was the “rising illegal alien crime rate in New York City.”
He has also praised those in Trump’s orbit, including Elon Musk, who has claimed falsely that Democrats are illegally “importing” migrants to garner votes.
“This is a racehorse that wanted to run its right pace and we’ve been holding back that racehorse out of fear of being canceled,” Adams said of the country Tuesday. “And now you have a bunch of people who are not afraid of being canceled.”
The shift comes as Adams is trying to fight off an indictment on federal corruption charges while governing the city and gearing up to run for a second term. Adams has pleaded not guilty in his criminal case, in which he has been accused of accepting free or discounted overseas trips and illegal campaign contributions from people looking to gain his influence, including people connected to Turkey or the Turkish government.
Adams’ critics have seized on his recent comments about the Trump administration as a move toward self-preservation, accusing the mayor of cozying up to the next president in an effort to secure a pardon in his corruption case.
“Eric Adams continues to sound more like he is auditioning for a job in right-wing media than running for reelection in a Democratic primary,” said Zohran Mamdani, a state assembly member who is challenging against Adams in the mayoral primary. “Eric Adams is in City Hall because Democratic voters sent him there. To serve his own narrow self-interests, he is clearly prepared to betray them.”
Zellnor Myrie, a state senator who is also challenging Adams in the primary, said “at a time when the Republican Party has never been more out of line with New York values, we need a mayor who isn’t scared to call himself a Democrat.”
“Instead of playing footsie with the next president, we need a mayor with the courage to stand up for our city,” Myrie wrote on X.
Adams on Friday did distance himself from the Trump administration's potential plans to carry out mass deportations, saying, “You know, I’m not for mass deportation, but I’m not for mass saturation.”
Still, the mayor's recent remarks are a major departure from his stance before he took office.
In June of 2021, a few weeks before winning the Democratic mayoral primary, Adams spoke to a room full of immigrant New Yorkers about the challenges facing city residents who are in the country illegally. “Too many of our neighbors live in the shadows,” he said at the time, “scarred by the abusive rhetoric and tactics of the Trump era and fearing a denial of their rights.”
___
Izaguirre reported from Albany.