New York City Mayor Eric Adams is getting flak on social media for his bizarre description of the Big Apple in a recent local news interview.
During a sit-down on WPIX-TV, the reporter asked Adams to describe 2023 in one word, to which he responded: “New York.”
“This is a place where every day you wake up you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our trade center to a person who’s celebrating a new business that’s open,” Adams continued. “This is a very, very complicated city, and that’s why it’s the greatest city on the globe.”
People online immediately slammed his response, which started to trend on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Eric Adams is trending for his terrible 9/11 comment. Because it was truly that terrible,” former New York State Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou said.
Another person added: “So confused why Eric Adams thought bringing up 9/11 in that manner would be received well, like sir what.”
“Eric Adams gives the worst answer any politician has ever given to a soft ball question,” a user said.
Adams, whose campaign fundraising is at the center of an FBI investigation, has received a 28 percent approval rating from registered voters in a recent poll. It’s considered the lowest rating for any city mayor since Quinnipiac University started the poll in 1996. It comes amid budget cuts, concerns about crime and homelessness, and the ongoing migrant crisis.
Adams addressed it on WPIX-TV, stating that he wasn’t surprised at the results: “New Yorkers are angry. They’re angry at the totality of where this situation has brought us.”
“At the beginning of the year, and even into the year, they thought this was Eric Adams just opening our city up, not looking at the impact of this crisis,” he added. “We had to do a real job of explaining to everyday New Yorkers that the federal government has abandoned this important issue that’s a national issue.”
Among Black voters specifically, a Siena College Research poll revealed that 50 percent of them do not approve of him. The response comes after criticism for how he handles situations impacting the community. For instance, Adams was criticized for reviving anti-crime units in 2021, which has since resulted in Black and other people of color being mostly targeted by law enforcement.
And in another big case, he received major pushback for his response to the death of Jordan Neely, a subway performer who was choked to death on the train earlier this year. When Adams addressed the incident, he urged the public to wait on the results of law enforcement’s investigation. This sparked resistance from Neely’s family and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who firmly insinuated he was “murdered” — a comment that Adams deemed irresponsible.
