President Trump is considering offering jobs to New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for him dropping out of the crowded general election. This would give former Governor Andrew Cuomo a better chance of beating Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani in the general election in November.
Politico reported that Adams was offered a position at the Department of Housing and Urban Development for his withdrawal, after going to Florida to meet with Trump’s staff on Monday. The New York Times reported that Trump is also considering offering a job to Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in order to swing the race even further.
Adams has denied reports that he’d end his campaign early to join team Trump.
“Mayor Adams has not met with Donald Trump—don’t believe the noise,” said Adams campaign spokesperson Todd Shapiro. “He is not dropping out of the race.”
Adams didn’t fully close the door to dropping out of the election, though, telling FOX5 Wednesday, “Whenever I make a move, I’ll make an announcement.”
These reports are not shocking, as Trump is essentially the reason Adams isn’t actively on trial or in jail right now. After months of Adams shamelessly flattering, imitating, and breaking bread with Trump and his inner circle, the Justice Department dismissed his corruption case in a quid pro quo deal that threw Adams’s own constituents under the bus. And corruption still follows Adams even after that massive favor, with his former chief adviser now facing corruption charges and his former Asian community liaison caught bribing a reporter with a wad of cash in a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips. And that’s not to mention the former cops suing Adams for running the NYPD like a “criminal enterprise.”
Adams’s campaign is flailing badly in the face of all this, making reports of his exit all the more plausible. The most recent polling has him at a measly third place as an independent, at about 11 percent, well behind Mamdani and Cuomo. This, compared with his past fealty, makes a move to HUD or somewhere similar feel as certain as his election loss.
Cuomo has also sidled up to Trump, although less publicly than Adams. And while he denies that he’s spoken to Trump directly about the race, all of his actions have implied that he’s hoping for some rhetorical support against Mamdani from an old family friend.
“We can minimize [the Sliwa] vote, because he’ll never be a serious candidate,” Cuomo said at a fundraiser in the Hamptons last month. “And Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani. And you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa. So I feel good about that.”
“Let’s put it this way: I knew the president very well,” he continued. “I believe there’s a big piece of him that actually wants redemption in New York. He feels that he was rejected by New York. We voted for Hillary Clinton. Bill de Blasio took his name off things. So I believe there will be opportunities to actually cooperate with him.”
Whoever you choose to believe, it’s clear that wealthy, elite Democrats would rather work with the man they’ve been calling an “existential threat to democracy” for nearly a decade than throw their support behind the young, charismatic leader who their own voters chose.
The New York City mayoral election is on November 4.
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