Mayor Adams rejects resignation rumors after days out of the public eye

Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday shot down speculation that he was preparing to resign after spending three days holed up at Gracie Mansion due to an apparent illness.

“Who started the stupid rumor that I’m stepping down on Friday?” Adams asked a room of religious leaders in a speech at an annual interfaith breakfast at the New York Public Library.

“Are you out of your mind?” he exclaimed. He repeated the line several times during his speech to applause from the audience.

Adams’ indignant response capped off several days of speculation that mounted during his retreat. His spokesperson announced Sunday night that Adams was “not feeling his best” and would limit his public schedule for doctors’ appointments – then released no further details about his condition. The mayor's low profile only fueled questions about his political future as he fights federal corruption charges and the race to unseat him intensifies.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was discussing whether to drop the charges against Adams. The mayor has denied any wrongdoing.

The mayor’s retreat to Gracie Mansion came during a busy week of orders from President Donald Trump, who threw local governments and businesses into chaos by announcing a freeze on federal funding for many public programs — then quickly rescinding it. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for a raid in the Bronx, which immigration advocates said was adding to already high anxiety within the city's migrant communities. Adams issued two statements, but made no public appearances.

Adams said on Thursday that it had been a “scary week,” and that navigating his medical condition was hard, though he offered no additional explanation for why he pared back his schedule and took no questions from reporters.

In his roughly 30-minute speech, a defiant Adams rebuked those who predicted his political demise and presented himself as a working-class underdog who has been unfairly treated by the press.

“I'm an ordinary, dyslexic, hardworking, blue-collar mayor,” Adams said. “And those who have been in power for years — that denied you — have to deal with the fact we are now in charge.”

The crowd applauded these remarks, but some members of the audience had words of caution for Adams. Moments after he began speaking, several women stood up and held a sign that read, “Mr. Mayor: Show mercy to our immigrant friends!”

Adams read the sign aloud and briefly used it as a prompt to talk about the ways his administration has helped migrants and asylum-seekers in the city. But as he continued speaking, his address shifted from their plight to his own, and the mayor went on the attack.

“To hear people say we are anti-immigrant. Are you out of your mind?” Adams said, later adding, “walking around with your silly signs. Stop doing the signs and give the sign that you believe in God and go join the work that these people have done in this city.”

The Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer, head of the Interfaith Center of New York, said the sign was inspired by remarks delivered by Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. At a prayer service last week, Budde appealed to Trump with a plea to be merciful toward people his administration might target, including immigrants and LGBTQ+ children.

Breyer said the Adams administration had done “amazing work” accommodating migrants in the city. But she said she was worried about the mayor’s position before the Trump administration, citing the president’s pledge to send 30,000 migrants to U.S.-run detention facilities in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

“We’re trying to make it easier for him to stand up against the federal government,” Breyer said. “By the end of the remarks, it almost became like a scapegoat to try to pin something on someone.”

But if Adams was looking for a room to bolster his confidence, this was the right place to be.

“We applaud the mayor this morning, we love him, we have his back in faith and prayer,” said Minister Dawn Baxter of the Bushwick Family Ministries. She chided the media for focusing on the challenges facing Adams.

“To be honest with you, I trust the mayor. So when we hear these rumors, we lock in with him,” Baxter said. “We never believed it.”

Pastor Dr. Robert Waterman of Antioch Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant said he’d also heard the rumors that Adams might be stepping down, and he understood why the mayor addressed them.

“It’s like a pillow of feathers, if you break open the feathers and you just throw them in the wind, it scatters and you cannot collect the rumors,” Waterman said. “So you have to let them fly where they fly but the end result, he knows what he’s doing … he’s here to stay.”

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who would become acting mayor if Adams were to step down, told reporters at City Hall that he was glad that the mayor appeared to be feeling better. But Williams pointed out that Adams’ decision to withhold details was a divergence from the past. Adams has spoken openly about his health struggles, which include a diabetes diagnosis in 2016.

Williams, a progressive Democrat, has criticized Adams for his deference to Trump and his unwillingness to denounce the president's policies. Williams said he believed the mayor was “compromised” due to his legal case, a reference to the fact that Trump has at times dangled the possibility of a pardon before the mayor.

“Most problematic to me is that he refuses to speak up about the Trump agenda and how it impacts New Yorkers,” Williams said.