Will Gov. Hochul remove NYC Mayor Eric Adams? ‘I need some time,’ she says

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday did not rule out using her authority to remove New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office following new allegations that his legal team sought to trade cooperation on the Trump administration’s immigration policies for getting his federal corruption charges dropped.

In an interview on MSNBC, Hochul, a Democrat, called the allegations “extremely concerning and serious.” And when host Rachel Maddow asked her if she was considering using her legal power to boot Adams from the mayor’s office, the governor said she would not make any “knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction.”

But Hochul left the door open to exercising her authority, saying she was “consulting with other leaders in government at this time.”

“This just happened,” the governor said. “I need some time to process this and figure out the right approach.”

Hochul’s remarks came hours after Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned rather than move to dismiss the charges against Adams. President Donald Trump’s administration ordered her to do so earlier this week, saying the prosecution came too close to the mayoral election and was hampering the mayor’s ability to assist with Trump’s immigration agenda. But the Department of Justice directive said it was not “assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based.”

Sassoon, in a letter to U.S Attorney Pam Bondi that was published by the New York Times earlier Thursday, accused Adams’ attorneys of floating a “quid pro quo” by promising to aid Trump’s immigration crackdown in exchange for dropping the case. She wrote that Adams’ lawyers indicated during a Jan. 31 meeting her team had in Washington, D.C., with acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove that the mayor “would be in a position to assist with the [Justice] Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.” Adams’ attorney Alex Spiro told news outlets this claim was “a total lie.”

"It took her three weeks to report in front of her a criminal action?" Adams said in an interview on Fox News on Friday morning. "C'mon, this is silly." The mayor has long denied wrongdoing in the case.

When asked about Hochul’s MSNBC appearance, Adams said, “she has her role, I have my role,” and touted his administration’s efforts on the economy, public safety and housing.

Hochul’s comments late Thursday marked a significant change in tone from Tuesday, when she all but ruled out ejecting Adams. She had likened her removal powers to an undemocratic action akin to overturning an election.

That was before Sassoon’s resignation and Adams’ separate announcement on Thursday that he would issue an executive order allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to operate at the Rikers Island jail complex, despite a local law preventing city officials from cooperating with federal immigration agents in most cases. His announcement followed a meeting with Tom Homan, the federal official leading Trump’s border crackdown.

The mayor’s decision and Sassoon’s letter spurred a growing chorus of calls from progressive New York lawmakers for his resignation or removal.

“As long as Trump wields this leverage over Adams, the city is endangered,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday in a post on X. “We cannot be governed under coercion. If Adams won’t resign, he must be removed.”

The Bronx Democrat previously said Adams should have resigned after federal prosecutors charged him last year with accepting perks and illegal campaign donations from Turkish nationals in exchange for official favors.

State Sen. Michael Gianaris, a Democrat from Queens, on Friday also said Adams should resign or be removed. Other Democrats, such as Rep. Nydia Velazquez of Brooklyn, called on the Democratic mayor to step down.

State law grants the governor the ability to remove many local officials from office, including the mayor of New York City, so long as the governor gives them a copy of the charges against them and an opportunity to be heard in their defense.

But no governor has even attempted to exercise that power since 1974, when an upstate sheriff chose to resign instead. No governor has successfully removed a local official since then-Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt booted New York County Sheriff Thomas Farley, a Tammany Hall leader.

Late Thursday, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado went a step further than Hochul and called for Adams to step down.

“New York City deserves a Mayor accountable to the people, not beholden to the President,” Delgado tweeted. “Mayor Adams should step down.” Hochul is Delgado’s boss, but the pair has been at odds as he has flirted with a gubernatorial run of his own.

Hochul spokesperson Anthony Hogrebe said, "Lieutenant Governor Delgado does not now and has not ever spoken on behalf of this administration.”

On MSNBC, Hochul said she would take some time to think over her next steps regarding Adams. “We’ve got to have one sane person in this state who can cut through all the crap and say, ‘What does my responsibility guide me to do?’” she said.

At an awards ceremony for minority- and women-owned businesses earlier Thursday, the mayor defended his time in office, saying it has been “very successful.”

“When people reflect on this administration, it's going to be one of the greatest mayoral administrations in the history of this city,” Adams said. “And it's not only what we have done, but what we have overcome.”

Jimmy Vielkind contributed reporting. This story has been updated with comment from Gov. Hochul's spokesperson and Mayor Adams.