🎶I drove all night🎶

The mayor's trip to DC and trip further to the right #110

This week, Mayor Eric Adams appeared on Tucker Carlson’s streaming show in an unannounced (at least by his press office) sit-down inside Gracie Mansion. The mayor was fresh off his trip to Washington, D.C. for President Trump’s inauguration, a trip his team said happened at 3 a.m. Monday morning after a middle-of-the-night invitation to the main event and a “private ceremony” nobody has been able to prove exists.

I was always taught that any invitation that comes after midnight isn’t a good one. In this case, Adams watched the whole thing from the overflow room with his crypto friends. As one reporter asked on Tuesday: “How did being relegated to the overflow room with the likes of Jake Paul and Conor McGregor and not getting anywhere near the president help the city?” So that set the tone for the week, and for his sit down with Tucker Carlson. For nearly an hour, the former Fox News host commiserated with Adams about what they both believe are bogus federal charges.

And then he spent a lot of time trashing New York City inside the people’s house, as the mayor yucked it all up.

“And why do you let people smoke weed on the street here? It smells like a slum,” Carlson said.

On rich people: “They're moving out. And so, like, how do you pay for a city of 8,000,000 people if an increasing percentage of the population is poor, if the rich people are leaving, which they are?” (Important link)

“Our children are high all the time,” Carlson said. “Of course they are,” the mayor replied.

Carlson wondered why people can’t “put your junk away at the Pride Parade.” He implored people, “don’t have sex with people in ATMs. Don’t smoke weed on the street.” (Carlson mentioned people marching with their “junk out” more than once actually.) He asked the mayor to agree with him “that people who ride bicycles should have no say in governance.” He wondered, “why are there so many mentally ill people all of a sudden all around?” and then later asked if one of them was Bill de Blasio.

So that was just Tuesday. The next day, the mayor sat down for another unannounced interview with Stephen A. Smith. The mayor’s doing them, according to his press team, to expand his audience. With the Carlson interview you might say he’s expanding his audience to the president, a man who he refused to criticize this week when pushed about his executive order removing the country from the Paris Accords and repealing the 14th Amendment.

Adams, instead, said he’ll criticize Trump privately and directly instead of publicly – something I’ve never seen a politician do, although not every politician I’ve covered has had such high stakes.

Each day brings us close to the mayor’s April 21 trial date, and I can’t imagine what we’ll see in the coming weeks. As we say in the biz: only time will tell.

Other interesting stories

A compassionate read on the people who sleep overnight on our subways [THE CITY]
Prepare for the multi-part doc on Paul Reubens [HOLLYWOOD REPORTER]
Deportation fears keeping kids out of schools [CHALKBEAT + GWYNNE]
Latest on the Rikers Island receivership [THE CITY]
Mixed messages on ICE enforcement in the city [THE CITY]
Residents return to their homes in California, now mostly ashes [NYT]

🎧LISTEN🎧

We will be interviewing the mayor candidates on FAQ. We started this week with Scott Stringer.

📺WATCH📺

”Off the Rails” is one of the most interesting documentaries I’ve ever seen and you can watch for free:

Thanks for reading!