'Eric Adams is not the Messiah for New York City': Feud sparks between mayor and occasional ally

NEW YORK — A disagreement over policing policy between New York City Mayor Eric Adams and a left-leaning elected watchdog devolved Wednesday into a series of deeply personal attacks, the budding feud overshadowing the mayor’s attempts at spotlighting a drop in crime under his watch.

“I find it astonishing that we have a public advocate who pushed for this police bill. He lives in a fort,” Adams said from NYPD headquarters, referring to Jumaane Williams. He made his comments at a news conference to tout a drop in crime since he took office two years ago: Murder and rape are down 21 percent and 3 percent, respectively, though crime overall is notably up due to high rates of larceny and particularly auto thefts.

“I live in Brooklyn with my wife and kids, and my understanding is the mayor lives in New Jersey with his girlfriend,” Williams responded soon afterward in a news conference of his own.

His clapback to Adams’ remarks didn’t end there; Williams also charged that the mayor was acting like a “5-year-old throwing a temper tantrum” and repeatedly described the behavior as “bratty.”

Willams’ home is on an Army base in Brooklyn with security checkpoints, which right-wing critics have seized upon to call him a hypocrite when he advocates for police accountability. Adams’ partner lives in Fort Lee, N.J., and some of his campaign for mayor in 2021 was spent convincing the public that he actually resides in his Brooklyn home.

The jabs were highly uncharacteristic for the pair of leading Black Democrats from Brooklyn. They have often worked in partnership despite their ideological differences: The mayor, a retired police captain, leans conservative while Williams is a fixture in New York’s progressive circles. Nevertheless, they’ve joined forces to promote anti-gun violence policies and other measures, and Williams even said he’d rank Adams on his ballot in 2021.

Last spring, Adams publicly thanked Williams for heading to Washington, D.C. to push for more federal funding for migrants in the city. “He’s not on the steps of City Hall asking, ‘What are we doing?’” Adams said in applauding the public advocate in April.

But times have changed. Adams is at his political weakest, hobbled by budget cuts and facing a federal investigation into his 2021 campaign. And he has been growing increasingly frustrated with critics, taking to piling on City Comptroller Brad Lander and the media for what he deems unfair attacks on his record.

On Wednesday, he aimed that fire at a relatively popular politician, potentially shaking loose a new critic who comes with a big platform.

Adams accused Williams of pushing “to erode the ability of police to do protection when you have an entire army protecting your family, and you drive around with police protection, and I don’t know when the last time he was on the subway system.”

Williams gathered reporters after those remarks to push back, saying of Adams, “I think he believes he’s the only one who cares about safety in the city and who cares about what happens in the city. And that’s just not true.”

The mayor is accusing Williams of hamstringing the NYPD by championing legislation requiring officers to report data on lower-level stops. The How Many Stops Act cleared a City Council vote last month and Adams is expected to veto the measure, which has enough supporters to override his pending action.

Williams, in turn, accused the mayor of spreading misinformation about a measure intended to improve transparency — one he said was written with input from NPD brass. (The mayor has repeatedly criticized unnamed members of the “numerical minority” — referring to left-leaning elected leaders who pushed back on his pro-policing policies.)

“Eric Adams is not the Messiah for New York City. He just is not,” Williams said. “The same God that elected him elected a lot of us on the exact same day. And a lot of us have different views.”

Jeff Coltin contributed to this report.