White House giving no signs that migrant aid tied to Biden reelection run, NYC Mayor Adams says

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday that White House officials haven’t cited any political calculus behind not responding to his calls to provide additional aid in addressing the migrant crisis but added more is needed before President Joe Biden is in the thick of his reelection run next year.

Adams, who was speaking with conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg on WABC Thursday morning, was responding to a question from Rosenberg about how Biden is “always going to say ‘no'” when it comes to more aid for migrants until after the 2024 presidential election, where the issue is guaranteed to be front and center.

“I have not been told ‘no’ by the White House. The problem is we need to get an answer,” Adams said. “No one has stated that anything is on pause until after the presidential race. We cannot wait until after a race that happens next year to deal with the relief that this city needs now.”

Adams has spoken openly about his displeasure with Biden’s response to the migrant issue for months, but has also called out Congress and more specifically the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which hasn’t offered up an immigration reform package that Biden would approve.

Rosenberg, a staunch supporter of former President Trump who appeared at an anti-migrant rally in Brooklyn earlier this month, praised Adams for criticizing Biden and appeared to goad him into piling on some more Thursday by pointing to the president’s decision not to meet with Adams when he was in the city last week.

“There’s been a failure on our national government. If we point to just the president, we’re giving everybody else an out, and I’m not going to do that,” Adams said. “There’s an obligation to come up with real immigration reform.”

Still, Adams’ steady barbs of Biden have led fellow Democrats to level criticisms of their own at the mayor, who they view as undermining the president in what’s shaping up to be a tight reelection run that could feature a rematch against Trump, Biden’s Republican opponent in the 2020 presidential race.

After Adams predicted early this month that the migrant crisis would “destroy” the city, even his more moderate allies began to publicly question why he’s been so hard on Biden and worry such rhetoric could not only hurt the president but also Democratic congressional candidates regain control of the House of Representatives.

Republicans have taken notice too, with many of them publicly agreeing with some of Adams’ rhetoric on the issue and co-opting it into talking points of their own — as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did Wednesday when, during a visit to the city, he praised the mayor for honing in on Biden.

“[The migrant crisis] is something that is unsustainable. I think those are the words of your mayor,” he said. “Those are the words of the governor of Texas.”

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