New York Mayor Sparks Controversy With Plane Crash Comments
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams is being criticized for comments he made during a Sunday TV interview where he seemed to suggest the opportunity to see “a plane crashing into our Trade Center” is one of the reasons why New York is “the greatest city on the globe.”
The bizarre exchange happened after WPIX journalist Dan Mannarino asked Adams to sum up 2023 in one word.
This is what is known in media parlance as a “softball” question, but Adams’ response made it more hard-hitting than anyone expected.
His first response was to use two words ― not one ― to describe the year and those words were “New York.”
Adams then took the occasion to extol the virtues of the Big Apple, but his example was, depending on your interpretation, unartful or just plain weird.
“This is a place where every day you wake up, you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our Trade Center to a person who’s celebrating a new business that’s open,” Adams said, before adding, “This is a very, very complicated city, and that’s why it’s the greatest city on the globe.”
DAN MANNARINO: [Describe the year in one word & tell me why that word.]
MAYOR ADAMS: "New York. This is a place where everyday you wake up you could experience… a plane crashing into our Trade Center… And that's why it's the greatest city on the globe."
DM: "Uh-huh."
🤷🏻♂️ pic.twitter.com/6VNG83j8Bd— Ira Goldman 🦆🦆🦆 (@KDbyProxy) December 18, 2023
As you might expect, Adams’ comments were just the thing to cause a tizzy on social media.
How does anyone have that thought let alone express it in public as mayor of New York? Also New York is two words
— Michael Simon (@morlium) December 18, 2023
Come to New York where you can get a hot dog or get blown up is a heck of a tourism slogan https://t.co/Vvl7RI6iLH
— Jason Scheer (@jasonscheer) December 18, 2023
One of the many great things about this is that the prospect of a 9/11 instantly comes off the top of his head but he has to spin his wheels for a second to think of something good that happens in New York https://t.co/sEx7L7hH44
— Brooks Otterlake (@i_zzzzzz) December 18, 2023
If I was the mayor of NYC personally I would try not to suggest that every day there’s a chance of another 9/11
— Adam Feibel (@adamfeibel) December 18, 2023
New travel ad just dropped. https://t.co/GkNyr7n5cq
— G (@stevensongs) December 18, 2023
He's a very unserious person, and we are stuck with him.
— MLR FreeThemAll (@merylnyc) December 18, 2023
Eric Adams is the Simone Biles of giving mindmeltingly haunted answers to simple softball questions. We will never witness this level of performance again in our lifetimes. https://t.co/WPhVdqeeob
— Chris Xu (@xuhulk) December 18, 2023
That is how chatgpt would respond if you asked it this question
— Sam Weber (@areacomedian) December 18, 2023
I'm an Eric Adams truther. He is not real. He is a concoction of Tina Fey's for the third season of 30 Rock. https://t.co/2WNWOb7nm9
— Jonathan 'Boo and Vote' Cohn (@JonathanCohn) December 18, 2023
He is an exceptionally strange man. Not a new observation, but one that always bears repeating.
— Eric Reese (@reeseer1) December 18, 2023
A spokesman for the Mayor told HuffPost that any suggestion that Adams implied that seeing a plane crash into a building is a selling point for the city is “factually inaccurate,” since he also noted that New York “is a very, very complicated city.”
Adams’ comments come at a time when he’s already facing accusations ofsexual assault andconspiring with the Turkish government to receive campaign donations.
