New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday said he flips the bird at himself while touting the “angry” spirit of residents...
New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday said he flips the bird at himself while touting the “angry” spirit of residents of the Big Apple.
Adams was responding to a reporter who asked him what his message is to New Yorkers who are concerned about the budget cuts he announced earlier this year for a range of sectors — including programs for schools, first responders, and sanitation — to contend with the costs of a surge in migrants.
After extolling New Yorkers as “resilient,” Adams conceded that residents “get angry. We get pissed off. And we let you know how you feel.” Adams said he could walk down a block and some people would give him a thumbs up while others give him “another finger,” prompting laughs in the audience.
“But that’s New Yorkers!” he continued. “I wake up in the morning and sometimes I look at myself and I give myself the finger!”
The mayor insisted New York is full of “excitement” and suggested he is a good example of a typical resident. “I just believe I embody the whole authentic energy of a New Yorker,” Adams said.
Adams made the tongue-in-cheek comments at the end of a press event on initiatives to support working-class New Yorkers. A former police captain who is wrapping up the first half of his first term as mayor, Adams claims that his administration has overseen “historic wins” over the past two years, including a jobs comeback after the COVID pandemic and a drop in crime.
But the mayor has faced tough questions over his decision to announce billions of dollars in cuts to city services to deal with the migrant crisis. At a town hall last month, Adams blamed the federal government for the financial crunch. “D.C. has abandoned us, and they need to be paying their cost to this national problem,” he said.
Asked during a recent interview on WPIX-TV how he would assess 2023, Adams said: “New York: 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. This is a very, very complicated city, and that’s why it’s the greatest city on the globe.”
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