Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday said that he had spoken with Republican President-elect Donald Trump following the election but would not disclose whether they discussed his federal indictment brought by President Biden’s Justice Department. Adams, a Democrat, made the remarks in response to a reporter’s question during an unrelated Thursday news conference on a new city lawsuit over youth vaping, a little over a day after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in his bid to return to the White House. The reporter asked Adams whether he had spoken to Trump and congratulated the former president on his victory—and whether he would help with the mayor’s federal corruption charges.
The mayor was also asked if the pair had spoken about youth vaping. “I communicated with the president yesterday to state that there are many issues here in the city that we want to work together with the administration to address,” Adams said. “A lot of our infrastructure issues, a lot of the issues that we shared yesterday with the team here.
The city must move forward, and that’s what our goal is to do.” But Adams notably did not answer whether he congratulated the president-elect or if they had discussed his criminal charges — brought by Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams on Sept. 26.
The mayor cited not wanting to go into private conversations in declining to address those topics. “We did not talk about the incoming administration to look at this vaping issue.