Mayor Adams said Thursday he is unsure whether he’ll attend Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration on New Year’s Day, saying he’s hesitant to do so because the mayor-elect’s “nasty” supporters might use the opportunity to make a scene.
To skip out on the swearing in would be a break in tradition, with outgoing mayors typically attending the formal ceremony ushering in a new administration.
Adams told NY1 in an intereview Thursday that he possibly would skip it because Mamdani’s supporters might be too raucous, slamming them as “mean,” “nasty” and “disrespectful.”
“I’m still deciding,” he said. “I want to communicate with the incoming mayor because I don’t want to be disruptive of the ceremony. It’s his day. Some people are perpetual protesters, some people will turn this ceremony into some form of protest. So I want to speak with him to determine if I’m going to attend or not.”
The event is expected to be held at City Hall on the afternoon of Jan. 1.
“No comment,” Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for Mamdani, said.
Outgoing mayors have often attended the swearing-in of their successors, even amid frosty relationships and campaign trail tensions. When Mayor de Blasio was sworn in in 2014, Mayor Bloomberg sat through speaker after speaker’s admonishment of his mayoralty. When Mayor Adams was inaugurated in Times Square in 2022, de Blasio was in attendance, dancing with his wife onstage.
One notable exception to the tradition happened in 1998, when former Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins skipped Mayor Giuliani’s inauguration for a second term.
Adams mounted an independent bid for re-election earlier this year but dropped out of the race in September after pressure to do so in order to clear a path for ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The mayor has been highly critical of Mamdani both before and after his victory.
“I don’t want to participate,” Adams said of the possibly of becoming a spectacle at the inauguration. “That’s a special day for him.”
