Mayor Adams said Tuesday that he is opposed to a National Guard takeover in New York City as President Trump threatens to extend federal control of law enforcement beyond Washington D.C.
“We don’t need anyone to come in and take over our law enforcement apparatus,” Adams said at a press conference in the Bronx on Tuesday morning. “We have the finest police department on the globe.
The president announced on Monday he put the Washington, D.C. police department under federal control to “take our capital back,” and then said he’d also “look at other cities,” naming New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Oakland.
Trump invoked a federal override possible under D.C. laws. Using federal troops in local law enforcement other cities, including New York, raises legal questions, and the legality of their deployment is currently on trial in California.
While Adams said the recent Midtown shooting “sends a signal” that crime is a problem in the city, that perception doesn’t match up with the data. “Those headlines give the wrong impression,” the mayor said. “New York is moving in the right direction in public safety.”
City officials have touted low crime numbers this summer, including drops in murders and gun violence, as well as the overall crime rate.
Adams did note that the federal government could help fight crime in the city with tighter gun laws or federal grants.
“If the federal government wants to assist us in really navigating some of the laws around easily accessibility to automatic weapons… there is some assistance we can get from the federal government,” he said.
The mayor said that his public safety deputy, Kaz Daughtry, has been in “continuous communications” about public safety, including with the feds. Daughtry, along with NYPD Chief John Chell, met with Trump at a New Jersey golf course in June.
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, who this week has a slate of anti-Trump campaign events across the city, said that he would resist Trump’s attempts to interfere with the city.
“Donald Trump is not above the law and if he comes for New York City, he will have to go through me,” Mamdani said in a statement on Tuesday. “As Mayor, I will not downplay or enable his authoritarianism — and I certainly will not tell New Yorkers not to “overreact” as Andrew Cuomo did when Trump’s militia tried to bulldoze Los Angeles.”
Mamdani said at a press conference in Brooklyn earlier Tuesday that he’s willing to work with the president in good faith even as he remains strenuously opposed to his immigration and economic agendas.
“If Donald Trump wants to pick up the phone and say that he wants to deliver on the cheaper groceries that he ran on, I’m willing to work with him on that,” Mamdani said. “It just can never be a partnership at the expense of the people of this city.”
Former governor Andrew Cuomo, who’s running for mayor on an independent line, said Monday on social media that Trump would “flatten [Mamdani] like a pancake.”
“What you’re seeing in D.C. today is exactly what will happen if @ZohranKMamdani becomes Mayor,” he said on X.
With Chris Sommerfeldt
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