Icannot fathom what it’s like to be so desperate to hang on to power that you’re willing to throw your city into chaos and your country into a constitutional crisis just so you can keep your job for another 10 months, until voters kick you to the curb. But that is just a fancy way of saying that I cannot understand what it’s like to be as weak and corrupt as New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The city has had plenty of corrupt and terrible mayors in the past—people forget that before Rudy Giuliani was a fascist, despicable Trump lawyer, he was a fascist, despicable mayor—but Adams seems strangely hell-bent on bringing the entire apparatus of local government down with him.

For those fortunate enough to live in a functional city, let me briefly tell you what’s been happening in New York. Adams was (and kind of still is) under federal indictment for various corruption charges, but the Trump administration ordered prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to drop all charges against him. Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sasson (a Federalist Society lawyer who clerked for Antonin Scalia, by the way) resigned in protest, along with other members of SDNY’s public integrity unit. Sassoon alleged that she was being ordered to drop the prosecution of Adams as part of an “unlawful quid pro quo” that involved Adams carrying out Trump’s unconstitutional and inhumane immigration enforcement orders in exchange for the DOJ dropping all charges against him.

Adams and his lawyer Alex Spiro (the guy celebrities call when they’re in trouble) have denied the allegations. But the quid pro quo is kind of obvious. Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general who ordered Sassoon to drop the prosecution, said that the charges against Adams were preventing him from “fully cooperating” with Trump’s immigration orders. Adams then went on Fox & Friends with “border czar” Thomas Homan to discuss the deal the Trump administration made with the Adams administration—which includes Adams allowing ICE to operate at Riker’s island. Adams has even ordered city officials to not “criticize” Trump. Homan said, on Fox, that if Adams didn’t comply with their arrangement, Homan would be “up his butt.” Mayor Swagger has been reduced to Mayor Minstrel, who only has the power to dance and jive to the beat of Trump’s drum.

In response to Adams’s utter abdication of his responsibilities to the people of New York in order to get out of his legal troubles, official New York started fighting back. On Monday, four deputy mayors of New York City followed SDNY’s lead and announced that they were resigning their positions. The resignations include Maria Torres-Springer, the first deputy mayor and the person who is, effectively, second in command in the city, as well as Chauncy Parker; Parker’s resignation is significant because he was the deputy mayor for public safety and would have been heavily involved with implementing Trump’s immigration policies in New York.

The attention now shifts to New York State Governor Kathy Hochul. Hochul, technically, has the power to remove Adams under the state Constitution. That power has never been used. When Adams was first indicted in September, I thought that it should still not be used. Adams is not the first corrupt mayor of New York City, and he won’t be the last. Adams was entitled to his day in court, and I’m always going to trust a jury of 12 random New Yorkers (not you, Staten Island) to do what’s best for the city over the self-serving instincts of someone in Albany.

Even after Trump won the election and it became obvious that Adams was trying to brown-nose his way into a presidential pardon, I was adamant that Hochul should not remove him. To put it bluntly: I do not want to see a white governor remove a duly elected Black mayor from his perch. Most cities that are run by Black mayors in this country are located in states controlled by white governors. It sets a terrible precedent for a governor to remove a mayor, and I don’t want to give white folks living in MAGA-land any additional ideas on how to thwart democratic self-government.

Current Issue

December 2025 Issue

Now, however, I’m not so sure whether Hochul should hold back. The (likely) existence of a quid pro quo significantly changes my calculus. Adams is no longer an independent public official; he is a mere tool of the Trump administration. Donald Trump is now the mayor of New York City, while Adams sits on his lap like a puppet in a ventriloquist’s act—and, last time I checked, nobody elected Trump to serve as mayor. Adams can no longer serve the best interests of New York City, even if he wanted to; he can do only what Trump allows him to do. Local rule is incredibly important, but leaving Adams in charge means New Yorkers will no longer be ruled from City Hall but from the White House. That reality obviates at least part of my concern about Albany overturning the will of the people of New York; that will has already been overturned and usurped by Washington, DC.

Moreover, it’s not even clear that the Adams administration can continue to function in the day-to-day service of the people. While New York City mayors almost always have two eyes on the horizon, looking for their opportunity to mount an ineffectual and embarrassing presidential campaign, there are, at least, others who can hold down the job of running the city. The four deputy mayors who resigned were in charge of doing a lot of the work of city government. They were the ones making sure the avenues are salted ahead of snowstorms and the subway stabbings only happen off-peak. Now, they’re gone.

With their departure, Adams’s situation has become politically untenable. It is worth pointing out that Adams is a Democrat who has completely lost the support of the Democratic Party. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (no relation), a Democrat, said that Adams has “lost the confidence and trust of his own staff, his colleagues in government and New Yorkers.” Governor Hochul, a Democrat, said that the deputy mayor resignations raise “serious questions about the long-term future of this mayoral administration.” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a Democrat, called on Adams to present a plan to prove he is still able to govern, and if he can’t, Lander said he will call the “Inability Committee” into session. The Inability Committee is a thing I had to Google. Apparently, it’s a special committee, authorized by the city’s charter, that can be convened to remove a mayor.

I shouldn’t have to know what the Inability Committee is. I shouldn’t have to contemplate a white governor from Buffalo removing a Black mayor from Brooklyn. I shouldn’t have to write this article. And yet, here I am, knowing and contemplating and writing things I’d rather not. And the only reason I have to entertain the possibility of Hochul removing Adams, or some random committee that’s probably based on a Washington Irving story removing Adams, is because Adams will not do the honorable thing and remove himself.

The most simple, clean, easy, and morally correct way out of this mess would be for Eric Adams to resign. The city, state, and country would all be better off if Adams would just… self-deport. I hear Istanbul is lovely this time of year, and I’m sure Adams’s new friends in the Trump administration could find him somebody to pay him all the free air miles he could want in exchange for wearing a “Blacks 4 Trump” T-shirt every time he’s near a television camera. Give Adams to Harlan Crow so he can add another Black guy to his collection.

In any other era, this would already have happened. In the olden days, a politician who lost the support of his entire political party would resign. In the before-times, an elected official who answered the allegations of corruption by making an openly corrupt deal would resign. In a functioning polity, a person under federal indictment would not be able to beat the charges by joining with the president of the United States to obstruct justice.

In our times, in our broken-down country, however, we appear to be stuck with Trump’s sock puppet masquerading as a New York City mayor. Adams refuses to resign, of course. He keeps parroting this inane line “I’m not stepping down, I’m stepping up,” which feels like a discarded lyric offered up by the guy who just lost a rap battle. That’s forced us into the situation of being stuck with him unless somebody uses extraordinary powers to remove him. But those powers could potentially open up a Pandora’s Box on all Black mayors around the country.

Maybe the best, remaining option is for New Yorkers to do what we do best, which is to run this underperforming business straight out of town. If Eric Adams were a restaurant, he’d be shut down for health code violations. If he were a Broadway show, he’d be canceled before the first weekend matinee performance. If he were a right fielder, his walk-up music would be drowned out by boos from the home crowd.

New Yorkers should make the rest of Adams’s public life absolutely impossible. He walks around like he has no shame, and the prevailing wisdom is that he cannot be shamed into resigning—but let’s put that to an old-school Gotham test. New Yorkers haven’t really put their backs into protesting Adams, not yet, not the way we can do it when we’re motivated. There’s no reason Adams should be able to give a press conference without someone bringing a giant inflatable Adams effigy portraying him as a marionette. Somebody should release the rats, or cockroaches (which has actually happened), before every one of his appearances. It is a scientific fact that tomatoes and lettuce become more aerodynamic when they’ve rotted, and any architectural expert worth listening to right now will tell you that Gracie Mansion looks a lot better when it’s covered in toilet paper. (Just don’t throw eggs, not in Trump’s economy.)

Adams is a New York City problem—and I vote for traditional, New York City methods of voicing our displeasure with the service in this establishment.