New York Billionaires Have Found Their Savior: Eric Adams

New York City’s plutocrats are coalescing around defamed Mayor Eric Adams in a frantic, last-ditch effort to stop recently victorious Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani from taking office.

Semafor has reported that the city’s wealthiest citizens are throwing their money and support behind Adams after Mamdani thoroughly trounced their first vessel of centrist neoliberalism, former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Kathy Wylde, CEO of Partnership for New York City, noted that all of these rich guys are unsurprisingly “struggling to understand the implications of Mamdani’s victory,” because he accurately touched on “the financial insecurity young people feel and their anger that the established political class has done nothing to fix it. It’s not an endorsement of socialism but rather a rejection of the status quo, which threatens to bring on the kind of political instability that business hates.”

Now these businessmen are casting Adams as their last hope. Last month his popularity was at 20 percent, an all-time low.

“There is going to be overwhelming support in the business community to rally around Adams,” said Richard Farley, a partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP who said he’s organizing a fundraiser for the mayor and has been speaking with some of Cuomo’s biggest donors. “This will be a street fight all the way to November.”

Trump-supporting billionaire Bill Ackman (who wasted $500,000 on Cuomo’s campaign) also joined in on the Mamdani derangement syndrome, ominously positing that he found someone to challenge in the general election.

“I have a great idea on NYC. I will share it as soon as I can. I was a bit depressed when I woke up this morning, but I am now optimistic. We are looking into legal issues,” Ackman wrote on X the morning after Mamdani’s victory. “Legal issues concerning the potential for another candidate to run now. Not me.” The New York Post reports that Ackman will line up behind Adams, but the billionaire says it’s fake news and he’s still undecided.

While predictable, it’s troubling that the ultrarich, from Bloomberg aides to Bill Ackman, are more opposed to a young, charismatic candidate who identifies as a democratic socialist than they are to two candidates who are embroiled in shameful scandals, with Cuomo having countless sexual assault allegations and ethics violations, and Adams being federally indicted on charges of bribery, wire fraud, and soliciting political donations from a number of foreign nationals connected to the Turkish government. Expect more libel and Islamophobia all the way to November.

Trump has fired off his first two social media posts about Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. Until Wednesday afternoon, the president had been mum on Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary handily Tuesday evening against front-runner and former Mayor Andrew Cuomo.

On the campaign trail, the 33-year-old progressive proudly styled himself as “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare, as a progressive, Muslim immigrant who actually fights for the things that I believe in.” During his victory speech, Mamdani vowed, if elected, to use his power to “reject Donald Trump’s fascism, to stop ICE agents from deporting our neighbors, and to govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party.”

Though the president has in the past been known to concoct catchy epithets and lines of attack against his opponents, Trump’s reaction to Mamdani fell flat—amounting to stale red-baiting and an absurd attempt to argue that Mamdani is not the sharp, telegenic candidate that even many of his ideological foes have recognized him to be.

“It’s finally happened,” Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday afternoon, “the Democrats have crossed the line.”

Calling the democratic socialist candidate “a 100% Communist Lunatic,” Trump wrote, “We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous,” before fixating on Mamdani’s style, writing, quite unconvincingly, “He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart.” (One odd part about this line of attack is that Mamdani, like Trump, is rarely pictured not wearing a suit.)

Trump also tried to lump Mamdani in with some of MAGA’s bêtes noires—noting that he is endorsed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive lawmakers. Trump added that Senator Chuck Schumer is “groveling over him.” (On Wednesday, Schumer congratulated but stopped short of officially endorsing Mamdani.)

Moments later, Trump shared a follow-up post, in which he daydreamed about a future Democratic presidential ticket headed by progressive Representatives Jasmine Crockett and Ocasio-Cortez. And Mamdani was there too—“Added together with our future Communist Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, and our Country is really SCREWED!” Trump wrote.

Prior to Trump’s social media posts, the most notable reaction to Mamdani’s victory from the White House had been that of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who accounted for Mamdami’s victory and vast popularity by invoking the white nationalist “great replacement theory.”

If you don’t support MAGA “values,” you might not be allowed to stay in this country.

The official social media account for the office of Citizenship and Immigration Services threatened visa and green card holders Wednesday, declaring that permanent residence in the U.S. is a “privilege” dependent on an applicant’s alignment with Trumpian politics.

“Coming to America and receiving a visa or green card is a privilege. Our laws and values must be respected,” the agency wrote. “If you advocate for violence, endorse or support terrorist activity, or encourage others to do so, you are no longer eligible to stay in the U.S.”

It was not clear from the statement if that meant every possible legal infraction—from parking tickets to loitering or seatbelt violations—could lead to deportation. Further still, it was even less clear what “values” the agency was referring to, or how an immigrant might be able to work within those in order to stay in the country.

Politico’s senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein noted that the administration’s new, principle-based directive is not required by law.

“For one thing, we’d have to define them, which I don’t think we’ve done,” Gerstein wrote on X. “Australia does require it and they’ve laid them out.”

But the Trump administration has so far attempted to boot noncitizens out of the country for unconstitutional reasons, likening their First Amendment–protected political dissent rights to a vague national security risk, or forcing out tattooed immigrants without due process under the Alien Enemies Act by claiming that they were gang members.

In April, a U.S. circuit judge stated that the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to force immigrants out of the country had treated asylum-seekers worse than prior presidents treated actual German Nazis during World War II.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams experienced some awkward technical difficulties on Wednesday while phoning in to NewsMax from his car to offer criticism of Democratic Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. 

“Yes, can you hear me now? Hello? I can hear you fine, can you hear me?” Adams said, in response to a question from the anchor about how “terrifying” Mamdani is. 

After almost 30 seconds he figured it out. 

“And you’re correct, when you think about [Mamdani’s] comments about our law enforcement officers who … they put their lives on the line all the time, and every day. His comments toward them were extremely offensive.” 

This was the second stop of Adams’s anti-Mamdani fearmongering campaign. The embattled mayor also made a chummy appearance on Fox & Friends that morning. 

“He’s a snake oil salesman. He will say and do anything to get elected,” said Adams. “Think about this one moment. He wants to raise tax on the 1 percent of New Yorkers, higher-income earners. As the mayor, you don’t have the authority to do that. You know who has the authority to do that? An assemblyman, which he is. He wants to do free buses, he could’ve done it at assemblyman. He doesn’t understand the power of government and how you must make sure you improve your economy, raise the standard of living, and this is what we’ve done in the city.… I’m never going to quit for the city that I love.”  

The current mayor has absolutely no ground to stand on here. He became embroiled in scandal after he was federally indicted on charges of bribery, wire fraud, and soliciting political donations from a number of foreign nationals connected to the Turkish government. The only reason he isn’t still being investigated, on trial, or even in prison is because he bent over backward to make himself useful to President Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Adams is running a campaign that no one in New York City wants. All he can do is talk about how scary Mamdani is because his own platform is devoid of legitimacy. 

Adams and Mamdami, among others, will face off in the general election on November 4. 

Donald Trump is now targeting journalists by name as he spirals about the leaked Pentagon report undermining his claims about the U.S. military strikes in Iran.

Trump called out CNN’s national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand in a post on Truth Social Wednesday, after she reported on an “early assessment” that found that the American military strike on three Iranian nuclear facilities had only set the country’s capabilities back by months—not years.

“Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out ‘like a dog,’” Trump railed.

In his post, the president claimed Bertrand had “lied” in her reporting about Iran because she had also lied in her reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

In 2020, Bertrand had reported on a letter signed by more than 50 former senior intelligence officials who said that the allegedly leaked emails from Biden’s computer had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Since it was first reported on, the laptop has proved to be authentic, but many of Republicans’ allegations that it tied the Bidens to corrupt foreign business dealings have not been proven. But Bertrand wasn’t lying. She accurately and dispassionately reported on an official document—it just happened to say something with which Trump disagreed.

Now Trump claimed that Betrand was “attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad when, in fact, they did a GREAT job and hit ‘pay dirt’—TOTAL OBLITERATION!

“She should not be allowed to work at Fake News CNN. It’s people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great Network. Her slant was so obviously negative, besides, she doesn’t have what it takes to be an on camera correspondent, not even close. FIRE NATASHA!” Trump wrote.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also took a swipe at Bertrand in a post on X. “This CNN story was written by the same ‘reporter’ who wrote the very first FAKE NEWS story claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation,” wrote the preternaturally antagonistic Leavitt.

CNN released a statement Wednesday defending Bertrand and her reporting. “We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand’s journalism and specifically her and her colleagues’ reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the statement said. “CNN’s reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence. We have extensively covered President Trump’s own deep skepticism about it.”

The president, who was quick to claim that the mission was a complete success, had been fuming about the report all day at a NATO summit, claiming that the intelligence had been “very inconclusive.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed the report as “low assessment,” meaning there was low confidence in the data. Hegseth, who oversaw the agency where the leak originated, was also quick to blame the media who reported on it.