At his usual weekly schedule press conferencemayor of New York City Eric Adamswho is currently the subject of a federal indictment on corruption charges, refused to answer a question about when he had recently spoken to Donald Trumpor to other members of the former president’s team. This was striking following Trump’s warm words about the city’s mayor during Trump’s incendiary campaign. Rally at Madison Square Garden this last Sunday.

“Give me one more question, please,” Adams told WABC-TV reporter NJ Burkett. “You have lost your opportunity.”

Burkett’s first question was an attempt to return to comments Adams had made a week earlier, when Burkett suggested that Adams had “basically defended Trump when it came to whether he was a fascist or not.” .

Adams appeared to avoid the question of passing judgment on Trump after the immediately notorious Madison Square Garden rally, at which a featured speaker described Puerto Rico — a U.S. territory and ancestral home to more than a million New Yorkers — as “a floating island of garbage,” while Trump falsely claimed the Biden administration and FEMA “didn’t even respond in North Carolina” following Hurricane Helene.

“They spent their money bringing in illegal immigrants, so they didn’t have money for Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and South Carolina,” Trump said to the MSG audience. “They spent all their money bringing in illegal immigrants and transporting them on fancy jet planes. … They would transport them to the middle of our country, our very beautiful country.”

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also spoke at the rally, suggesting that most or all Palestinians were terrorists who are “taught to kill us at the age of two.” take a risk with people who are taught to kill Americans at age two. I am on the side of Israel. Donald Trump is on Israel’s side. And they (the Democrats) are on Israel’s side. terrorists.”

Trump also offered unexpected words of support for Adams, who suggested he had been ‘targeted’ by federal prosecutors for his criticism of the Biden administration over its ‘broken immigration policies’ .

“You know, I want to thank Mayor Adams because Mayor Adams has been treated pretty badly,” Trump told the MSG MAGA crowd. “You know, when he said this whole thing with migrants coming to New York, it’s just not sustainable. You know, we can’t do it. We’re trying to run a city. We have 100,000 migrants arriving. We simply cannot do it.

Adams was “really great,” Trump continued. “He said they shouldn’t call Trump a dictator because that’s not true. … It was good. I want to thank Mayor Adams for going through a tough time with these people,” an apparent reference to federal prosecutors. “By the way, they’re crazy. They used the Department of Justice as a weapon against their political opponents. I’m under investigation more than the late, great Alphonse Capone.”

This perhaps explains why Adams posted a tweet after the rally that seemed to deplore the rhetoric without naming names: “The hateful words that were used by some at today’s rally at Madison Square Garden were completely unacceptable. No matter who says it, hate is hate and it has no place in our city. As Americans, we must always stand up against racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny. »

But facing the Blue Room at City Hall, Adams took a page from Trump’s deflection playbook in his response to Burkett’s question, attacking the media for having the wrong priorities by asking him to clarify his relationship with the The indicted former president who could soon be elected for a second term.

“Let me tell you what I find insulting,” Adams said. “I find it insulting when children die on top of a train because of what they imitate on social networks. Housing crisis in the city, affordable prices, thousands of elderly people do not know if they will be able to live in city ​​I talk to my mayors across the country and they talk about the real problems that we’re having and with everything that’s happening to everyday New Yorkers, we’re wondering if anyone is a fascist or if anyone is. Hitler. That’s insulting to me…I’m not going to engage in that.

“Everyone must reject this rhetoric, because after Election Day we must still be the United States and not the divided states,” Adams continued, in a now-familiar preacher or speaker mode. lectured the journalists. “And so, if people can’t understand the real issues that New Yorkers are facing, and I just find it humiliating that…we’re having this conversation here about this stupid topic.”

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On the steps of City Hall, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who would succeed Adams if the mayor were forced to resign, told WBAI radio that New Yorkers “need to know” whether Adams was in office. contact with Trump. “The mayor’s comments were disgraceful,” Williams said. “They were disgusting from a so-called Democratic mayor who had more criticism of Biden and Harris than Trump and Vance. Makes me think maybe he wanted to stay in the Party Republican He should have done it and just been a MAGA supporter.