NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he has not been in contact with former President Donald Trump. But the embattled Democrat has access to a rich network of common friends and allies who do have entrée in the former president’s orbit.
Adams and the Republican have long inhabited overlapping worlds in New York City’s political scene. Adams has dined, formed alliances with and even hired local gadflies, entertainers and business interests who are close to Trump, including a radio host who spoke at his recent Madison Square Garden rally.
Those connections — and the mayor’s growing alignment with Trump over their shared troubles with the Department of Justice — have been enough to unnerve Adams’ fellow Democrats, who worry the mayor may be laying the groundwork for a presidential pardon should he be convicted of federal corruption charges.
“You probably should have just remained a Republican if you wanted to be a MAGA for Trump,” New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a fellow Democrat, said of Adams, referring to the several years the mayor spent as a card-carrying member of the GOP.
Adams returned to the Democratic Party in 2002 — billing his foray across the aisle as a protest against party leadership — but has maintained an affinity for figures in the city’s Republican firmament.
Conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg, for example, was among the speakers at last weekend’s Trump rally in Madison Square Garden. The media personality has long boasted of his relationship with the mayor — the two have supped together on multiple occasions, sometimes with Rosenberg’s wife — and Adams was once a fixture on Rosenberg’s morning talk show.
“We all agree that it’s in the mayor’s best interest to buddy up to Donald Trump if, in fact, this thing gets worse,” Rosenberg said, referring to both the bribery charges against Adams and a president’s ability to issue a pardon or swap out a federal prosecutor. “And people do think that it’s gonna get worse for the mayor.”
The emcee had a falling out with Adams over the city’s response to pro-Palestinian demonstrators on university campuses this spring, which Rosenberg thought was not aggressive enough, he told POLITICO in an interview. He now believes Adams has failed more generally as a mayor. But if there were ever an occasion to serve as a conduit between the two native New Yorkers, Rosenberg would still be game.
“Would I sit down with Trump and Adams? Of course I would,” he said. “In a heartbeat.”
Indeed, New York Democrats have seen the mayor’s reluctance to ding Trump as a bid for clemency should Trump win the presidential election next week — a charge those in the mayor’s inner circle dispute. A City Hall spokesperson told POLITICO Tuesday the mayor could not recall when, if ever, he had spoken to Trump aside from pleasantries exchanged at a recent political dinner.
It was at that dinner that Trump — who issued a barrage of pardons late in his presidency that often bucked the formal process — expressed sympathy for Adams over the five-count criminal indictment brought by federal prosecutors against the sitting mayor.
“I just want to be nice because I know what it’s like to be persecuted by the DOJ for speaking out against open borders,” Trump said. “We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so were you.”
Should the two men ever want to communicate more directly, they would have a network of ready-made connections they could tap into.
Attorney Arthur Aidala, while a registered Democrat, has represented Rudy Giuliani in cases associated with the former mayor’s work to overturn the 2020 election on behalf of Trump. Aidala is also close with Adams and people in his inner circle.
The litigator began representing the mayor’s chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, after her phones were seized in early October by officials from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is reportedly looking into potential corruption in City Hall.
Shortly after Lewis-Martin’s house was raided, Aidala even had her as a guest on his talk show, later telling POLITICO that Lewis-Martin’s on-air admission that officials may have committed minor crimes made for good radio.
“I know a lot of people very close to President Trump,” Aidala said in an interview with POLITICO. “If I could help in any way, shape or form [to] be an ambassador to New York for the White House. … Of course, I would do that in a second to better the city.”
Former NYPD detective Bo Dietl, who hosts a right-leaning podcast, has known Trump for decades. And though the two haven’t always been on good terms, the explicative-prone media personality recently offered his full-throated endorsement of the former president.
Dietl has more consistently supported Adams over the decades — and in some cases that generosity has been reciprocated. After throwing a fundraiser for the mayor in 2021, the author and actor has urged Adams to more forcefully crack down on crime.
“I have a direct message for my friend of 30 years, Mayor Eric Adams,” Dietl said this week, teasing an episode of his show, One Tough Podcast. “You were elected on public safety and crime prevention. Get your balls together and start doing your job.”
Dietl declined to comment for this story, saying there was a better chance of him traveling to the moon than speaking with POLITICO.
Along with Dietl, Adams broke bread with Republican billionaire John Catsimatidis at an exclusive uptown Italian eatery just days after clinching the Democratic nomination for mayor. Catsimatidis’ daughter chairs the Manhattan Republican Party, and the real estate investor recently interviewed Trump, whom he has known for decades, on his radio show.
Catsimatidis said in an interview with POLITICO that the mayor and former president have a shared view that they’re being targeted by the U.S. Department of Justice, something Trump himself has said overtly and Adams has strongly alluded to at multiple events.
“[Trump] knows the situation. He feels he is under attack by the same people that possibly are attacking the mayor,” Catsimatidis said. “They feel like somebody is pulling the strings in Washington.”
More generally, the grocery-store magnate, who is known to give to both Democrats and Republicans alike, said Adams has more GOP allies than the typical New York elected official because of a shared opposition to policies pursued by the Democratic Party’s left wing. The mayor’s pushback against changes to state bail laws, for example, endeared him not only to Republicans and some moderate Democrats, but has helped foster a cozy relationship with the New York Post, the conservative tabloid that, despite its ups and downs with the former president, is a bastion of Trumpism in the liberal city.
A close Adams confidante, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the mayor’s thinking, said the moderate Democrat has actually tried to help the Democratic Party by pointing out weaknesses in their pitch to working-class voters.
Not only did the mayor cite bail reform as an Achilles heel, he also called out the Biden administration on immigration, urging them to adopt a more coherent border policy. Now, the person argued, the mayor’s refusal to label Trump as a fascist dovetails with polling that shows swing-state voters care more about bread-and-butter issues like the economy over arguments about Democracy.
While Adams has many Democratic friends in state and local government, Trump allies like Rev. Rubén Díaz Sr. — a conservative, cowboy-hat wearing former City Council member whose crass speaking style made him a pariah in the Democrat-led body — are among the political players willing to show public support for Adams after his indictment.
Díaz took credit for bringing Trump to the Bronx for a rally in May, and Adams attended his Hispanic clergy organization’s gala earlier this month. On Thursday, Díaz organized dozens of Latino ministers to pray for Adams outside City Hall ahead of a court date.
“The mayor is being accused of many things, and people, the press especially, is trying to stop him from doing his work,” Díaz said in an interview.
Connections to Trump even permeate the mayor’s 2025 reelection campaign.
Vincent Pitta, partner at a Brooklyn-based law and consulting firm, is a longtime friend of Trump’s, and the two still talk. Pitta’s son, Vito, is the compliance attorney for Adams’ campaign. And several prominent donors to Adams over the years have also spread their largesse to Trump and national Republicans.
Members of the Cayre family were among donors who have given to both the mayor’s campaign and a legal defense trust he established to pay for his mounting legal bills. They also held a thank you party for donors to the campaign in March 2022 at Casa Cipriani, the swanky Manhattan restaurant brand they own that is favored by the mayor and his top aides, according to someone who attended the breakfast.
The Cayres, who own Midtown Equities, have contributed far more to Trump and national Republicans — along with the occasional Democrat — dropping $800,000 on a variety of candidates and PACs in this election cycle alone, records from the Federal Election Commission show.
In a brief phone call, Michael Cayre — who appeared on the public schedule of Lewis-Martin, the mayor’s top aide, for an August 2022 dinner — instructed POLITICO to send questions via an email. Those queries were not answered.
Republican City Council Member Inna Vernikov said she would also act as a liaison between the Adams and Trump camps should the occasion arise. Vernikov is part of a group of GOP and centrist legislators who are the mayor’s strongest allies in the council — owing in part to their shared hatred of progressive Democrats.
“Supporters of a Trump presidency are feeling a reluctant kinship with Mayor Adams as he fields similar attacks from the left that Trump has dealt with for years,” she said in a statement. “Mayor Adams doesn’t seem afraid to call out the left on their blatant and desperate lies even at his own political peril.”
A Trump spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether the former president is considering a pardon for Adams.
Council Member Joe Borelli, who leads the body’s Republican minority caucus and, like Vernikov, is among the mayor’s most reliable allies in the body, dismissed the idea there is any communication between the two camps.
“I am certain the [Trump] campaign is focused solely on winning the race in the final week, and that this idea is little more than media fan fiction,” he said in a statement.
