April 4: Eric Adams Goes Independent
Stock market plummets; Jerome Powell speaks; China implements retaliatory tariffs
The Big Story
New York City Mayor Eric Adams months ago saw writing on the wall: The Democratic Party wants nothing to do with him. Now the mayor has decided he wants nothing to do with the party either.
Recognizing the growing backlash against his embrace of President Donald Trump, Mayor Adams decided Thursday to opt out of the Democratic primary in June and instead run for mayor in the general election this fall as an independent, according to The New York Times. Adams released a six-minute video making the announcement just after a federal judge dismissed his corruption case. “Though I am still a Democrat,” he said, “I have decided to forego this Democratic primary and appeal to all New Yorkers by running for mayor as an independent.”
Intriguingly, this dismissal of his corruption case would seem to free Adams from being under the thumb of the Trump administration, which ordered the end of his prosecution but refused to pardon him outright. The judge who dismissed Adams’ case, Dale Ho, specifically ripped the Department of Justice for arguing that the bribery and fraud charges should be dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning the case could be revived after November’s mayoral election, which Ho feared would lead to the impression that Adams was only cooperating with the administration’s deportation efforts to avoid being indicted once more after the November election. But Adams didn’t walk out of the dismissal countersignaling the administration. Instead, he seems to be doubling down on his support of the president; on Wednesday, Adams said on Andrew Schulz’s “Flagrant” podcast that he learned the deep state was real after reading FBI Director Kash Patel’s book Government Gangsters. And that was far from the only statement the mayor has made that could easily be interpreted as sympathetic to MAGA views.
On dealing with New Yorkers’ perceptions of escalating crime and insecurity on public transit, and the difficulty in dealing with those perceptions against left-leaning bureaucracies, Adams said:
I have to answer that fear. That’s why we put 1,000 more cops on the subway. We have them riding the trains back and forth. We know the omnipresence of that uniform can deal with that perception. We had a record decrease in crime, but that doesn’t mean anything if people don’t feel safe. When we tried to deal with the encampments, the city hall passed a law giving people the right to sleep on the streets. When you have governmental entities that are extreme left in their philosophies, you end up fighting tooth and nail to give New Yorkers what they want.
On the failures of criminal justice reform, a system that prioritizes the criminal over the victim, and the oft neglected issue of recidivism, he said:
We have cats that are committing crimes repeatedly. They made up their minds. You can’t have 575 people arrested for shoplifting and they get arrested over 75 times. Trying to convince lawmakers in Albany, “This is a problem.” There was a great deal of reform passed in Albany: bail reform, discovery reform, raise-the-age reform. It was good conceptually. We don’t want a heavy-handed justice system, we want people to have the opportunity to have a life after doing time. But the data is showing that these reforms, made in 2019, are having a negative impact on public safety. It’s been centered on people who commit crimes, but what about the victims? It’s not about a strike system, but we need judges to determine whether or not it’s a danger to release someone back into the streets.
And on the issue that Adams split with the Democratic Party from, the migrant crisis, the mayor said:
It was a failure that we didn’t secure our borders. Very dangerous. I went down to Ecuador to try and explain to the people down there, “The New York City streets are not paved with gold,” because these people all think they’ll get rich up here. People were upset with me about the migrants here, but what they didn't know is I couldn’t stop the buses. Federal law said I couldn’t. Federal law said I couldn’t even allow them to work, not even for the city. And on top of that, I had to give them three square meals a day due to the right to housing law that was meant for the city’s native homeless.
During that interview, Adams also discussed the 10 occasions that he visited the Biden White House to discuss the horrific reality of the migrant crisis in New York and made a startling accusation about Biden’s aides: that Biden’s inner circle was feeding the former president false information about the migrant issue.
“People go into the federal government with their own agenda,” said Adams. “There’s some people who genuinely have the philosophy that our borders should be open, no matter what.”
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Adams said that the corruption indictments made against him by the Southern District of New York perfectly came curiously soon after his first public complaints about the Biden administration’s handling of the migrant crisis. Since then, Adams has become emboldened in his defiance of his now former party, working with the Trump administration’s deportation efforts and earning praise from border czar Tom Homan on several occasions. In some ways, he’s become the country’s first MAGA democrat.
“Far as I’m concerned, I’m happy that the mayor of New York City, the largest city in the world, is actually sitting down with law enforcement to make that city safer,” said Homan after a meeting with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in Albany last month, according to Politico.
Nine Democrats seek to replace Adams as mayor, with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo leading the polls and already having secured endorsements from some of Adams’ allies. Adams has begun ferociously criticizing Cuomo, likely acknowledging their soon-to-come face-off in the general election.
In the Data for Progress polls for March 17 to 24, Adams was in fourth place in the Democratic primaries, a dismal placing for an incumbent. Cuomo leads at 39%, with far-left candidate Zohran Mamdani in second, at 15%.
If Adams is able to successfully win back his office as an independent this fall, the Democrats will only have themselves to blame for so thoroughly making an enemy out of Adams after the possibly politically motivated indictments and the relentless smearing of him in the press. On Adams’ reelection chances, the Tablet staff is mixed in their opinions.
“He’s got no shot,” says staff writer Armin Rosen. “The hit against him worked. The Democrats are very good at this stuff.”
Our senior policy analyst, however, isn’t positive that Adams is “cooked,” as the kids say, and believes that if Adams clings to his new allies in Trumpworld, he has a fighter’s chance:
I think the people counting him out are wrong, but the odds are against him in a 2:1 Democrat town. There is math, however tenuous, in which he wins. You take Trump’s third of the city as his base, running on a Republican or Independent line, and then assume that if Trump were black that number would be closer to the statewide Trump average of 45%. OK, you still lose. EXCEPT: think about the character and negatives of his likely opponent. Cuomo killed everyone’s grandparents while coercing their daughters into sex. He’s also an arrogant prick. Does he really last the full campaign and retain 55%? Especially if Mamdani or these DSA types can run an insurgent campaign and siphon off 5 to 10% of the vote. If Mamdani is the candidate then I think the race is a toss-up.
To our shock, then, there could be a silver lining to a far-left, pro-Palestine candidate doing well in the race for New York mayor.
—Adam Lehrer
The Rest
→The stock market continues to crater in the wake of “Liberation Day”: The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 1,679, or 4%, ending its worst day since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country in 2020, while the S&P 500 plummeted 4.84% and the Nasdaq nosedived nearly 6% after Trump revealed at least 10% tariffs on all imports, and much harsher rates on dozens of countries after the markets closed on Wednesday, according to the New York Post. Individual stocks are taking an even heavier beating. Five Below was down 26% and Gap 21%. Ralph Lauren, Dockers, and Dell were down 17%. Nike was down 13%, Apple a shocking 10%. And still, President Trump appears unfazed and undeterred. When asked about the market crash when boarding Air Force 1 Thursday, Trump said, “I think it is going very well.”
“The markets are going to boom ... the country is going to boom and the rest of the world wants to see if there's any way they can make a deal,” the president continued.
Despite the brutality on Wall Street, the United States added 228,000 new jobs in March, higher than expected, according to The New York Times.
→In a speech in Arlington, Virginia, today, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday he expects President Trump’s Liberation Day tariff policy will hike prices and slow economic growth, though he noted that key indicators “still show a solid economy,” according to ABC. As stocks plummeted, Powell said that the White House’s policy changes have contributed to an “uncertain outlook” and that tariffs could lead to an increase in consumer prices. He also said Trump’s tariffs are higher than the Fed expected them to be. The Fed’s job, Powell said, was to ensure a “one-time increase in prices does not become an ongoing inflation problem.”
Mere minutes before Powell’s speech, Trump went on Truth Social to criticize the Fed chair, insisting that he reduce interest rates and saying that Powell’s refusal to do so reeked of political considerations. Powell responded, “I don’t want to respond to political remarks.”
→In retaliation for Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, China’s finance ministry announced today that China is placing a 34% tariff on all U.S. imports, according to National Review. The tariffs follow Trump’s announcement of an additional 34% tariff on all Chinese imports to the United States, on top of the 20% levies Trump already imposed on Chinese goods through two 10% increments earlier in his term. Beijing also announced controls on exports of some rare earths. President Trump was undeterred in his approach and said in a Truth Social post that China had made a mistake:
→Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders proposed two resolutions to block an $8.8 billion arms sale to Israel on the Senate floor Thursday. True to his history, he failed dismally. The first resolution, concerning the sale of 2,000-pound bombs, was defeated with a vote of 82-15, while the second resolution on other weapons was rejected 83-15. “What is happening right now is unthinkable,” said Sanders in his floor statement. “Today it is 31 days and counting with absolutely no humanitarian aid getting into Gaza, nothing. No food, no water, no medicine, no fuel, for over a month.”
That said, 19 Democrats voted in support of Sanders’ resolutions, according to The Times of Israel, signaling the extent to which Democratic support of Israel has cratered since 2023.
→Pro-life activist Savannah Craven Antao was performing “man on the street” style interviews for Live Action in Harlem yesterday, asking passersby, “Do you know what Planned Parenthood does?” when one of her interview subjects savagely beat her upon being questioned, according to Live Action. Video footage posted to X shows Craven Antao and the woman discussing the issue of abortion when the woman attacks her unprovoked.
“You don’t understand the magnitude of having a child,” says the woman.
“I’m not the one who said they would be OK killing babies in foster care,” says Craven Antao.
“That’s not the point of what I was saying,” the woman replies before slugging Craven Antao twice, knocking her to the floor and leaving her bloodied. The woman who assaulted Craven Antao hasn’t been arrested yet.
→Video of the Day
Here’s none other than California Rep. and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in 1996, fiercely advocating for the exact kind of reciprocal tariffs announced by Trump on Liberation Day to balance the trade deficit with China and stop shipping out technology and jobs to them. Oh, how the times have changed.
→Austin Metcalf, a 17-year-old student with a 4.0 GPA and a star athlete, was stabbed and killed Tuesday by another 17-year-old during a track meet in Frisco, Texas, leading to intense debate about violence among teens, according to the New York Post. A fight broke out between Metcalf and his killer, Karmelo Anthony, who was sitting in Metcalf’s tent. When Metcalf told him he needed to leave, Anthony became belligerent, pulled a knife, and stabbed Metcalf directly through the heart, leaving Metcalf to bleed out and die in his brother’s arms. His brother, Hunter Metcalf, discussed the tragedy in an interview with the World Freestyle Football Association, saying that neither he nor his brother had ever met Anthony before. The twins’ father, Jeff Metcalf, is taking some criticism for immediately forgiving his son’s killer and for insisting in an interview with Fox News’ John Roberts that the attack was “not a race thing” and “not a political thing,” according to Fox News. Anthony, who is Black, was defended by his father, who told the Post that his son was a good kid and that his son did not start the fight.
→British prosecutors charged comedian and political commentator Russell Brand Friday with multiple counts of sexual assault, including two counts of rape, according to The New York Times. Jaswant Narwal, a prosecutor, said in the statement that Brand would appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London for a first hearing on May 2, adding that the charges “relate to reported non-recent offenses between 1999 and 2005, involving four women.” British authorities began investigating Brand after The Sunday Times, The Times of London, and Channel 4 published a joint investigation into his past sexual activities with various female accusers. After the announcement of the charges, Brand posted a video to X denying all the charges as well as ever having committed any nonconsensual sex act with anyone. After the investigation was published last year, Brand called it a “politically motivated hit job.”
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Well, at least pretty much everyone in the world is now getting a crash course in world economics, an area affecting their lives they’ve never seemed the least bit interested in until now. That may turn out to be a good thing.
Guys, you've gotta quit saying these are reciprocal tariffs. These are tariff levels theoretically required to eliminate the trade deficit in a toy model, which is not at all the same thing.