NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams sat for a friendly interview with far-right provocateur Tucker Carlson on Tuesday — declining to challenge almost any criticism Carlson leveled about immigration, congestion pricing and the odor of New York City.
Over the course of the 46-minute interview that aired online Tuesday, Carlson repeatedly challenged Democratic dogma — at one point saying he’s against “all immigration right now” — as the Democratic mayor at turns laughed, emphatically agreed or stayed quiet as Carlson dominated much of the talk.
Participating in an amiable tête-à-tête with Carlson would be unheard of for most Democrats. But Carlson has an audience with President Donald Trump, who has expressed an openness to pardon the federally indicted Adams.
Indeed, Carlson immediately admonished prosecutors’ bribery case against the mayor as retribution for Adams’ criticism of former President Joe Biden’s handling of the southern border. He provided Adams the floor to defend himself, and the mayor took that opportunity, in his strongest terms yet, to cast the five-count bribery case against him as a political witch hunt.
Adams also said he’s been demonized for pushing back on the political left.
“People often say: You don’t sound like a Democrat and you seem to have left the party,” Adams said. “No, the party left me.”
Adams is up for reelection in June and is running as a Democrat. His primary rivals have slammed his growing relationship with Trump and his MAGA faithful: The mayor dined with Trump in Florida last week, attended his inauguration Monday and refused to question any of his early executive orders on Tuesday.
During the interview at the official mayoral residence of Gracie Mansion, Adams gave new insight into his antagonistic relationship with the Biden White House, which he blamed for failing to control the flood of migrants into New York City.
“One of his aides told me: Listen, this is like a gallstone,” Adams said. “It’ll pass.”
And after commiserating on Biden and the mayor’s case, Carlson steered the conversation toward other GOP topics du jour.
“I’m kind of against all immigration right now. We have too much of it,” Carlson said, riffing that immigrants are more likely to march with “their junk out” at parades the longer they stay in the United States in response to the “affluent liberal culture.”
Carlson also said that “in every country with mass immigration, the native population stops working when you flood the country with foreigners. … That’s not obvious to everybody, but it is true, and it’s particularly true for African Americans. And I just think it’s weird that nobody seems to notice or care.”
“I definitely care,” Adams replied. “I care about the employment.”
The two also discussed homeless encampments — which Carlson suggested Adams break up with armed police officers, a notion the mayor agreed with — and people with mental illness sleeping on the subways. Both slammed proposed solutions from left-leaning Democrats as unreasonable.
“Why don’t you put the junkies in their houses?” Carlson asked. “Miss Legal Aid lawyer … how many junkies do you have living in your house? Zero. But you expect taxpayers in Queens to pay for shelter for junkies.”
“That’s the disconnect,” Adams responded. “You know, the loudest don’t represent the majority.”
Carlson’s team requested the interview with Adams, the mayor’s spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus said.
What resulted was a platform for Adams to plead his case. He defended himself from bribery and straw donor charges in answers that seemed tailored for Trump in their trashing of Biden’s Department of Justice.
“When I read (the indictment) I was like, ‘Where are the bags of cash? Where is the secret stash somewhere?’” Adams added.
Carlson asked Adams if he talked to anyone in Biden’s White House and said “hey, you indicted me for complaining, what’s this?”
“They wouldn’t allow the president to communicate with me,” Adams responded. “For whatever reason, there was little or no communication.”
Carlson asked if he ever pushed back and said “you can’t treat me like a servant.”
“We deserve more,” Adams responded. “I’ve said this over and over again. The city deserves more.”
In a few instances, Adams gently pushed back on the former Fox News host. Following Carlson’s negative depiction of the “bicycle lobby from the West Side” that pushed congestion pricing, Adams said he “had nothing to do with” the policy before defending it.
He didn’t extend any defense to his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, who came to his defense last year over the indictment.
Adams didn’t criticize de Blasio but laughed as Carlson lampooned the former mayor.
“There was some question about what happened to de Blasio,” Carlson said. “We were mentioning the mentally ill on the subways … is he one of them?”
The interview was conducted two weeks ago and aired on the Tucker Carlson Network, a streaming platform the entertainer launched after his abrupt departure from Fox in 2023 following the company settling a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems.
Adams’ office omitted the interview from the mayor’s daily public schedule. Mamelak Altus said she usually excludes interviews that run only on social media, though the press office has included other social media appearances in the past.
“Mayor Adams does not believe we should be living in silos and speaking into echo chambers,” Mamelak Altus said in a statement ahead of the interview airing. “At a time where our country is so divided, the mayor believes we must break out of our comfort zones and speak with everyone — even those we may not always agree with.“
Warming to Carlson shows just how much Adams has changed his attitude toward the far right since getting elected mayor.
Carlson offered measured praise to Adams during the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary as “the sanest guy running” for his focus on crime and criticism of “smug, fussy liberals.”
Adams’ campaign fired back on X: “I don’t want or need the support of Tucker Carlson, or anyone else who perpetuates racist, anti-immigrant propaganda.”