Mayor Eric Adams appeared on Fox News Friday morning alongside “border czar” Tom Homan as the embattled politician faces mounting pressure to resign. The two also later appeared on "Dr. Phil's Merit TV."
During the “Fox and Friends” visit, Adams appeared to further align himself with President Donald Trump’s agenda, discussing his plans to work with Homan on immigration enforcement.
“If you are committing a crime, then we should be able to collaborate with ICE,” Adams said.
Homan pledged to hold Adams accountable, saying, “If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch, I’ll be in his office.”
The comments follow a closed-door meeting Thursday between the two, where Adams said he promised to reopen a shuttered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on Rikers Island.
“We are now working on implementing an executive order that will reestablish the ability for ICE agents to operate on Rikers Island — as was the case for 20 years,” Adams said in statement following the meeting.
The mayor said he and Homan also discussed “ways to embed more NYPD detectives into federal task forces,” with a focus on removing what he described as “violent migrant gangs” from the city.
Adams’ visit to Fox News came a day after Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, and five other high-ranking Justice Department officials resigned, with Sassoon saying she had refused an order to drop the federal corruption case Adams is facing.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove on Monday directed Sassoon to drop all federal charges against Adams, including bribery, conspiracy and wire fraud.
Sassoon, a Republican, accused the Justice Department of engaging in “quid pro quo” actions on Thursday, saying she was “confident” the mayor committed the crimes he has been charged with.
“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,” Sassoon wrote in a letter to Trump's new attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Adams issued a statement Friday afternoon denying the allegations of "quid pro quo."
"I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. Never. I am solely beholden to the 8.3 million New Yorkers that I represent and I will always put this city first,” Adams said in the statement in part.
Adams’ attorney on Thursday described the "quid pro quo" allegation as a “total lie.”
A number of New York lawmakers called for Adams’ removal after Sassoon resigned, including Bronx and Queens Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, State Senate Deputy Majority leader Mike Gianaris and Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.
“Mayor Adams is putting the City of New York and its people at risk in exchange for escaping charges,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X, echoing Sassoon’s accusations. “As long as Trump wields this leverage over Adams, the city is endangered. We cannot be governed under coercion.”
“New York City deserves a mayor accountable to the people, not beholden to the president. Mayor Adams should step down,” added Delgado on X.
"Eric Adams is clearly compromised and can no longer be considered the legitimate leader of our city. He must step down or be removed," Gianaris posted on X.
Mamdani, who is running for mayor against Adams, said Gov. Kathy Hochul should then use her power to force Adams out.
Hochul weighed in Thursday evening during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, calling the accusations of “quid pro quo” “extremely serious and concerning.”
However, she said she was consulting with other government leaders and did not want to have a “knee-jerk” reaction and remove Adams at this time.