Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, one of the state's most powerful Democrats, joined dozens of lawmakers Saturday calling for New York City Mayor Eric Adams to resign as he battles corruption charges and allegations of close ties to President Donald Trump.

Stewart-Cousins, as first reported by The New York Post, said the charges against the mayor have become a distraction for city and state officials to govern properly.

“The fact that we are talking about Mayor Adams in lieu of what the city needs right now, since we’re in the budget process, indicates that we really are spending more time on the mayor and his plight, and again, I think, you know, he’s distracted,” Stewart-Cousins said in an audio recording provided to Spectrum News by her spokesperson.

“I think he has to take care of whatever this situation is, and, you know, it’s probably time that he moves on,” she added. “I think I want to say that we are trying to really take care of the state, the residents of the state, and the city, and every moment we spend talking about the mayor is a moment that we’re not concentrating on the things that we’re supposed to.”

Responding to request for comment on Stewart-Cousins’ remarks, Adams’ deputy mayor for communications, Fabien Levy, said the mayor “has been clear, he’s not stepping down, he’s stepping up.”

“As he said yesterday, we must put this difficult episode behind us so that trust can be restored, New York can move forward, and we can continue delivering for the people of our city,” Levy said.

Stewart-Cousins’ comments came days after at least seven prosecutors resigned rather than carry out a directive from the Justice Department to dismiss corruption charges against Adams. 

Danielle Sassoon, the former top Manhattan federal prosecutor who started the wave of resignations, said she was “confident” Adams had committed the crimes he was charged with. She also said she believed the Justice Department had engaged in “quid pro quo” actions to ensure Adams would help the Trump administration with immigration enforcement. 

Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan who worked for Sassoon, wrote in a resignation letter that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove’s demand to drop the charges.

The Justice Department formally asked a court to dismiss the charges against Adams on Friday. Bove, the DOJ's second-in-command, argued Adams was needed to assist with President Trump’s immigration crackdown. 

Following Sassoon’s resignation, a number of New York lawmakers called for Adams’ removal, including Bronx and Queens Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris and Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said he's concerned the situation could hold the city hostage, but stopped short of calling for Adams to step down.

"It's never really been in my history to suggest that people should resign," he told reporters in the Capitol on Saturday. "I think the bigger issue is whether or not we have a just Justice Department. The Justice Department should be apolitical and it shouldn't be transactional, and I think that's a larger concern that I have. I'm worried about where we are as a country if you start to lose faith in the Justice Department."

Heastie said he has not been involved in meetings or phone calls pushing Gov. Hochul to remove the mayor from office. He last spoke with Adams on Feb. 4, or Tin Cup Day, when the mayor met with lawmakers in Albany about the upcoming budget.

If Adams doesn’t decide to resign, Gov. Kathy Hochul has the power to remove him from office.

During an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Thursday, Hochul called the accusations of “quid pro quo” “extremely serious and concerning,” but said she did not want to have a “knee-jerk” reaction in removing Adams at this time.