New York Mayor Eric Adams Says Donald Trump Isn’t A Fascist

As concerns over Trump's fitness to be president mount, the beleaguered mayor stayed non-committal.

Embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said ahead of former President Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden that he doesn’t believe Trump is a fascist.

According to Politico, on Oct. 26, Adams told reporters gathered at a press conference at the New York Police Department headquarters that he believes comparisons to Nazi leader Adolph Hitler are overblown. When asked if he believes, as does Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly, that the former president is a fascist, Adams replied, “My answer is no, I know what Hitler has done, and I know what a fascist regime looks like.”

According to The New York Times, Kelly saying that Trump meets the definition of a fascist is a troubling development in the history of American politics.

“But in the nine years that he has been running for or serving as president, Mr. Trump has regularly evoked the language, history, and motifs of fascism without hesitation or evident concern about how it would make him look,” political reporter Peter Baker wrote.

The Times added that “no American commander in chief over the past couple of centuries has so aggressively sought to discredit the institutions of democracy at home while so openly embracing and envying dictators abroad.” Additionally, no president “has been publicly accused of fascism by his own handpicked top adviser who spent day after day with him in the Oval Office.”

According to Politico, some of Adams’ reticence to criticize Trump is because Adams is courting his support amid floundering support stemming from a federal investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption.

A New York Times/Siena poll currently shows Adams polling behind both former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York Attorney General Leticia James among likely Democratic voters.

In addition, Adams is more popular with Republican voters, who are more likely to say that he has done nothing wrong. Democratic voters including Black and Latinx voters, once a strong bloc for Adams, have soured on the mayor since his 2021 victory.

The only presumed candidate in the race for mayor to comment on the poll was Jessica Ramos.

“New Yorkers lost faith in Eric Adams before the Southern District confirmed his corruption,” she told Politico. “It’s telling that he declined to show up to the first forum in the Bronx to defend his record and share his vision. He has the polling to show that working New Yorkers who depended on him have had enough.”