New York City mayor Eric Adams accused his fellow Democrats on the city council of following a "far-left agenda" on criminal justice, indicating in-party tension as the Big Apple faces a wave of hate crimes.
"This assault on public safety is just wrong," Adams told radio host John Catsimatidis on Wednesday. "You have people who have a far-left agenda, who don't believe in supporting police, and they're writing this legislation and just handing it off to the council people."
The council, which has a Democratic supermajority, earlier that day passed two bills that ban solitary confinement and require police officers to list the race and gender of every person they encounter during an investigation. Both bills passed with enough votes to override Adams's veto, the New York Post reported.
Hate crimes in New York City, a vast majority of which are anti-Semitic, last month rose by 33 percent compared with the same period last year, CBS reported. That rise mirrors a national trend, with the Anti-Defamation League reporting in October that anti-Semitic incidents rose by 400 percent following Hamas's terrorist attack on Israel. While overall crime in the city has slightly decreased compared with last year, transit crimes, felony assaults, and car thefts have all jumped up.
The left-wingers who support the light-on-crime bills are a "numerical minority" in the city, Adams told Catsimatidis.
"The overwhelming number of people in this city—they support their police," the mayor said. "They want their police to do public safety, and not filling out paperwork. And that's the same with the Department of Correction."
City council members are not the only Democrats with whom Adams is feuding. The mayor has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for its handling of a record-shattering influx of illegal immigrants, most of whom have gone to New York. The crisis, which Adams said would "destroy New York City," worsened after the administration in May allowed border security measure Title 42 to lapse.
"We already hit the bursting point," Adams told Catsimatidis. "The flow has overflowed us."
As many as 4,000 migrants are arriving in New York each week, the mayor said.
Adams's problems don't end there. The mayor is also facing plummeting poll numbers and an FBI probe over his ties to the Turkish government.