Mayor Eric Adams is ready to apologize for past hires as he vows to rebuild trust with New Yorkers

In his campaign for re-election, Mayor Eric Adams says he’s running on his record … against a guy who has no record.He’s referring, of course, to Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old socialist nepo baby who won this week’s Democratic primary.The State Assemblyman has barely held a job and has been absent for about 50% of Assembly votes.But it can’t be denied that Adams must defend his record.In September 2024, he earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first sitting New York City mayor hit with a federal indictment — accused of bribery and conspiracy.

The case was dropped in April on orders from President Trump’s Department of Justice.And from late 2023 through last year, Adams’ administration was rocked by a near-constant exodus of his closest confidants from City Hall, with many leaving under a cloud of scandal.But the former cop, who won office in 2021 on a law and order platform, has survived.And with Mamdani’s defeat of Andrew Cuomo in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, his campaign has taken on new importance.“I’m perfectly imperfect,” Adams told me, as he sat down for an hour chat ahead of the official launch of his re-election campaign.“Yes, there are those that I should not have brought on board,” he said of staffing woes.

“There are those who were not fit for the assignments they were in.And there were those that should not be in government.”But he’s steadied the ship in many ways: appointing the uber-competent Jessica Tisch as his police commissioner, and standing up to the Biden administration for its handling of the border — a disaster that allowed migrants to flood our city and stress our resources.Adams was elected to a city atrophied by a pandemic exodus, with disorder on the streets and trains and an overemphasis on identity politics pushed by his predecessor Bill de Blasio.But after four years, there are signs that sanity and vitality are returning to the Big Apple.That growth is precarious, and Adams knows it....