Mayor Eric Adams will endorse his one-time bitter rival, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in New York City’s mayoral race in an effort to hamper socialist front-runner Zohran Mamdani, The Post confirmed.
Hizzoner, who once condemned Cuomo as a “snake and a liar”, is expected to appear on the campaign trail with his frenemy as soon as Thursday afternoon.
The anticipated endorsement, first reported by the New York Times, comes just hours after Adams and Cuomo, who is running as an independent, paled around courtside at the New York Knicks’ season opener at Madison Square Garden – flashing a thumbs up for cameras.
Eric Adams — who once called Andrew Cuomo a “snake and a liar” — is set to endorse the former governor for NYC mayor. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Speculation had been rife that Adams, who dropped his likely doomed re-election bid last month, was warming to Cuomo given their shared anti-Mamdani stance.
Adams told the Times he would now help the former governor campaign in neighborhoods where Hizzoner is still popular.
“I think that it is imperative to really wake up the Black and brown communities that have suffered from gentrification on how important this race is,” Adams said.
“They have watched their rents increase in terms of gentrification and they have been disregarded in those neighborhoods, and I’m going to go to those neighborhoods and speak one on one with organizers and groups and I’m going to walk with the governor in those neighborhoods and get them engaged.”
The endorsement marks a dramatic reversal from when Adams, who was also running as an independent, ripped both Cuomo and Mamdani as “spoiled brats” born with silver spoons in their mouths.
“Andrew Cuomo is a snake and a liar,” Adams declared early last month, adding the ex-governor “has had a career of pushing black candidates out of races.”