NYC Mayor Adams, with pardon talk swirling, meets with Trump near Mar-a-Lago

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Mayor Eric Adams of New York City met with President-elect Donald Trump near his Mar-a-Lago compound Friday afternoon in an unusual display of political, and perhaps personal, outreach.

The men had lunch in the main dining room at the Trump International Golf Course, in a group that included Trump’s son Eric; Steve Witkoff, the billionaire New York real estate executive whom Trump has named as his special envoy to the Middle East; and Frank Carone, a close adviser to the mayor.

The meeting lasted an hour, according to a person who witnessed the gathering, and the men dined from a buffet-style setup near where Sylvester Stallone, whom Trump just named as one of his three “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, was having lunch.

The surprise trip to Florida by Adams, a Democrat who is confronting an uphill battle for re-election this year, comes as the mayor faces an April trial on federal corruption charges.

Trump, a Republican, said last month that he would consider granting Adams a pardon, arguing that both men had been “persecuted” by politically motivated prosecutors.

Adams said in a statement Friday evening that he and Trump had had a “productive conversation” about the city’s needs while touching on a variety of other topics. Those, he said, had included the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, bringing manufacturing jobs to the Bronx and federal infrastructure investments.

The mayor said the men had not discussed his legal case.

“Those who suggest the mayor of the largest city in the nation shouldn’t meet with the incoming president to discuss our city’s priorities because of inaccurate speculation or because we’re from different parties clearly care more about politics than people,” he said.

Adams thanked Trump for his time and said he would “look forward to working with him to benefit all New Yorkers.”

The meeting on Friday was closed to journalists, and the mayor’s office said Adams would not have time for an interview afterward.

Trump left the golf club at 2:34 p.m. in a long line of black SUVs. Adams was spotted roughly an hour later at the Palm Beach International Airport, headed back for New York.

The mayor told a reporter the meeting had gone well and that he would tell New Yorkers more about their meeting when he returned home. He declined to provide specifics about their conversation, offering only a thumbs-up gesture.

Adams, wearing a blue suit and a baseball cap that said NYC, did confirm one detail about the gathering: He had been in proximity to Stallone.

“I told him how much I love the ‘Rocky’ series,” he said.

Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for the mayor, said the goal of the trip, which was being paid for with city funds, was to discuss the city’s priorities. But candidates challenging Adams in the Democratic primary in June said the mayor’s visit to Florida was clearly an attempt to curry favor with Trump in hopes of obtaining a pardon.

One of those challengers, Brad Lander, the city comptroller, said Friday that hearing about the trip had “made my head explode.” He urged Adams to state publicly that he would not seek or accept a pardon and questioned why taxpayers were paying for the trip.

“It’s infuriating that the mayor is so transparently willing to trade the well-being of New Yorkers and the values of our city for a pardon for himself,” he said.

Many New York Democrats worry that Trump could act on his threat to order the mass deportations of immigrants, overturn the new congestion pricing tolls in Manhattan and cut federal funding for climate change projects and other Democratic priorities.

Adams, a former police officer who was registered as a Republican in the 1990s, has taken a different tack, offering to work with Trump and praising the president-elect’s adviser Elon Musk, who shares a lawyer with Adams.

The mayor joins a diverse roster of leaders from around the world who have visited Trump in Florida since his election, and he is not the first Democrat. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., met with Trump last week. Other recent visitors have included Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, and Justin Trudeau, the liberal prime minister of Canada, who is leaving office soon.

Adams said at his weekly news conference Monday that Trump was a New Yorker and cared about the city.

“In my conversation with him, he’s been clear that he wants to help New York and New Yorkers,” Adams said.

Joseph Borelli, the leader of the City Council’s Republican minority, defended the trip and said that many voters wanted Adams to work with Trump on issues like immigration.

“The public has been clear – they are tired of migrant gangs causing havoc in our city and costing us billions of dollars,” Borelli said. “I suspect the majority of New Yorkers want there to be cooperation between the mayor and president on this and other issues that affect our city, from transportation to housing.”

Adams was charged in September with five federal corruption charges related to bribery and fraud. He is accused of receiving thousands of dollars’ in travel benefits from Turkish officials and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations.

Trump has a famously fraught relationship with New York City. Although he grew up in Queens and was later celebrated for real estate deals and tabloid sizzle, the city resoundingly rejected his first presidential bid. New Yorkers responded to his election in 2016 by stripping his name from several high-rise buildings. Trump, in turn, took every opportunity to disparage the city.

In 2019, he complained about how New York’s leaders had treated him and changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Florida.

At a charity event in September, Trump said he felt a kinship with Adams.

“We were persecuted, Eric,” Trump said at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. “I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.