Eric Adams Is Handing Republicans a Flamethrower for 2024. Again.

[Celerity]

6. Adams: "I have never in my professional career--I have never witnessed crime at this level," he said

last year, echoing his campaign trail refrain that crime had reverted to 1990s levels. “We”—he said on the stump, implying the Democrat-controlled local government, “are waving a big white flag of surrender.”

but that's not true:

That rhetoric may have helped Adams win a crowded, low-turnout Democratic mayoral primary in 2021, but there were problems. For one thing, his hyperbole was plainly counterfactual. As the writer Ross Barkan pointed out in New York magazine, crime was up slightly over 2019 levels, sure, but homicides were down 75 percent since the early ’90s.

and there also is this hyperbolic (and Republican-aiding) nonsense from the former Republican (reverting to norm?) Adams:

No longer as eager to talk about crime, he has settled on a new boogeyman as the 2024 election cycle heats up: the migrant crisis. “This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City,” he said of the famed city of immigrants in public comments made last week. “They’re destroying us … the city we knew, we’re about to lose.”

then there is this:

As the publication The City reported, Adams enjoyed major financial support, in the form of donations to super PACs supporting his candidacy, from hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, a top Ron DeSantis and Republican megadonor, and Daniel Loeb, a fellow billionaire financier and top Republican benefactor. Adams, of course, was a registered Republican himself from 1995 through 2002.

and:

Finally, Adams has even more self-serving motivations for playing up the migrant crisis, beyond simply hurting his fellow (or not-so-fellow) Democrats. In the same breath as his migrants-are-destroying-New-York speech, the mayor announced a stunning citywide budget cut, blaming the decision on the migrants. To call that framing dishonest barely does it justice. Adams, perhaps owing to his Republican roots, has been clamoring to enact deep, devastating budget cuts since he arrived in office, despite the fact that the Independent Budget Office identified a massive budget surplus in 2023 and forecast another surplus in 2024.