Incoming New York City Mayor Eric Adams is urging the Democratic Party to weed out anarchists and ditch efforts to “defund the police.”
Adams, a Democrat himself, is a former police officer who has referred to himself as conservative on the issue of crime.
While attending the SOMOS political confab in Puerto Rico, Adams told reporters that anarchists are “trying to disrupt our way of life.”
“There’s a body in our country where there’s no desire to talk. There’s an anarchist group in this country that many of us are ignoring,” Adams said, according to a report from the New York Daily News. “They’re throwing Molotov cocktails at police cars. They are trying to disrupt our way of life.”
Adams added that his party needs to “weed them out from those who have real concerns and engage in real conversation with them.”
“If I have one message to the Democrats: Get back on the ground,” Adams continued.
“We allowed a segment of the community to rally against a specific issue,” he said, a likely reference to Mayor de Blasio’s vaccine mandates, which led to protests, the Daily News noted. “They did a great campaign of spreading lies and propaganda and people voting in connection with that.”
Adams said that he has spoke to both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and warned them that they need to “engage on the ground.”
“I just believe we don’t have our fingers on the pulse of everyday Democrats and even in the purple areas — people who are trying to decide,” he said. “Democrats don’t want to disband police departments. They want police officers to do their job. Democrats are not against closing Rikers Island, but they also want to close the pipeline that feeds Rikers Island.”
Ultimately, Adams believes that the Democrats must do a better job listening to their voters.
“Americans and New Yorkers are not complicated. All they’re saying is listen, ‘We do our job and pay our taxes, pick up the damn garbage, educate my children, make sure I can go outside without someone robbing me,’” he continued. “That’s all they want.”
