Eric Adams and the Albanian Minister of Protection. Identify a extra iconic duo.
Photograph: X/@NYCMayor
Final month, Eric Adams confirmed months of swirling rumors and dropped his beleaguered reelection marketing campaign. Simply days after he made his exit official, Metropolis Corridor introduced that Adams can be doing what any outgoing mayor attempting to shore up his legacy would: taking a beforehand unannounced four-day journey to Albania and revealing mentioned journey solely after having left town.
A spokesperson for the mayor informed WNBC that his go to to Albania, which ends on Thursday, stemmed from an invite from the Albanian prime minister and is solely about strengthening enterprise ties between the 2 nations. Adams’s previous international journeys have famously been topic to intense federal scrutiny.
Metropolis Corridor informed WNBC, which first reported the journey, that town (and thus taxpayers) can be overlaying the airfare for Adams in addition to an accompanying staffer however that the mayor’s lodging and transportation in Albania can be lined by the Albanian authorities, which Adams’s workplace says is in accordance with conflict-of-interest guidelines and permits for higher safety for the mayor.
Adams’s public itinerary for his journey has featured conferences with Prime Minister Edi Rama and quite a few members of his cupboard and enterprise leaders, in addition to visits to native companies and a tour of town of Vlora. However the mayor signaled in a neighborhood interview that rising tourism between Albania and New York Metropolis was a high precedence of the journey. “We engaged in a dialog a few direct flight from New York to Albania, one thing that we did with Azerbaijan. Now, we’ve got a direct flight,” he informed the reporter. Suffice it to say, this has not been a serious problem within the mayoral marketing campaign.
In that very same interview, Adams revived his oft-repeated catchphrase evaluating New York to different nations.
“New York is the Albania of America. We’ve got one of many largest Albanian populations and lots of occasions the Albanian New Yorkers have requested me to return and go to the nation. So now this is a chance to take action,” Adams mentioned.
Adams does have some distinctive ties to the area. In 2022, the New York Submit reported that the mayor’s son, Jordan Coleman, an aspiring rapper, took half in Kënga Magjike, Albania’s equal of American Idol. In keeping with the New York Occasions, Adams spoke with an Albanian TV persona throughout the latest United Nations Basic Meeting, mentioning his son’s look on the present. “I’ve completed so many issues, however what I’ve not completed — and I’m jealous of my son — he went to Albania and he carried out there,” he mentioned per the Occasions.
Whereas Adams’s penchant for journey has been nicely documented, he notably took intention at his rivals within the mayoral race for touring throughout the marketing campaign, boasting about his capability to remain within the metropolis and do the work. In a social-media video posted in July, Adams knocked assemblymember Zohran Mamdani for a visit to Uganda to have fun his latest wedding ceremony and former governor Andrew Cuomo, who had taken a number of journeys outdoors of town to the Hamptons for fundraisers.
The mayor used the social-media clip to make gentle of his authorized troubles, floating Istanbul as a potential vacation spot for himself, however it ended with Adams declaring he needed to keep within the metropolis in an effort to do his job.
“However I noticed I’m not a wannabe mayor. I’m the precise mayor. I simply can’t stand up and go away. If I’m gone, there gained’t be an Eric Adams retaining issues below management. Any individual has to maintain us secure and get stuff carried out,” he mentioned.
No less than one New York politician was baffled by the timing of Adams’s journey. “He’s acquired just a few months left, and I’d suppose he can be ensuring your legacy — your schooling, your housing, each final little bit is completed,” Councilwoman Gale Brewer informed the Occasions. “I assumed that’s what he’d be doing.”
