Democratic Mayor Eric Adams declined on Tuesday to hold former President and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump specifically responsible for shaping the politically volatile environment amid which a gunman tried to assassinate the ex-commander-in-chief over the weekend.
Instead, Hizzoner — during his weekly news conference — said everyone has played some role in shaping the intense political division currently gripping the country, as Trump vies to win back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden.
Mayor Adams made the remarks in response to a reporter’s question about how much responsibility Trump personally bears for shaping an environment where a gunman tried to take his life.
The reporter cited Trump saying in 2016 that he could “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing voters, urging his supporters to beat up critics at his rallies and making fun of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) husband after he was brutally attacked in 2022.
But Adams demured on singling out Trump, and instead suggested the blame for the hostile political atmosphere is widely shared.
“I think everyone has a role in the climate that we are in right now, everyone and that includes me,” Adams said. “We all need to check ourselves. And so to point to, you know, the former president or point to the current president. There’s some who are saying, ‘okay, the Democrats did this.’ There’s some who say ‘the Republicans did this,’ there’s some who said the ‘media did this,’ some saying ‘the schools did.’”
The comments came days after the mayor held a news conference on Sunday with Rev. Al Sharpton and City Council Republican leader Joe Borelli (Staten Island) calling for cooling off the inflamed political tensions in the wake of the assassination attempt.
The incident, which took place in Buttler, PA on Saturday, left Trump shot in the ear, while killing one of his supporters and critically injuring two others.
The suspected gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by Trump’s Secret Service detail after shooting at him from a rooftop close to the rally. While Crooks’ motives remain unclear, law enforcement is reportedly investigating the attack as potential domestic terrorism. Reports noted that Crooks was also a registered Republican who previously donated to a progressive organization in 2021.
Adams went on to urge people to be introspective, asking themselves what they have done to contribute to the current moment.
“Let’s stop saying what others have done, and let’s start asking ourselves, ‘what have we done?’” Adams said. “And so I don’t want to go into ‘did he create the atmosphere?’ I want to know, what did I do? What am I doing?”
One of the primary culprits, Adams observed, is one of his most frequent targets: social media. He said platforms like X, the site formerly known as Twitter, are “the enemy.”
“Social media has made people mean and nasty, and they do harmful things from the corner of their living rooms and their homes,” he said. “We need to really look at what we do. You know, the meanness of what we become through these gadgets that have hijacked our lives.”
The mayor said he plans to author a letter that will call for toning down incendiary rhetoric, to which he hopes other pols will sign. He also touted his own “Breaking Bread and Building Bonds” initiative, which hosts a series of dinners aimed at building connections between New Yorkers from different backgrounds.
