Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday defended a top NYPD official for participating in a televised interview, in uniform, with the far right-wing outlet Newsmax during former President Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday. Hizzoner suggested the site is no different from any other news source.
The mayor made the remarks during his weekly off-topic press conference at City Hall on Oct. 29 after a reporter asked him why NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell appeared on Newsmax in uniform during Trump’s Oct. 27 MSG rally. Adams said he saw nothing wrong with Chell’s appearance, which some observers and elected officials criticized as crossing political lines.
“What do we believe John Chell did that was wrong?” Adams asked reporters. “I’m not quite understanding people. Because when I looked at the interviews, he didn’t make any political statements. And he better have been in uniform, he was working. He was making sure that people who were attending the rally, walking down the block, that they were all protected.”
During the Newsmax interview, Chell reported on attendance estimates for the rally and said that the event was proceeding safely. “This is a very energetic day,” he also told Newsmax.
Adams then suggested that Chell is only being criticized because he appeared on a station that “many people don’t like,” noting that there have not been complaints about Chell’s appearances with outlets including NBC and CBS.
Unlike those outlets, Newsmax has positioned itself as a far-right-wing alternative to Fox News that regularly boosts Trump, the current Republican presidential nominee. On multiple occasions, Newsmax has been found to be spreading false information about events, including the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol — and had to issue an on-air retraction for those reasons.
Nonetheless, the mayor insisted that Newsmax should be viewed like any other media outlet — and took things a step further when a reporter followed up by asking Adams if he thought it was appropriate for Chell to appear on an outlet that admitted to peddling false information.
“He was interviewed by the Daily News?” Adams responded to the reporter. He then suggested that Newsmax’s right-wing slant and peddling of disinformation is no different from other journalists bringing their personal biases to their reporting.
“Just because you dislike an outlet, that is not enough to say we should not be interviewing with that outlet,” Adams added. “The group [the mainstream media] decided that Newsmax should not be on the list of reputable outlets.”
The mayor said that he would go on Newsmax if the outlet would “hear the success of this city and report it.”
Adams’ full-throated defense of Chell appearing on Newsmax follows several instances in recent days where he has refused to disavow Trump — following a couple of recent instances where the former president expressed sympathy and praise for the mayor amid his federal indictment.
The mayor also said he does not believe Trump to be a fascist when asked about the notion during a Saturday press conference ahead of the MSG rally.
On Tuesday, Adams also declined to specifically criticize Trump in the wake of the rally, which saw several speakers spewed racist, sexist and xenophobic rhetoric. He pointed to a statement his X account released on Sunday night that denounced the “hateful words that were used by some at today’s rally” but did not specifically name Trump or any other speaker at the event.
“I’ve been in many rallies … and I’ve witnessed people stand up at podiums and say, you know, I cringe at some of the things that they say,” he said. “So you can’t demonize an entire population based on the actions of those who attend.”
