Adams Spends First Submit-Mayoral Marketing campaign Week in Albania

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 could 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 instructed 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 overseas journeys have famously been topic to intense federal scrutiny.

Metropolis Corridor instructed WNBC, which first reported the journey, that town (and thus taxpayers) could be masking the airfare for Adams in addition to an accompanying staffer however that the mayor’s lodging and transportation in Albania could be coated 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 an area interview that rising tourism between Albania and New York Metropolis was a prime precedence of the journey. “We engaged in a dialog a couple of direct flight from New York to Albania, one thing that we did with Azerbaijan. Now, we’ve got a direct flight,” he instructed the reporter. Suffice it to say, this has not been a significant difficulty within the mayoral marketing campaign.

In that very same interview, Adams revived his oft-repeated catchphrase evaluating New York to different international locations.

“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 response to the New York Occasions, Adams spoke with an Albanian TV persona throughout the latest United Nations Normal Meeting, mentioning his son’s look on the present. “I’ve achieved so many issues, however what I’ve not achieved — 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 properly documented, he notably took goal at his rivals within the mayoral race for touring throughout the marketing campaign, boasting about his means 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 rejoice his latest marriage ceremony and former governor Andrew Cuomo, who had taken a number of journeys exterior of town to the Hamptons for fundraisers.

The mayor used the social-media clip to make mild 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 rise up and go away. If I’m gone, there gained’t be an Eric Adams protecting issues below management. Someone has to maintain us secure and get stuff accomplished,” he mentioned.

Not less than one New York politician was baffled by the timing of Adams’s journey. “He’s received a number of months left, and I’d suppose he could be ensuring your legacy — your schooling, your housing, each final little bit is completed,” Councilwoman Gale Brewer instructed the Occasions. “I assumed that’s what he’d be doing.”