Eric Adams, the man likely to be the next mayor of New York City, remains unimpressed by the socialist message coming from fellow New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the far-left U.S. congresswoman from the Bronx.
And despite warnings from Democratic Party leaders, Adams, who won the Democratic primary in the race for mayor, is still going after AOC’s anti-capitalist message.
On Monday, Adams’ launched his latest barrage against self-avowed democratic socialist Ocasio-Cortez’s message during an interview with CNBC during which he targeted her infamous “Tax the Rich” dress.
What’s going on?
Following his Democratic primary victory this summer, Adams criticized the anti-police and socialist factions of his party. Adams told supporters that he is “no longer running against candidates” and is instead running “against a movement” — specifically the Democratic Socialists of America.
“All across the country, the DSA socialists are mobilizing to stop Eric Adams,” he said. “They realize that if I’m successful, we’re going to start the process of regaining control of our cities.”
And in June, Adams lamented that his party had let a small group of radicals “to hijack the term ‘progressive'” and warned Democrats to “stop believing a numerical minority is what the numerical majority is.”
His criticisms of the AOC-types in his party landed him the D.C. offices of Democratic higher-ups for a closed-door meeting during which he was warned not to criticize any New York congressional Democrats and not “to be disrespectful.”
Apparently, the lecture from party leaders didn’t stick.
On Monday, Adams told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that Ocasio-Cortez’s “Tax the Rich” get-up was the wrong message.
“We both want the same things, we just have different pathways to get there,” Adams said when asked about AOC’s Met Gala outfit.
“But when you talk about just blanketly saying ‘tax the rich,’ in this city, we may have 8.8 million people, but 65,000 pay 51% of our income taxes,” he added. “And if you say to those 65,000 to leave, then we’re not going to have the firefighters, the teachers, all of those basic things.”
What else?
Instead, Adams said, the city needs to stop wasting the tax money it’s bringing in and start trimming the fat in the budget.
“We’re wasting tax dollars,” he stated. “We’re dysfunctional as a city. We create our crises, and those tax dollars are being wasted. I say, let’s make sure we get our house in order.”
“We have a $98 billion budget. Think about that for a moment,” Adams said. “And how much of that are we hemorrhaging?”
(Relevant portion begins at the 3:40 mark)