Mayor Eric Adams clarifies 9/11 comment after social media backlash
NEW YORK (PIX11) -- A comment made by Mayor Eric Adams has people raising their eyebrows.
During a sit-down interview with PIX11's Dan Mannarino on Sunday's PIX on Politics, when asked what word he would use to describe 2023, the mayor responded with an interesting answer.
“New York. This is a place where every day you wake up, you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our Trade Center to a person who’s celebrating a new business that’s open. This is a very, very complicated city, and that’s why it’s the greatest city on the globe,” Adams said.
The comment circulated on social media platforms, sparking backlash, with one X user saying, "This may go down as the worst answer of 2023."
In a press conference at City Hall on Tuesday, the mayor responded to the criticism: "The sentence police that sit in front of the TV and say 'Let's wait to see Eric make one sentence that we can turn into a front page.'"
The mayor continued, saying that because of his authenticity, it's likely people will find many faults with the way he speaks, and how he "talks the way a New Yorker talks." However, he did urge that his comment was not to desecrate or make light of the tragedy of 9/11.
"Using the analogy of the complexity of what can happen in the city from planes landing on our Hudson River to all the other things -- that was my comment," Adams said. "People knew what I was saying."
Adams has the lowest approval rating for a New York City mayor since 1996, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released earlier this month. Voters who were polled disapprove of the mayor’s handling of New York City crime, public schools, the migrant crisis, and other issues.
Charline Charles is a digital journalist from Brooklyn who has covered local news along with culture and arts in the New York City area since 2019. She joined PIX11 News in 2022. See more of her work here.