Congress

Fellow Democrats tear into Eric Adams on Capitol Hill

Published

2 years ago

March 5, 2025

The four big city mayors who testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill knew they were invited by House Republicans to be punching bags. For New York’s Eric Adams, however, the blows were thrown by fellow Democrats.

GOP lawmakers not only spared Adams from the brunt of their often-theatrical attacks on sanctuary cities, they defended him against the Democratic onslaught — including from fellow New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) at one point called Adams “an outstanding mayor.”

It was the latest display of just how far through the looking-glass things have gone for Adams, who in four years has gone from the “Biden of Brooklyn” and “new face of the Democratic Party” to an unlikely ally of President Donald Trump.

That about-face — with the Trump Justice Department’s decision last month to drop a corruption case against Adams as its pivot point — fueled the Democratic attacks Wednesday at the made-for-TV hearing.

It opened with Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the panel’s top Democrat, referencing Adams’ federal case and alleged indebtedness to Trump. It deepened when other Democrats pressed Adams in increasingly aggressive terms about whether he had traded his cooperation with federal immigration officials for leniency from prosecutors.

“We have a right to know if the Trump administration has actually coerced you into agreeing to him,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California asked him. “Are you selling out New Yorkers to save yourself from prosecution?”

Ocasio-Cortez — who, like Adams, represents New York City — later rained questions on the mayor about whether he agreed to municipal policy changes that would appease Trump. Adams looked straight at her as she described the Trump administration’s decision to drop his prosecution as a “four-alarm fire” for the rule of law in the United States.

“There’s no deal, no quid pro quo, and I did nothing wrong,” Adams said in what has become his standard response to the allegation that he struck an illicit deal with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan to allow federal immigration agents into city jails in exchange for the end of his legal peril.

The dynamic set Adams far apart from the three other Democratic mayors — Denver’s Mike Johnston, Chicago’s Brandon Johnson and Boston’s Michelle Wu — who sat alongside him in a subterranean hearing room and faced feverish questioning from House Republicans seeking a viral moment.

Adams had braced for the possibility he would feature prominently in the GOP’s scrutiny of cities that had rebuffed federal immigration enforcement. Instead, Republicans largely gave the former New York City police captain a pass, often skipping over him with their rapid-fire questions.

Where the other three mayors put up a defiant and sometimes argumentative front, Adams instead followed a formula of giving succinct, unprovocative answers. He was rewarded with plenty of Republican praise.

“Mayor Adams is being attacked because he’s agreed to cooperate with federal officials to uphold the laws of the United States,” said Rep. Gary PalmerGary Palmer (R-Ala.).

Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) connected Adams’ prosecution to his criticism of former President Joe Biden: “The only one of you who stood up to the previous administration was under investigation shortly thereafter. Weird how that happens.”

And Comer praised Adams for being “willing to work with [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] on detaining the most criminal illegals — and I want to publicly thank you for that.”

That praise alternated with combative exchanges between Democrats and the New York mayor. In one testy exchange, freshman Rep. Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia asked Adams if he had ever discussed his criminal case with Trump.

Adams paused as an attorney whispered into his ear then repeated the line: “This case is in front of Judge Ho, and out of deference to Judge Ho, I’m not going to discuss this case,” he said, referring to U.S. District Judge Dale Ho, who is now considering whether to drop the charges as the Justice Department has requested.

Subramanyam eventually dropped the line of inquiry, concluding that “Mayor Adams is not answering the question because he probably has” discussed his case with the White House.

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.) — whose Long Island district was previously represented by Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican and former New York police officer — targeted the New York mayor with the same zeal as her more progressive colleagues, calling on him at one point to resign.

Her attacks provoked Adams to retort, “Thank God you don’t live in New York City.”

The bear hug from congressional Republicans, meanwhile, does Adams no favors when it comes to his political future. He faces a narrowing path to reelection this year with the criminal case and Trump’s mass deportation agenda looming over the country’s largest sanctuary city.

Democrats were not in the mood to do him any favors. Garcia came with posters of former U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon’s resignation letter condemning the decision to drop charges against him and of Homan praising Adams in a joint Fox News interview.

Weighing in from afar was Homan himself, who wrote on X that “Mayor Adams is trying to protect New Yorkers from violent illegal aliens” as he watched the hearing.

Adams appeared disengaged at times. When Connolly laid into him at the top of the hearing, he looked off to the side, then looking forward again and sipping his tea after the Virginia Democrat moved on. As other Democrats pressed him for answers, he flipped through a briefing book as he mounted his defense.

In his own opening statement, Adams leaned heavily on his experience as a law enforcement official and sought to push back on the notion that his approach to immigration and crime has changed since Trump won a second term.

“You know me, I’m the same mayor,” he told reporters before the hearing. “Three things stay on my mind all the time: public safety, public safety, public safety. We have to have a safe city.”

Congress

Democrats drop $5M into Kansas Senate race

Published

2 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Democrats’ top super PAC is pushing into Kansas.

The Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC is launching a $5 million statewide television ad blitz starting Saturday through Election Day — the latest sign that Democrats believe the Senate map is shifting onto red turf.

SMP had signaled in recent days it could get involved in the race, telling Blue Light News late last month it was “actively thinking” about whether to wade into the state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in nearly a century but where Adam Hamilton narrowly leads GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in recent polls. Internal SMP polling that found an increasingly competitive race factored into the group’s decision to spend. It will also run digital ads.

“The gap is closing in Kansas,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement. “We are committed to ensuring families understand Marshall’s real record of making health care and basic goods more expensive for working Kansans.”

Republicans are scrambling to shore up Marshall. Senate Leadership Fund, a top GOP super PAC aligned with Republican leadership, has booked over $10 million in ads through Election Day in the state, per ad tracking firm AdImpact.

SMP’s first ad attacks Marshall for joining Senate Republicans in voting to table a Democratic-led amendment last year to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. The Senate later approved legislation to release the files by unanimous consent. It’s the latest in a slate of ads from Democrats hitting their Republican rivals over the late, disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. Marshall’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senate Democrats’ plunge into the state comes as the midterm battle map is undergoing a major realignment. Georgia and North Carolina — primed to be two of the cycle’s premiere battlegrounds — are tilting left to the point where national Republicans are retracting spending in both states and Democrats are starting to follow suit, freeing funds on both sides to shift elsewhere.

Republicans are racing to reinforce incumbents across what was once safer red turf. SLF has also pledged $5 million to bolster Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina.

Democrats, meanwhile, are starting to spend more in red states. SMP has dropped over $2 million on digital ads in Texas. Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has included Kansas and Mississippi in his pitches to donors.

Congress

House Democratic campaign arm says it needs $17 million, and fast

Published

2 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is begging for resources, and setting a hard deadline for donors to give $17 million in order to compete in a handful of districts that Republicans carried easily in 2024.

DCCC Executive Director Julie Merz said the committee needs the cash influx by Oct. 22 in order to “to take advantage of the opportunities we have” outside of the core battlefield, according to a memo shared with donors on Friday and obtained by POLITICO.

If they don’t pony up, Merz warns, the party “could be leaving winnable races on the table.”

Democrats have been clear that they have a fundraising disadvantage this cycle, but they have so far been reluctant to place a specific dollar amount on their needs, making the DCCC’s memo Friday a particularly surprising outlier.

“Here’s the tough reality though: the Republican ecosystem has amassed a massive war chest that is significantly greater than ours and is spending it,” Merz says in the memo after arguing that the members of the committee “remain confident that we will win back the majority in 25 days.”

Specifically, Merz dedicates significant portions of the memo to four districts where the committee is desperate for more money in order to compete — all of which President Donald Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024:

— Florida’s 27th District (Trump +14.6)

— Nevada’s 2nd District (Trump +13.9)

— South Carolina’s 1st District (Trump +13)

— New York’s 21st District (Trump +20.7)

The fundraising disadvantage has created headaches for both House and Senate Democrats over where, exactly, to deploy the resources they do have.

The committee tells donors that their internal polling shows all of those races within reach, but that Republicans’ big cash advantages — especially in the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. — will make it harder to win those and other reach seats.

Merz also name drops a handful of other deep-red districts that are “worthy of additional investment in this environment,” including seats held by GOP Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the chair of the Republican National Congressional Committee.

The NRCC was quick to mock the DCCC’s memo.

“No amount of money fixes candidates voters don’t want. These seats are staying red, and Republicans are on offense across the map,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement.

Congress

Capitol agenda: How Warren could link arms with Trump’s GOP

Published

8 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Elizabeth Warren may get her clearest shot yet to take on corporate America next year — thanks to the once unthinkable help of Republicans.

The Massachusetts Democrat is poised to chair Senate Banking if the party takes back the chamber. And while the progressive has long been a boogeyman to corporate America, lobbyists worry she’ll have powerful backup thanks to the surge of populist Republicans eager to take big swings at Wall Street and Big Tech.

One longtime financial industry lobbyist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Warren “has a streak that is not just wanting to be a progressive gadfly, but to actually reach across the aisle to push for policy ideas.” There is “absolutely” reason for concern, the person said.

Atop the panel, Warren would also have a strong position to shape the 2028 presidential debates on both sides.

“There’s very little doubt that the agenda of the Senate Banking Committee is going to overlap substantially with the core issues that the candidates in the 2028 election cycle are going to be grappling with,” said Dennis Kelleher, the outgoing leader of the progressive group Better Markets.

As Banking chair, Warren is expected to try to recruit Republicans in a crackdown on artificial intelligence — specifically restrictions on chip giant Nvidia’s exports to China, which already has some GOP support — and a follow-up of this year’s bipartisan housing law that sought to rein in private equity’s role in the market, according to people close to the senator.

Some of President Donald Trump’s own populist ideas, like credit card interest rate caps and limits on stock buybacks for defense contractors, would provide fertile ground for Warren.

But Trump would also likely be Warren’s biggest obstacle, as he’s been resistant to embrace policy overlaps with her. He’s also been resistant to any AI restrictions.

Warren’s approach also threatens to expose rifts between GOP populists who have been ascendent under Trump and more mainstream conservatives.

Asked about the possibility of a Chair Warren, Sen. Mike Rounds, a more moderate South Dakota Republican, said he doesn’t “think anything would get done except lots of investigations and lots of accusations.”

What else we’re watching:

— LAWMAKERS CLAMOR FOR GAO v. TRUMP — Lawmakers are desperate for a government watchdog to step up and help them in their fight against the Trump administration over control of federal cash. The independent Government Accountability Office concluded earlier this week that the White House illegally withheld more than $1 billion for education and health care research programs — the latest in more than a half-dozen such findings GAO has published since the start of Trump’s second term. But the agency has yet to use its unique power to take the president to court to challenge those “impoundments,” and lawmakers who are tired of the administration running roughshod over their funding prerogatives want GAO to act.

— MURPHY’S DEFENSE FUNDING ULTIMATUM — Democrats should not approve Pentagon funding or the annual defense policy bill if they control Congress next year unless those bills would hasten the end of the Iran war, Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters Thursday. “We should make the end of the war a priority,” said the Foreign Relations Democrat who was returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Murphy also accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and officials of attempting a “cover-up” of the war’s damage and obscuring its true cost after he was denied entry on a base in Qatar. Given the damage to bases in the region, Murphy also told reporters that the U.S. should “reconsider its footprint” in the Middle East.

Jasper Goodman, Jennifer Scholtes and Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.