New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday announced she will not remove Eric Adams from his position as mayor of New York City, after meeting with various leaders in her state over the last several days. The embattled mayor faces a growing political crisis over the Justice Department’s efforts to dismiss his corruption case.

“I was deeply troubled by the accusations leveled at Mayor Eric Adams,” Hochul said during a news conference on Thursday, adding that she consulted with her advisers, city leaders, clergy and others on “whether it’s appropriate and necessary at this moment” to remove Adams as mayor.

“After careful consideration, I have determined that I will not commence removal proceedings at this time,” Hochul said. “My strong belief is that the will of voters and … the sanctity of democratic elections preclude me from any other action.”

Hochul said she would propose several guardrails for “establishing trust” with New York City residents, some of which would require approval from the City Council and state legislature.

As NBC News reportedthe guardrails she announced include:

Removing Adams from his post — during an election year, no less — would have been unprecedented. The Democratic mayor has faced growing backlash over an alleged deal in which the Trump administration would drop his federal criminal case in exchange for his cooperation with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. (Adams, who pleaded not guilty to the corruption charges, and acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove have denied engaging in any quid pro quo.)

Bove’s memo urging federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop the charges against Adams has led to the resignations of at least seven federal prosecutors. Danielle Sassoon, then the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that the mayor’s legal team, at a Jan. 31 meeting, “repeatedly urged what amounted to a what is the place whereindicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”

Adams’ attorneys have denied any such arrangement, but he has not been able to shake the increasingly vocal calls for his resignationincluding from fellow Democrats. Over the weekend, four of Adams’ deputy mayors — Maria Torres-Springer, Meera Joshi, Anne Williams-Isom and Chauncey Parker — quit after meetings between the mayor and his Cabinet, citing “the extraordinary events of the last few weeks.”

Then, on Monday, Hochul said in a statement that “the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored,” adding that she would be meeting with “key leaders” at her office in Manhattan on Tuesday.

“I recognize the immense responsibility I hold as governor and the constitutional powers granted to this office,” Hochul said. “In the 235 years of New York State history, these powers have never been utilized to remove a duly-elected mayor; overturning the will of the voters is a serious step that should not be taken lightly.”

Fox News host John Robert issued a striking defense of Elon Musk’s invasive and maddeningly opaque DOGE operations across the federal government on Tuesday. “If you’re gonna trust anybody with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, wouldn’t you want it to be a guy who really doesn’t need your money?” he queried.

It’s a narrative seems to be gaining traction on the right. Podcast host Joe Rogan recently argued that people ought not be worried about Musk’s recent intrusions into sensitive government data because “he has $400 billion. I’m telling you, he’s not going to steal your money.” In December, when Musk had just been named as a co-head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu waved off Musk’s many conflicts of interest with the federal government and said, “I like the fact that in a way he’s so rich he’s so removed from the potential financial influence of it.”

There are a few factors that make Musk exceptionally prone to exploit his remarkable new influence over the federal government.

I can see how one might surmise, in the abstract, that an individual who has a ton of money in the bank could reach a point of satiety and lose motivation to exploit any opportunity to make an extra buck. Even President Donald Trump made this argument early in his 2016 campaign, claiming that his wealth meant he couldn’t be bought by donors.

As Trump’s record has shownthe opposite is generally true. Saying Musk should get the keys to the government because he is too rich to be corrupt is catastrophically naive.

Musk has been a millionaire since 1999 and a billionaire since 2004. If his appetite for accumulating wealth had a ceiling, we would have seen it by now. His entry into the stratosphere of extreme wealth didn’t prompt him to give everything up and meditate on a mountain or to forfeit almost all his assets and turn to nonprofit work. Instead he continued to aggressively invest in and work on a wider array of for-profit projects that have now made him the richest man in the world. He controls six companies and recently he led a consortium of investors making a $100 billion cash bid for OpenAI, rival to Musk’s own xAI (OpenAI has rejected Musk’s offer and is exploring options to prevent a hostile takeover).

There is nothing unusual about Musk’s quest for more. Capitalists, as a class, seek to maximize their profits and accumulate greater wealth. The economic dictates of ownership of companies and other assets require growth in order to remain valuable. That economic incentive shapes a great deal of their political behavior: it’s why Silicon Valley and Wall Street and other big business interests typically try to use their enormous resources to influence both parties to reduce tax burdens, regulations and labor costs in their sectors. Indeed, Musk displayed this behavior in typical fashion long before his overt swing to the right in recent years. As Business Insider noted in an overview of Musk’s pre-Twitter purchase behaviorMusk’s political activity was “quite average for a business leader with operations in both solidly red and blue states,” with consistent donations to both Republicans and Democrats.

In addition, there are a few factors that make Musk exceptionally prone to exploit his remarkable new influence over the federal government. The most obvious one is that some of Musk’s companies, such as SpaceX, rely heavily on contracts with the federal government to make money. Musk’s businesses have, according to PBS Newsbeen awarded $13 billion in government contracts in just the past five years. And his companies — both the ones that receive contracts and those that don’t — are also regulated by the federal government. According to The New York Timesthe spree of firings and resignations since Trump took office have affected the capacity of least 11 federal agencies — including the National Labor Relations Board, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Securities and Exchange Commission — to continue overseeing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions against Musk’s six companies. And The Wall Street Journal is reporting that X is trying to cajole a major advertising conglomerate to get more of its clients to spend money on the platform by insinuating that Musk could use his power in the government to interfere with that company’s financial future.

Despite all this, Trump insists that Musk is capable of policing himself.

Another factor that makes Musk predisposed to using his newfound political authority to advance his own business interests is that the strength of his business empire is a bit more precarious and dependent on constant motion than commonly understood. “Elon Musk might be the poorest richest person in the world there’s ever been,” wrote Slate’s Alex Kirshner recently. “He has way more stressors than John D. Rockefeller or Andrew Carnegie ever had. His net worth is the biggest in world history but is tied up in things that require him to remain attentive and engaged with countless projects at once, because their value depends on an association with Musk.” Because Musk doesn’t have a ton of cash on hand, in order to keep growing he has to constantly be working and wooing investors. And it’s in his interest to change the business landscape in order to make it easier for him to do that.

Beyond all this, Musk demonstrably cares about more than just money; he wants to transform the world and seeks out the power required to do it. Many of his companies such as SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company are tied to a broader mission to fundamentally change human infrastructure and transportation. He has long discussed an interest in making human beings an interplanetary species and pioneering the colonization of Mars. His purchase of Twitter was a poor financial investment, but it has paid tremendous dividends for his influence politically and culturally, and he has used the platform as a gigantic megaphone for his right-wing nationalist views.

In other words, the idea that Musk is some disinterested accountant-type merely looking to make the federal government run faster flies in the face of everything we know about him; in addition to seeking to accumulate money, he’s a mission-oriented guy. And we should not be surprised, then, that DOGE is disproportionately targeting federal agencies perceived as liberal.

The cult of Musk will often depict his business acumen as stemming from a kind of special genius that purportedly allows him to transcend material concerns. In defense of Musk’s operations through DOGE, Joe Rogan said Americans would benefit from Musk’s “brilliant mind” rifling through government drawers. But every bit of Musk’s behavior in business and politics matches that of so many of his fellow businessmen: a desire for more money, power and influence.

Zeeshan aleem

Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for BLN Daily. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Blue Light News, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can sign up for his free politics newsletter here.

President Donald Trump’s Screed About Volodymyr Zelenskyyin which he attacked the Ukrainian president using Russian propaganda, marked the first time — best as I can tell — that he publicly hinted at wanting to see someone else lead Ukraine.

Trump’s false accusation that Zelenskyy is an unpopular “dictator” who refuses to hold elections read like a classic case of projection. And it also seemed pretty obvious that Trump would like for the Ukrainian leader not to be president — and, you know, perhapsfor the replacement to be a bit more friendly to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In that sense, the screed is just the latest example of Trump and his associates inserting themselves in other countries’ electoral processes, specifically in ways that benefit the president or further entrench his political allies abroad.

Trump’s false accusation that Zelenskyy is an unpopular “dictator” who refuses to hold elections read like a classic case of projection.

It’s a growing list that arguably began the day Trump took office and welcomed ascending Ecuadoran strongman Daniel Noboa — who has mirrored Trump’s tariff policy against Mexico — to his inaugural festivities during the South American leader’s own presidential campaign. At the time, I wrote about Trump’s unprecedented decision to invite foreign leaders to his inauguration. Breaking from that tradition stood to offer those leaders favorable photo ops at a helpful time.

And Noboa hasn’t been the only beneficiary.

On Wednesday, Trump defended the slashing of millions of dollars in aid for the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening. Essentially, these are nonprofit groups that help strengthen democratic processes in various countries, including India, by funding things like voter mobilization efforts and technical assistance for election officials. Trump falsely framed this funding as aimed at helping particular candidates get elected, a baseless claim that has also been made by officials in India’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party — that is, the party of Trump-friendly Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Meanwhile, during his trip to Europe last weekVice President JD Vance met with a leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, fueling speculation that he was trying to sway the country’s election in favor of the extremist party, which has been criticized for its sympathies toward Nazism.

During his trip, Vance also denounced officials in Romania after the country’s Constitutional Court — citing Russian interference — canceled a presidential election after a pro-Putin, far-right candidate named Călin Georgescu won the first round of voting.

“You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections — we certainly do,” Vance said at the Munich Security Conference. “You could condemn it on the world stage even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”

And then on Thursday, Elon Musk, who’s leading Trump’s pseudo-governmental group focused on purported “waste” in government, publicly called the chief judge of Romania’s Constitutional Court a “tyrant” amid pressure from the U.S. to let Georgescu run again in the May election.

The Trump administration’s obsession with foreign affairs sets up a startling contrast. Drivers of the self-proclaimed “America First” movement are laser-focused on governments abroad as their domestic allies dismantle our own government from within.

Ja’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He’s a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”