Cuomo and Adams Make First Appearance Since Primary Win

The contours of the most important, complex and delicate relationship in New York politics began to take shape inside a Brooklyn church on Wednesday, as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Eric Adams, the likely next mayor of New York City, made their first public appearance together since Mr. Adams secured the Democratic nomination last week.

In a news conference that spanned around 40 minutes, Mr. Adams and Mr. Cuomo sought to highlight areas of common ground — namely, promoting public safety while claiming the mantle of progressivism — amid an undercurrent of uncertainty around Mr. Cuomo’s future as he awaits investigations into his conduct as governor.

“Eric and I come from the same political philosophy,” Mr. Cuomo declared. “We are progressive Democrats. And we have the same definition of what it means to be a progressive Democrat.”

The appearance marked the second time this week that Mr. Adams moved to cement his relationships with the forces that will have extraordinary sway over his ability to govern — the federal and state governments — as he embraces the role of mayor-in-waiting ahead of a November general election that he is almost certain to win.

On Monday, he visited the White House in Washington, meeting with President Biden and later appearing in a White House-promoted video to discuss public safety and justice. And Mr. Adams’s joint appearance with Mr. Cuomo underscored an effort to improve the relationship between the offices of governor and mayor of New York; the current occupant of Gracie Mansion, Mayor Bill de Blasio, has had a notoriously toxic dynamic with Mr. Cuomo and was absent from both the Washington and Brooklyn meetings.

Mr. Adams and Mr. Cuomo are not thought to have any deep personal bonds, but Mr. Adams’s familiarity with Albany — the two overlapped briefly while he was a state senator — may ease the early stages of their new relationship, and could help Mr. Adams as he seeks to build allies in the Legislature.

Mr. Cuomo, for his part, is heavily reliant on support from Black voters, and a strong relationship with Mr. Adams, who is poised to be the second Black mayor in New York City’s history, may also be in Mr. Cuomo’s political interests as he heads into an election year.

Of course, Mr. Cuomo also greeted Mr. de Blasio warmly when he was the Democratic nominee in 2013, but that relationship deteriorated quickly — and Albany still has so much control over major municipal issues that it is nearly impossible that the next mayor and governor would not clash, as mayors and governors often have throughout history.

But on Wednesday in Brooklyn, Mr. Adams and Mr. Cuomo alternated between speaking from behind a lectern, and listening to each other from the side.

The two men both prevailed in their most recent elections over skeptical left-wing forces in the party. They appeared at their most simpatico on Wednesday when speaking about the urgent need for improved public safety and quality of life — reaching for strikingly grim, sometimes hyperbolic terms to describe life in America’s largest cities — while taking veiled swipes at those who deal in “theoretical progress,” as Mr. Cuomo framed it, rather than the difficult realities facing New York City.

A progressive, Mr. Cuomo claimed, is one “who actually makes progress for people.”

“I’m happy that you touched on ‘progressive,’ what it means to be progressive,” a slightly hoarse Mr. Adams said as he began his introductory remarks following Mr. Cuomo, who smiled as Mr. Adams started in. “We’ve allowed the term ‘being progressive’ to be hijacked by those who do not have a track record of putting in place real progressive changes. And I am not going to surrender my progressive credentials.”

Their policy focus was gun violence and combating a spike in shootings that has rattled neighborhoods across the city. Mr. Cuomo recently declared a gun violence emergency in the state, and on Wednesday he called the violence a “civil rights issue,” noting that victims in New York have disproportionately been Black and Latino residents.

Mr. Adams stressed the importance of combating handgun violence, and urged a “holistic” approach to promoting public safety, rather than one rooted in “heavy-handed policing”— though he supported a more expansive role for the police than some of his primary opponents did. As he has done before, he linked combating crime to the city’s economic recovery.

Throughout their appearance, there were plenty of united-front moments. Mr. Cuomo, who made references to their shared roots in boroughs outside of Manhattan, appeared to murmur his assent as Mr. Adams warned of high-income New Yorkers fleeing to Miami if they felt the city was too unsafe — though rates of violent crime today are far lower than in earlier eras in New York. Mr. Adams, as he noted their efforts to enact marriage equality in the state, turned to face Mr. Cuomo, demanding, “Did people forget? That was our bill.”

And when a journalist remarked that it sounded like Mr. Adams wanted to put more people in jail, Mr. Adams rejected that characterization — and Mr. Cuomo then leapt to the lectern to criticize the question.

But there were also reminders of potential tensions to come at a time of deep uncertainty in Mr. Cuomo’s political career.

“I said it then and I’ll say it again,” Mr. Adams said as Mr. Cuomo, a leader of the National Governors Association, looked on. “I am the face of the Democratic Party.”

Until recently, Mr. Cuomo was a national celebrity following his prolific public appearances during the early months of the pandemic, and at one point some Democrats dreamed of putting him on the presidential ticket.

But he now faces a moment of grave political peril, amid the threat of impeachment and still-outstanding investigations, including a closely watched report from the state attorney general, Letitia James, that is set to examine harassment allegations.

His appearance with Mr. Adams, and a later news conference that included state lawmakers — some of whom have been sharply critical of Mr. Cuomo, but flanked him to discuss combating gun violence on Wednesday — appeared designed to send a message that he remains firmly in command of the most pressing problems facing the state, despite significant questions about his political future.

Most of the state’s top Democrats have called on Mr. Cuomo to resign, but he has refused. Instead, he has spent the last few months seeking to rehabilitate his image after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment; standing side by side with the presumed next mayor of New York City was seen as part and parcel of Mr. Cuomo’s larger effort to assert his leadership and portray a semblance of normalcy.

For his part, Mr. Adams was one of the few Democratic mayoral candidates who did not call on Mr. Cuomo to immediately resign and he said during the primary campaign that he would accept an endorsement from the governor — though during a June debate, he did not raise his hand when the contenders were asked if they would want Mr. Cuomo’s endorsement. Mr. Adams has also said he supports an independent investigation into the harassment allegations and believes in due process, even as he has said “swift action must be taken” against powerful men who prey on women.

At the news conference, a reporter pressed Mr. Adams on that dynamic ahead of Ms. James’s report, one that may set the terms for how Mr. Cuomo’s re-election prospects will unfold.

“The governor said that he would work with me,” Mr. Adams said. “I’m sure he would have worked with any mayor that is in office.”

“Let the investigation go to its outcome,” he continued. “I mean, that’s the system of justice that I protected in the city and will continue to do so. And the system of an investigation will determine the outcome.”

Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting.