Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday attempted to justify his dinner get-together with disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo — insisting he’d be “foolish” to let Cuomo’s sex scandal stop him from hearing what the former state chief executive had to say on governance.
Adams was asked on WCBS 880 radio about a two-hour dinner he had with the disgraced ex-governor, first reported by The Post. The host pressed, “Having this dinner, though, is there concern about the way it looked?
“The reality is that we have a crisis in this city. And we have to be foolish not to learn from people who have gone through these crises before,” Adams said.
“And I’m not foolish,” Adams added. “I am learning from everyone that is in government, including my predecessors who sat in this seat, and I’m going to continue to do so.”
“I’m going to speak to everyone. And I’m going to continue to do so. … We can learn from everyone,” he said.
“I’m not going to leave any stones unturned in getting my city back under control,” he later said in a separate interview on CNN.
Adams refused to dish on exactly what Cuomo told him during their roughly two-hour power talk at Midtown hotspot Osteria La Baia — or whether he raised concerns with Cuomo over his behavior in office.
But he shared on WCBS that his fellow Democrat offered him “some much-needed advice on what his belief is the best way to get out of this crisis we’re facing.”
Sources told Page Six that Adams on Tuesday evening ate dinner with Cuomo — who resigned in August following the release of state Attorney General Letitia James’ damning sexual harassment probe — for about two hours in a private room at the restaurant. The dinner started about 7 p.m., after Adams attended a wake for slain NYPD Officer Wilbert Mora at nearby St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
During a Wednesday appearance on PIX 11, Adams insisted the Cuomo dinner was “in line with who I am as a person,” since he often speaks with a wide array of people.
“Isn’t that in line with who I am as a person? I sat down with members of the Black Lives Matter group, I sat down with anti-vaxxers, I sit down with gang members to try to talk them out of gangs, I sit down with former mayors and learned what I needed to know in the seat,” he said on the channel’s morning program.
“Gov. Cuomo served in politics for many years,” Adams added. “I’m going to sit down with everyone. No stone will be left unturned to get my city back up and operating.”
Asked what the goal was for the meeting with the scandal-scarred former chief executive, Adams claimed the meeting would help lift the city’s economy from its COVID-19 doldrums, before adding, “The goal is to stop being disagreeable and learn that we can work together.”
A rep for Adams previously told The Post that the meeting wasn’t “political” and that the mayor “stands by” his position that Cuomo should have stepped aside. Prior to his resignation, Adams in July stood alongside Cuomo in Brooklyn to discuss Big Apple gun violence. Days after the release of the AG probe — which found the former governor sexually harassed 11 women, including staffers, in violation of state and federal laws — Adams said he did not regret the joint appearance.
However, critics torched the mayor’s decision to meet with Cuomo, who remains tarnished by the slew of accusations of sexual harassment and impropriety.
Bill Neidhart, a one-time press secretary for Adams’ predecessor in City Hall, Bill de Blasio, labeled the dinner a “staggering misjudgment.”
“Why would Eric Adams even think about taking this meeting?” he asked in a tweet, calling it “straight up disgusting” given Cuomo’s sex scandal.
Adams, however, insisted he was not concerned about the optics of the dinner.
“I made it clear that the governor did the right thing by stepping down when he did, and I stand by that decision,” Adams said, while refusing to tell CNN if he raised those concerns during the dinner.
“But I’m still going to seek information from everyone that’s in government so we can get out of this crisis that we’re facing in violence, economics, health care, employment …
“I’m learning from everyone that is in government, including my predecessors who sat in his seat,” he said of his ongoing “good relationship” with de Blasio as well as former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“I’m going to meet with all the governors. Governor [George] Pataki, if he will sit down and talk,” he also told Fox 5’s “Good Day New York.”
Cuomo has been mostly keeping a low profile after stepping down from office last year, ending a three-term run as governor.
An upstate district attorney’s office announced this week that it is dropping its criminal investigation of sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo — but insisted it was “not an exoneration.”