New York City Mayor Eric Adams, critical of the Biden administration's open border policies that could "destroy" his city, conspicuously did not plan to meet with President Joe Biden during United Nations General Assembly events this week.
Adams met with other world leaders Monday who were in town for the assembly, but did not plan to meet with Biden and is not planning to meet with him Tuesday, sources told Politico.
"You know I don't do those private conversations," Adams told reporters when asked if he had talked to the White House about a Biden meeting this week.
White House aides confirmed there are no plans for Biden to meet with Adams, according to the report.
"It just means that the two of them are trying to avoid exacerbating an already tense situation," a City Hall adviser told Politico.
The aides admitted the relationship is strained over immigration, but that it won't stop the White House from working with Adams in the future.
"It's unfortunate, for sure," Democrat Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso told Politico. "The longer we wait for all levels of government to come to the table, the more we continue to make migrants collateral damage."
Adams, once self-described as the "Biden of Brooklyn," has not spoke with Biden since earlier this year and was removed from a list of high-level Biden surrogates, according to the report.
"We always look forward to any conversation that can help deliver the critical support and relief that asylum seekers, longtime New Yorkers and all Americans deserve," Adams' spokesperson told Politico.
Trying to remain a sanctuary city under President Biden's border policies is becoming increasingly untenable, especially with the New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul forcing Adams to keep the migrants instead of shipping them off elsewhere in the state, according to the report.
"To some extent, the governor and the mayor have played good cop-bad cop with the White House, and I don't think they had any choice," Kathryn Wylde, Partnership for New York City President, told Politico. "It's starting to work out because I think the White House has recognized that there are going to be real political consequences if this continues to be an open wound in 2024."