Eric Adams to meet with Biden on curbing gun violence

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who secured the New York City Democratic mayoral nomination last week, will meet with President Biden and a group of local leaders and law enforcement officials at the White House on Monday to discuss strategies to crack down on gun violence.

The White House confirmed that Biden would meet with the mayoral hopeful while also meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland, a community violence intervention expert and other local leaders, including law enforcement and elected officials, to “discuss his Administration’s comprehensive strategy to reduce gun crimes.”

The meeting is scheduled for 1:15 p.m.

Adams, a former police captain who entered the primary as the front-runner, defeated a crowded field of Democrats to secure his party’s nomination, prevailing over former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley.

The results were unknown for days after the election due to the city’s new ranked-choice voting system.

He will now face off against Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels.

Adams has made safety a cornerstone of his campaign.

On Sunday he vowed that New York City streets would be safe if he is elected, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper that the city would have a coordinated effort with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to ensure the city’s gun suppression unit receives the resources “they deserve.”

“And then we’re going to be extremely comfortable going to our judges and stating, we can’t have people who participate in gun violence and they’re out the next day. That’s unacceptable. We need to send a clear message that our streets are going to be safe.” 

His victory, however, is already raising questions over how far to the left Democrats should move on the issues of crime and police reform if they want to secure victories in the midterm elections.

His win in the crowded Democratic field illustrated that voters in a liberal city are open to messaging that combines a hard-on-crime position with calls for police reform, amid frustration over officer misconduct.

Adams was one of the most vocal candidates on the trail who opposed the “defund the police” rallying cry, which was endorsed by the party’s left flank.

“You can have all the reforms you want. You can have a kinder, gentler police department. But if your streets are filled with guns and you’re dealing with a lot of violence, you are still going to have a lot of children being shot,” he told New York magazine in April.

But “if you erode that trust, you are going to erode public safety,” he added.

The White House has struggled to enact police reforms, with Republican lawmakers refusing to take up key police proposals on Capitol Hill, namely the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

In June, however, the three chief negotiators working on a police reform package said they reached a bipartisan agreement on the issue.

“After months of working in good faith, we have reached an agreement on a framework addressing the major issues for bipartisan police reform,” Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said in a joint statement.

The specifics of that agreement, however, still remain unknown.

Updated at 10 a.m.