NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams urged Republican New York Congressman George Santos to resign Friday — weeks after pledging to work with the fact averse lawmaker.
Adams offered the tone shift in an appearance on CBS2 that came on the heels of a new report detailing offensive social media posts Santos made about Adolf Hitler.
“I think he should resign,” Adams said. “What you see is something that is unimaginable, and I think it only gets him in the way of what needs to be done in Congress this year.”
At the same time, Adams said he’s “always respectful of the decision of voters.”
“Unless his colleagues in Congress determine that there’s some criminality or some strong ethics that they’re going to bring him up on internal review, I think the voters have to make that determination,” he said. “But, personally, I believe it’s time for him to leave.”
Earlier this month, Adams took a different tone when asked if Santos should step down.
“He’s now elected to Congress and there’s a congressional body that will determine what his future is. I respect that body and decision,” Adams said in a Jan. 12 press conference.
Santos, who was elected in November to represent a slice of eastern Queens and parts of Long Island, did not return a request for comment via a spokesman Friday.
Since his election, Santos has admitted fabricating various aspects of his personal life, including falsely claiming he’s Jewish. He has also admitted to lying about working at Goldman Sachs and CitiBank and confessed he doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree even though he claimed on the campaign trail that he graduated from two universities.
In a previously unknown twist, the Daily News has learned Adams was supposed to meet with Santos on Dec. 13 — six days before some of the congressman’s lies first came to light.
A Dec. 12 text message exchange obtained by The News shows that a scheduler for Adams confirmed a sit-down for the next day, writing to a Santos aide: “Do you have a location in mind?”
The Santos aide, however, wrote back that his boss had to cancel due to the late notice. “We made repeated attempts to get the details for this meeting, however we did not hear back ... so he will not be meeting with the mayor,” the aide texted.
Adams spokesman Fabien Levy declined to comment Friday on the texts.
Since the New York Times first revealed some of Santos’ falsehoods on Dec. 19, a string of media reports have uncovered even more damning details about him, including apparent lies he made about his grandparents being Holocaust survivors and his mother being at the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks.
On Thursday, local news outlet Patch unearthed a decade-old Facebook post Santos allegedly made in which he apparently saluted Hitler and wrote about the need to “kill” minorities.
