The calls for Mayor Eric Adams to step down or be removed from office grew this week as moving to drop his criminal case on public corruption charges — and multiple federal prosecutors resigned in protest.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove him under the state constitution, offered her strongest rebuke of Adams to date in an interview on MSNBC.

“The allegations are extremely concerning and serious,” Hochul said, adding that she’s consulting with other leaders about it. “You got to have one sane person in this state who can cut through all the crap and say, ‘What does my responsibility guide me to do?’”

The interview came hours after Antonio Delgado, her lieutenant governor who appears to be gearing up to launch a primary challenge to her, added his voice to the chorus of calls for Adams to resign, tweeting that “New York City deserves a Mayor able to the people, not beholden to the President.”

On Monday, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams also called on Adams to resign, saying he should prioritize New Yorkers and step aside.

“These resignations are the culmination of the mayor’s actions and decisions that have led to months of instability and now compromise the city’s sovereignty, threaten chaos, and risk harm to our families,” Speaker Adams said in a statement. The speaker is one of five people designated by the charter to form an “inability committee” that would have the power to start proceedings to remove the mayor from office, if it chooses to do so.

Council member Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn), once a close ally of the mayor, echoed the Speaker in a separate statement, which described City Hall in “turmoil.”

“We cannot afford a mayor who has chosen fealty to Donald Trump to avoid prosecution for a bribery indictment,” he said. “It’s time to turn the page and restore integrity at City Hall. There is too much at stake and we’ve got too much work to do.”

He and the speaker are among at least a dozen council who have called for Adams to resign so far.

From Albany to D.C.

Elected officials in Congress and state legislature have also ed the chorus.

State Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins told the New York Post that “it’s probably time that he move aside.”

On Friday, State Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) said for the first time that Adams should be removed.

“The last thing the people of New York want is for our city to turn into an annex of the Trump istration, yet that is exactly what is happening,” he said in a statement.

“Eric Adams is clearly compromised and can no longer be considered the legitimate leader of our city. He must step down or be removed.”

Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan), chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, on Tuesday reiterated her call for the mayor to resign or for Hochul to remove him.

“New Yorkers deserve a mayor worthy of this great city, one whose integrity is not in question, regardless of whether they agree with him or her on policy grounds. Eric Adams is clearly not that person,” she said in a statement.

A similar line came out Thursday night from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who’d previously said that the mayor should step down.

“Adams must be removed,” she wrote on Bluesky Thursday night. “The city cannot sustain being governed for nearly a year by a Mayor who is being coerced by Trump in order to escape charges.”

And in an interview on PIX airing Friday evening, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — the next in line to succeed the mayor — said Adams could no longer keep his job.

“He cannot be the mayor of this city and govern this city the way it needs to be governed,” he said.

The calls for Adams to step aside or be removed have grown since he was criminally charged at the end of September. While he tried to frame the Trump istration’s move this week to toss the charges against him as vindication of his innocence, new voices ed that chorus who noted that the Justice Department said the case against him could get picked up again after the November election — and that the decision to drop it was explicitly tied to helping the mayor implement President Trump’s push to deport more immigrants.    

The mayor discussed immigration in a private meeting Thursday with Trump’s “Border Czar,” Tom Homan, where he announced a planned executive order to bring Immigration andCustoms Enforcement back to Rikers Island, the city’s largest jail facility.

On Friday morning, Adams and Homan appeared together on both “Fox and Friends” and Dr. Phil McGraw’s streaming show to discuss immigration enforcement and how the mayor would work with the feds.

On Fox, Homan offered a joking threat if the mayor doesn’t come through with helping the feds.

“I’ll be back in New York City and we won’t be sitting on the couch,” he said. “I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” 

Brad Lander, the city comptroller and one of the candidates challenging Adams for mayor, called the Fox and Friends interview “sad, embarrassing, and enraging,” in a post on X, adding that “it’s time for this Mayor to go.” 

That’s become a point of agreement among the candidates running to replace Adams, including former comptroller Scott Stringer, state Senators Jessica Ramos and Zellnor Myrie, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, former DNC Vice chair Michael Blake, businessman Whitney Tillson and attorney Jim Walden. 

Former governor Andrew Cuomo, who’s been circling the race for months and is widely expected to enter it if Adams exits, however, has said nothing about the mayor’s position. 

Neither of New York’s senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have called on Adams to resign or be removed, however. Nor has House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries or Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.

Removing the Mayor

There are two options for removing a mayor: either Hochul could fire him following a formal hearing, or a group of key city officials could form an “inability committee” and begin a City Council proceeding to vote him out.

No mayor has ever been removed from office through either process. In 2019 and 2020, former governor Andrew Cuomo faced calls to remove then-mayor Bill De Blasio for campaigning for president and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but did not act on those recommendations.

The last time a governor attempted to remove a mayor was in 1932, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt began investigating corrupt mayor Jimmy Walker. Walker resigned before any official steps to remove him were taken.