(New York Post) The Roosevelt Hotel is this way, Mr President.
President Biden gave a Bronx cheer to New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the rest of the Big Apple while in town for the UN General Assembly this week — failing to set up a meeting with Hizzoner as the debilitating migrant crisis continues to cripple Gotham.
The country’s commander in chief has instead spent much of his time attending multiple campaign receptions or holed up at the Headquarters in Midtown Manhattan – just four blocks from the city’s overrun migrant intake site at the once-iconic Roosevelt.
Adams — making it clear Tuesday that “everybody knows where I am” — sniffed to reporters about Biden’s visit, “I am hoping that he understands this beautiful city that’s the economic engine of the entire country is been saddled with a $2 billion that we spent already, $5 billion we’re going to spend in this fiscal crisis, $12 billion in the next two budgetary cycles.
“New York doesn’t deserve this, the asylum seekers don’t deserve this,” Adams said.
“And so while he’s here, I think that they should really reflect on, New York City has done its part,” the mayor said.
Eric Adams behind a newsstand during a press conference on the City’s sanitation conditions on Tuesday.G.N.Miller/NYPost
Biden’s snub is yet a further sign of a deepening rift between him and Adams — who once dubbed himself the “Biden of Brooklyn” and the president’s favorite mayor — as the escalating humanitarian crisis batters the city and country.
“It is a terrible look,” a City Hall source admitted to The Post on Tuesday.
The president has been on the ground in Gotham for three days Monday through Wednesday.
Another City Hall insider bitterly quipped that Biden’s visit meant he was the federal “liaison” that the White House has long promised to send to the Big Apple to help battle the flood of now-125,000 asylum seekers since April 2022.
President Biden’s motorcade leaves the UN and passes a sign that reads “Roosevelt hotel, this way”.Matthew McDermott
The city has already spent $2 billion on the migrant crisis as it opened more than 200 emergency shelters across the five boroughs.James Keivom
Gotham has yet to get its long-overdue special federal point person.
“The city is billions of dollars in debt — but at least we got a White House ‘liaison,’ ” the insider said sarcastically.
The White House did not respond to a Post request for comment Tuesday.
The mayor for his part spent Monday and Tuesday meeting with a relatively bizarre range of other dignitaries and leaders – from the president of the West African nation of Sierra Leone to the mayors of Kansas and Montreal.
“The day is completely stacked,” a City Hall insider said of Adams’ Tuesday calendar, noting it as if Biden’s presence in the Big Apple didn’t matter to Hizzoner.
President Biden delivered remarks at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.AP
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul confirmed she would see Biden at a UN leader’s reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Tuesday night — although she dodged whether she would bring up the crucial migrant issue.
“We’ll see what the topic comes around to,” Hochul said coyly when asked during an unrelated press conference if she planned to broach the asylum-seeker saga with the commander in chief.
Despite attending the same Met event last year, Adams turned down this year’s invite, according to a City Hall source. Instead, he was opting to attend the Atlantic Council Global Citizens Dinner and the Africa-America Institute’s 70th Anniversary Gala, according to his schedule.
As for Wednesday, the president’s initial schedule only had him meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva before heading back to the White House.
Biden’s UN meetings take place just four blocks from the city’s overrun migrant intake site at the once-iconic Roosevelt, pictured in August.
