Eric Adams’ chilling warning on Zohran Mamdani, DSA as outgoing mayor rips into front-runner

Zohran Mamdani and his Democratic Socialist of America comrades will “take us backwards,” Mayor Eric Adams warned Tuesday as he ripped the front-runner candidate for City Hall.

Adams, who is no longer running for re-election, claimed the Democratic mayoral nominee would lead the city astray, as he was asked during an unrelated news conference who he would endorse in the November election.

“There’s one major obstacle we have and that’s Zohran,” Adams told reporters from Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn.

“I don’t want us to go backwards, and Zohran and the DSA will take us backwards.”

The lame-duck mayor said he wants a successor who has “not succumbed to this far-left agenda” that’s “hooked into our city.”

He blasted some of the DSA darling’s campaign platforms — including “false promises” of a rent freeze on stabilized units, something that would have to be passed by the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, as the mayor doesn’t have the power to control rents.

“You can’t freeze rent at NYCHA. You can’t freeze rent at Mitchell Llama apartments. You can’t freeze rent at market rate,” Adams said referring to middle and low-income housing. “So I need someone that’s going to push back.”

Adams also ripped the democratic socialist’s proposal to give the Civilian Complaint Review Board final say on police officer discipline and his support of the plan to close the troubled Rikers Island jail complex.

“And so, if I’m going to say this is who I endorse, I want the people of the city of New York to know that they want to continue to move us forward,” Adams told reporters.

Hizzoner said he was “still in conversations” about which of the candidates — including ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa — he might back publicly.

But “I want to make sure that programs like this continue, you know, I want to hear real commitments,” he said, referring to the two new Department of Social Services initiatives aimed at parents-to-be that his administration launched Tuesday.

One of the programs, called CRIB, helps pregnant homeless women find housing before their baby is born. The other, NYC Baby Boxes, will have four NYC Health + Hospital locations give out free baby supplies, like onesies, diapers and lotion, to new families.

Since bowing out of the race on September 28, the mayor has started to show an openness to supporting fellow moderate Cuomo, despite a personal disdain for the ex-governor, sources have said.

Adams even cut a stinging line from his withdrawal speech aimed at Cuomo, and, in recent weeks, he has focused his attacks on the far-left Queens state assemblyman.

The one-term mayor and former police officer said Tuesday he doesn’t want “our city to look like what’s playing out in Europe,” mentioning “extremist behavior,” without offering specifics when asked what he meant.

A City Hall spokesperson did not elaborate when The Post followed up.

Radical DSA policies, unearthed by The Post, show the progressive group, which has endorsed Mamdani, wants to close all jails, decriminalize all drug use and abolish pretrial detention and cash bail.

Mamdani, who has remained coy about DSA’s most controversial policies, parroted the group’s talking points when he defended the decriminalization of prostitution and said he supports ending mayoral control over city public schools.

A spokesperson for the Mamdani campaign did not respond to The Post request for comment.

Adams ultimately said any endorsement from him would be motivated by a desire to preserve his legacy.

“It’s not just endorsing to say, hey anyone but Zohran,” Adams said. “But it’s also me saying, hey, New Yorkers, I gave you my blood, sweat and tears for 40 years and here’s who I think is going to take it forward, and we’ll sit down have the conversation to see who is going to do that.”