There’s a moment in the video — you’ve probably seen it by now — where Eric Adams leans into a woman’s face on a jet bridge in Dallas and says, “You’re gonna see the Brooklyn in me.”
It’s meant to be a threat. It plays like a punchline.
Adams, 65, left office two weeks ago. In that time, he has launched a cryptocurrency that crashed within hours, been accused of orchestrating a rug pull, watched another aide get indicted, and cursed out a stranger in an airport. When someone compiled all of this into a headline, he quote-tweeted it with a single word: “Exactly.”
Exactly https://t.co/TmfKfKbjMa
— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) January 14, 2026
The man is not well. Or he’s doing great. With Adams, it’s hard to tell the difference.
The airport video is the purest distillation of who he’s become. A woman boos him. He reportedly threatens to hit her. She calls his bluff — “Please punch me in the face, I would love it” — and instead of walking away, he tells her to go f**k herself and reminds her, twice, that he’s not the mayor anymore.
He’s been saying that a lot lately. “I’m not the mayor anymore.” It’s supposed to be a shield, but it works more like a confession.
Because here’s the thing about Adams: he was never really the mayor. He was a guy who played one. The suits, the swagger, the club appearances, the entourage. He took his first three paychecks in Bitcoin because it was 2022 and that’s what main characters did. He posed for photos. He collected the title like it was a prop.
Then the indictments came. Five felony counts — bribery, fraud, soliciting foreign campaign donations. His chief advisor got charged. His Buildings Commissioner got charged. His liaison to public housing residents got charged on Tuesday, the same day as the airport incident, accused of taking $16,000 to steer contracts. Adams’ own case got dropped after Trump’s DOJ told prosecutors to kill it. Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor quit rather than do it.
So Adams walked. And two weeks into civilian life, he’s standing in Times Square in January, promoting a crypto coin that promises to fight “anti-Americanism.” He went on Fox Business to pitch it to Maria Bartiromo. He shot a promotional video where he told a cab driver, “This thing is about to take off like crazy.” He talked about funding scholarships and teaching kids about blockchain. He said the money would go to nonprofits. None of this came with specifics.
Amid the Times Square sideshows, Eric Adams announces his “NYC Token,” a crypto coin he says will fight antisemitism.
“I’m not taking a salary at this time,” he said of the yet to be launched coin. “Down the line, we will make the determination of doing so” pic.twitter.com/KnTTdTv6y1
— Josie Stratman (@JosieStratman) January 12, 2026
The coin was called NYC Token. Within hours of launch, its market cap hit $600 million. Then someone pulled $2.5 million in liquidity and the price collapsed. Crypto people called it a rug pull. Adams called it a “market maker adjustment.” A Bronx entrepreneur called his lawyer, claiming Adams stole the entire concept from a pitch meeting last year.
Who’s actually behind the project? Adams won’t say. The website doesn’t say. We know the unnamed team gets 10% of profits. We know Adams flew to Dubai and Congo last week. We know he’s “setting up some companies.”
We know he’s not the mayor anymore. He keeps reminding us.
There’s a type of guy who peaks in the title and spends the rest of his life trying to trade on it. Adams isn’t even doing that well. He’s two weeks out and already beefing with random women in airports, already neck-deep in another scheme that smells like smoke.
“You’re gonna see the Brooklyn in me,” he said on that jet bridge.
Mr. Eric Adams need to sell his Crypto coin. Don’t do this to him! pic.twitter.com/c9U0ZBqXHT
— Imam Shamsi Ali (@ShamsiAli2) January 14, 2026
Funny thing — he might not even live in Brooklyn anymore. Rumor has it he’s been in Fort Lee, New Jersey, for a while now. The residency questions dogged him throughout his tenure, and they followed him right out the door. But that’s Adams. The posture without the substance. The threat without the follow-through. A man who spent years playing a role and is now struggling to figure out what comes next.
He’s not the mayor anymore.
He never really was.
