The break-up: Biden and Adams fire each other up in New York

But Adams had not booked time with Biden and was not expected to.

Adams was invited to but likely will not attend the president’s campaign fundraiser or a reception Tuesday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that are part of Biden’s schedule, according to two people familiar with the plans.

Biden and Adams’ decision to avoid each other is a concession to the reality that their relationship is deeply fractured, according to several people familiar with the dynamic. Arranging a meeting could have been awkward for both men, with no obvious upside.

“It just means they’re both trying to avoid exacerbating an already tense situation,” said a City Council adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the relationship.

Meanwhile, White House aides said there was no meeting between Biden and Adams on the agenda in New York City this week.

They acknowledged that some in the West Wing were unhappy with the mayor’s criticism, but vowed to continue working with Adams in the future.

The fallout is almost entirely the result of Adams’ tough rhetoric on immigration, including his pleas for Biden to provide funding and work permits to support the city’s estimated 60,000 migrants.

“It’s certainly unfortunate,” Brooklyn Borough Chairman Antonio Reynoso, another Democrat, said in an interview Monday that the two leaders were not getting together. “The longer we wait for all levels of government to come to the table, the more we continue to cause collateral damage to migrants.”

Adams at one point called himself the “Biden from Brooklyn”, pointing out the working-class roots they have in common. But the mayor of the nation’s largest city recently confirmed that he and Biden, once close allies who couldn’t get enough of each other’s company, he had not spoken since the beginning of this year.

In May, Adams was removed from a list of high-level Biden surrogates. And the last time they were seen together was in late January during the president’s visit to promote his bipartisan Infrastructure Act and the Hudson Tunnel Rail Project.

Since then, Adams’ criticism of the Biden administration has become increasingly pointed.

Biden said failed” by providing too little federal aid as New York City endures what local leaders have called a national problem.

Earlier this month, Adams said the cost and toll of the migrant crisis “will destroy” New York.

The statements of the Democratic mayor have been exercised by the Republicans bashing the president over what they say is a porous southern border.

Asked Monday about any attempt to meet with Biden while he’s in town, Adams tried to laugh off the questions.

“You know I don’t do these private conversations,” said the mayor of divulging these communications.

A spokesman for Adams declined to elaborate on the mayor’s thinking, but said, “We always look forward to any conversation that can help provide the critical support and relief that asylum seekers, New Yorkers deserve and all Americans.”

Some 110,000 migrants have headed to the city since spring 2022.

Thousands of adult migrants sleep in shanty-style housing the city has set up with limited state and federal aid, and thousands of migrant families fill New York City’s conventional shelters.

“If we don’t get help from the federal government and additional help from the state government, it’s going to come from somewhere and it’s going to hurt low-income New Yorkers,” Adams said Sunday evening in an appearance on MSNBC.

On Monday, the mayor’s public schedule was filled with meetings with dignitaries from around the world in town for the General Assembly. It did not include the two campaign receptions that Biden was scheduled to attend Monday evening, one with black business leaders and a second with Broadway headliners.

The president is in town until Wednesday.

Biden’s public schedule includes multiple high-profile bilateral meetings with other world leaders, as well as Tuesday night’s “leader’s reception” at the Met Museum for heads of state.

Although Adams attended the event during the United Nations General Assembly last September, his name was not on Tuesday’s list.

Previously, Biden publicly mentioned Adams with some frequency and praised his leadership.

He hasn’t talked much about the mayor lately.

Adams has faced criticism from a lawyer for Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who used official letters indicate the areas where the City Council can handle better the influx of migrants.

The mayor’s chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, said on Sunday that she would accompany him while others tried to make him the “fall boy” in the crisis.

Even if Adams and Biden do not speak, the municipal and federal governments coordinate through other channels.

The mayor met with Mayorkas and spoke with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients.

Last Thursday, Biden senior adviser Tom Perez was in New York City to meet with various parties navigating the migrant crisis, including business leaders who are calling on the White House to extend labor authority so that migrants can help fill vacancies.

“To some extent, the governor and the mayor have played good cop with the White House, and I don’t think they had a choice,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Association for the City of New York. in an interview

“It’s starting to work because I think the White House has recognized that there will be real political consequences if this remains an open wound in 2024.”

Jonathan Lemire and Jason Beeferman contributed to this report.