How explosive showdown between new Biden campaign manager and Eric Adams tanked mayor’s relationship with prez
An explosive showdown between President Biden’s now-campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez and Eric Adams prompted the New York City mayor to unleash a barrage of public criticism of Biden’s handling of the border crisis, The Post has learned.
The face-to-face encounter last year that triggered the rift was recounted by insiders as Biden scrambles to issue new executive orders ostensibly meant to crack down on asylum applicant admissions — as poll after poll shows the crisis to be a major liability for the White House ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
“The mayor said, ‘Let’s have a family conversation, we are drowning [and] we need help,'” recalled a participant in the dramatic January 2023 discussion between Adams and Chavez Rodriguez, then the White House director of intergovernmental affairs.
Chavez Rodriguez, now 46, was visibly angry as Adams called for action at a small-group private discussion during an annual conference of the nation’s mayors in Washington.
“You could tell she was not happy at all and she came back at him in a really tough way,” the witness told The Post.
“She immediately sniped back. There was a notable tone, a very direct exchange, and it went back and forth.”
“It was a very unfortunate exchange and things just went south after that,” the source went on. “Up until that point, she had been the main person dealing with [Adams] on those topics. It just became very difficult after that.
“I think they [the Biden administration] were just not reading the tea leaves properly here. This is an issue and people are not happy.”
A second source said, “that moment made it seem personal on the Biden administration’s side as opposed to policy and that meant City Hall felt it didn’t just not have an ally, but it did have an enemy, and that meant there was going to be a different public footing when the migrant crisis worsened.”
“She has a dug deeper and deeper hole,” they said.
It’s unclear why Chavez Rodriquez, who left the White House about four months after the clash to serve as Biden’s campaign manager, chose to reprimand rather than attempt to mollify Adams — though multiple additional sources told The Post that she is also known to be brusque and even mean to fellow campaign staff, especially when they don’t meet her expectations.
Throughout 2022, Adams was “basically pleading with the White House to do something about this,” said the second insider, including pushing for limits on the number of paroled asylum seekers at the border and increasing federal aid to cities to cope with the influx.
The number of migrants illegally crossing the border continued to grow throughout 2023, as did Adams’s public criticism — as most of the new arrivals were given court dates and bused to Democrat-led cities including the Big Apple.
“The political argument [from Adams] was basically: look, black and Latino Democrats — who, by the way, you’re losing as a party — are much more likely than white Democrats to oppose unrestricted immigration,” the second source said.
“They are much more likely to lose work to people coming into the country and they are likely to be first or second-generation Americans who had to go through a vigorous policy to get here. Also, the social services are coming out of the same pie.”
“Eric Adams made that argument as someone who grew up in those communities,” the person said.
Meanwhile, Chavez Rodriguez — the granddaughter of famed union organizer Cesar Chavez — “was telling the president that Latinos would be furious” about a clampdown, the source told The Post.
“We now know that Eric Adams was right and she was wrong.”
The second source added that Chavez Rodriguez was the “exactly wrong” person to lead Biden’s re-election campaign, adding that they understand she has told acquaintances she “hates” the mayor of America’s largest city.
“She seems to approach the job more as an activist than as a political operative, and that’s something that really rubs people in the business the wrong way,” this person went on.
“The campaign needs to be about action, not activism, to make independent voters and Democrats who have started moving to [presumptive Republican nominee Donald] Trump move back into the blue column.”
Another source, who spoke in defense of Chavez Rodriguez, said “everyone knows the Eric Adams story,” but they don’t believe it’s her fault that he chose to blast Biden.
The Adams relationship was “unfair to pin on a staffer,” said this person, an immigration policy advocate, because it broke down over “a lot of money that the White House couldn’t deliver on.”
Adams “had legitimate gripes that are a lot larger than one White House staffer,” said this person.
“It doesn’t mean there wasn’t a conversation that could be handled differently.”
A former White House official told The Post they share the view that one person doesn’t bear all of the blame for the rift between Adams and the administration despite the view of the mayor’s allies, because “Eric Adams has been clear for a long time he’s gonna say what he’s gonna say.”
OPINIONS ‘HAVE HARDENED‘
Biden’s expected executive action this week includes an anticipated provision to cap at 2,500 per day the number of asylum seekers paroled into the US after illegally crossing the border and come, but skeptics from both sides of the aisle say it’s too little, too late.
Relations between the White House and City Hall have improved over the past year when former Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez replaced Chavez Rodriguez following her departure for the campaign.
However, the damage done by the earlier clash may be irreversible.
“Most attitudes and opinions about how Biden has handled this likely have hardened and Republicans will make this a top three issue and Democrats will be on defense … because the numbers are clear,” the second source said.
“They’re going to have to defend against that and some of the policy moves they’re trying to do are likely to only matter on the margins.”
A record 2.5 million illegal immigrants were apprehended after crossing the southern border in fiscal 2023, which ended Sept. 30 of last year, followed by an all-time monthly record of nearly 302,000 in December.
“If the migrant issue remains a top issue during the campaign for black, Latino and independent voters, then she [Chavez Rodriguez] would bear quite a bit of responsibility for a Biden loss,” the second source said.
Republicans argue Biden’s anticipated executive order capping illegal immigrant entries would do very little to stanch the flow of migrants because it would still allow more than 900,000 people per year into the interior, where they are entitled to work permits while awaiting badly backlogged asylum court proceedings.
Critics say Biden caused the border crisis by ending Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required most asylum seekers to remain south of the border as US officials reviewed their claims of persecution.
Biden’s approval rating on the issue of immigration is about 33.4%, according to the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls.
“It is pretty amazing how even at the highest levels of government, like the White House, one person can have so much influence on an issue because they’re just known as the person who is trusted or tasked on that issue,” said the second source.
“The migrant issue, unfortunately, sends the message that leading Democrats, including the president, are willing to spend whatever it takes to help asylum seekers but not necessarily focus on the economic and public safety issues that black and Latino voters truly care about.”
The source involved in immigration advocacy who defended Chavez Rodriguez said, however, that Biden himself must own responsibility for border policy, not his staff.
“I think the president put his head down and in some ways didn’t want to deal with the situation in the cities,” this person said.
The pro-Adams sources said that the mayor, who once branded himself the “Biden of Brooklyn,” felt obligated to speak out due to the political blowback at his doorstep.
“The mayor really does like the president and wasn’t trying to attack him,” one said.
But another defender of Chavez Rodriguez, who described her as eager to collaborate with colleagues, pointed out that there are no other known clashes involving her and big-city mayors, and noted she’s been spearheading outreach to black and Hispanic media in her role as campaign manager — which is a less powerful post this campaign cycle, as is common when a sitting president is seeking reelection.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said: “I have known Julie for years and she’s a strong and dedicated leader who has always put the needs of our community first. I’ve worked with her as both a Mayor and now in Congress in her capacity as a member of the Biden Administration and now on the campaign. Julie is focused on re-electing President Biden and protecting our democracy, not on political blame games.”
“For so many of us, Julie is so much more than our boss,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz told The Post.
“Her story gives us inspiration, her leadership is decisive, and she knows we are stronger when there are more perspectives at the table. Julie will of course go down as a trailblazer, but most importantly perhaps, she’ll be seen as one of the key players in making Donald Trump a loser once again.”
