The ball had barely dropped in Times Square before the first major feud of 2026 erupted, pitting former New York City Mayor Eric Adams against Bravo host Andy Cohen following a chaotic on-air segment during CNN’s New Year’s Eve broadcast.
Adams, whose tumultuous term as mayor officially ended at midnight, took to X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday to issue a blistering response to Cohen. The talk show host had spent nearly two minutes on live television mocking Adams’ tenure, characterizing it as “chaotic” and suggesting the former mayor had “partied” his way through four years in office.
“Another sloppy drunken rant. If anyone actually cares about him, they’ll tell him to get help,” Adams wrote in his statement. “New Yorkers aren’t laughing with him. They are concerned about him.”
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Adams didn’t stop there, pivoting to his background in law enforcement to suggest Cohen’s behavior was a public safety issue.
“Public intoxication is a disease. He should seek help. He was safe in Times Square because we did our job. Again. Seek help. AAA: Andy’s Alcohol Anonymous,” the former mayor added.
The Midnight Monologue
The conflict began shortly after midnight while Cohen was co-hosting “New Year’s Eve Live” with Anderson Cooper. Visibly holding a drink and slurring slightly, Cohen launched into a monologue directed at the just-departed mayor.
“Watching the final moments of Mayor Adams’ chaotic… I just want to say he got his pardons,” Cohen said. “I’m just saying, great, you got your pardons. Go off into the sunset.”
Cohen continued, gesturing with his free hand: “We’ll fiddle with what we have, with what you’ve left us with. Go dance away. We’ll see you at all the parties. You partied your way through four years… all the clubs, we’ll see you there.”
While Cohen repeatedly referenced “pardons,” the legal resolution to Adams’ troubles was different. President Donald Trump did not pardon Adams; rather, the Department of Justice directed the Southern District of New York to drop federal corruption charges against him in February 2025. A federal judge dismissed the indictment with prejudice two months later, ending the high-profile case involving accusations of illegal gifts from Turkish officials.
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Rats and Grammar
Despite the harsh criticism, Cohen did offer Adams one backhanded compliment regarding the city’s rodent crisis.
“I love how quickly you turn… but he did do great work on rats,” Cooper interjected as Cohen pivoted.
“I think he got rid of some of the rats. But isn’t that a metaphor of sorts?” Cohen asked, causing Cooper to burst into laughter. When Cohen insisted that in 2026 there were “less rats,” Cooper quickly corrected his co-host’s grammar: “Fewer.”
Adams had made rodent mitigation a signature policy of his administration, appointing a “rat czar” in 2023 with a multimillion-dollar budget to tackle the issue.
A History of NYE Rants
This isn’t the first time Cohen has used the CNN platform to roast a departing New York mayor. On New Year’s Day 2022, he went viral for a similar diatribe against Bill de Blasio, bidding him “sayonara, sucker” and claiming de Blasio had done the “crappiest job” in the city’s history.
As Cohen delivered his latest commentary, the political landscape of the city shifted. Around the same time as the broadcast, New York Attorney General Letitia James was swearing in Adams’ successor, Zohran Mamdani, in a private ceremony.
Adams, who had briefly run as an independent before dropping out and endorsing Andrew Cuomo, had told reporters earlier in the week that his post-mayoral plans involved a “single malt scotch and a cigar.”
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