NYC Swears in New Mayor, but This Drunken Farewell to Eric Adams Was Something Else

As my colleague Brad Essex reported earlier, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in on a Quran by Attorney General Letitia James as the mayor of New York City in a midnight ceremony in a closed subway station.

BREAKING

Zohran Mamdani has been sworn-in as the 112th Mayor of New York City. pic.twitter.com/HyOBzXo8RQ
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 1, 2026

Meanwhile, Eric Adams ended his time as mayor of New York, pressing the button for the New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square.

"Your life is going to change in a few hours. What are you going to do tomorrow?"
New York City Mayor Eric Adams: "Have a single malt scotch and smoke a cigar." pic.twitter.com/BR8hDwnCXv
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) January 1, 2026

That was a comment.

But the wild, drunken farewell from Andy Cohen, who was also at the Times Square event for CNN's coverage, may have topped it. As Cohen started to go off, slamming Adams' time, as "chaotic, horrible," you could see The Office star B.J. Novak and Anderson Cooper trying to stop him. Cooper tried to get out of the frame, unsuccessfully, as the cameraman panned wide.

After the ball dropped and after having a few, Andy Cohen goes off about he's relishing the end of Mayor Eric Adams' time as New York City mayor.
Anderson Cooper desperately tried to get out of frame but the cameraman does him dirty and goes wide. pic.twitter.com/rmzWi5upN4
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 1, 2026

“I just want to say, I mean, he’s got his pardons," Cohen drunkenly ranted.

Great, you got your pardons, go off in the sunset. We’ll, we’ll fiddle with what we have, with what you left us with...We'll see you at all the parties... I just want to say goodbye, Mayor Adams, you did it, you did it, you did it, didn’t you?

Cooper tried to interject and say Adams did a good job with the rats, and I think Cohen agreed, although he called it a "metaphor of sorts." But he did concede there were "less rats." It should be "fewer," but I don't think he was thinking about grammar at that point.

Now, Cohen was a bit confused about the facts. Adams did not get a pardon; the case involving allegations about campaign contributions was dismissed by a judge in April.

Cohen has a history of making blunt, inebriated comments on the New Year's Eve show, and the CNN coverage has historically been pretty rowdy. About departing Bill de Blasio, Cohen said in 2022 that he should “do his victory lap dance after four years as the crappiest term of the mayor of New York.”

Report: The Struggle Is Real for CNN's New Year's Eve Hosts

I don't think too many are going to think that Adams accomplished much, which is one of the reasons he's gone.

But I expect that he's going to be looked back on more fondly, once the full enormity of the mess they just elected with Mamdani fully takes hold.

Let's bookmark this, and I expect that we'll be seeing Drunk Andy a couple of years from now, bemoaning how awful Mamdani has turned out to be.

Unfortunately for New Yorkers, they are now going to have to find out the hard way that this was a very bad choice.

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