Representatives for both officials told the newspaper that the recently-appointed mayor and Ocasio-Cortez, whose district covers parts of the Bronx and Queens, had not attended any public events together or met one-on-one since last July when Adams met with New York’s members of Congress after he won the Democratic primary for mayor. Ocasio-Cortez praised one of Adams’ rivals, Maya Wiley, in that primary.
The Times mentions that last July’s meeting came a few days after Adams said he was running against a democratic socialist “movement.” Longtime Democratic strategist Jefrey Pollock told the newspaper that Adams and Ocasio-Cortez “are fundamentally arguing from the two sides of the Democratic Party. And therefore, they are bound to be in conflict.”
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Both Adams and Ocasio-Cortez refused to be questioned by the Times. An aide to former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told the newspaper that “the truth is, Adams won without” college-educated liberals who support Ocasio-Cortez. “And if he’s going to expand his base beyond working-class African American and Latino [voters], it’s not going to be progressives.”
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Representative Nydia Velázquez, a congressional mentor of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s, tried to clear the air, pleading with the mayor to treat “everyone with respect.”
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However, since then, the conflict has maintained between Mr. Adams and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, two ascendant political stars and unusually gifted communicators representing sharply divergent wings of the fractured Democratic Party: Mr. Adams as an avatar of “pragmatic” moderatism, as he has described his policies, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez as an ardent, Left-wing warrior.
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“They are fundamentally arguing from the two sides of the Democratic Party,” said Jefrey Pollock, a veteran Democratic strategist, adding, “And therefore, they are bound to be in conflict.”
Despite their reputation and ties, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Adams have had no public events together. According to representatives from both camps, they have not spoken one-on-one since the July meeting.
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And when they do speak to each other, it is usually to trade lambasts. In September, for instance, Mr. Adams questioned Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s provocative “Tax the Rich” dress at last fall’s Met Gala. (Mr. Adams mimicked the move last week with a tuxedo emblazoned with the message “End Gun Violence.”)
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In early January, soon after Mr. Adams’s inauguration, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez slammed him on Twitter for describing some workers as “low skill.” The mayor fired back that the congresswoman and her followers acted like the “word police.”