Kansans to Mayor Eric Adams: Follow the yellow brick road … and keep walking!
New York’s mayor infuriated Midwesterners by claiming that “Kansas doesn’t have a brand” during a news conference at which he discussed his recent visits to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
Adams boasted about the positive reaction he got when locals saw him wearing a government-issued polo shirt the word “mayor” on the back.
“We have a brand. New York has a brand and when people see it, it means something,” Adams crowed Tuesday.
The mayor then cracked himself up by comparing the Big Apple to the Sunflower State.
“Kansas doesn’t have a brand,” he said.
Laughing, Adams added, “When you go there, you’re, ‘OK, you from Kansas?’ No.”
The reaction from Kansans was harsh, with former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo tweeting, “Mayor Adams brand? Crime, Violence and crushing taxes.”
“Kansas brand? Nation’s breadbasket and aviation capital of the world, all powered by hard-working, decent people who put family, faith, and community first,” he added.
US Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) also wrote: “Kansas has KS wheat, Jayhawk basketball, KS beef, and the Wizard of Oz.”
“What’s New York Mayor Adams’ brand? Violence, murder, homelessness, and high taxes? I’ll take Kansas any day,” Marshall tweeted.
On Facebook, Kansas TV station KWCH asked its viewers to weigh in on Adams’ remarks, prompting one to suggest: “I say we send him a bus load of angry Badgers.”
Another wrote: “We don’t defund our police and let criminals out of jail so they can terrorize our citizens.”
“Consider the source. He can’t clean up his own backyard so he trashes someone else’s,” another fumed.
The controversy isn’t the first time Adams has publicly attacked the nation’s heartland.
As a mayoral candidate in 2020, he denounced gentrification in New York City by blasting Midwesterners for flocking to the Big Apple.
“Go back to Iowa, you go back to Ohio,” he said during a speech in Harlem on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“New York City belongs to the people that was here and made New York City what it is.”