‘Crony’ NYC fire chief resigns over Mamdani’s Israel stance

The American right have been losing it since the election of Zohran Mamdani. While there’s a lot of disinformation from people claiming to be New York residents who are set to flee the city, it is true that fire chief Robert Tucker is stepping down. The problem for him is that making his exit so public has drawn attention to how he got there in the first place:

just discovering that NYC’s current fire commissioner, who is resigning over Zohran Mamdani’s position on Israel, has zero firefighter experience and was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams after making a donation to Adams

to borrow a line from Brad Lander: “good fucking riddance” https://t.co/3n8TVd6s2w pic.twitter.com/Qin2MSgN96

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) November 5, 2025

Oh, and here’s an example of that disinformation we mentioned:

Drew, you live in Australia https://t.co/hjmQV0FfJN

— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) November 4, 2025

The Adams family

Readers are no doubt familiar with Mamdani, and there are two reasons why:

• He ran an electrifying campaign.
• The forces of capital came together in a futile attempt to halt his rise – wasting millions in the process – essentially turning a regional mayoral race into the frontline of the class war.

Zohran Mamdani on @BillAckman

“He’s spending more money against me than I would tax him! I don’t even want that much!”

Ah man, he’s going to win so big 🤣pic.twitter.com/goDMxh52kM

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) October 22, 2025

You may be less familiar with the outgoing mayor Eric Adams, even though he’s one of the most interesting characters in American politics. Adams has faced many accusations of corruption, with his links to Turkey being the most prominent, as New York Focus reported:

Eric Adams once maintained friendly relations with a nonprofit Turkish Cultural Center in Brooklyn. As a state senator, he met with its executive director in Albany. He attended the group’s annual dinner gala. As Brooklyn borough president, he worked with the center to distribute 1,500 pounds of meat to food pantries.

But around 2016, he suddenly stopped associating with it.

By that year, Adams had started accepting free travel from groups tied to the Turkish government, according to a criminal indictment against the mayor brought last week by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. A senior Turkish diplomatic official told Adams that if he wanted to keep receiving those kinds of perks, he could no longer associate with the center, according to the indictment, which accuses Adams of bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions.

2. Soliciting and accepting illegal campaign contributions (2018-2023):
– Accepting straw donations from Turkish businesspeople and their employees
– Soliciting and accepting contributions from foreign nationals
– Orchestrating schemes to funnel foreign money through…

— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) September 26, 2024

4. Bribery (2021-2022):
– Pressuring the FDNY to allow occupancy of the Turkish House without proper fire safety inspection
– Accepting luxury travel benefits in exchange for this official action

— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) September 26, 2024

The case would later be ended under controversial circumstances, with Trump’s Department of Justice having requested the case be dropped.

In the case of fire chief Robert Tucker, the Gothamist reported that:

Six weeks before Mayor Eric Adams made Robert Tucker commissioner of the FDNY, eight employees from Tucker’s security firm donated to Adams’ re-election campaign

They added:

Tucker did not respond to Gothamist’s questions about the donations. Neither did spokespeople for Adams and his campaign. The mayor has maintained his innocence and is pleading not guilty to his federal corruption charges.

Before his 25 years at T&M, Tucker “spent nearly a decade in law enforcement management” as an assistant to the Queens district attorney, according to his government biography. While he often talks about chasing fire trucks as a kid, he has no previous experience working for the fire department, but he served for nearly a decade on the board of the FDNY Foundation, a nonprofit organization that raises money for the agency.

Given all this, people have accused Tucker of being mayor Adams’ crony:

mind you, he was appointed after making a large donation to eric adams, with zero previous fire fighter or first responder experience — and he drives around lower manhattan in a silver lambo https://t.co/kLm6p4nvK7 pic.twitter.com/XJhlzWMbim

— NAS🦋🏆🏆🏆 (@nasgioia) November 5, 2025

You’ll be shocked to know that our FDNY Commissioner was a CEO with zero connection to, or experience with, firefighting or politics. He was going to be replaced anyway. He just saved a step for Mamdani.https://t.co/rwQhjtlstP https://t.co/xufUBKgd7U

— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) November 5, 2025

You can see why people came to see this race as the frontline in the class war, can’t you?

Featured image via KaraMcCurdy (Wikimedia) / Terabass (Wikimedia)