Exclusive | Zohran Mamdani’s lousy negotiating skills killed free NYC bus pilot program , Adams says

Socialists apparently don’t understand the art of the deal.

Democratic mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani is a terrible negotiator unfit to lead NYC, according to Mayor Adams, who told The Post this week he witnessed his rival’s political deal-making ineptitude firsthand.

Mamdani – whose Marxist pledge to provide free bus service citywide is a centerpiece of his mayoral campaign — asked Hizzoner for help bringing a pilot program for free buses during an April 2023 dinner at Gracie Mansion with the mayor, Adams recalled days after Mamdani shockingly won the Democratic mayoral primary.

Adams — a Dem seeking re-election as an independent — agreed to help convince Gov. Hochul to add funding for the five-borough pilot in the upcoming budget, and even let Mamdani post a video of him on social media gushing how much he loved the concept.

“I have always told my team to work with anyone — regardless of their politics — if it meant improving the lives of New Yorkers,” Adams said.

“So when Zohran Mamdani came to me in 2023 asking for help pushing for free bus service in the state budget, it was my team that went to Albany and got it done.”

Days after the one-year, $15 million program expired Aug. 31, 2024, state Assemblyman Mamdani and state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) gushed it was a “resounding success” in an op-ed they penned for The Nation.

However, during 2024 budget negotiations, Mamdani ruined any chances of extending the pilot by butting heads with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and voting against the state budget in protest over a landlord-friendly measure that allowed home-repair costs to be passed on to rent-stabilized tenants, sources told The Post.

An irate Heastie reportedly threatened to pull the bus pilot if Mamdani voted against the budget, and it was ultimately excluded.

Mamdani and Heastie have since denied the confrontation happened.

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Adams – who has made “Get Stuff Done” a motto of his three-plus years in office – said the 33-year-old socialist pol’s failure to complete a layup and get the pilot program extended shows just how unprepared Mamdani is to run the city. 

“Here’s what Zohran doesn’t want you to know: the only reason those free buses weren’t renewed is because he failed to negotiate it back into the budget the following year,” said Adams.

“There is something so cruel about promising New Yorkers things you cannot — and have not — delivered on, which is precisely what Zohran Mamdani’s entire platform rests on,” added the mayor, who has repeatedly ripped the millennial pol as a “snake oil salesman” making progressive promises he can’t keep.

Besides subsiding free buses citywide, Mamdani’s Soviet-style proposals include freezing rents for regulated apartments, free child care and opening city-run grocery stores.

The long lefty laundry list — estimated to cost $10 billion— would be paid for by taxing the Big Apple’s ultra-wealthy under Mamdani’s plan, but critics say it’s severely flawed because such action must be taken by state pols and not the sitting mayor.

Mamdani’s campaign did not return messages.