Mayor Adams denies calling Texas Gov. Greg Abbott racist

Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday denied he was calling Texas Gov. Greg Abbott racist for bombarding “black-run cities’’ with migrant buses — even while continuing his race-based criticism of the Republican.

“I never used the term racist … but let’s look at the facts,” Adams said when asked by The Post about his racially loaded statement Monday that blasted Abbott — but did not mention El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat native to Mexico who bussed more than twice as many migrants to the Big Apple than the white Republican.

Hizzoner noted there are 108,000 cities in the US, adding, “Governor Abbot sent asylum-seekers to New York, black mayor.

“To Washington, black mayor. To Houston, black mayor. To Los Angeles, black mayor. To Denver, black mayor. He passed over thousands of cities to land here,” the Democrat said — seemingly forgetting about his hometown’s reputation as the nation’s largest “sanctuary city” aimed at aiding migrants, as well as being a center of economic activity and diversity.

“And so it was wrong for the mayor of El Paso to do it.  No one should use human beings as political pawns,” Adams said.

The mayor made similar statements about Abbott on the “Sid & Friends in the Morning” ABC radio show earlier Tuesday, saying, “When you look at the facts, you have to scratch your head and say, ‘We couldn’t find any cities in route to make his political statement?’”

Abbott’s office has sent more than 5,200 migrants to New York City since last year, while El Paso bussed 10,713 migrants to the Big Apple, Texas and El Paso officials have said.

Adams also continued to blast the Biden White House for its “irresponsibility’’ over the border crisis — adding to the Wall Street Journal in an interview, “I think President Biden has done a great job in the recovery of our city, but he’s wrong on this issue.”

The migrant situation is so serious that the president is taking the rare drastic step of sending 1,500 US soldiers to the US-Mexico border, it was reported Tuesday.

Biden is making the stunning move in anticipation of the end of Title 42, the COVID-era public-health policy that has allowed authorities to turn back millions of asylum seekers.

The crisis at the border has led to 60,000 asylum-seekers to be sheltered by New York City alone on the taxpayer’s dime since last spring — a bill that could hit $4.3 billion by the middle of next year, Adams has warned.

His ratcheting-up of his war of words came after his office said it got word from federal officials that the Texas busing program was set to rev up again with a migrant surge at the border ahead of the expiration of Title 42 next week.

A spokesman for Abbot fired back at Adams on Tuesday, accusing him of “spreading falsehoods and outright lies.

“He knows full well these migrants willingly chose to go to New York City, since his staff saw firsthand on their secret trip to Texas last year as migrants raised their hands to go on buses to his sanctuary city,” rep Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement to The Post.

“With millions of residents, New York is only dealing with a fraction of what our small border communities deal with on a day-to-day basis,” said the office, which has also denied busing anyone to Los Angeles or Denver.

Mahaleris recommended that Adams shift his energy to call on Biden to take “immediate action to secure the border.”

The mayor, in criticizing the White House on Tuesday, said, “It is the irresponsibility of the Republican party, Washington for refusing to do real immigration reform.

“And it’s the irresponsibility of the White House for not addressing this problem.

“And so it’s not about the people who are pursuing the American dream, it’s the irresponsibility of those that are allowing them to come to a country and not build the infrastructure to allow them to pursue that dream.”