There’s cash on the line.

Mayor Eric Adams whined Thursday about his cash-strapped campaign and the supposedly biased media as he defended taking a hiatus from the trail as part of his long-shot bid to hold onto City Hall with just 40 days to go until the election.

“I need my money!” Hizzoner exclaimed on “The Breakfast Club” on Power 101.5 FM. “What people don’t understand when you run for mayor, one of the most important aspects of running for mayor is raising the money.

“So, they orchestrated and organized to really undermine my campaign. When you hear that ‘mayor is dropping out’ over and over again, your funders are gone,” he railed.

Money is just one of Adams’ many woes as he seeks election to a second term, both for his fourth-place-polling campaign and more than $3 million in unpaid legal bills for the defense in his now-dismissed federal corruption case.

New York politicos have wondered if Adams has already quiet-quit his campaign with a skeletal staff and seemingly little money being spent. 

Some have speculated that Adams is banking his campaign cash to use to pay his legal bills – a move two election attorneys told The Post that the mayor could potentially do, so long as he’s no longer in public office.

“If I had a nickel for every state official who used campaign money for legal issues,” said one state election lawyer, who asked not be named.

“There is no issue of that being a legitimate expense. As a state account, I think that’s a perfectly legit expense.”

A full picture of Adams’ war chest won’t be publicly available until the next round of campaign finance disclosures next week, but the last release in August indicated he had roughly $3.9 million cash on hand.

Donations have also dried up for his legal defense fund, which is required for any public official to use to raise money for any personal legal fees. No donors have made a contribution this year, records show.

Under the state’s public officials law, anyone holding office cannot have any other entity cover his or her personal legal bills.

But Adams is a longshot at best to remain a public official come Jan. 1, if polls are to be believed. If he’s voted out of office his campaign could shift the funds to a state fund, where the requirements are much more lax.

Another election attorney, who also asked not to be named, said Adams transferring his campaign cash to a state account could be “problematic.”

“But who’s going to go after him and indict him after he leaves office anyway?” the lawyer said.

Adams could also bank the war chest for a return to public office down the line.

The mayor’s campaign in recent weeks has shown little sign of any actual spending on ads, mailings or door knockings – and has been denied $4.7 million in public matching funds over suspicions his fundraising violated the law.

He has sued the city’s Campaign Finance Board for its allegedly “spiteful” denial, but the case remains pending and unlikely to affect his haul before November’s election.

And the election lawyers said if Adams receives the public matching funds it could complicate any maneuver to use his campaign haul to pay off his legal debt.

Adams, during an unrelated Brooklyn event Thursday, turned to a third-person metaphor to complain about his campaign cash problems.

“The reason he can’t catch fire the way we want to is because to catch fire, you need oxygen,” he said, referring to cash.

“And my oxygen has been shut off. So, my team has been sitting down the last few weeks and saying, how do we strategize? Let’s win this court case.”

Adams’ campaign hasn’t held a single public event since last Friday, fueling rumors that he would drop out any day now, as his re-election bid has also failed to gain double-digit support in poll after poll.

“We were sitting down behind the scenes, sitting down with funders, sitting down with the campaign team and figuring out our strategies to go … and I have a day job,” Adams told “The Breakfast Club,” defending his days off from campaigning.

Adams ranted that his lack of donors and public matching funds from the Campaign Finance Board has made it nearly impossible for him to get his “story” out there.

“They have undermined my ability to get my message out,” Adams said of being denied matching funds repeatedly. “I spent $8 million the last time I ran. I’m down to now half of that now.

“Right now I’m depending on print media to tell my story,” he continued before railing against the media.

The comments come as the latest poll by Fox News has the mayor in fourth place with just 7 to 8% of the vote with 51% of voters believing he is corrupt.

Socialist Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, came in first with 47% and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo followed with 29%, according to the poll. Both Adams and Cuomo are running as independents in the election, which also includes Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Adams put up a brave front in the face of polling, and outlandishly promised “one of the most exciting campaigns in the history of the city” – despite spinning his wheels for days.

“This is three-dimensional chess, because the pieces are moving so rapidly,” he said.