Mamdani Victory Speech: Zohran Mamdani, New York’s newly elected mayor, sent a direct message to Donald Trump in his victory speech: “Turn the volume up!” Mamdani vowed to hold corrupt landlords and billionaires accountable, end tax exploitation, and defend unions. His fiery speech drew cheers as he promised to make New York the city that shows America how to defeat corruption and inequality.
00:51The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said, I can see
01:11the dawn of a better day for humanity.
01:18For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy
01:25and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands.
01:31Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery
01:38bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns, these are not hands that have been
01:44allowed to hold power.
01:47And yet over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater.
01:55Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it.
02:04The future is in our hands.
02:12My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.
02:17I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life, but let tonight be the final time I utter
02:40his name as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.
02:55New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change, a mandate for a new kind of politics,
03:08a mandate for a city we can afford, and a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that.
03:18On January 1st, I will be sworn in as the mayor of New York City.
03:33And that is because of you.
03:43So before I say anything else, I must say this.
03:50Thank you to the next generation of New Yorkers who refuse to accept that the promise of a
03:58better future was a relic of the past.
04:02You showed that when politics speaks to you without condescension, we can usher in a new era of leadership.
04:13We will fight for you because we are you.
04:21Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city who made this movement
04:35their own.
04:37I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas.
04:44Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses.
04:50Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.
04:56Yes, aunties.
05:02To every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point.
05:10Know this.
05:11This city is your city and this democracy is yours too.
05:21This campaign is about people like Wesley.
05:25An 1199 organizer I met outside of Elmhurst Hospital on Thursday night.
05:31A New Yorker who lives elsewhere, who commutes two hours each way from Pennsylvania because
05:38rent is too expensive in this city.
05:42It's about people like the woman I met on the BX 33 years ago, who said to me, I used to
05:49love New York, but now it's just where I live.
05:54And it's about people like Richard, the taxi driver I went on a 15 day hunger strike with
06:02outside of City Hall.
06:07Who still has to drive his cab seven days a week.
06:12My brother, we are in City Hall now.
06:22This victory is for all of them.
06:26And it's for all of you.
06:29The more than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force.
06:37Because of you, we will make this city one that working people can love and live in again.
06:48With every door knocked, every petition signature earned, and every hard earned conversation,
06:55you eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics.
07:04Now I know that I have asked for much from you over this last year.
07:11Time and again, you have answered my calls.
07:16But I have one final request.
07:20New York City, breathe this moment in.
07:28We have held our breath for longer than we know.
07:31We have held it in anticipation of defeat.
07:34Held it because the air has been knocked out of our lungs too many times to count.
07:39Held it because we cannot afford to exhale.
07:43Thanks to all of those who sacrificed so much,
07:46we are breathing in the air of a city that has been reborn.
07:51To my campaign team, who believed when no one else did.
08:00And who took an electoral project and turned it into so much more.
08:09I will never be able to express the depth of my gratitude.
08:15You can sleep now.
08:16To my parents, Mama and Baba, you have made me into the man I am today.
08:30I am so proud to be your son.
08:38And to my incredible wife, Rama.
08:45Hayati, there is no one I would rather have by my side in this moment and in every moment.
08:56To every New Yorker, whether you voted for me, for one of my opponents or felt too disappointed by politics to vote at all.
09:04Thank you for the opportunity to prove myself worthy of your trust.
09:09I will wake each morning with a singular purpose.
09:15To make this city better for you than it was the day before.
09:18There are many who thought this day would never come.
09:24Who feared that we would be condemned only to a future of less.
09:29With every election consigning us simply to more of the same.
09:34And there are others who see politics today as too cruel for the flame of hope to still burn.
09:42New York, we have answered those fears.
09:46Tonight we have spoken in a clear voice.
09:53Hope is alive.
09:59Hope is a decision that tens of thousands of New Yorkers made day after day.
10:04Volunteer shift after volunteer shift.
10:07Despite attack ad after attack ad.
10:12More than a million of us stood in our churches, in gymnasiums, in community centers, as we filled in the ledger of democracy.
10:24And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together.
10:32Hope over tyranny.
10:34Hope over big money and small ideas.
10:37Hope over despair.
10:41We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible.
10:48And we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us.
10:57Now it is something that we do.
11:02Standing before you, I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru.
11:15A moment comes but rarely in history.
11:19When we step out from the old to the new.
11:22When an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance.
11:28Tonight we have stepped out from the old into the new.
11:31So let us speak now with clarity and conviction that cannot be misunderstood.
11:40About what this new age will deliver and for whom.
11:44This will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve.
11:50Rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt.
11:56Central to that vision will be the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost of living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorella Guardia.
12:10An agenda that will freeze the rents for more than 2 million rent stabilized tenants.
12:23Make buses fast and free.
12:27And deliver universal childcare across our city.
12:32Years from now.
12:37May our only regret.
12:40Be that this day took so long to come.
12:43This new age will be one of relentless improvement.
12:50We will hire thousands more teachers.
12:56We will cut waste from a bloated bureaucracy.
13:00We will work tirelessly to make lights shine again in the hallways of NYCHA developments where they have long flickered.
13:11Safety and justice will go hand in hand as we work with police officers to reduce crime and create a department of community safety that tackles the mental health crisis and homelessness crises head on.
13:29Excellence will become the expectation across government, not the exception.
13:37In this new age we make for ourselves.
13:40We will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another.
13:50In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light.
13:58Here, we believe in standing up for those we love.
14:03Whether you are an immigrant.
14:06A member of the trans community.
14:09One of the many black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job.
14:15A single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down.
14:21Or anyone else with their back against the wall.
14:26Your struggle is ours too.
14:31And we will build a city hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of anti-Semitism.
14:44Where the more than one million Muslims know that they belong.
14:51Not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.
14:57No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election.
15:07This new age will be defined by a competence and a compassion that have too long been placed at odds with one another.
15:26We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about.
15:36For years, those in city hall have only helped those who can help them.
15:43But on January 1st, we will usher in a city government that helps everyone.
15:49Now I know that many have heard our message only through the prism of misinformation.
15:59Tens of millions of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them.
16:12As has so often occurred, the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour.
16:24They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long broken system.
16:35We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game anymore.
16:41They can play by the same rules as the rest of us.
16:48Together, we will usher in a generation of change.
16:53And if we embrace this brave new course rather than fleeing from it,
16:58we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.
17:11After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him,
17:17it is the city that gave rise to him.
17:24And if there is any way to terrify a despot,
17:28it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.
17:36This is not only how we stop Trump, it's how we stop the next one.
17:46So Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you.
17:55Turn the volume up.
18:20We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants.
18:32We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks.
18:43We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump does,
18:53that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.
19:02New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant.
19:21So hear me, President Trump, when I say this.
19:40To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.
19:44When we enter City Hall in 58 days, expectations will be high.
19:57We will meet them.
19:59A great New Yorker once said that while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.
20:09If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme and let us build a shining city for all.
20:22And we must chart a new path, as bold as the one we have already traveled.
20:27After all, the conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate.
20:34I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older.
20:39I am Muslim.
20:44I am a democratic socialist.
20:51And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.
21:00And yet, if tonight teaches us anything, it is that convention has held us back.
21:08We have bowed at the altar of caution and we have paid a mighty price.
21:14Too many working people cannot recognize themselves in our party.
21:19And too many among us have turned to the right for answers to why they have been left behind.
21:26We will leave mediocrity in our past.
21:29No longer will we have to open a history book for proof that Democrats can dare to be great.
21:37Our greatness will be anything but abstract.
21:44It will be felt by every rent stabilized tenant who wakes up on the first of every month.
21:52Knowing the amount they are going to pay hasn't soared since the month before.
21:58It will be felt by each grandparent who can afford to stay in the home they have worked for.
22:06And whose grandchildren live nearby because the cost of childcare didn't send them to Long Island.
22:15It will be felt by the single mother who is safe on her commute and whose bus runs fast enough that she doesn't have to rush school drop off to make it to work on time.
22:29And it will be felt when New Yorkers open their newspapers in the morning and read headlines of success, not scandal.
22:41Most of all, it will be felt by each New Yorker when the city they love finally loves them back.
22:53Together, New York, we're going to freeze the...
22:58Together, New York, we're going to make buses fast and...
23:04Together, New York, we're going to deliver universal...
23:10Let the words we've spoken together, the dreams we've dreamt together, become the agenda we deliver together.
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