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