NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered a fiery, emotionally charged inaugural speech that sent the crowd into roaring applause as he officially took office. Speaking moments after taking his oath, Mamdani laid out a bold vision for New York City — pledging to fight for working families, immigrants, renters, and communities long pushed to the margins.
In a speech packed with sharp political lines, personal reflections, and defiant calls for justice, Mamdani positioned his mayoralty as a break from politics as usual. He invoked his immigrant roots, addressed rising inequality, and vowed to govern with courage in the face of powerful opposition.
#ZohranMamdani #MamdaniInauguration #ZohranMamdaniInauguration #NYCMayor #NYCMayor2026 #ZohranMamdaniLive #ZohranMamdaniSpeech #ZohranMamdaniOath #QuranOath #NYCPolitics #BernieSanders #SandersSpeech #ProgressivePolitics #RedScarePolitics #USPolitics #BreakingNews #PoliticalFirestorm #InaugurationDay #MayorMamdani #LiveNews
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In a speech packed with sharp political lines, personal reflections, and defiant calls for justice, Mamdani positioned his mayoralty as a break from politics as usual. He invoked his immigrant roots, addressed rising inequality, and vowed to govern with courage in the face of powerful opposition.
#ZohranMamdani #MamdaniInauguration #ZohranMamdaniInauguration #NYCMayor #NYCMayor2026 #ZohranMamdaniLive #ZohranMamdaniSpeech #ZohranMamdaniOath #QuranOath #NYCPolitics #BernieSanders #SandersSpeech #ProgressivePolitics #RedScarePolitics #USPolitics #BreakingNews #PoliticalFirestorm #InaugurationDay #MayorMamdani #LiveNews
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00:00my fellow New Yorkers today begins a new era I stand before you moved by the
00:18privilege of taking this sacred oath humbled by the faith that you have
00:24placed in me and honored to serve as either your 111th or 112th mayor of New
00:31York City but I do not stand alone I stand alongside you the tens of thousands
00:40of you gathered here in lower Manhattan warmed against the January chill by the
00:46resurgent flame of hope I stand alongside countless more New Yorkers watching from
00:54cramped kitchens in Flushing and barbershops in East New York from cell
00:59phones propped against the dashboards of parked taxicabs at LaGuardia from
01:04hospitals in Mott Haven and libraries in El Barrio that have too long known only
01:10neglect I stand alongside construction workers in steel-toed boots and halal
01:17cart vendors whose knees ache from working all day I stand alongside
01:23neighbors who carry a plate of food to the elderly couple down the hall those in
01:29a rush who still lift strangers strollers up subway stairs and every person who
01:35makes the choice day after day even when it feels impossible to call our city home I
01:43stand alongside over 1 million New Yorkers who voted for this day nearly two months ago
01:49and I stand just as resolutely alongside those who did not I know there are some who view this
01:59administration with distrust or disdain or who see politics as permanently broken and while only action
02:08can change minds I promise you this if you are a New Yorker I am your mayor
02:16regardless of whether we agree I will protect you celebrate with you mourn alongside you and never not
02:29for a second hide from you I think the labor and movement leaders here today the activists and the
02:37elected officials who will return to fighting for New Yorkers the second this ceremony concludes and the
02:45performers who have gifted us with their talent thank you to Governor Hochul thank you as well to Mayor Adams
02:54Dorothy's son a son of Brownsville who rose from washing dishes to the highest position in our city for
03:03being here as well he and I have had our share of disagreements but I will always be touched that he
03:10chose me as the mayoral candidate that he would most want to be trapped with on an elevator thank you to
03:19the two titans who as an assembly member I've had the privilege of being represented by in Congress
03:24Nidia Velasquez and our incredible opening speaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez you have paved the way for this
03:36moment thank you to the man whose leadership I seek most to emulate who I am so grateful to be sworn in by
03:44today senator Bernie Sanders thank you to my teams from the assembly to the campaign to the transition and
03:56now the team I am so excited to lead from City Hall thank you to my parents mama and Baba
04:07for raising me for teaching me how to be in this world and for having brought me to this city thank
04:18you to my family from Kampala to Delhi and thank you to my wife Rama for being my best friend and for
04:35always showing me the beauty in everyday things and most of all thank you to the people of New York
04:42a moment like this comes rarely seldom do we hold such an opportunity to transform and reinvent rarer
04:56still is it the people themselves whose hands are the ones upon the levers of change and yet we know
05:03that too often in our past moments of great possibility have been promptly surrendered to small
05:10imagination and smaller ambition what was promised was never pursued what could have changed remained
05:18the same for the New Yorkers most eager to see our city remade the weight has only grown heavier the weight
05:27has only grown longer in writing this address I have been told that this is the occasion to reset
05:36expectations that I should use this opportunity to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and
05:43expect even less I will do no such thing the only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations
05:57beginning today we will govern expansively and audaciously we may not always succeed but never will
06:08we be accused of lacking the courage to try to those who insist that the era of big government is over hear
06:17me when I say this no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers lives for too long we
06:29have turned to the private sector for greatness while accepting mediocrity from those who serve the public I
06:35cannot blame anyone who has come to question the role of government whose faith in democracy has been eroded
06:42by decades of apathy we will restore that trust by walking a different path one where government is no longer
06:50solely the final recourse for those struggling one where excellence is no longer the exception we expect greatness
06:58from the cooks wielding a thousand spices from those who stride out onto our Broadway stages and from our
07:05starting point guard at Madison Square Garden let us demand the same from those who work in
07:14government in a city where the mere names of our streets are associated with the innovation of the
07:19industries that call them home we will make the word City Hall synonymous with both resolve and results
07:27as we embark upon this work let us advance a new question a new answer to the question asked of every generation who does
07:38New York belong to for much of our history the response from City Hall has been simple it belongs only to the wealthy and
07:47parents who areados who have made the same changes very relevant the way of the power of the economy and the
07:55economy and the children there have been a lot more and well connected those who never strain to capture the
08:01attention of those in power working people have reckoned with the consequences crowded classrooms and public housing
08:02developments where the elevators sit out of orders roads littered with potholes and buses that arrive half an hour late if at all
08:08wages that do not rise, and corporations that rip off consumers and employees alike.
08:14And still, there have been brief fleeting moments where the equation changed.
08:20Twelve years ago, Bill de Blasio stood where I stand now,
08:24as he promised to put an end to economic and social inequalities that divided our city into two.
08:30In 1990, David Dinkins swore the same oath I swore today,
08:35vowing to celebrate the gorgeous mosaic that is New York,
08:39where every one of us is deserving of a decent life.
08:43And nearly six decades before him, Fiorella LaGuardia
08:50took office with the goal of building a city that was far greater and more beautiful for the hungry and the poor.
08:58Some of these mayors achieved more success than others,
09:02but they were unified by a shared belief that New York could belong to more than just a privileged few.
09:09It could belong to those who operate our subways and rake our parks,
09:14those who feed us biryani and beef patties,
09:19picanha and pastrami on rye.
09:21And they know that this belief could be made true if only government dared to work hardest for those who work hardest.
09:31Over the years to come, my administration will resurrect that legacy.
09:35City Hall will deliver an agenda of safety, affordability and abundance,
09:40where government looks and lives like the people it represents,
09:45never flinches in the fight against corporate greed,
09:48and refuses to cower before challenges that others have deemed too complicated.
09:53In so doing, we will provide our own answer to that age-old question.
09:59Who does New York belong to?
10:01Well, my friends, we can look to Madiba and the South African Freedom Charter.
10:07New York belongs to all who live in it.
10:10Together, we will tell a new story of our city.
10:14This will not be a tale of one city governed only by the 1%,
10:19nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor.
10:24It will be a tale of eight and a half million cities,
10:28each of them a New Yorker with hopes and fears,
10:32each a universe, each of them woven together.
10:37The authors of this story will speak Pashto and Mandarin, Yiddish and Creole.
10:43They will pray in mosques, at shul, at church, at gurdwaras and mandirs and temples.
10:51And many will not pray at all.
10:54They will be Russian Jewish immigrants in Brighton Beach,
10:58Italians in Rossville and Irish families in Woodhaven,
11:02many of whom came here with nothing but a dream of a better life,
11:06a dream which has withered away.
11:09They will be young people in cramped Marble Hill apartments
11:11where the walls shake when the subway passes.
11:15They will be black homeowners in St. Albans,
11:18whose homes represent a physical testament to triumph
11:21over decades of lesser paid labor and redlining.
11:24They will be Palestinian New Yorkers in Bay Ridge,
11:28who will no longer have to contend with a politics that speaks of universalism
11:37and then makes them the exception.
11:39Few of these eight and a half million will fit into neat and easy boxes.
11:47Some will be voters from Hillside Avenue or Fordham Road
11:51who supported President Trump a year before they voted for me.
11:55Tired of being failed by their party's establishment,
11:59the majority will not use the language that we often expect from those who wield influence.
12:04I welcome the change.
12:07For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility
12:10have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty.
12:15Many of these people have been betrayed by the established order.
12:20But in our administration, their needs will be met.
12:24Their hopes and dreams and interests will be reflected transparently in government.
12:28They will shape our future.
12:31And if for too long, these communities have existed as distinct from one another,
12:36we will draw this city closer together.
12:40We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.
12:46If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity,
12:51then let this government foster it.
12:53Because no matter what you eat, how you pray, or where you come from,
13:00the words that most define us are the two we all share, New Yorkers.
13:08And it will be New Yorkers who reform a long, broken property tax system.
13:14New Yorkers who will create a new Department of Community Safety
13:17that will tackle the mental health crisis and let the police focus on the job they signed up to do.
13:24New Yorkers who will take on the bad landlords who mistreat their tenants
13:28and free small business owners from the shackles of bloated bureaucracy.
13:33And I am proud to be one of those New Yorkers.
13:36New Yorkers have a lot of unos.
13:38New Yorkers don't be one of those.
13:39When we won the primary last June, there were many who said these aspirations
13:42and those who held them had come out of nowhere.
13:47Yet one man's nowhere is another man's somewhere.
13:52This movement came out of eight and a half million somewheres.
13:56taxicab depots and Amazon warehouses,
14:00DSA meetings and curbside domino games.
14:04The powers that be had looked away from these places for quite some time
14:09if they'd known about them at all.
14:12So they dismissed them as nowhere.
14:14But in our city, where every corner of these five boroughs holds power,
14:21there is no nowhere and there is no no one.
14:24There is only New York and there are only New Yorkers.
14:31Eight and a half million New Yorkers will speak this new era into existence.
14:36It will be loud. It will be different.
14:40It will feel like the New York we love.
14:45No matter how long you have called this city home,
14:50that love has shaped your life.
14:52I know that it has shaped mine.
14:55This is the city where I set land speed records on my Razor scooter at the age of 12.
15:01Quickest four blocks of my life.
15:04The city where I ate powdered donuts at halftimes during AYSO soccer games
15:08and realized I probably was not going to be going pro.
15:12The city where I devoured two big slices at Coronet's Pizza.
15:18Played cricket with my friends at Ferry Point Park
15:21and took the one train to the BX10 only to still show up late to Bronx Science.
15:26The city where I have gone on hunger strike just outside these gates.
15:35Sat claustrophobic on a stalled N train just after Atlantic Avenue
15:39and waited in quiet terror for my father to emerge from 26 Federal Plaza.
15:45The city where I took a beautiful woman named Rama
15:49to McCarran Park on our first date
15:54and swore a different oath to become an American citizen on Pearl Street.
15:58To live in New York, to love New York,
16:03is to know that we are the stewards of something without equal in our world.
16:08Where else can you hear the sound of the steel pan,
16:12savor the smell of Sancocho,
16:15and pay $9 for coffee on the same block?
16:21Where else could a Muslim kid like me
16:23grow up eating bagels and lox every Sunday?
16:26That love will be our guide
16:32as we pursue our agenda.
16:35Here, where the language of the New Deal was born,
16:39we will return the vast resources of this city
16:42to the workers who call it home.
16:45Not only will we make it possible
16:48for every New Yorker to afford a life they love once again,
16:53we will overcome the isolation that too many feel.
16:56and connect the people of this city
16:58to one another.
17:01The cost of childcare
17:02will no longer discourage young adults from starting a family.
17:06because we will deliver universal childcare for the many
17:11by taxing the wealthiest few.
17:17Those in rent stabilized homes will no longer dread the latest rent hike,
17:21because we will freeze the rent.
17:28Getting on a bus without worrying about a fair hike,
17:30or whether you'll be able to get to your destination on time,
17:34will no longer be deemed a small miracle,
17:36because we will make those buses fast and free.
17:40These policies are not simply about the costs we make free,
17:48but the lives we fill with freedom.
17:50For too long in our city,
17:53freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it.
17:56Our city hall will change that.
17:59These promises carried our movement to city hall,
18:04and they will carry us from the rallying cries of a campaign
18:08to the realities of a new era in politics.
18:10Two Sundays ago, as snow softly fell,
18:16I spent 12 hours at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria,
18:21listening to New Yorkers from every borough
18:24as they told me about the city that is theirs.
18:26We discussed construction hours on the Van Wick Expressway
18:31and EBT eligibility,
18:33affordable housing for artists and ice raids.
18:36I spoke to a man named TJ who said that one day,
18:39a few years ago, his heart broke as he realized
18:43that he would never get ahead here,
18:45no matter how hard he worked.
18:47I spoke to a Pakistani auntie named Samina,
18:51who told me that this movement had fostered something too rare,
18:56softness in people's hearts.
18:59As she said to me in Urdu,
19:02a hundred and forty-two New Yorkers out of eight and a half million.
19:13And yet, if anything united each person sitting across from me,
19:19it was the shared recognition that this moment demands a new politics
19:24and a new approach to power.
19:27We will deliver nothing less as we work each day
19:30to make this city belong to more of its people
19:33than it did the day before.
19:38Here is what I want you to expect from the administration
19:41that this morning moved into the building behind me.
19:44We will transform the culture of City Hall from one of no to one of how.
19:53We will answer to all New Yorkers,
19:56not to any billionaire or oligarch who thinks they can buy our democracy.
20:02We will govern without shame and insecurity,
20:05making no apology for what we believe.
20:09I was elected as a Democratic Socialist and I will govern as a Democratic Socialist.
20:20I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical.
20:26As the great Senator from Vermont once said,
20:30what's radical is a system which gives so much to so few
20:33and denies so many people the basic necessities of life.
20:40We will strive each day to ensure that no New Yorker is priced out
20:44of any one of those basic necessities.
20:47And throughout it all, we will, in the words of Jason Terrence Phillips,
20:52better known as Jay to kiss or Jay to the mwah, be outside.
21:01Because this is a government of New York, by New York and for New York.
21:07Before I end, I want to ask all of you, if you are able,
21:21whether you are here today or anywhere watching, to stand with me.
21:28I ask you to stand with us now and every day that follows.
21:33City Hall will not be able to deliver on our own.
21:38And while we will encourage New Yorkers to demand more
21:42from those with the great privilege of serving them,
21:45we will encourage you to demand more of yourselves as well.
21:49The movement we began over a year ago did not end with our election.
21:54It will not end this afternoon.
21:57It lives on with every battle we will fight together.
22:00Every blizzard and flood we withstand together.
22:05Every moment of fiscal challenge we overcome with ambition, not austerity, together.
22:11Every way we pursue change in working people's interests,
22:15rather than at their expense, together.
22:19No longer will we treat victory as an invitation to turn off the news.
22:24From today onwards, we will understand victory very simply.
22:28Something with the power to transform lives.
22:33And something that demands effort from each of us every single day.
22:40What we achieve together will reach across the five boroughs and it will resonate far beyond.
22:45There are many who will be watching.
22:48They want to know if the left can govern.
22:52They want to know if the struggles that afflict them can be solved.
22:57They want to know if it is right to hope again.
23:00So standing together with the wind of purpose at our backs, we will do something that New Yorkers do better than anyone else.
23:12We will set an example for the world.
23:14If what Sinatra said is true, let us prove that anyone can make it in New York and anywhere else too.
23:26Let us prove that when a city belongs to the people, there is no need too small to be met.
23:32No person too sick to be made healthy.
23:37No one too alone to feel like New York is their home.
23:41The work continues.
23:46The work endures.
23:49The work, my friends, has only just begun.
24:28Paul Montgomery, the 112th mayor of New York.
24:32So ceremonially sworn in by Bernie Sanders.
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