In his first speech as New York’s next mayor, Zohran Mamdani made it clear that he and his city would rally behind President Donald Trump.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it’s the city that birthed him,” Mamdani said during his victory speech in Brooklyn on Tuesday night. “And if there is a way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.”
“So Donald Trump,” he added, “since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn up the volume.”
The crowd responded with loud cheers that Mamdani no doubt hoped Trump would hear.
“…AND SO IT BEGINS!” » Trump posted on social media during the speech.
No other Democratic candidate this year has generated as much national concern and attention as Mamdani, 34, a Muslim immigrant and democratic socialist who will become the youngest mayor in a century to lead the largest city in the United States.
Mamdani tapped into a Democratic Party hungry for generational change, frustrated by establishment politicians clinging to power and desperate for support from their leaders. He came forward with an agenda aimed at addressing workers’ concerns, including the skyrocketing costs of child care, transportation, housing and food.
In his speech on Tuesday evening, Mamdani promised to keep his promises.
The Republican Party has made clear it will attempt to make Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party in the 2026 midterm elections — including in areas less liberal than New York. In a statement after Mamdani’s victory over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters called Mamdani’s agenda “radical.”
“His election is proof that the Democratic Party has abandoned common sense and linked itself to extremism,” he said. “Next year, Democrats will be held accountable by voters for their embrace of Mamdani’s far-left agenda and the consequences that will bring.”
Mamdani’s speech serves as an immediate marker for the kind of relationship he will have with Trump, who has sent federal immigration agents and National Guard troops to major U.S. cities. He said New York would stand united against Trump and what he described as Trump-like figures who attack the working class.
“We will hold bad landlords accountable, because the Donald Trumps of our city have become far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants,” Mamdani said. “We will end the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxes and exploit tax breaks. We will stand with unions and expand worker protections because we know, as Donald Trump does, that when workers have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.”
“New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, starting tonight, led by an immigrant,” he said. “So listen to me, President Trump, when I say this: to reach every one of us, you’ll have to go through all of us.”
Mamdani cited Eugene Debs, the popular socialist of the early 20th century, and promised to implement “the most ambitious agenda” since the Great Depression, citing New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s proposals for free buses, universal child care and rent freezes on stabilized buildings.
“In this time of political darkness,” Mamdani said, “New York will be the light.”
