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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took aim at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, Elon Musk and what he described as “royalty” in the United States during a speech entitled America 250 on Friday before the Fourth of July weekend.
Flanked by eight new US citizens, Mamdani used the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and American immigration history before changing his speech to parts of the US today.
“We are seeing the richest country in the history of the world, where children sleep without food while the first billion in the world are hungry for more,” said Mamdani, without Musk’s name. “We see monopolies ruling every industry, and oligarchs buying elections. We see masked people terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before being transported in unmarked vans.”
“We see a nation whose great wealth is built by those with hard, dusty hands, those who toil on factory floors and dig into stone. And we see a nation that has allowed most of that wealth to be held in the soft hands of a precious few,” he added.
Mamdani, who was sitting at George Washington’s desk when he made his comments, also praised the history of immigrants, saying that they had overcome the riots “the purpose of their existence,” to create the lives of people in New York.
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers a speech celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America at City Hall on July 3, 2026. (Anna Connors/Pool via REUTERS)
“In the years that followed, despite the laws enacted by the federal government to prevent them from entering, despite the sweatshop fires that killed hundreds of women, and despite the riots that were aimed at their presence, immigrants built homes here in New York City, and helped make New York City,” said the mayor.
“That legacy of all generations of Americans who insist that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness pass to them is, again, not a relic of the past. It carried millions of black Americans north during the Great Migration. It drew hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans to New York City after World War II. It invited countless others from West Africa and they brought my city to West Africa and South Africa where the West Indies were the entire city of South Africa and South Asia. For seven years,” he continued.
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Mamdani did not mention his family’s wealth in the speech. His father was a Harvard scholar, and his mother a well-known film director.
“My family did not come by boat, although we saw the Declaration of Independence from the window of the plane. Even in the air, we can make the promise of America, the promise of a good patriotic work to give America, year after year, a little loyalty to its founding ideas,” he said.
The Statue of Liberty stands in the foreground as Lower Manhattan is viewed at dusk, September 8, 2016, in New York City. (Drew Anger/Getty Images)
In his speech, Mamdani criticized those who have “power and influence,” complaining that they wrote American history.
“There is a word that is often used to describe our nation and those who formed it. American uniqueism. American uniqueism, conventional wisdom tells us, makes our freedom a little less free. It is the way we opened the Erie Canal and watered the West. That is why children in far away countries grow up dreaming of one day moving here. However, the irony is that those who are often told by those in power and told by America about the influence of this wealth and are told the story of the wealth of Erie Canal. that they were unusual,” said Mamdani. “For generations, we are told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent the best.”
“It sent Puritans and Sikhs and Quakers and Muslims and Jewish people who were expelled for praying the wrong way, worshiping the wrong gods, offending the wrong people. It sent farmers and serfs from the slums and hot places, who were treated as inferiors because they had no clothes, let alone land. It sent immigrants from whom came the power that someone else had,” he continued. “We are told that America is unique because we are rich, powerful, stronger than anyone else. The truth, my friends, is that America is unique because here nothing is fixed.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers a speech celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America at City Hall on July 3, 2026. (Anna Connors/Pool via REUTERS)
Mamdani talked about how he became a naturalized US citizen in 2018. Mamdani was born in Uganda in 1991 and moved to New York at the age of 7. The mayor is a dual US-Uganda citizen.
“About ten years ago, I also felt what you feel, the joy of not only being a New Yorker, but an American as well. Each of you has a special power. The power to decide what America means,” said the mayor, speaking to the newly born citizens by his side.
“The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is a throne where only a select few are allowed freedom,” said Mamdani. “Where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, is the least accepting of people. America, they will tell you, belongs to those with the right voice or the right shade of skin. Everyone else, they insist, we should be grateful for just being allowed to visit. How small, how weak, how absent. Every time in the past, those who try to gain power by enriching themselves and enriching themselves, try to gain and gain power. against each other.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers a speech celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America at City Hall in New York on July 3, 2026. (Anna Connors/Pool via REUTERS)
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Mamdani also said that ICE was attacking New York areas.
“We see America every time neighbors link arms with neighbors without asking how long they have been here or what documents they have as ICE raids our neighborhoods,” he added. “We see an America every time those young and old stand in the pouring rain or sweltering heat to vote. We see an America every time working people want more not just for themselves, but for their fellow Americans.”
“There are some who respond to those who ask for more from America with a simple word. ‘Love it or leave it,’ they say. But patriotism is never pretending that our nation is flawless. Patriotism is an act of righteous opposition,” said Mamdani. “This is how March is led under the hot sun. It’s all the protests that were done ten years before their time. It’s because we love this nation that we won’t leave it.”
Mamdani ended his speech with a loud shout of America.
“What a power each of us has to bring America closer to the beauty that many have seen when looking at this ocean. The greatness is that 250 years has been America. Thank you. God bless America. God bless New York City. And happy Fourth of July,” he concluded.
