New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered an address, railing against ICE and Capitalism, to mark America’s 250th birthday on Friday morning, hours before President Trump is set to address the nation from Mount Rushmore.
Sitting behind a desk used by George Washington in the Nation’s first Capitol building, Federal Hall, now housed in New York City Hall, the Ugandan immigrant lectured Americans on our history.
“Here at City Hall, as I sit behind George Washington’s desk, alongside new Americans who came to this country, I cannot see all of America, but like so many who came before, I can see New York City. The city I see today looks very different than the one that greeted George Washington,” he said as a group of foreign aliens surrounded him.
The message was clear: on America’s 250th anniversary, we have been occupied, our land stolen, our identity tainted by people who weren’t born here.
He went on to tell the story of how the American Revolution began and how it nearly ended at the Battle of Brooklyn when Continental forces retreated to Manhattan. Then, he jumped 60 years forward and began speaking about New York’s outlawing of slavery, tying both to the idea of an “opportunity to begin anew.”
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During his speech, Mamdani also referenced his own immigration to the US, saying, “My family did not arrive by boat, although we saw the Statue of Liberty from the window of the plane. Even from the air, we could make out the promise of America, the promise of the beautiful patriotic work of rendering America year after year a little more faithful to its founding ideals.”
He then denied the notion of “american exceptionalism,” claiming “the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.” He continued, “For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best.”
“We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else. The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed. We may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that work endures, and it belongs to us all,” he added before arguing that modern-day immigrants from the third world can carry the torch of our native ancestors.
“It belongs to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized. Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel. The joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American, too,” he said. “You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means,” he added, then turning to divisive rhetoric aimed at “the powerful.”
“The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal.”
Mamdani went on to bash ICE, Capitalism, and the rich, including figures like Elon Musk.
“We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more,” he said.
“We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors, before spiriting them away in unmarked vans. We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands, those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone. And we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few.”
He further referenced health insurance, landlords, tax dollars spent on “bombs and bailouts,” and elections being sold to “the highest bidder.”
“We see America each time neighbors link arms with neighbors without asking how long they have lived here or what papers they have, as ICE invades our neighborhoods. We see America each time those young and old stand in the beating rain or the stifling heat to cast their ballots. We see America each time working people demand more, not just for themselves, but for their fellow Americans,” Mamdani said.
Watch Mamdani’s full address below:
The post WATCH: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Gives Divisive July 4 Address Behind George Washington’s Desk Surrounded by Foreigners – Says America Is an “Arena of Supremacy” and Its Citizens are “Small, Weak and Unoriginal” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
