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Zohran Mamdani promised to govern “expansively and audaciously” as he was sworn in as mayor of New York, saying he would restore faith in government’s ability to make life better for ordinary people.
“To those who insist that the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this: no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives,” Mamdani told a crowd in downtown Manhattan on Thursday.
Mamdani’s inauguration seals his status as one of America’s most powerful and charismatic progressive politicians and an important symbol of leftwing resistance to the conservative policies of President Donald Trump.
The 34-year-old, whom Trump once called a “100% Communist lunatic”, refused to temper his fiery rhetoric and reach out to his political opponents, including many wealthy residents and business leaders worried about his tax plans.
“We will answer to all New Yorkers, not to any billionaire or oligarch who thinks they can buy our democracy,” he said. “I was elected as a Democratic Socialist and I will govern as a Democratic Socialist.”
Mamdani said he would not use the inaugural speech to lower expectations for what he could achieve, pledging a “new era” of ambition at City Hall.
He addressed voters who supported him after voting for Trump a year before, who he said were “tired of being failed by their party’s establishment”.
Barely known a year ago, Mamdani came to power on a wave of popular frustration over the high cost of living in one of the world’s most expensive cities and anger at a Democratic establishment that seemed out of touch with the concerns of working-class New Yorkers.
The first Muslim mayor of New York, the first of south Asian origin, and the youngest in more than a hundred years, Mamdani won on a promise to make America’s most populous city more affordable. His message resonated with hundreds of thousands of voters and energised a mass movement of young volunteers, many of whom had never been involved in politics before.
His campaign was built on a pledge to freeze rents for 1mn households, build 200,000 units of affordable housing by 2030 and introduce free universal childcare and free buses.
The new mayor, who was born in Uganda and moved to New York City when he was seven, has said his reforms would be funded by higher taxes on millionaires and corporations, although any tax increase would need the approval of the New York state government.
Governor Kathy Hochul, who sat close to the new mayor at his inauguration, has said she is opposed to any rise in personal income tax, fearing it would lead to an exodus of wealthy residents to lower-tax jurisdictions. But she has expressed an openness to helping Mamdani achieve his goals on childcare.
Mamdani said in his speech that he would “not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical”. Citing his political hero, the progressive US senator Bernie Sanders, he added: “What’s radical is a system that gives so much to so few and denies so many people the basic necessities of life.”
Despite freezing temperatures, some 40,000 people attended a block party in Broadway’s Canyon of Heroes, famous for its ticker-tape parades, to mark Mamdani’s swearing-in — the first time a mayoral inauguration has been marked in this way.
Leading figures in the progressive movement joined the ceremony. Mamdani was sworn in by Sanders, while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Congress member from New York, delivered the opening remarks.
“It is the people of New York City who have chosen historic, ambitious leadership in response to untenable and unprecedented times,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Sanders called Mamdani’s election the “biggest political upset in modern American history”. He said the mayor’s victory showed that “when working people stand together, when we don’t let them divide us up, there is nothing we cannot accomplish”.
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