New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked America’s 250th birthday not with a celebration of the nation’s accomplishments, but with a sweeping indictment of its political leaders, wealthy Americans and immigration enforcement.
Speaking Friday from City Hall’s historic Governor’s Room while seated behind a desk once used by George Washington, the socialist mayor delivered a nearly 15-minute address flanked by 10 recently naturalized U.S. citizens. The event was widely viewed as a counterprogramming effort to President Donald Trump’s Independence Day remarks from Mount Rushmore.
Rather than focus on the nation’s founding or its achievements, Mamdani framed much of American history as a struggle against powerful elites, arguing that immigrants and marginalized groups succeeded despite the country’s leadership.
“There is a term so often used to describe our nation and those who have shaped it: American exceptionalism,” Mamdani said before challenging the traditional understanding of the phrase.
He argued that America’s story belongs not to its political or economic leaders, but to generations of immigrants who, he said, were dismissed by those in power.
“We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else,” Mamdani said. “The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional, because here nothing is fixed into place.”
The mayor repeatedly portrayed wealth and political power as forces working against ordinary Americans.
“At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another,” he said. “Division is the oldest trick in politics, and the cheapest.”
Mamdani also directed sharp criticism at the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, accusing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of “terrorizing our streets” through arrests of illegal immigrants.
His speech expanded beyond immigration to attack what he described as “oligarchs who buy elections,” corporate landlords, health insurance companies and a federal government that, in his view, prioritizes spending on “bombs and bailouts” over Americans’ needs.
Watch the clip below:
Communist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who just came to this country, chose to become an American, is deciding he is the foremost authority to tell Americans what it means to be American.
He has the AUDACITY, on America's 250th birthday, to call our great nation "an arena of… pic.twitter.com/sayf6IDu90
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 3, 2026
