Bloomberg News New York City Reporter, Laura Nahmias discusses the challenges facing New York City’s new Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Zohran Mamdani promised to lead New York City as a democratic socialist during a frigid inauguration ceremony on the steps of City Hall, a warning to those who believed he might moderate his positions after taking office.
The nearly two-hour long event Thursday featured speeches by two of the US’s most liberal members of Congress, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders. New York Attorney General Letitia James, a frequent target of President Donald Trump, also had a speaking role. The ceremony served as a not-so-subtle statement of resistance to White House policies from the nation’s largest city.
“I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist,” Mamdani said in a roughly 30-minute address delivered to supporters, elected officials and media gathered in below-freezing weather. “I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical.”
His speech was the culmination of the 34-year-old’s improbable rise to power, reiterating many of the campaign promises that earned him a decisive victory in November’s election including free childcare and bus transportation as well as a vow to freeze rent for tenants in stabilized apartments.
“These policies are not simply about the costs we make free, but the lives we fill with freedom,” he said. “For too long in our city, freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it. Our City Hall will change that.”
When Mamdani formally took the oath of office at midnight Jan. 1 in an abandoned subway station, he became the city’s first mayor of South Asian descent, its first Muslim mayor and the youngest leader of the metropolis of nearly 8.5 million people in more than a century.
That diversity — and what it represents to the city often dubbed a melting pot of cultures and religions — was celebrated in Mamdani’s remarks but also by the new city comptroller, Mark Levine, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams who were also sworn in during the ceremony
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