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Public Swearing-In Ceremony for NYC Mayor Mamdani; NYC Mayor Mamdani Addresses City of New York After Taking Oath. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired January 01, 2026 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right, you are looking now at live pictures coming out of New York City, where Senator Bernie Sanders is about to -- he is taking the stage there. He's going to be administering the oath of office for the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Let's listen.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): ... an extraordinarily moving and beautiful afternoon. And I'm here mostly to thank the people of New York City.
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: At a time in our country's history when we are seeing too much hatred, too much divisiveness, and too much injustice, thank you for electing Zohran Mamdani as your mayor.
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: New York Thank you for inspiring our nation. Thank you for giving us, from coast to coast, the hope and the vision that we can create government that works for all, not just the wealthy and the few.
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SANDERS: In a moment when people in America, and in fact, throughout the world, are losing faith in democracy, over 90,000 of you in this city volunteered for Zohran's campaign.
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SANDERS: You knocked on doors. You shared your dreams. and your hopes for the future of this city. And in the process, you took on the Democratic establishment --
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: -- the Republican establishment --
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: -- the President of the United States -- (CHEERING)
SANDERS: -- and some enormously wealthy oligarchs.
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SANDERS: And you defeated them in the biggest political upset in modern American history.
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SANDERS: You showed the world the most important lesson that can be learned today. And that is that when working people stand together, when we don't let them divide us up, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: Running a great and winning campaign was extremely difficult. But governing a city of 8 million people, with all of its complexities and all of the problems that Zohran is inheriting, will be even harder. Zohran needed your help to win the election. Now he will need your help to govern.
[14:35:00]
Grassroots democracy and people participating in the day-to-day struggles of this city will lead to good governance. Please remain involved.
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: You know, all of us have heard as Zohran's opponents have called the agenda that he campaigned on radical, communistic? Oh, and absolutely unachievable. Really? That's not what we believe.
In the richest country in the history of the world, making sure that people can live in affordable housing is not radical.
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SANDERS: It is the right and decent thing to do. And in the midst of a massive housing crisis, it is exactly what the people of this city and this country want and need.
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SANDERS: Providing free and high-quality childcare is not radical.
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SANDERS: Countries all over the world have done it for years. It is what our kids require if they're going to be well prepared for school and what working parents desperately need. It is, in fact, what every city in America should be doing.
Free bus transportation is not radical.
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SANDERS: It will save workers time and money, protect our environment, and make the city more efficient. And making sure that every family in the city, regardless of income, has access to decent, quality food, and an affordable cost is not radical.
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SANDERS: Good nutrition keeps us healthy, helps prevent chronic illnesses. In the long run, city-sponsored grocery stores will save society money.
Lastly, and maybe most importantly, demanding that the wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes.
(CHEERING)
CROWD CHANTING: Zohran, Zohran.
SANDERS: As I was saying, demanding that the wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes is not radical. It is exactly the right thing to do.
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: Today, while over 60 percent of our people people in New York, people in Vermont, people all over this country are living paycheck to paycheck. We have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had. While tens of millions struggle to put food on the table, pay for healthcare, pay for housing, the top 1 percent have never, ever had it so good.
And yet, there are billionaires and large corporations that pay almost nothing in taxes. That has got to end, that will end.
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: The billionaire class in this city and in this country have got to understand that in America, they cannot have it all. That America, our great country, must belong to all of us, not just a few.
[14:40:00]
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: And that lesson begins today in New York City. Let me thank you all for the hope and inspiration that you are giving people all over this country. And now it is my honor to swear in your new mayor.
(CHEERING)
CROWD CHANTING: Zohran, Zohran.
SANDERS: Please repeat after me. I, Zohran Kwame Mamdani -- ZOHRAN, MAMDANI, MAYOR, NEW YORK: I, Zohran Kwame Mamdani --
SANDERS: -- do solemnly swear --
MAMDANI: -- do solemnly swear --
SANDERS: -- that I will support the Constitution of the United States.
MAMDANI: -- that I will support the Constitution of the United States --
SANDERS: -- the Constitution of the state of New York --
MAMDANI: -- the Constitution of the state of New York.
SANDERS: -- and the charter of the city of New York.
MAMDANI: -- and the charter of the city of New York.
SANDERS: And that I will faithfully discharge the duties --
MAMDANI: -- and that I will faithfully discharge the duties --
SANDERS: -- of the office of the mayor of the city of New York.
MAMDANI: -- of the office of the mayor of the city of New York.
SANDERS: According to the best of my ability.
MAMDANI: According to the best of my ability.
SANDERS: So help me God.
MAMDANI: So help me God.
(CHEERING)
CROWD CHANTING: Zohran, Zohran, Zohran.
MAMDANI: My fellow New Yorkers --
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MANDANI: -- today begins a new era. I stand before you, moved by the privilege of taking this sacred oath, humbled by the faith that you have placed in me, and honored to serve as either your 111th or 112th mayor of New York City. But I do not stand alone.
I stand alongside you, the tens of thousands of you gathered here in lower Manhattan, warmed against the January chill by the resurgent flame of hope. I stand alongside countless more New Yorkers watching from cramped kitchens in Flushing and barbershops in East New York, from cell phones propped against the dashboards of parked taxi cabs at LaGuardia, from hospitals in Mott Haven and libraries in El Barrio that have too long known only neglect. I stand alongside construction workers in steel-toed boots and halal cart vendors whose knees ache from working all day.
I stand alongside neighbors who carry a plate of food to the elderly couple down the hall. Those in a rush who still lift strangers' strollers up subway stairs, and every person who makes the choice, day after day, even when it feels impossible, to call our city home. I stand alongside over one million New Yorkers who voted for this day nearly two months ago.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: And I stand just as resolutely alongside those who did not. I know there are some who view this administration with distrust or disdain, or who see politics as permanently broken. And while only action can change minds, I promise you this. If you are a New Yorker, I am your mayor.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you. celebrate with you, mourn alongside you, and never, not for a second, hide from you. I thank the labor and movement leaders here today, the activists and the elected officials who will return to fighting for New Yorkers the second this ceremony concludes. And the performers who have gifted us with their talent.
[14:45:00]
Thank you to Governor Hochul. Thank you as well to Mayor Adams. Dorothy's son, a son of Brownsville who rose from washing dishes to the highest position in our city for being here as well. He and I have had our share of disagreements. But I will always be touched that he chose me as the mayoral candidate that he would most want to be trapped with on an elevator.
Thank you to the two Titans who, as an assembly member, I've had the privilege of being represented by in Congress, Nydia Velazquez and our incredible opening speaker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: You have paved the way for this moment. Thank you to the man who... whose leadership I seek most to emulate, who I am so grateful to be sworn in by today, Senator Bernie Sanders.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: Thank you to my teams, from the assembly to the campaign, to the transition, and now, the team I am so excited to lead, from City Hall.
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MAMDANI: Thank you to my parents, Mama and Baba. For raising me, for teaching me how to be in this world, and for having brought me to this city. Thank you to my family from Kampala to Delhi. And thank you to my wife, Rama. (CHEERING)
MAMDANI: For being my best friend and for always showing me the beauty in everyday things. And most of all, thank you to the people of New York.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: A moment like this comes rarely. Seldom do we hold such an opportunity to transform and reinvent. Rarer still is it the people themselves, whose hands are the ones upon the levers of change. And yet we know that too often in our past, moments of great possibility have been promptly surrendered to small imagination and smaller ambition.
What was promised was never pursued. What could have changed remained the same. For the New Yorkers most eager to see our city remade, the weight has only grown heavier. The weight has only grown longer.
In writing this address, I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations, that I should use this opportunity to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and expect even less. I will do no such thing.
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MAMDANI: The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed, but never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try. 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.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: For too long, we have turned to the private sector for greatness while accepting mediocrity from those who serve the public. I cannot blame anyone who has come to question the role of government, whose faith in democracy has been eroded by decades of apathy. We will restore that trust by walking a different path, one where government is no longer solely the final recourse for those struggling, one where excellence is no longer the exception.
We expect greatness from the cooks wielding a thousand spices, from those who stride out onto our Broadway stages, and from our starting point guard at Madison Square Garden.
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MAMDANI: Let us demand the same from those who work in government. In a city where the mere names of our streets are associated with the innovation of the industries that call them home, we will make the word City Hall synonymous with both resolve and results.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: As we embark upon this work, let us advance a new question, a new answer to the question asked of every generation. Who does New York belong to? For much of our history, the response from City Hall has been simple. It belongs only to the wealthy and well-connected, those who never strain to capture the attention of those in power.
Working people have reckoned with the consequences. Those who never strain to capture the attention of those in power. Working people have reckoned with the consequences. Crowded classrooms and public housing developments where the elevators sit out of orders. Roads littered with potholes and buses that arrive half an hour late, if at all.
Wages that do not rise and corporations that rip off consumers and employees alike. And still, there have been brief, fleeting moments where the equation changed. 12 years ago, Bill de Blasio stood where I stand now as he promised to put an end to economic and social inequalities that divided our city into two. In 1990, David Dinkins swore the same oath I swore today, vowing to celebrate the gorgeous mosaic that is New York, where every one of us is deserving of a decent life.
And nearly six decades before him, Fiorello LaGuardia took office with the goal of building a city that was far greater and more beautiful for the hungry and the poor. Some of these mayors achieved more success than others, but they were unified by a shared belief that New York could belong to more than just a privileged few. It could belong to those who operate our subways and rake our parks, those who feed us biryani and beef patties, picanha and pastrami on rye.
And they know that this belief could be made true if only government dared to work hardest for those who work hardest. Over the years to come, my administration will resurrect that legacy. City Hall will deliver an agenda of safety, affordability, and abundance, where government looks and lives like the people it represents, never flinches in the fight against corporate greed, and refuses to cower before challenges that others have deemed too complicated.
In so doing, we will provide our own answer to that age-old question. Who does New York belong to? Well, my friends, we can look to Madiba and the South African Freedom Charter. New York belongs to all who live in it. Together, we will tell a new story of our city.
This will not be a tale of one city governed only by the one percent, nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor. It will be a tale of eight and a half million cities, each of them a New Yorker with hopes and fears, each a universe, each of them woven together.
The authors of this story will speak Pashto and Mandarin, Yiddish and Creole. They will pray in mosques, at shul, at church, at gurdwaras and mandirs and temples, and many will not pray at all. They will be Russian Jewish immigrants in Brighton Beach, Italians in Rossville, and Irish families in Woodhaven. many of whom came here with nothing but a dream of a better life, a dream which has withered away.
They will be young people in cramped marble hill apartments where the walls shake when the subway passes. They will be black homeowners in St. Albans, whose homes represent a physical testament to triumph over decades of lesser-paid labor and redlining. They will be Palestinian New Yorkers in Bay Ridge.
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MAMDANI: Who will no longer have to contend with a politics that speaks of universalism and then makes them the exception.
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MAMDANI: Few of these eight and a half million will fit into neat and easy boxes. Some will be voters from Hillside Avenue or Fordham Road who supported President Trump a year before they voted for me. Tired of being failed by their party's establishment. The majority will not use the language that we often expect from those who wield influence. I welcome the change.
For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty. Many of these people have been betrayed by the established order, but in our administration, their needs will be met. Their hopes and dreams and interests will be reflected transparently in government. They will shape our future.
And if for too long these communities have existed as distinct from one another, we will draw this city closer together. We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.
[14:55:00]
If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity, then let this government foster it. Because no matter what you eat, how you pray, or where you come from, the words that most define us are the two we all share, New Yorkers.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: And it will be New Yorkers who reform a long-broken property tax system. New Yorkers who will create a new Department of Community Safety that will tackle the mental health crisis and let the police focus on the job they signed up to do. New Yorkers who will take on the bad landlords who mistreat their tenants and free small business owners from the shackles of bloated bureaucracy. And I am proud to be one of those New Yorkers.
When we won the primary last June, there were many who said these aspirations and those who held them had come out of nowhere. Yet one man's nowhere is another man's somewhere. This movement came out of eight and a half million somewheres.
Taxicab depots and Amazon warehouses, DSA meetings and curbside domino games. The powers that be had looked away from these places for quite some time if they'd known about them at all. So they dismissed them as nowhere. But in our city, where every corner of these five boroughs holds power, there is no nowhere, and there is no no one.
There is only New York, and there are only New Yorkers.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: Eight and a half million New Yorkers will speak this new era into existence. It will be loud. It will be different. It will feel like the New York we love.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: No matter how long you have called this city home, that love has shaped your life. I know that it has shaped mine. This is the city where I set land speed records on my Razor scooter at the age of 12. Quickest four blocks of my life.
The city where I ate powdered donuts at halftimes during AYSO soccer games and realized I probably was not going to be going pro. The city where I devoured two big slices at Coronet's Pizza, played cricket with my friends at Ferry Point Park, and took the one train to the BX- 10, only to still show up late to Bronx Science.
The city where I have gone on hunger strike just outside these gates.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: Sat claustrophobic on a stalled N train just after Atlantic Avenue and waited in quiet terror for my father to emerge from 26 Federal Plaza. The city where I took a beautiful woman named Rama --
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: -- to McCarran Park on our first date and swore a different oath to become an American citizen on Pearl Street. To live in New York, to love New York, is to know that we are the stewards of something without equal in our world.
Where else can you hear the sound of the steel pan, savor the smell of sancocho, and pay $9 for coffee on the same block?
(LAUGHTER)
MAMDANI: Where else could a Muslim kid like me grow up eating bagels and lox every Sunday?
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: That love will be our guide as we pursue our agenda. Here, where the language of the New Deal was born, we will return the vast resources of this city to the workers who call it home. Not only Will we make it possible for every New Yorker to afford a life they love once again, we will overcome the isolation that too many feel and connect the people of this city to one another.
The cost of childcare will no longer discourage young adults from starting a family. Because we will deliver universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: Those in rent-stabilized homes will no longer dread the latest rent hike, because we will freeze the rent.
(CHEERING)
MAMDANI: Getting on a bus without worrying about a fare hike or whether you'll be able to get to your destination on time will no longer be deemed a small miracle, because we will make those buses fast and free.
These policies are not simply about the costs we make free, but the lives we fill with freedom. For too long in our city, freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it ...
[15:00:00]
