Mayor Zohran Mamdani will give a presidential-style speech Friday for America’s 250th birthday in what City Hall billed as a “major address” — just hours before President Trump delivers his own remarks.
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Hizzoner will reflect on “New York City’s role in our national history” and its “position as the nation’s symbolic gateway,” City Hall officials said in a press release, noting Mamdani will speak from a desk once owned by George Washington.
“This desk is older than the Resolute Desk,” the mayor’s office said, referring to the historic, writing table that sits in the Oval Office.
Mamdani ““will argue that the American story has always been one of contradiction, and trace the experiences of Indigenous people, enslaved Africans, immigrants and generations of Americans who arrived seeking freedom and opportunity,” officials shared in a sneak peek of the address.
The mayor will be surrounded by recently-naturalized citizens, which his team called “symbolic” after the US Supreme Court narrowly upheld birthright citizenship this week and “comes amidst national backdrop of anti-immigrant sentiments and policies coming out of White House.”
“Drawing on Mayor Mamdani’s own family immigration to New York, the speech presents America as an unfinished project whose greatest strength lies not in military or economic power, but in the belief that our greatest resource are everyday Americans who fight and organize to bring America closer to its promises of liberty, equality and democracy,” City Hall officials said.
Mamdani was born in Uganda and his family moved to the Big Apple when he was a child. He became a US citizen in 2018.
The address is set for 10 a.m. and will be livestreamed, as Mamdani speaks from the “Governor’s Room” of City Hall, at the desk that was used by Washington when it was situated at Federal Hall.
Here’s the latest on America’s 250th Anniversary:
Trump, that evening, is set to take part in a pre-Independence Day bash at Mount Rushmore, including a speech and fireworks display.
He spoke at the national landmark six years ago in another pre-Fourth of July celebration.
The mayor and president have struck up a usually warm relationship even as Mamdani has continued to slam actions taken by the federal government and Trump has criticized City Hall’s lefty policies.
— Additional reporting by Emily Goodin
