Mamdani delivers 4th of July speech lecturing Americans about how bad he thinks U.S. is

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivering an Independence Day address.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday sat behind George Washington's desk and blasted the United States as "a nation of contradictions," tore into capitalism, criticized billionaire entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, and bemoaned what he views as a racist power structure.

“We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions,” Mamdani said. “We see the wealthiest nation in the history of the world -- one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more," he continued, making a thinly-veiled reference to Elon Musk, whose net worth went above $1 trillion for about a two-week period after SpaceX went public last month. "We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections,” he declared without providing any evidence for such an incendiary claim.

The 34-year-old mayor of New York then took aim at President Donald Trump and his policies. “We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans,” he said. “We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands -- those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone -- and we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held in the soft hands of a precious few.”

Mamdani then referenced his own history as a non-U.S.-born citizen and offered a decidedly socialist view of his concept of American exceptionalism, railing against what he perceives as a racist power structure. He delivered his July 4th lecture on the eve of the country's 250th birthday surrounded by newly-naturalized U.S. citizens.

“My family did not arrive by boat, although we saw the Statue of Liberty from the window of the plane,” he said. “Even from the air, we could make out the promise of America -- the promise of the beautiful, patriotic work of rendering America, year after year, a little more faithful to its founding ideals.”

Later in the speech, Mamdani criticized America's power brokers. "America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin," Mamdani said. "The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are. How weak. How unoriginal." 

He continued, saying, "Division is the oldest trick in politics, and the cheapest," in what itself was a highly divisive speech. 

Watch a clip of Mamdani's speech below and see his full 15-minute remarks here.