To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us: Mamdani challenges Trump on immigration

New York | New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani challenged US President Donald Trump, who has launched a crackdown on immigration, asserting that New York will be powered by immigrants and after his historic victory, will be “led by an immigrant”.

“To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us,” Mamdani said as he scripted history, becoming the first South Asian and Muslim to be elected to sit at the helm of the largest city in the US.

“We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game anymore. They can play by the same rules as the rest of us. Together, we will usher in a generation of change and if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves,” he said.

“After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” Mamdani said.

“And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stop Trump, it's how we stop the next one.

“So, Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you - Turn the volume up,” he said to a thunderous applause from his supporters.

“We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks.

“We will stand alongside unions and expand labour protections, because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.

“New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant. So hear me, President Trump, when I say this, to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us,” Mamdani declared.

Mamdani said that his victory toppled a “political dynasty”, as he quoted the words of former Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru that with his win, the city has “stepped out from the old into the new”.

Mamdani emerged victorious in the closely-watched New York City mayoral election, defeating political heavyweight former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

“Friends, we have toppled a political dynasty. I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life, but let tonight be the final time I utter his name as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few. New York tonight you have delivered,” Mamdani said in his victory speech.

“We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible, and we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do,” he said.

“Standing before you, I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru — a moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance. Tonight, we have stepped out from the old into the new.”