Zohran Mamdani vowed Thursday to boldly pursue a transformative progressive agenda after being sworn in as the 112th mayor of New York. “I was elected as a Democratic socialist and I will govern as a Democratic socialist,” the 34-year-old former state assemblyman said in front of a crowd bund led up against sub-freezing temperatures at City Hall. His remarks followed a ceremonial administration of his oath by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a speech by fellow progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and musical performances by Grammy-winning singer Lucy Dacus, entertainer Mandy Patinkin and New York schoolchildren. Ocasio-Cortez, an influential Mamdani ally, hinted at plans for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party to use Gotham as a proving ground for progressive ideas that can be exported. “If we can make it here,” she said, “we can make it anywhere.” Sanders, who lost bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and again in 2020, sounded similar notes, arguing that it is “not radical” to make housing, food and childcare affordable. “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,” Sanders said, prompting the crowd to interrupt him with a chant of “Tax the rich!” Elections Dec 10, 2025 ‘I love an underdog': Trump-Mamdani voters at center of unexpected relationship New York Dec 4, 2025 Zohran Mamdani and the Louvre make the list of 2025's most mispronounced words Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, had been officially sworn in shortly after midnight by New York Attorney General Letitia James in a small ceremony with his family. Supporters counted down the seconds. “This is truly the honor and the privilege of a lifetime,” Mamdani said at the initial swearing-in ceremony at the old City Hall IRT subway station, which was closed in 1945. He had run on a platform advocating for public transit. He called the ornate station “a testament to the importance of public transit to the vitality, the health and the legacy of our city.” Mamdani took the oath with his hands on two Qurans — one belonging to his grandfather and the other from the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The library’s book is believed to have been made in Ottoman Syria in the 1800s, the library system said. Mamdani paid a $9 fee, a formality required by the city clerk’s office and signed a book to officially become mayor of the nation’s most populous city. Later Thursday, Mamdani kicked off a larger inauguration celebration with his address at city hall and a “block party” for people who were not among the 4,000 invited to the ceremony. “We wanted to ensure that as we celebrated the beginning of our administration, it was a celebration that was not simply for the typical people who would be invited to an inauguration, but in fact, for everyone,” Mamdani told reporters last week during a press conference, previewing the events. “This is not my success. It’s our success. It’s not my administration. It’s our administration. Similarly, it’s not my inauguration. It’s for all of us,” Mamdani added. Mamdani said he felt confident that he’ll have the staff and appointed officials in place on time to begin the work of his administration. “We will have the people in place necessary to start to deliver, not only on our affordability agenda, but frankly, to deliver on the day-to-day services that New Yorkers require,” Mamdani told reporters. At City Hall Thursday, Mamdani mixed olive branches with brickbats — and humor — in alternating between calls for unity and condemnation of corporations. “I stand alongside over 1 million New Yorkers who voted for this day nearly two months ago and I stand just as resolutely alongside those who did not,” he said. But he also took aim at the wealthy in both parties, evoking centrist Democratic former President Bill Clinton in rejecting the idea that the “era of big government” is over. “We will govern expansively and audaciously,” he said. “No longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.” Repeatedly, Mamdani returned to the theme of inclusiveness in a diverse metropolis that he must now govern with policies rather than prose. Leaning into his own immigrant experience in New York, as a Muslim born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani asked a rhetorical question that drew warm laughter from his crowd. “Where else could a Muslim kid like me grow up eating bagels and lox on a Sunday?” he said. The next key date early in Mamdani’s administration will be Jan. 7 — the first day of New York’s 2026 state legislative session in Albany. Mamdani last year campaigned on an ambitious agenda aimed at lowering costs for New Yorkers, including by promising to make child care universal and free, implement a free bus system and freeze rent prices for certain rental units in the city. Mamdani has said that the bulk of the money to pay for his agenda would come from raising taxes on New Yorkers who make over $1 million. But in order to raise taxes in the city, the new mayor will need approval from state leaders. While Democratic leaders in the Legislature have previously been open to raising taxes on high-income individuals and corporations, Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., has always been staunchly opposed to raising taxes on anyone in New York. In a recent interview, Hochul, who is running for re-election this year, left the door open to finding other revenue streams — such as raising corporate taxes — to fund Democratic priorities throughout the state. “It is my job as governor to make sure that whomever the mayor is, they’re successful,” Hochul told WNYW-TV in December. “The budget process is unfolding. We’ll be working with the legislators over the next couple months, and we’ll find out how we can take off a bite of what we need to do — like what is doable in this upcoming year, in the following year,” she added. The Associated Press contributed. ...read more read less