Hours before the president is scheduled to address the country in honor of America’s 250th anniversary, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to speak to Americans from the desk of a commander in chief who played a pivotal role in the formation of the United States.
Mamdani will give a speech from a desk used by George Washington during his time as president, the mayor’s office told NBC News. The desk is housed at New York City Hall and was originally in Federal Hall, the nation’s first capitol building, in lower Manhattan.
According to NBC News, the mayor’s speech will focus on NYC’s role in the history of the country and how it stands as a “symbolic gateway” for the rest of the nation. As Mamdani traces the experiences of a variety of groups — “Indigenous people, enslaved Africans, immigrants” and more — he will be have naturalized citizens surround him, NBC News reports.
It comes days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship was in violation of the 14th Amendment.
“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,” the mayor’s office told NBC News.
Watch the address in the video player above.
