A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
New York City has a new mayor.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Just after midnight, Zohran Mamdani was formally sworn in at a small private ceremony held underground at a historic subway station. New York state Attorney General Letitia James conducted the oath.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LETITIA JAMES: So help me God.
ZOHRAN MAMDANI: So help me God.
JAMES: Congratulations, Mr. Mayor.
(CHEERING)
MARTÍNEZ: This was just the first event for Mamdani's historic inauguration. Member station WNYC's Brigid Bergin will be covering the events later today, joins us now with a preview. So, OK, public inauguration this afternoon. And, really, he was one of the biggest stories in 2025. But for people that are just catching up, tell us about Zohran Mamdani.
BRIGID BERGIN, BYLINE: Yeah, A, you're right. It's a historic day. But at 34 years old, Mamdani is the youngest mayor of New York City, really in the modern era. He's the first Muslim mayor. He's an immigrant New Yorker. His parents are both from India, but he spent the early part of his childhood in Uganda before his family moved to New York City. And, really, politically, Mamdani represents a shift from his predecessor, Eric Adams, who was a far more conservative Democrat.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, let's get into that shift because Mamdani is not just a Democrat. He's a Democratic socialist. So how might that affect his priorities?
BERGIN: So Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA. He calls the group his political home. It's a membership organization with chapters across the country. It's not a political party. It helped inform his campaign platform - things like making buses fast and free and providing universal child care. The group also helped him recruit thousands of volunteers for his winning campaign. Among those he defeated was outgoing mayor Adams, who is leaving office under a bit of a cloud. He faced federal corruption charges that were dismissed at the direction of President Trump's Justice Department earlier this year.
Mamdani has included some of the most prominent national figures with ties to the DSA in today's ceremony. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will deliver opening remarks, and then Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will conduct the public swearing-in.
MARTÍNEZ: So DSA all-stars, essentially, right? Yeah.
BERGIN: That's right.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. He was known for cultivating really enormous grassroots support for his campaign. So can any New Yorker just show up at today's event?
BERGIN: Well, there will be several thousand people at a ticketed event outside City Hall, which for anyone who's visited New York sits just on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. But there also is going to be this huge block party with tens of thousands more people that's going to span several blocks along Broadway, where people will be able to watch a live feed of the ceremony and really be part of the celebration. It's going to be on a part of the street known as the Canyon of Heroes, where you might see a ticker-tape parade, like when the New York Liberty became WNBA champions in 2024. Space is still limited, though, so people needed to RSVP to get into that area. And really, A, no matter where you're watching, if you're going to be outside, it's going to be time to bundle up. The actual temperature will be about 26 degrees at the time of the ceremony, but with the wind, it's going to feel like about 12.
MARTÍNEZ: That's why I live in Los Angeles. Good luck staying warm out there. That was WNYC's Brigid Bergin in New York. Thanks a lot.
BERGIN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
