Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke at an event for NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Sunday in Queens:

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: The struggle of our time today – the single most unjust concentration of wealth in the hands of the very few – is unseen in our nation’s history and in the world’s history. And it is a time such as this in which demanding what should be considered the most basic tenets of human dignity – that is considered a radical and outlandish act. It is a time such as today when demanding affordable housing is considered a radical and outlandish act. That we can afford our lives, our groceries, our transit – that is considered an outlandish and radical act. That we accept our neighbor as ourselves – a radical and outlandish act. But we must remember, in a time such as this, we are not the crazy ones. New York City – we are not the outlandish ones. New York City – they want us to think we are crazy. We are sane to demand affordable and decent housing, a decent wage, the right to health care, that we pay to care for our people instead of the flattening of Palestinians and oppressed people abroad. That is not a radical act – it is basic and core humanity. That is why the election of Zohran [Mamdani] is as important as our cause today: child care, buses, rent, and our rights. Here in New York City – it is the jewel and the center of all that is possible in America. And on November 4th, we will prove that today. We will prove it to the world. And we will prove it to the nation. We will send a loud message – to President Donald Trump – that his authoritarianism is no good here. We will send a message to ICE that secret police do not belong here. And we will demonstrate the heroism that exists in the everyday people throughout our city. Heroism like that we saw last week – a young woman in a polka-dot dress standing up to a secret police officer in Canal Street. She is New York City. The young man in a white helmet, jumping off his bicycle, saying, Not in my neighborhood. That is New York City. The line cooks and the delivery workers every day, serving and making sure that we are clothed and fed and that our children are cared for – that is America, New York City. That is who we fight for. That is what this victory is about. Because New York, America – our freedoms and our future – when I think about what is happening throughout our nation today, and what Donald Trump has even done, reflected and symbolic of so much, in his demolition of the White House and the East Wing – we see what he’s doing to that. And we must let him know that this injustice – no matter what he’s doing – that house doesn’t belong to him, New York. It belongs to us. It belongs to the people of this country. And I want us all to remember and to know that our future is not determined by a despot in a house built by enslaved people. Our future will be determined not in a house built by slaves, but in a city built by free men – in a city built by unionists and immigrants and suffragists. The bricks laid by working people, past, present, and future – the seamstresses and the unionists who paid for our rights in blood. This city was built by the Irish escaping famine, Italians fleeing fascism, Jews escaping the Holocaust, Black Americans fleeing slavery and Jim Crow, Latinos seeking a better life, Native people standing for themselves, and Asian Americans coming together in Queens, in Brooklyn, in the Bronx, in Manhattan, in Staten Island – in this country, in a vision to build the freest, toughest, and greatest city on Earth. And we will not stop now. New York – it is no surprise. NYC, baby. NYC. It is no surprise to me, New York, that it is our great city that has chosen to adorn itself with the nation’s greatest monument to freedom – the Statue of Liberty. She reminds us every day that the central commitment of America is an unconditional freedom – precisely the kind that cannot be bought, that is available to the huddled masses yearning to be free. This is America, New York City. Don’t let them tell you any different. Don’t let them tell you that we are the exception. We are the rule. We are the standard. We are the acceptance. We set the bar for America. I’m talking to you, Donald Trump. There has been a day before his presidency – and there will be a day after – and it belongs to us. Thank you, New York. I love you, New York.

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