“Those ideals upon which our nation was built – they are strong enough to endure any authoritarian regime, but only if we reach for them,”

Here, at City Hall, as I sit behind George Washington's desk, I cannot see all of America. But like so many who came before, I can see New York City.

After all, who loves America more than those who have sacrificed so much to make it free?

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged New Yorkers in a social media post this week to set their air conditioners at 78 degrees Fahrenheit to alleviate pressure on the power grid.

We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more.

We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands, those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone.

America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes.

You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means.

It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it.

What power each of us holds to bring America ever closer to the greatness so many have seen when they looked upon these shores.

The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that work endures, and it belongs to us all.

We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else.