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Opinion
'We Will Govern Expansively and Audaciously': Zohran Mamdani's Inaugural Address
To those who insist that the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this—no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.
Jan 02, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani prepared these remarks to deliver at his inauguration on January 1, 2026.
My fellow New Yorkers—today begins a new era.
I stand before you moved by the privilege of taking this sacred oath, humbled by the faith that you have placed in me, and honored to serve as either your 111th or 112th Mayor of New York City. But I do not stand alone.
I stand alongside you, the tens of thousands gathered here in Lower Manhattan, warmed against the January chill by the resurgent flame of hope.
Seldom do we hold such an opportunity to transform and reinvent. Rarer still is it the people themselves whose hands are the ones upon the levers of change.
I stand alongside countless more New Yorkers watching from cramped kitchens in Flushing and barbershops in East New York, from cell phones propped against the dashboards of parked taxi cabs at LaGuardia, from hospitals in Mott Haven and libraries in El Barrio that have too long known only neglect.
I stand alongside construction workers in steel-toed boots and halal cart vendors whose knees ache from working all day.
I stand alongside neighbors who carry a plate of food to the elderly couple down the hall, those in a rush who still lift strangers’ strollers up subway stairs, and every person who makes the choice day after day, even when it feels impossible, to call our city home.
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. I know there are some who view this administration with distrust or disdain, or who see politics as permanently broken. And while only action can change minds, I promise you this: If you are a New Yorker, I am your Mayor. Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you, and never, not for a second, hide from you.
I thank the labor and movement leaders here today, the activists and elected officials who will return to fighting for New Yorkers the second this ceremony concludes, and the performers who have gifted us with their talent.
Thank you to Governor Hochul for joining us. And thank you to Mayor Adams—Dorothy’s son, a son of Brownsville who rose from washing dishes to the highest position in our city—for being here as well. He and I have had our share of disagreements, but I will always be touched that he chose me as the mayoral candidate that he would most want to be trapped with on an elevator.
Thank you to the two titans who, as an Assemblymember, I’ve had the privilege of being represented by in Congress—Nydia Velázquez and our incredible opening speaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. You have paved the way for this moment.
Thank you to the man whose leadership I seek most to emulate, who I am so grateful to be sworn in by today—Senator Bernie Sanders.
Thank you to my teams—from the Assembly, to the campaign, to the transition and now, the team I am so excited to lead from City Hall.
In so doing, we will provide our own answer to that age-old question—who does New York belong to? Well, my friends, we can look to Madiba and the South African Freedom Charter: New York “belongs to all who live in it.”
Thank you to my parents, Mama and Baba, for raising me, for teaching me how to be in this world, and for having brought me to this city. Thank you to my family—from Kampala to Delhi. And thank you to my wife Rama for being my best friend, and for always showing me the beauty in everyday things.
Most of all—thank you to the people of New York.
A moment like this comes rarely. Seldom do we hold such an opportunity to transform and reinvent. Rarer still is it the people themselves whose hands are the ones upon the levers of change.
And yet we know that too often in our past, moments of great possibility have been promptly surrendered to small imagination and smaller ambition. What was promised was never pursued, what could have changed remained the same. For the New Yorkers most eager to see our city remade, the weight has only grown heavier, the wait has only grown longer.
In writing this address, I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations, that I should use this opportunity to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and expect even less. I will do no such thing. The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations.
Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.
To those who insist that the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this—no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.
For too long, we have turned to the private sector for greatness, while accepting mediocrity from those who serve the public. I cannot blame anyone who has come to question the role of government, whose faith in democracy has been eroded by decades of apathy. We will restore that trust by walking a different path—one where government is no longer solely the final recourse for those struggling, one where excellence is no longer the exception.
We expect greatness from the cooks wielding a thousand spices, from those who stride out onto Broadway stages, from our starting point guard at Madison Square Garden. Let us demand the same from those who work in government. In a city where the mere names of our streets are associated with the innovation of the industries that call them home, we will make the words "City Hall" synonymous with both resolve and results.
As we embark upon this work, let us advance a new answer to the question asked of every generation: Who does New York belong to?
For much of our history, the response from City Hall has been simple: It belongs only to the wealthy and well-connected, those who never strain to capture the attention of those in power.
Here, where the language of the New Deal was born, we will return the vast resources of this city to the workers who call it home.
Working people have reckoned with the consequences. Crowded classrooms and public housing developments where the elevators sit out of order; roads littered with potholes and buses that arrive half an hour late, if at all; wages that do not rise and corporations that rip off consumers and employees alike.
And still—there have been brief, fleeting moments where the equation changed.
Twelve years ago, Bill de Blasio stood where I stand now as he promised to “put an end to economic and social inequalities” that divided our city into two.
In 1990, David Dinkins swore the same oath I swore today, vowing to celebrate the “gorgeous mosaic” that is New York, where every one of us is deserving of a decent life.
And nearly six decades before him, Fiorella La Guardia took office with the goal of building a city that was “far greater and more beautiful” for the hungry and the poor.
Some of these Mayors achieved more success than others. But they were unified by a shared belief that New York could belong to more than just a privileged few. It could belong to those who operate our subways and rake our parks, those who feed us biryani and beef patties, picanha and pastrami on rye. And they knew that this belief could be made true if only government dared to work hardest for those who work hardest.
Over the years to come, my administration will resurrect that legacy. City Hall will deliver an agenda of safety, affordability, and abundance—where government looks and lives like the people it represents, never flinches in the fight against corporate greed, and refuses to cower before challenges that others have deemed too complicated.
In so doing, we will provide our own answer to that age-old question—who does New York belong to? Well, my friends, we can look to Madiba and the South African Freedom Charter: New York “belongs to all who live in it.”
Together, we will tell a new story of our city.
This will not be a tale of one city, governed only by the 1%. Nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor.
It will be a tale of 8 and a half million cities, each of them a New Yorker with hopes and fears, each a universe, each of them woven together.
The authors of this story will speak Pashto and Mandarin, Yiddish and Creole. They will pray in mosques, at shul, at church, at Gurdwaras and Mandirs and temples—and many will not pray at all.
They will be Russian Jewish immigrants in Brighton Beach, Italians in Rossville, and Irish families in Woodhaven—many of whom came here with nothing but a dream of a better life, a dream which has withered away. They will be young people in cramped Marble Hill apartments where the walls shake when the subway passes. They will be Black homeowners in St. Albans whose homes represent a physical testament to triumph over decades of lesser-paid labor and redlining. They will be Palestinian New Yorkers in Bay Ridge, who will no longer have to contend with a politics that speaks of universalism and then makes them the exception.
From today onwards, we will understand victory very simply: something with the power to transform lives, and something that demands effort from each of us, every single day.
Few of these 8 and a half million will fit into neat and easy boxes. Some will be voters from Hillside Avenue or Fordham Road who supported President Trump a year before they voted for me, tired of being failed by their party’s establishment. The majority will not use the language that we often expect from those who wield influence. I welcome the change. For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty.
Many of these people have been betrayed by the established order. But in our administration, their needs will be met. Their hopes and dreams and interests will be reflected transparently in government. They will shape our future.
And if for too long these communities have existed as distinct from one another, we will draw this city closer together. We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism. If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity, then let this government foster it. Because no matter what you eat, what language you speak, how you pray, or where you come from—the words that most define us are the two we all share: New Yorkers.
And it will be New Yorkers who reform a long-broken property tax system. New Yorkers who will create a new Department of Community Safety that will tackle the mental health crisis and let the police focus on the job they signed up to do. New Yorkers who will take on the bad landlords who mistreat their tenants and free small business owners from the shackles of bloated bureaucracy. And I am proud to be one of those New Yorkers.
When we won the primary last June, there were many who said that these aspirations and those who held them had come out of nowhere. Yet one man’s nowhere is another man’s somewhere. This movement came out of 8 and a half million somewheres—taxi cab depots and Amazon warehouses, DSA meetings and curbside domino games. The powers that be had looked away from these places for quite some time—if they’d known about them at all—so they dismissed them as nowhere. But in our city, where every corner of these five boroughs holds power, there is no nowhere and there is no no one. There is only New York, and there are only New Yorkers.
8 and a half million New Yorkers will speak this new era into existence. It will be loud. It will be different. It will feel like the New York we love.
No matter how long you have called this city home, that love has shaped your life. I know that it has shaped mine.
This is the city where I set landspeed records on my razor scooter at the age of 12. Quickest four blocks of my life.
The city where I ate powdered donuts at halftime during AYSO soccer games and realized I probably wouldn’t be going pro, devoured too-big slices at Koronet Pizza, played cricket with my friends at Ferry Point Park, and took the 1 train to the BX10 only to still show up late to Bronx Science.
The city where I have gone on hunger strike just outside these gates, sat claustrophobic on a stalled N train just after Atlantic Avenue, and waited in quiet terror for my father to emerge from 26 Federal Plaza.
The city where I took a beautiful woman named Rama to McCarren Park on our first date and swore a different oath to become an American citizen on Pearl Street.
So, standing together with the wind of purpose at our backs, we will do something that New Yorkers do better than anyone else: We will set an example for the world.
To live in New York, to love New York, is to know that we are the stewards of something without equal in our world. Where else can you hear the sound of the steelpan, savor the smell of sancocho, and pay $9 for coffee on the same block? Where else could a Muslim kid like me grow up eating bagels and lox every Sunday?
That love will be our guide as we pursue our agenda. Here, where the language of the New Deal was born, we will return the vast resources of this city to the workers who call it home. Not only will we make it possible for every New Yorker to afford a life they love once again—we will overcome the isolation that too many feel, and connect the people of this city to one another.
The cost of childcare will no longer discourage young adults from starting a family—because we will deliver universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few.
Those in rent-stabilized homes will no longer dread the latest rent hike—because we will freeze the rent.
Getting on a bus without worrying about a fare hike or whether you’ll be late to your destination will no longer be deemed a small miracle—because we will make buses fast and free.
These policies are not simply about the costs we make free, but the lives we fill with freedom. For too long in our city, freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it. Our City Hall will change that.
These promises carried our movement to City Hall, and they will carry us from the rallying cries of a campaign to the realities of a new era in politics.
Two Sundays ago, as snow softly fell, I spent 12 hours at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, listening to New Yorkers from every borough as they told me about the city that is theirs.
We discussed construction hours on the Van Wyck Expressway and EBT eligibility, affordable housing for artists and ICE raids. I spoke to a man named TJ who said that one day a few years ago, his heart broke as he realized he would never get ahead here, no matter how hard he worked. I spoke to a Pakistani Auntie named Samina, who told me that this movement had fostered something too rare: softness in people’s hearts. As she said in Urdu: logon ke dil badalgyehe.
142 New Yorkers out of 8 and a half million. And yet—if anything united each person sitting across from me, it was the shared recognition that this moment demands a new politics, and a new approach to power.
We will deliver nothing less as we work each day to make this city belong to more of its people than it did the day before.
Here is what I want you to expect from the administration that this morning moved into the building behind me.
We will transform the culture of City Hall from one of "no" to one of "how?"
We will answer to all New Yorkers, not to any billionaire or oligarch who thinks they can buy our democracy.
We will govern without shame and insecurity, making no apology for what we believe. I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical. As the great senator from Vermont once said: “What’s radical is a system which gives so much to so few and denies so many people the basic necessities of life.”
We will strive each day to ensure that no New Yorker is priced out of any one of those basic necessities.
And throughout it all we will, in the words of Jason Terrance Phillips, better known as Jadakiss or J to the Muah, be “outside”—because this is a government of New York, by New York, and for New York.
Before I end, I want to ask you, if you are able, whether you are here today or anywhere watching, to stand.
I ask you to stand with us now, and every day that follows. City Hall will not be able to deliver on our own. And while we will encourage New Yorkers to demand more from those with the great privilege of serving them, we will encourage you to demand more of yourselves as well.
The movement we began over a year ago did not end with our victory on Election Night. It will not end this afternoon. It lives on with every battle we will fight, together; every blizzard and flood we withstand, together; every moment of fiscal challenge we overcome with ambition, not austerity, together; every way we pursue change in working peoples’ interests, rather than at their expense, together.
No longer will we treat victory as an invitation to turn off the news. From today onwards, we will understand victory very simply: something with the power to transform lives, and something that demands effort from each of us, every single day.
What we achieve together will reach across the five boroughs and it will resonate far beyond. There are many who will be watching. They want to know if the left can govern. They want to know if the struggles that afflict them can be solved. They want to know if it is right to hope again.
So, standing together with the wind of purpose at our backs, we will do something that New Yorkers do better than anyone else: We will set an example for the world. If what Sinatra said is true, let us prove that anyone can make it in New York—and anywhere else too. Let us prove that when a city belongs to the people, there is no need too small to be met, no person too sick to be made healthy, no one too alone to feel like New York is their home.
The work continues, the work endures, the work, my friends, has only just begun.
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Zohran Mamdani and the Long Muslim Thread in the American Story
America is not a Christian nation, nor a nation for whites, nor a nation for the rich alone. It is a nation built on principles shared by all who live in it, and Islam has always been part of that inheritance.
Jan 02, 2026
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” —Frederick Douglass
America’s story has always been a story of struggle—for liberty, for justice, for recognition. On a cold January afternoon outside City Hall, Zohran Mamdani stepped into that struggle. Raising his right hand, he took the oath of office as mayor of New York City—the first Muslim ever to hold the city’s highest office—embodying Douglass’ truth: Progress demands courage, perseverance, and the relentless pursuit of inclusion.
The headlines captured the surface: a 25-minute inaugural address, roughly 4,000 spectators, a private swearing in just after midnight at the Old City Hall subway station, appearances by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). But the moment ran far deeper. Mamdani’s inauguration was not only a municipal milestone; it was the latest chapter in a debate as old as the republic itself: where Muslims belong in the American story—and whether they ever truly have.
That question stretches back to July 30, 1788, when North Carolina ratified the Constitution. Anti-federalist William Lancaster warned that by rejecting religious tests for office, the new nation might allow Muslims to govern. “Papists may occupy that chair,” he cautioned, “and Mahometans may take it. I see nothing against it.” A warning, then. A prophecy, now.
When Mamdani declared, “New York belongs to all who live in it,” he answered a question first posed in fear in 1788, tested in war, dramatized by Muhammad Ali, and deferred for generations.
There were no Muslim candidates in 1788. But there were Muslims in America—thousands of enslaved Africans whose presence exposed the republic’s deepest contradiction. Between 5 and 20% of enslaved Africans were Muslim, many literate in Arabic, bearing names like Fatima, Ali, Hassan, and Said. Their faith was violently suppressed, yet fragments endured—in memory, language, and resistance.
Even the founding generation reflected this tension. Thomas Jefferson studied the Quran and treated Islam as a serious intellectual tradition, even as he owned enslaved Muslims. Islam existed in theory, in human reality, and yet was denied civic recognition.
That tension carried forward into the nation’s greatest moral reckoning: the Civil War.
Muslims fought for the Union. Mohammed Kahn enlisted in the 43rd New York Infantry. Nicholas Said—born Mohammed Ali ben Said in Nigeria, raised Muslim, later converted to Christianity—served as a sergeant in the 55th Massachusetts Colored Regiment and as a Union clerk. Captain Moses Osman held a high-ranking post in the 104th Illinois Infantry. Union rosters show names like Ali, Hassan, and Said, hinting at a wider Muslim presence than history often acknowledges.
Yet rifles were not the only weapons. Islam entered the moral imagination through words and witness. Sen. Charles Sumner, nearly beaten on the Senate floor, quoted the Quran to condemn slavery. Ayuba Suleiman Diallo—Job ben Solomon—had already unsettled transatlantic assumptions through literacy, eloquence, and dignity. His story endured into the Civil War, republished in 1864 to reinforce the war’s moral purpose. Overseas, Hussein Pasha of Tunisia urged the US to abolish slavery “in the name of humanity,” showing Muslim advocacy was part of a global ethical conversation.
Muslims remained largely invisible in America’s public self-understanding—until the 20th century produced a figure too large to ignore.
Muhammad Ali, still the most recognizable man on Earth decades after his gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics, transformed boxing and American consciousness alike. He was named “Athlete of the Century” by Sports Illustrated, GQ, and the BBC; “Kentuckian of the Century” by his home state; and became a global icon through speed, grace, and audacious charm.
Ali’s significance extended far beyond the ring. By insisting on the name Muhammad Ali instead of Cassius Clay, he forced America to confront the legacy of slavery embedded in naming itself. His embrace of Islam was unapologetic and public. His refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam War cost him his title and livelihood, yet anticipated the anti-war movement. His fights in Kinshasa, Manila, and Kuala Lumpur shifted attention from superpower dominance toward global conscience.
Ali’s humanitarian work was relentless: delivering over 232 million meals, medical supplies to children in Jakarta, orphans in Liberia, street children in Morocco. At home, he visited soup kitchens, hospitals, advocated for children’s protections, and taught tolerance in schools through his book Healing. For this, he was honored as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, cited by Amnesty International, and recognized by President Jimmy Carter as “Mr. International Friendship.”
Ali showed the nation something fundamental: that Islam is American. That Muslims have always belonged to the moral and civic fabric of this country. That a nation built on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, on religious tolerance, on care for the poor, is naturally aligned with Islam. Mamdani is American not in spite of his faith, but because Islam is American.
It is against this long arc—from slavery to abolition, civil rights, global conscience, and the moral courage of Muhammad Ali—that Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration comes into focus.
Mamdani’s life traces modern routes of migration and belonging. Born in Kampala, Uganda to parents with roots in South Asia, he was raised in New York City. Yet his rise fulfills an older constitutional promise. In his inaugural address, he thanked his parents—“Mama and Baba”—acknowledged family “from Kampala to Delhi,” and recalled taking his oath of American citizenship on Pearl Street.
When Mamdani declared, “New York belongs to all who live in it,” he answered a question first posed in fear in 1788, tested in war, dramatized by Muhammad Ali, and deferred for generations. He named mosques alongside churches, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras, and mandirs, making visible what history had long rendered partial. When he spoke of halal cart vendors, Palestinian New Yorkers, Black homeowners, and immigrant families bound together by labor and hope, he articulated a civic vision rooted in lived American reality.
Notably, Mamdani did not frame his Muslim identity as something to defend. It simply existed. “Where else,” he asked, “could a Muslim kid like me grow up eating bagels and lox every Sunday?” Hybridity was not an exception. It was inheritance.
Yet it is equally important to recognize that Mamdani’s historic victory does not make him infallible, nor should it. The fact that he is the first Muslim mayor of New York City is not a personal achievement alone—it reflects the barriers that Muslims, like many others, have historically faced in participating fully in American democracy. Discrimination, racial and religious bias, and systemic obstacles made this moment possible only now, not because of any failing on his part. He will, like all mayors before him, make mistakes. He will face limits, criticism, and flaws—because he is human. To hold him to an impossible standard would be to misunderstand both history and democracy.
There is, too, something unmistakably American about Mamdani’s politics. By invoking La Guardia, Dinkins, and de Blasio; by embracing democratic socialism without apology; by grounding his agenda in labor, affordability, and collective responsibility, he situates himself firmly in an American tradition—one that echoes the abolitionists, the New Deal, and the moral courage of Ali.
And as Malcolm X reminds us, this is the guiding principle for American civic life: “I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in forcing anyone to accept it.”
This is what makes the moment historic. Not that a Muslim has finally entered American politics, but that an old constitutional anxiety—once voiced as a warning—has become an ordinary fact of civic life. Islam, Mamdani, and the ideals of this nation converge in a single, undeniable truth: America is not a Christian nation, nor a nation for whites, nor a nation for the rich alone. It is a nation built on principles shared by all who live in it, and Islam has always been part of that inheritance.
The work, as Mamdani said, has only just begun. But the story his inauguration tells—that Muslims were enslaved at the nation’s birth, debated at its founding, fought in its wars, shaped its abolitionist conscience, transformed its civil rights culture, and now govern its greatest city—is no longer hypothetical.
It stands, unmistakably, on the steps of City Hall.
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The First Year of Trump's Second Term Was Terrific—for US Billionaires
Over 2025, the combined wealth of all US billionaires climbed to $8.1 trillion, a 21% increase over 2025, up from $6.7 trillion exactly a year ago.
Jan 02, 2026
The first year of the Trump administration was a very happy new year for the US billionaire class. The richest 15 billionaires, all with assets more than $100 billion, saw their combined wealth surge 33%, from $2.4 trillion to $3.2 trillion. This is double the growth of the S&P 500 over 2025, which was 16.4%.
Over 2025, the combined wealth of all US billionaires climbed to $8.1 trillion, a 21% increase over 2025, up from $6.7 trillion exactly a year ago.
Based on an Institute for Policy Studies analysis of data from the Forbes real time billionaire list from 2025, there are 935 billionaires in the United States with combined wealth totaling $8.1 trillion at the close of 2025 markets. This is an increase from 813 US billionaires at end close of 2024 markets, with combined wealth of $6.7 trillion.
The richest three American wealth dynasties—the Waltons, Mars, and Koch families—saw their wealth accelerate from $657.8 billion to $757 billion in one year.
Many top billionaires have seen their wealth surge during and after the Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020.
[Note: Bloomberg reported global billionaire wealth increased $2.2 trillion over 2025, in an analysis released several days before the market closed at 4:00 p.m. on December 31, 2025. The market fluctuated considerably in the final days of 2025.]
The top five current billionaires and their individual wealth on January 1, 2026, compared to January 1, 2025:
- Elon Musk of Tesla/X and SpaceX with $726 billion, up from $421 trillion a year ago.
- Larry Page of Google, with $257 billion, up from $156 billion a year ago.
- Larry Ellison of Oracle fame with $245.billion, up from $209 billion a year ago.
- Jeff Bezos of Amazon with $242.billion, up from $233.5 billion a year ago.
- Sergey Brin of Google with $237 billion, up from $148.9 billion a year ago.
The three wealthiest dynastic families in the US hold an estimated $757 billion, up from $657.8 billion at the end of 2024, a 16% gain. These are:
- Walton. Seven members of the Walton Family with combined wealth of $483 billion, up from $404.3 billion a year ago.
- Mars. Six members of Mars family with combined wealth of $120 billion, down from $130.4 billion a year ago.
- Koch. Two members of Koch family have a combined wealth of $154.8 billion, up from $121.1 billion a year ago.
Wealth Gains Since Beginning of Pandemic
Many top billionaires have seen their wealth surge during and after the Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020.
On March 18, 2020, Elon Musk had wealth valued just under $25 billion. Less than five years later, at the end of 2025, Musk’s wealth is $726 billion, a dizzying 2,800% increase from before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Jeff Bezos saw his wealth rise from $113 billion on March 18, 2020 to $242 billion at the end of 2025.
Three Walton family members—Jim, Alice, and Rob, saw their combined assets increase from $161.1 billion on March 18, 2020 to $378 billion at the end of 2025.
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Trump Is Out to Destroy the 'Meaning of Social Security'—in More Ways Than One
Trump spent 2025 doing everything in his power to demolish our invaluable Social Security system itself.
Jan 02, 2026
The walls of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which lies blocks from the US Capitol, are decorated with stunning New Deal-era murals. The most famous of these murals, "The Meaning of Social Security," depicts life before and after Social Security. The mural shows the best of America, what we can do when we all come together to build our Social Security system. Thanks to Donald Trump, "The Meaning of Social Security"—along with everything it represents—is now in grave danger.
The Trump administration is making moves to demolish the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, inevitably destroying "The Meaning of Social Security" in the process. Trump plans to take a wrecking ball to this key piece of Social Security’s history, just as he did to the east wing of the White House. But this is about more than just a mural. Trump spent 2025 doing everything in his power to demolish our invaluable Social Security system itself.
Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security. Not surprisingly given his past history, he betrayed that promise over and over again in 2025.
Notably, Trump chose Russell Vought to be his powerful head of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought, the lead architect of Project 2025, made the Trump administration’s agenda plain, infamously declaring: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work…”
The very sense of security that lifted us out of the Great Depression is what Trump is destroying—and he wants to erase the memory that another way is possible.
True to that goal, Trump and Vought gave Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) unprecedented power over the federal government, including Social Security. Musk and his underlings used that power to:
- Force out thousands of the dedicated civil servants who run Social Security, disproportionately those with the most experience and institutional knowledge. That despite the fact that the Social Security Administration was already extremely understaffed and overburdened, with 12,000 Americans turning age 65 every day.
- Copy the American people’s most personal data to an insecure server for an undisclosed purpose. The data is now vulnerable to hackers—including foreign governments.
- Promote lies about Social Security. Musk and his acolytes falsely claimed that Social Security is full of fraud and improper payments, a lie Trump repeated to a huge national audience during his televised March 4 address to Congress. In fact, Social Security has a payment accuracy rate of over 99%—far better than private sector retirement programs.
In short, Trump, Vought, and Musk spent 2025 creating chaos, havoc, and trauma for the hardworking employees of the Social Security Administration, which translates to vastly diminished service to the public.
Elon Musk is no longer officially in government, but Vought still is, and Musk’s DOGE minions can still be found at SSA. Moreover, Trump’s choice to lead Social Security is Frank Bisignano, a self-described “DOGE person.” Though Bisignano has no background in Social Security, he does have expertise in hollowing out companies.
Before running Social Security, Bisignano was the head of Fiserv, a financial services company, where he laid off thousands of workers. Fiserv’s stock recently dropped by 40%. The company’s current CEO blamed Bisignano, saying that “many of the assumptions and projections set by prior leaders were too rosy.” Bisignano is now a defendant in several lawsuits brought by Fiserv investors.
Bisignano appears to have brought his Fiserv tricks to Social Security. Under his leadership, the Social Security Administration has removed longstanding metrics from its website. Bisignano is touting rosy new metrics, but the truth is that he is cherry picking data. For example, Bisignano says that wait times on Social Security’s 1-800 number are down. What he doesn’t mention is that calls may be picked up by an AI chatbot or by workers who have been diverted from elsewhere and are undertrained in responding to caller concerns. It doesn’t matter how quickly a call is answered if the caller does not get the help that they need.
Moreover, between pushing people out and reassigning others to the 1-800 number, field offices are increasingly understaffed. That means longer waits to get in-person help. Essential work is not getting done. That means millions of Americans may get hit, in six months or a year, with official notices informing them that they have been overpaid, and demanding that within the next month, they pay the government thousands of dollars. Millions more will likely be underpaid but never know it.
Importantly, Social Security is facing a financial shortfall in less than a decade. Rather than addressing it by requiring billionaires like himself to pay their fair share, however, Trump is doing everything he can to make the shortfall worse. His tariffs, record deficits, and other policies are leading to high inflation, which means Social Security is paying out larger amounts. Those policies, together with his deportation of hard-working immigrants, are also leading to unemployment and stagnant wages, so less is being contributed to Social Security.
Though the shortfall is manageable, Trump’s actions give Congress less time to act and increase the chances politicians will go behind closed doors to cut working families’ benefits.
What is happening is unprecedented in Social Security’s 90-year history. No president has come close to undermining it the way Donald Trump has done—and it’s been less than a year. President George W. Bush sought to privatize Social Security, but to his credit, he was totally transparent about his proposal. In stark contrast, Trump is seeking to destroy Social Security in the dark.
The very sense of security that lifted us out of the Great Depression is what Trump is destroying—and he wants to erase the memory that another way is possible. He wants a second American gilded age, with gold-plated everything for elites and suffering for the rest of us.
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