“Will We Remain In The Shadows, Or Will We Together Step Into The Light?”

A Must-Watch Video of New York City’s Next Mayor, Zohran Mamdani

Friends,

The people of New York City – my home away from home – are on the verge of doing something historic.

On November 4th, 2025 – one week from today – we will elect Zohran Kwame Mamdani as Mayor of the largest city in America. It will be nothing short of miraculous.

(New Yorkers – No need to wait until November 4th! Early voting has already started: nycvotes.org/how-to-vote/early-voting)

This was not supposed to happen.

Mamdani is a proud member and organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America and has run a campaign focused on affordability – freezing rent for more than 1 million New Yorkers, building affordable housing, standing up to bad landlords, making buses fast and free, helping bring down the price of groceries with some city-owned grocery stores, and free universal childcare. The types of things that any sane, humane, and civilized city (and country) should have. And the types of things that the richest city in the richest country in the world should be embarrassed to not provide. He’d accomplish these things by raising the corporate tax rate and taxing the rich.

But that’s not all. Mamdani has taken the shocking and politically incorrect position that Palestinians are, in fact, human beings and should not be exterminated. Especially not with the bombs and the diplomatic cover being provided by the United States of America and its taxpayers. Perhaps the money that’s been used to make Gaza – which is the size of Detroit – home to the largest number of child amputees in the world thanks to Israel’s indiscriminate onslaught, could better be spent elsewhere, like on housing or health care.

For these reasons, the political power structure in New York and around the country has been trying to stop him. They rallied around disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, yet Mamdani crushed him by double digits. And with the election a week away, they are desperately throwing everything they have to not just shut down Mamdani, but the movements upon which the Mamdani campaign is built upon.

The good news is — it’s not working! He’s ahead in the polls. He’s built a volunteer army of 90,000 (!!) people volunteering their time and energy to take on the oligarchs, and the political and media class that they own.

The bad news is this: in the final weeks, a new threat has emerged. The desperate Cuomo campaign and the desperate media think they have an ace up their sleeve to derail Mamdani: The fact that he’s a… MUSLIM!!!

From open violent threats directed at Zohran and his family, to hateful and bigoted TV ads, to racist and disgusting attacks from the media and his opponents, the level of hate is sickening.

Through it all, Mamdani has handled himself with courage, dignity, and class. Last week, after Friday prayer at the Islamic Cultural Center in the Bronx, Mamdani delivered an emotional speech I’d like you all to watch and share with others. Please take a few minutes to watch below (and if you’d like to read it, see the transcript below the video).

And to the nearly one million Muslims in New York City who are currently being barraged with Islamophobic TV ads and mailers – I have your back. We all have your back!

And to the bigots and Islamophobes and haters and warmongers – ENOUGH! IT’S OVER!

Yours,

Michael Moore

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Watch this video from Zohran for NYC shot by Donald Borenstein, a friend and colleague who since 2020 has worked on and off on my podcast, and is one of the many unsung heroes of the Mamdani movement here in NYC:

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Here is the text of of Zohran Mamdani’s Speech on Islamophobia at the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx, October 24th, 2025:

Six years ago, shortly after I had announced I was running for State Assembly, a well-meaning Muslim uncle pulled me aside. He smiled softly, and looked at me with care.

In a quiet voice, he told me I did not have to tell people I was Muslim. His eyes kind, his beard proud, and his face heavy with the implications of the unsaid: I had not learned the lesson that he had been taught time and again.

It is the lesson that safety could only be found in the shadows of our city. That it is in those shadows alone where Muslims could embrace their full identities, and that if we were to emerge from those shadows, then it is in those shadows that we must leave our faith.

These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught, again and again.

And over these last few days, these lessons have become the closing messages of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa, and Eric Adams.

Yesterday, Andrew Cuomo laughed and agreed when a radio host said that I would cheer another 9/11.

Yesterday, Eric Adams said that we “can’t let our city become Europe.” He compared me to violent extremists, and he lied again and again when he said that our movement seeks to burn churches and destroy communities.

The day before that, Curtis Sliwa slandered me from a debate stage when he claimed that I support global jihad.

And every day, Super PAC ads imply that I am a terrorist or mock the way I eat, push polls that ask New Yorkers questions like whether they support invented proposals to make halal food mandatory, or political cartoons that represent my candidacy as an airplane hurtling towards the World Trade Center.

But I do not want to use this moment to speak to them any further. I want to use this moment to speak to the Muslims of New York City.

I want to speak to the memory of my aunt, who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab.

I want to speak to the Muslim who works for our city—whether they teach in our schools or walk the beat for the NYPD, New Yorkers who all make daily sacrifices for the city they call home, only to see their leaders spit in their face.

I want to speak to every child who grows up here marked as the Other, who is randomly selected in a way that never quite feels random, who feels that they carry a stain that can never be cleaned.

Growing up in the shadow of 9/11, I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion in this city. I will always remember the disdain that I faced, the way my name could immediately become “Mohammad,” and how I could return to my city only to be asked in a double mirrored room at the airport if I had any plan on attacking it.

And since I was very young, I’ve also known that I was spared the worst of it. I was never pressured to be an informant like a classmate of mine. I have never had the word ‘terrorist’ spray-painted on my garage, as one of my staff had to endure. My mosque has never been set on fire.

To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity. But indignity does not make us distinct—there are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.

Since I announced my candidacy for Mayor one year ago yesterday, I have sought to be the candidate fighting for every single New Yorker, not simply the Muslim candidate. I have carried these indignities with me each moment of this race, doing so all the while as the first major Muslim candidate in the history of our city.

I thought that if I could build a campaign of universality, I could define myself as the leader I aspire to be – one representing every New Yorker, no matter their skin color or religion, no matter where they were born. I thought that if I worked hard enough, it would allow me to be that leader. And I thought that if I behaved well enough – or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks all while returning back to my central message – it would allow me to be more than just my faith.

I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.

In doing this, I have told the wide-eyed young child in Jackson Heights or the first-time voter in Parkchester that they too should remain in the shadows. In many ways I have become that same uncle who pulled me aside six years ago.

No more.

The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker. And yet, for too long, we have been told to ask for less than that, and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive.

No more.

For as long as we have lived, we have known that no matter what anyone says, there are still certain forms of hate that are acceptable in this city.

Islamophobia is not seen as inexcusable. One can incite violence against our mosques and know that condemnation will never come. Elected officials in this city can sell t-shirts calling for my deportation without any fear of accountability. The consequences amidst this inaction are stark—more than one million Muslims in this city, existing all while being made to feel like as if we are guests in our own home.

No more.

We stand on the precipice of an election—but that is not what today is about.

We know that in less than two weeks, we will say goodbye to a disgraced former Governor and our current indicted Mayor. The bigger question is whether we are willing to say goodbye to something much larger than either of these two men. It is whether we are willing to say goodbye to anti-Muslim sentiment that has grown so endemic in our city that when we hear it, we know not whether the words were spoken by a Republican or by a Democrat—we know only that it was spoken in the language of the politics of this city.

In an era of ever diminishing bipartisanship, it seems that Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement.

And while I appreciate all who have rushed to my defense over these past two days, I think of those Muslims in this city who do not have the luxury of being the Democratic nominee, who do not have the luxury of being deemed worthy of solidarity.

While my opponents in this race have brought hatred to the forefront, this is just a glimpse of what so many have to endure everyday across this city. And while it would be easy for us to say that this is not who we are as a city—we know the truth. This is who we have allowed ourselves to become.

And a question lies before each of us. Will we continue to accept a narrow definition of what it means to be a New Yorker, that makes smaller every day the number of those guaranteed a life of dignity?

Will we remain in the shadows, or will we together step into the light?

There are twelve days remaining until Election Day.

I will be a Muslim man in New York City each of those twelve days, and every day that follows after that.

I will not change who I am, how I eat, or the faith that I am proud to call my own.

But there is one thing that I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.

Thank you very much.

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If You’re In New York City, Early Voting Has Already Started!

Early Voting is NOW through Nov 2nd
Election Day: Nov 4th

Make a plan to early vote here: nycvotes.org/how-to-vote/early-voting
Check your voter registration here: e-register.vote.nyc
Find your poll site here: findmypollsite.vote.nyc

Help Get Out The Vote for Zohran!
Sign up to canvass here: http://zohranfornyc.com/gotv
Not in NYC? Sign up to phonebank here: volunteer.zohranfornyc.com/phonebanking

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.