NOTE: VIDEO AT THE END OF THE ARTICLE.
In a fiery speech at the Claremont Institute’s Statesmanship Award dinner on July 5, Vice President J.D. Vance took direct aim at New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, criticizing a social media post Mamdani shared on Independence Day. The post, which described the United States as “beautiful,” yet “contradictory” and “unfinished,” drew national attention and triggered strong reactions across the political spectrum.
Vance, delivering his remarks just one day after the nation celebrated its 249th birthday, accused Mamdani of lacking gratitude and reverence for the country that had, in his words, offered refuge to his family. “Today is July 5, 2025,” Vance began. “Yesterday we celebrated the 249th anniversary of the birth of our nation. And the person who wishes to lead our largest city had never once, according to multiple media reports, publicly honored America’s Independence Day—until this year, when he did so with the following words.” Vance then read Mamdani’s post aloud to the audience.
“There is no gratitude in those words,” Vance stated, “no sense of owing something to this land and the people who turned its wilderness into the most powerful nation on Earth.” He contrasted Mamdani’s critical tone with the sacrifice and struggle that built the country, especially referencing American soldiers and historical hardship.
The vice president’s criticism did not stop at the tweet. He invoked Mamdani’s family history—specifically his father’s escape from Uganda in 1972 during the ethnic expulsion of Asians under dictator Idi Amin. “Zohran Mamdani’s father fled Uganda when the tyrant Idi Amin decided to ethnically cleanse his nation’s Indian population,” Vance noted. “Mamdani’s family fled violent racial hatred, only for him to come to this country—a country built by people he never knew, overflowing with generosity to his family.”
Vance painted Mamdani’s critique of the U.S. as deeply disrespectful, especially given what the country had offered his family. “He dares, on our 249th anniversary, to congratulate it by paying homage to its incompleteness and, as he calls it, ‘contradiction,’” Vance said.
He then challenged whether Mamdani has truly grappled with the nation’s sacrifices. “Has he ever read the letters from boy soldiers in the Union Army to parents and sweethearts that they’d never see again? Has he ever visited the gravesite of a loved one who gave their life to build the kind of society where his family could escape racial theft and racial violence?” Vance asked the crowd.
The speech culminated with Vance’s most direct attack, questioning Mamdani’s moral and patriotic standing. “Has he ever looked in the mirror and recognized that he might not be alive were it not for the generosity of a country he dares to insult on its most sacred day?” he said. Then, with rising emotion, Vance concluded: “Who the hell does he think that he is?”
Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and current New York State Assembly member, has not yet publicly responded to Vance’s remarks. The controversy adds a new layer of intensity to an already heated mayoral race in America’s largest city, and highlights the deep divisions over how public figures express their patriotism in a politically polarized era.
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