The aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks featured a period of political comity in New York and the nation. But a toxic political discourse has defined the weeks leading up to the official gathering Friday to mark a quarter century since the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Top Republicans, including Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, have called on Mayor Zohran Mamdani not to attend the ceremonies. Mamdani said he is going — and will be situated close to those same men in a section reserved for current and former elected officials.
The unusually ugly effort to disinvite Mamdani — the city’s first Muslim mayor — has politicized what organizers have long cast as a solemn, apolitical ceremony.
Some of the same Republicans attacking Mamdani, including gubernatorial candidate Blakeman, have campaigned with people who previously echoed conspiracy theories about the attacks.
Basil Smikle, a political consultant and Columbia University professor, worked in 2001 for then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton and coordinated visits to the downtown site for elected officials in both major parties. He said that sense of unity was accompanied by a backlash against Middle Eastern and South Asian communities that’s been rekindled by Mamdani’s election.
“It’s not just Islamophobia. It's racism,” Smikle said. “It didn't go away. It just went dormant for a while and reared its head again.”
Al-Qaeda, a radical Islamic terrorist organization, took credit for orchestrating the attacks. The U.S. led years-long military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq in response, and captured al-Qaida leaders in central Asia.
At the same time, Islamophobic attacks rose in New York and across the nation in the following years. Muslim community leaders said it sparked a political awakening among a generation that went on to help Mamdani get elected.
Critics of Mamdani — who wasn’t quite 10 years old in 2001 — say they are troubled by his association with Muslim leaders and officials who have downplayed the attacks. They note Mamdani’s chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, represented an al-Qaida terrorist and that mayor has been reluctant to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
Critics of the phrase say it references violent uprisings by Palestinians against Israel. Mamdani doesn’t use the phrase, and has repeatedly condemned calls for violence. He’s also condemned comments by political commentator host Hasan Piker, who said America “deserved” 9/11.
That wasn’t enough for Pataki, who said in an interview with The Free Press that his call to disinvite Mamdani wasn’t Islamophobic.
“Muslims have always been included ... but it's different when you tolerate — let alone encourage — violence,” Pataki said. “Then you don't belong there. This is about the families."
Giuliani said Sunday on Newsmax that Mamdani’s presence offends him. Blakeman in 2001 was a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the World Trade Center. The county executive said Mamdani shouldn’t attend the ceremony, which the county executive likened to a wake.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said this week that it would be wrong for Mamdani to stay away.
“This is a time when the voices of hatred should not prevail over the voices of those who say, ‘Let us come together. Let us share in that sense that we once had,’” Hochul said, recounting the days after the 2001 attacks.
Mamdani said he is attending the ceremony, as his predecessors have done.
“I think that the focus of memorial services should be on the New Yorkers who were killed that day, their families, the survivors, the first responders,” he said Tuesday. “I don't think it should be on politicians.”
The mayor released thousands of documents this week related to air quality reports in Manhattan in the aftermath of 9/11. He said those documents showed “people got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air.”
Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks — most of them in the collapse of the twin towers.
Speeches by elected officials haven’t been part of the remembrance ceremony at the World Trade Center since 2012. Officials are invited “simply to bear witness,” said Gwen Rocco, a spokesperson for the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.
“Our priority throughout the ceremony is to provide a dignified and supportive environment for the families,” Rocco said. “We have intentionally worked to keep the commemoration free of politics because remembering those we lost on 9/11 should never be a partisan issue.”
That hasn’t happened this year. Democrats attacked Blakeman, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, for appearing with GOP congressional candidate Joel Anabilah-Azumah, who said in 2024 that 9/11 was “an inside job.”
The party released a statement attributed to U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler in response.
“Having represented ground zero itself in Congress, it is downright appalling to me that Bruce Blakeman would campaign with, and seek endorsements from, dyed-in-the-wool 9/11 conspiracy theorists,” Nadler said. “There is no low Blakeman won’t stoop to gin up MAGA support for his campaign, and this should be unacceptable to any New Yorker.”
Representatives for Blakeman didn’t return a message seeking comment. In an interview, Anabilah-Azumah questioned Nadler’s record in office and said he was being singled out for his opposition to “forever wars.” He said he questions whether terrorists were solely responsible for the attacks given the subsequent U.S. military campaigns that they spawned.
President Donald Trump isn’t attending the memorial service this year in New York, but Vice President JD Vance is. Trump claimed without evidence this week that he visited the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11 and was picked up and taken to safety by firefighters. The Republican president is scheduled to speak at a memorial event at the Pentagon, which was also struck by a hijacked airliner.
Several people whose loved ones died on Sept. 11 started an online petition this summer saying Mamdani shouldn’t attend the memorial. Organizer Giovanni Galante, whose wife died at the World Trade Center, spoke at a Tuesday rally on the steps of City Hall and a separate demonstration outside the offices of the Democratic Socialists of America. He said Mamdani should stay away because of his “radical views.”
A Suffolk University poll of New York City voters released this week found 74% of respondents said Mamdani should attend the ceremony. The same poll asked whether officials should be allowed to speak.
The same share of voters, 74%, said the event should be focused on victims and survivors.
