Mamdani to attend 9/11 ceremony; Giuliani said he should skip

Mamdani issued orders designating 9/11 a Day of Remembrance

Mamdani confirmed his attendance on Monday while attending a Brooklyn breakfast celebrating the J’ouvert and West Indian Day Parade. He said he wants the focus this week to remain “on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11th, and a focus also on the first responders who did everything they could.” “I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” Mamdani said. The mayor and his office have declined to respond to Giuliani’s remarks.

Giuliani, who served as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001 and led the city when the September 11 attacks occurred, made his comments during a Newsmax interview that aired over the weekend. Giuliani ran unsuccessfully for president and has served more recently as an attorney and close ally of President Donald Trump. Asked whether Mamdani should skip the ceremony, Giuliani said: “Well, there’s no question he should.” “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming,” Giuliani said. Giuliani has said he also plans to attend the ceremony himself.

In the same interview, Giuliani remarked that the terrorists brought their ideological opposition to the United States “in the name of the Muslim religion” and “weren’t hiding it like Mamdani is trying to hide it.” Giuliani also declared the opinion that Mamdani supports a notion that Islam should be the dominant religion.

Mamdani has previously spoken about how an Islamophobic backlash built after the 2001 attacks and made anti-Muslim prejudice “a fact of life” for Muslim Americans. “It was this horrific day that was also, for many New Yorkers, the moment at which they were marked an ‘other’,” he told the New York Times last year.

Friday’s service marks the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which hijackers acting on the extremist orders of Osama bin Laden flew passenger planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, killing almost 3,000 people. The site, known in the attacks’ aftermath as Ground Zero, is now marked by reflecting pools built on the footprints of the towers and a 9/11 museum, where the names of those killed are read aloud each year by survivors and loved ones.

Last week, Mamdani issued an executive order designating 9/11 an annual official NYC “Day of Remembrance and Service” requiring the city administration to observe a moment of silence for those killed and affected by the attacks, and a second order establishing a new task force on the city’s emergency preparedness.

Several high-profile figures, including Giuliani and former New York Governor George Pataki, have voiced opposition to Mamdani’s attendance. An online petition arguing the same has gathered close to 100,000 signatures.

Dignitaries expected at Friday’s commemorations include former Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, along with other former New York mayors. The White House has said Trump is not attending the New York ceremony but is expected to commemorate the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon at that site near Washington, D.C., with Vance expected to represent the White House in New York — a decision that has drawn criticism.