Families of 9/11 victims are demanding New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stay away from the 25th anniversary ceremony at Ground Zero, and a resurfaced 2023 social media post is fueling the pressure.
Giovanni Galante lost his wife Grace on September 11, 2001. Now he is leading a petition drive that has drawn tens of thousands of signatures calling on ceremony organizers to block Mamdani from participating in the commemoration this September. The petition, hosted on Change.org, cites Mamdani's public record, his association with online commentator Hasan Piker, and what families describe as a pattern of minimizing the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Mamdani says he plans to attend anyway. His office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
The post at the center of the latest backlash appeared on X in 2023, the 22nd anniversary of the attacks. Mamdani wrote:
"Nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died on 9/11; 22 years later, the death hasn't stopped. We mourn our neighbors who died that day. The hundreds of thousands who died in the wars that followed. The unknown millions injured & displaced. In their memory, we work toward a better world."
The post made no mention of who carried out the attacks. It described the dead in passive terms, they "died", and folded the 9/11 victims into a broader accounting of war casualties and displacement overseas. Critics across the political spectrum noticed.
Michael La Rosa, who served as a spokesperson for former first lady Jill Biden, responded with two words: "Is this real?" New York City Council member Inna Vernikov posted on X:
"I guess they all just 'died' in an accident? And then you wonder why the families of 9/11 victims don't want you at the ceremony. Stay home, Mamdani."
Rep. Nancy Mace responded bluntly: "Americans were MURDERED by TERRORISTS in the most horrific way."
Marc Thiessen, who has said he was inside the Pentagon when the planes struck, called Mamdani's planned attendance "absolutely disgraceful" and wrote that the mayor had "no business ever setting foot at Ground Zero, much less on 9/11."
The 2023 post is not the only source of anger. Mamdani drew earlier criticism for sitting down with Hasan Piker, who said in 2019 that "America deserved 9/11." When pressed on the remark, Mamdani initially declined to condemn it. He later called Piker's words "objectionable and reprehensible," but the delayed response did little to quiet families who saw it as evasive.
Joey Jones, co-host of Fox News's "Big Weekend Show," responded on X with visible anger:
"What a coward. They were murdered and sleep well at night knowing I and thousands of my brothers did our part to even the f*****g score."
Paul Mauro, a Fox News contributor and former NYPD officer, was equally direct: "Don't show up on 9/11 this year, or any year. We're not interested in your moral equivalency."
The petition Galante launched has grown rapidly. The New York Post reported that more than 66,000 people signed in less than three weeks. Galante has estimated that thousands of victims' family members are among the signatories. Just The News reported that roughly 300 of the early signers were family members of people killed in the attacks.
The petition's language is measured but firm. It asks organizers to "carefully consider whether Mr. Mamdani's participation would align with the intention of the ceremony and the expectations of the families most directly affected by the tragedy." A separate passage in the petition calls Mamdani an "unwelcome guest."
One 9/11 family member quoted in the petition put it more sharply: "My brother David was murdered by terrorists on 9/11 at the WTC. I am incensed that a terrorist excuser is now Mayor, and outspoken sympathizer for terrorist perpetrators."
Petitioners point to more than just the 2023 post and the Piker interview. Newsmax reported that families also cited Mamdani's refusal to disavow the phrase "globalize the intifada," his public appearance with Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj, and his appointment of Ramzi Kassem as New York City's chief counsel. Breitbart reported that Wahhaj was named as an alleged co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and that Kassem previously represented a convicted al-Qaeda operative.
Charles Galante, another 9/11 family member involved in the petition effort, told Newsmax the ceremony "is not a platform for those connected to such views." Cheri Sparacio, whose husband was killed in the World Trade Center, also backed the petition.
Maureen Santora, the mother of fallen firefighter Christopher Santora, told the New York Post: "He has never supported the 9/11 community, ever. And I just feel his presence is detrimental to the purpose of why we gather together." Charles G. Wolf, whose wife Katherine was killed in the attacks, added: "He does not have our interest at heart, and he does not care about the families."
Mamdani has not backed down. The Washington Examiner reported that the mayor confirmed he will attend, stating: "We will never forget the solemn day felt by all of us who call this city home, and frankly by all of us who call this country home."
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum appears unlikely to intervene. A museum spokeswoman told Newsmax that the organization does not screen elected officials based on their politics and that every sitting mayor since 2001 has attended the ceremony. Officials sit in a designated area without speaking; the museum treats the ceremony as "an act of witness rather than a public forum." The museum has said it has "intentionally worked to keep the commemoration free of politics."
Vice President JD Vance, former President Joe Biden, and former President George W. Bush are also listed as planned attendees.
Not every critic stayed within the lines. Rep. Randy Fine of Florida posted on X calling Mamdani "Jihadi Mamdani" and writing that the mayor "is in bed with Muslim terrorists and refuses to call out evil for what it is." That language goes well beyond what the factual record supports and risks turning legitimate criticism of Mamdani's record into something easier for his defenders to dismiss.
The families themselves have been more disciplined. Their petition asks a straightforward question: should a mayor who declined to condemn the statement that "America deserved 9/11," who avoided naming the perpetrators in his own anniversary post, and who has surrounded himself with figures tied to Islamist extremism be welcomed at the most solemn ceremony in the city's calendar?
That question answers itself. The 25th anniversary of September 11 belongs to the people who buried their families that week, not to the politician who cannot bring himself to say plainly what happened to them.
