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TOP DEMOCRATS CALLED OUT FOR SILENCE OVER RACIST PUSH FOR MAMDANI TO
SKIP 9/11 MEMORIAL  
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Julia Conley
September 9, 2026
Common Dreams
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*
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_ “Hi Democrats, don’t think that millions of Muslims—and not
just Muslims but anti-racist liberal and leftist Americans—don’t
hear the deafening silence from most of you,” said one journalist. _


New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at Gouverneur Health to
announce a series of new policy moves involving public health and
taxes on February 3, 2026 in New York City. , (Photo by Spencer
Platt/Getty Images)

 

Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York
City [[link removed]] and Washington
[[link removed]], DC, progressives
[[link removed]] this week have
expressed appreciation for the few Democratic leaders who have
defended Mayor Zohran Mamdani
[[link removed]] against openly
Islamophobic attacks from right-wing
[[link removed]] city lawmakers demanding
that he skip Friday’s memorial event.

But Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan was among those who said the
silence from some of the party’s top leaders—who have also failed
to speak out against other recent incidents of anti-Muslim hate—has
been “deafening
[[link removed]].”

Republicans [[link removed]] including
former Mayor Rudy Giuliani
[[link removed]], a longtime ally of
President Donald Trump
[[link removed]], and multiple members
of the New York City Council have appeared entirely comfortable in
recent days calling on Mamdani to stay away from the annual memorial,
solely due to the fact that he is Muslim.

Giuliani told
[[link removed]] the
right-wing outlet Newsmax over the weekend that because the 2001
attacks were perpetrated “in the name of the Muslim religion
[[link removed]],” Mamdani—who this
week released
[[link removed]] files that
the Republican mayor had kept hidden regarding air quality concerns
after the attack—should not attend the memorial.

New York City Council Members Vickie Paladino and Joann Ariola, both
Republicans, have joined Giuliani’s call, with the latter lawmaker
bringing [[link removed]] a
petition to City Hall with 100,000 signatures—less than 2% of the
population of New York City—of people who believe “Mayor Mamdani
is not welcome at the ceremony.”

Paladino, who earlier this year called
[[link removed]] for “revolutionaries”
like members of the Democratic Socialists of America to be
“neutralized” by federal law enforcement agencies, appeared on Fox
News Tuesday night and told
[[link removed]] anchor Laura
Ingraham that Mamdani’s presence at the 9/11
[[link removed]] memorial would send “a
message to Osama bin Laden
[[link removed]] that look, we
conquered New York.”

Paladino also said Tuesday that she is “demanding that he not show
his face on that sacred ground,” adding, “he does not belong
there.”

Jonathan Shainin of Equator magazine said
[[link removed]] the demand
for Mamdani to skip the memorial ceremony appeared to be “the most
brazenly racist episode in recent American history,” while noting
that “competition is fierce.”

The latest right-wing attacks on Mamdani—whose approval rating
[[link removed]] stands at 69% and
whom 73% of New Yorkers say should attend the 9/11 event—follow
months of attacks on left-wing streamer and political commentator
Hasan Piker, who publicly apologized for a comment he once made that
the US “deserved 9/11.” US Senate
[[link removed]] candidate Abdul El-Sayed,
a Michigan Democrat who is Muslim, faced accusations of being
“un-American” for campaigning with Piker.

A number of pro-Palestinian student protesters have also been
threatened with deportation since Trump took office, and both
Republicans and Democrats claimed that nationwide campus
demonstrations in opposition to US military
[[link removed]] support for Israel as
it waged war on Gaza [[link removed]] in 2024
were “antisemitic.”

 
Now, said Hasan on Tuesday evening, top Democrats including House
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries
[[link removed]] (D-NY), who
represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, have said nothing in defense
of Mamdani—or the roughly 1 million Muslims who call
[[link removed]]
New York City home and presumably also don’t “belong” at the
9/11 memorial, according to Paladino and others.

“Hi Democrats, don’t think that millions of Muslims—and not just
Muslims but anti-racist liberal and leftist Americans—don’t hear
the deafening silence from most of you as the Muslim Democratic mayor
of New York is being smeared and attacked by the GOP
[[link removed]] and right-wing media over
9/11,” said [[link removed]]
Hasan.

Writer Wajahat Ali added that the silence has come from the same
Democrats who “threw Mamdani under the bus when he was running and
are throwing El-Sayed under the bus now.”

 
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
[[link removed]] (D-NY), who also
resides in New York City, told
[[link removed]]
local media outlets when asked about the issue that Giuliani’s
comments were “divisive” and said
[[link removed]]
that “Mamdani is the mayor of New York City and of course he should
be at 9/11.”

But Jeffries and the state’s other senator, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
[[link removed]] (D), are not
among the federal lawmakers who have condemned the Republican attacks.

The relative silence was juxtaposed by what journalist Emma Vigeland
called [[link removed]]
“deference” to “gutter bigotry towards Muslim people,” as
displayed in a lengthy Vanity Fair article that described “an
inchoate, emotional component” of New York City “that sees the
city’s first Muslim mayor as a stand-in for the 19 Muslims who
hijacked four planes and turned them into deadly weapons, part of the
‘them’ who attacked ‘us.’”

“Chris Smith and Vanity Fair, I cannot believe you published this
racist Islamophobic drivel without any pushback,” said
[[link removed]] Hasan.
“Mamdani was 9 years old on 9/11 and all Muslim Americans are not
‘stand-ins’ for 19 foreign hijackers.”

On Wednesday, Vanity Fair edited
[[link removed]] the article to
include the word “Islamophobic” along with “inchoate” and
“emotional.”

Hasan applauded [[link removed]]
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) for condemning Giuliani’s “blatant
anti-Muslim rhetoric.”

“This from the man who betrayed his country by conspiring to
overturn a presidential election,” said Van Hollen. “Giuliani is a
traitor to our democracy [[link removed]].
Mayor Mamdani champions it.”

Reps. Pat Ryan [[link removed]],
Gregory Meeks,
[[link removed]]and Jerrold
Nadler, all Democrats from New York, were also among those who spoke
out.

 
“Rudy Giuliani is a hypocrite trying to distract the public from his
role in hurting New Yorkers after 9/11 by feeding into ridiculous,
hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric. He’d like the public to reminisce on
his days as ‘America’s Mayor.’ Meanwhile, as Mayor, he
intentionally hid the truth about the toxins in the air at and around
ground zero,” said Nadler. “We must denounce claims like
Giuliani’s as the bigoted, anti-Muslim rhetoric that they are.”

_Julia Conley is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams._

* 9/11 Memorial
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* Zohran Mamdani
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* Racist Attacks
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