New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mayor Zohran Mamdani were captured smiling together at Ground Zero in New York City on Friday as families of the 2,977 Americans killed on September 11, 2001, read names of victims nearby.
The incident occurred amid tributes to those lost in the 2001 terrorist attacks. Families had previously requested that Mamdani avoid the ceremony due to his Islamist associations.
Mamdani attended despite a petition gathering over 110,000 signatures by Friday, which urged him not to intrude on the memorial event.
“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” Mamdani told reporters Monday. “And what I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11.”
In 2025, Mamdani appeared alongside Imam Siraj Wahhaj, identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also appointed Ramzi Kassem as chief counsel, who previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, a convicted al-Qaeda operative whose brother-in-law hijacked the plane that struck the Pentagon.
Mamdani has previously framed Muslims as primary victims of 9/11, stating in 2025 that his “aunt” was forced to stop riding the New York City subway after the attacks because she didn’t feel safe in her hijab. It later emerged that the woman was not his aunt and did not reside in NYC.
Mamdani also claimed a former teacher warned him on September 11 about facing bullying due to his Muslim background. The teacher does not recall such a conversation.
Both Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez have ties to left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who stated in 2019 that “America deserved 9/11.” Piker was raised in Turkey and moved to the U.S. for college.
Piker criticized petition signers as having a “demented racist viewpoint” regarding Mamdani’s attendance at the memorial.
Ocasio-Cortez has appeared on Piker’s streams and hugged him at Mamdani’s victory party. In August 2026, she stated that Democrats “have a responsibility to build a winning coalition.”
