New York —
New York City’s leader at the time of the 9/11 attacks, Rudy Giuliani, says “it offends” him that current Mayor Zohran Mamdani will attend Friday’s commemoration ceremony. George Pataki, state governor during the disaster, says Mamdani should stay away. Bruce Blakeman, a candidate for governor, vows to turn his back on the mayor if he turns up.
The comments to reporters from the three Republicans follow a petition launched by a man whose wife was killed on September 11, 2001, for Mamdani to be disinvited so the 25th anniversary can be “centered on remembrance, unity, and an unambiguous rejection of the violence and extremism that defined that day.”
Mamdani, a progressive politician who became his city’s first Muslim mayor in January, has always said he would attend the ceremony at Ground Zero to remember and honor the victims.
This year’s memorial will come just three days after Mamdani’s administration released more than 170,000 documents showing that officials from Giuliani’s administration onwards — Republican, Democratic and Independent — repeatedly misled the public about air quality after the twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing down.
