New York City mayoral candidate and radical Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani tried to paint his Muslim aunt as a victim of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks due to her fear of backlash for wearing a hijab.
Mamdani addressed reporters and the Muslim community while speaking outside the Islamic Cultural Center of The Bronx on Friday, the New York Post reported.
He accused his opponents, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), Curtis Sliwa (R), and Mayor Eric Adams (D) of stoking so-called “Islamophobia” and claimed his family were victims of anti-Muslim bias following the horrific terror attacks that shook the nation and the world.
“In an era of ever-diminishing bipartisanship, it seems that Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement,” he said.
“I want to speak to the memory of my aunt, who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab,” Mamdani added:
“Over these last few days, these lessons have become the closing messages of Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams. Yesterday, Andrew Cuomo laughed and agreed when a radio host said that I would cheer another 9/11,” he stated.
In a social media post on Saturday, Vice President JD Vance wrote, “According to Zohran the real victim of 9/11 was his auntie who got some (allegedly) bad looks.”
On September 11 of this year, President Donald Trump honored the memory of the 2,977 terror victims who died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania on that day 24 years ago, Breitbart News reported.
Mamdani recently sparked outrage for posting photos of himself smiling beside Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Breitbart News reported Sunday.
“The New York Post, which reported on the image the next day, filled in what Mamdani’s caption left out — noting Wahhaj was named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people, had preached that homosexuality is a ‘disease,’ and once called for an unarmed ‘army of 10,000 men’ to wage a gun-free jihad through New York City,” the outlet said.
Social media users were quick to reply to the video of Mamdani talking about his aunt, with one person writing, “Yes, clearly the real tragedy of 9/11 was your aunt feeling uncomfortable on the subway — not the 3,000 people murdered in a single morning, families shattered forever and a Nation traumatized. And you’re asking us to focus on your aunt’s commute. imagine being so emotionally bankrupt that you turn 9/11 into a story about your aunt’s subway ride. That comment is pathetic. You trivialized a national trauma just to play victim. Shameful.”
Another user shared what appeared to be photos of the 9/11 victims, writing, “These people also stopped taking the subway because they were murdered.”
“The real victims of 9/11 never rode the subway again,” another person commented above a video of the moment the second tower fell on that horrific day:
“This is beyond disrespectful to all 2,977 people who lost their lives on that horrifying day. He is despicable and does not respect American lives. Fuck off, Zohran,” another user replied.
