Families of 9/11 victims are pushing to exclude New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani from the 25th anniversary ceremony at Ground Zero, citing a resurfaced social media post and what they call his pattern of minimizing the attacks.
Giovanni Galante lost his 29-year-old wife, Grace Catherine, when terrorists struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Now, nearly twenty-five years later, he is leading a petition drive on Change.org demanding that ceremony organizers keep the city's mayor away from the commemoration where Galante and thousands of other families will gather to honor the dead.
The petition calls Mamdani an "unwelcome guest" and contends that his past statements and political associations make him unsuitable to stand at Ground Zero on the anniversary. Just The News reported that the petition attracted more than 1,100 signatures early on, including roughly 300 family members of 9/11 victims. By early August, the New York Post reported the number had surged past 66,000.
Mamdani says he plans to attend anyway, telling reporters he intends to honor victims, survivors, families, and first responders. His office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
The latest wave of backlash centers on a 2023 post from Mamdani's X account that recently resurfaced online. In it, 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 never names al-Qaeda. It never uses the word "terrorism." It treats the murder of nearly 3,000 people as the opening chapter of a broader tragedy, one in which the United States' own military response shares moral weight with the attack itself. For critics, that framing did not mourn the dead so much as conscript them into an argument against American foreign policy.
Michael La Rosa, who served as spokesperson for former first lady Jill Biden, posted three words in response: "Is this real?" New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov was more pointed, as Fox News Digital reported:
"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." The distinction matters. Mamdani's post described people who "died." Mace and others insist the accurate word is "murdered", by terrorists who targeted civilians deliberately.
The 2023 post did not surface in a vacuum. Mamdani had already drawn criticism for interviewing Hasan Piker, who said in 2019 that "America deserved 9/11." When the interview drew public anger, Mamdani initially declined to condemn Piker's remarks. He later reversed course and called them "objectionable and reprehensible," but the delay fed a perception that Mamdani's instinct was to protect a political ally before honoring the city's dead.
That perception has only deepened with time. Mamdani has faced accusations of fueling antisemitism in New York City, and the 9/11 petition is only the latest organized effort to hold him accountable for what critics describe as a pattern of troubling associations.
Marc Thiessen, who has said he was inside the Pentagon when the planes hit on September 11, 2001, posted on X:
"As someone who was in the Pentagon when the planes hit, this is absolutely disgraceful. You have no business ever setting foot at Ground Zero, much less on 9/11. If you dare show up, I hope you are greeted with such a Bronx cheer that you slink away in shame."
Joey Jones, co-host of "Big Weekend Show," wrote: "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."
The families behind the petition point to more than the resurfaced X post. The Washington Examiner reported that organizers cited Mamdani's response to "globalize the intifada" rhetoric, his praise of Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj, and his hiring of Ramzi Kassem, an attorney who previously represented an al-Qaeda-linked pilot, as chief counsel to City Hall.
The petition's language is measured in tone but firm in purpose: "We respectfully ask that the organizers 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."
Charles G. Wolf, whose wife Katherine was killed on 9/11, was less restrained. He told the New York Post: "He doesn't want the United States to exist as it does today. He wants to turn it into a third-world government... and continue the work that the 9/11 hijackers were doing."
Maureen Santora, whose son Christopher was a firefighter killed in the attacks, said: "He has never supported the 9/11 community, ever. His presence is detrimental to the purpose of why we gather together."
Mamdani is not the only public figure expected at the ceremony. Vice President JD Vance and former Presidents Biden and Bush are also described as planned attendees. But none of them face a petition from the families of the dead asking them to stay home.
The petition's growth has been rapid. From an initial base of roughly 1,100 signatures, it climbed past 25,000 and then past 43,000, according to reporting from the Washington Examiner and Breitbart. By early August, the New York Post put the count above 66,000. Actresses Patricia Heaton and actor James Woods publicly backed the effort, with Heaton posting, "Keep it going New Yorkers."
Council Member Joann Ariola, a Queens Republican, told Newsmax she was prepared to help petitioners take their case to the City Council. Charles Galante, speaking on behalf of the families, said the ceremony "is not a platform for those connected to such views" and called the day "sacred."
No formal government action, no ban, no council vote, no executive order, has been taken to exclude Mamdani. The petition is addressed to the ceremony's organizers, who have not publicly responded. Whether they act or not, the message from the families is already delivered.
Mamdani's tenure has been marked by one controversy after another. He has faced an ethics complaint accusing him of using city resources for political purposes, drawn backlash for mourning a Rikers inmate charged in a violent killing, and been sued by immigrant bodega owners over his government-run grocery store plan. The 9/11 petition is different in kind. It does not come from political opponents or business owners. It comes from the people who buried their families after the towers fell.
Paul Mauro, a Fox News contributor and former NYPD officer, summarized the sentiment shared by many of the critics: "Don't show up on 9/11 this year, or any year. We're not interested in your moral equivalency."
When the mayor of the city that lost nearly 3,000 people to a terrorist attack cannot bring himself to name the attackers in a memorial post, and the families of the dead have to petition him to stay away from the ceremony, something has gone deeply wrong at City Hall.