It's Not 'Islamophobic' To Wonder How Mamdani Would React to 9/11

David Harsanyi
Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:41:59 -0700
Opinion

Is it "Islamophobic" to wonder if NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has a soft spot for Islamic terrorists? Hardly.

"God forbid, another 9/11 — can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?" New York mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo told WABC's "Sid and Friends in the Morning" this week.

"He'd be cheering," host Sid Rosenberg replied.
Updated: Fri Oct 24, 2025

Is it "Islamophobic" to wonder if NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has a soft spot for Islamic terrorists? Hardly.

"God forbid, another 9/11 — can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?" New York mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo told WABC's "Sid and Friends in the Morning" this week.

"He'd be cheering," host Sid Rosenberg replied.

"That's another problem," Cuomo added.

To this, Mamdani and his allies exploded in feigned outrage.

Why? We already know Mamdani has allied with those who want to bring the "Intifada" against Jewish Americans in New York and elsewhere.

We know that Mamdani is comfortable associating and allying with those who cheer and excuse the murder of Infidels.

Last week, he "had the pleasure of meeting" Siraj Wahhaj, one of the "foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century."

Wahhaj, born Jeffrey Kearse, is a champion of Islamic supremacism. And not the brand of trendy, socialist, Hamas-cheering supremacism that Mamdani and his friends engage in. Wahhaj supports overturning the system ("I pray one day Allah will bless us to raise an army") and installing medieval Muslim doctrine ("Islam is better than democracy ... Islam prevails over every kind of system, and you know what? It will happen.")

The Imam of the Muslim Alliance in North America, who often hosted the infamous Blind Sheikh and other conspirators in 1993 World Trade Center bombing, says he would be honored to die for Jihad, and admits his politics are just a "weapon in the cause of Islam."

Indeed, Wahhaj defended the 1993 World Trade Center bombers while attacking law enforcement as the real enemy. It makes sense since Wahhaj believes the U.S. is "filthy" and "sick." And perhaps Mamdani's fans agree with that observation.

When Mamdani was called out for praising Wahhaj, he didn't concede that the imam's positions were abhorrent. Instead, he whined about how other politicians had also met Wahhaj.

None of those politicians has a mentor and father in Mahmood Mamdani, who argued three years after 9/11 that suicide bombings should not be "stigmatized as a mark of barbarism."

None of them wrote and performed a rap song that glorified Hamas financiers.

None of them appeared with popular podcaster Hasan Piker, who explicitly said that the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks.

On political grounds, it's nearly incomprehensible to think that any politician could get away with this kind of association less than 25 years after the greatest terror attack against the United States.

Piker not only believes that the U.S. got what was coming to it on 9/11 but that "it doesn't matter if rapes f—-ing happened on Oct. 7." Where was the outrage from the Left?

It's true that this kind of talk has been destigmatized on social media, but Piker is no different, morally speaking, from a white supremacist. Imagine the stories we'd be reading about Cuomo if he had an amiable conversation with a racist alt-right podcaster.

It took until very recently, and only when pressed by Cuomo during a live televised debate, for Mamdani to distance himself from Piker's 9/11 comments. You'll excuse me if I find his condemnation disingenuous.

Of course, Mamdani's defenders accused Cuomo of being "Islamophobic." What else is new? This vacuous term is meant to chill speech, and nothing more. There are, of course, bigots in this country. But "Islamophobia" is cynical manipulation of language. Islam is not a race or a set of people. It's a set of beliefs. The woke Left might view everyone in racial terms, but people with critical thinking skills have every right to question extremism within any faith or ideology. "Democratic" socialism is an accelerant for Islamic extremism.

Now, obviously, Manhattan isn't going to turn into a caliphate any time soon. Big cities often elect absurd mayors. But if you don't believe the red-green alliance is worth concerning yourself over, you haven't been paying attention to the disaster unfolding in Western Europe, where the Left allows the sensibilities and traditions of unassimilated Islamic newcomers to trump basic liberal freedoms.

Would Zohran Mamdani celebrate 9/11? I don't know. But the candidate has proven a little problematic associating with theocrats and rationalizing violent rhetoric. New Yorkers have every right to be suspicious of how he would react.

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books — the most recent, "The Rise of Blue Anon," available now. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on X @davidharsanyi.