A growing coalition of September 11th victims’ families is drawing a hard line against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, demanding he be kept away from this year’s 25th anniversary commemoration at Ground Zero.
The families say the socialist mayor’s long record of coddling anti-American voices and minimizing the horror of that day makes his presence at the memorial an insult to the nearly 3,000 people murdered by al-Qaeda terrorists.
The effort is being led by Giovanni Galante, a Brooklyn-born real estate agent now living in Florida whose 29-year-old wife, Grace Catherine Galante, was among the innocent victims killed when the Twin Towers fell.
Galante, now 55, has not moved on from the tragedy, and he is not willing to watch the man now running America’s largest city stand on that sacred ground without a fight.
Galante launched a Change.org petition just over a week ago, and it has already exploded past 1,100 signatures, with reports indicating the number climbing past 2,100 as word spreads. At least 300 of those signers are verified relatives of 9/11 victims, giving the effort a level of authenticity that career politicians in Albany and City Hall cannot simply wave away.
The petition brands Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, an “unwelcome guest” whose public record and associations disqualify him from participating in the ceremony.
It calls on the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, the nonprofit organization that runs the annual event, to seriously weigh whether Mamdani’s presence lines up with what the ceremony is supposed to represent.
Organizers insist their objection has nothing to do with partisan politics. Galante has been blunt about that point, explaining that the grievance is personal and rooted in a long trail of associations, endorsements, and conspicuous silences that they believe disqualify Mamdani from standing anywhere near where their loved ones died.
“Our objection is based on his public record, his failure to meaningfully acknowledge the horror of that day, and his employment of, support for, or association with individuals who have minimized 9/11, defended terrorists, or even suggested America deserved the attacks,” Galante said.
The list of grievances compiled by the families is extensive. Chief among them is Mamdani’s refusal for years to clearly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a slogan widely understood as a call for violence against Israel and, by extension, the West. Critics say his reluctance to denounce it outright speaks volumes about where his true sympathies lie.
Families also point to Mamdani’s public praise for Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a figure who was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and who served as a character witness for the “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of plotting a wave of terror attacks against New York City landmarks.
Then there is Mamdani’s relationship with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who once declared that America “deserved” the 9/11 attacks. Mamdani was pressed on the friendship during his campaign and largely dodged the subject, at one point telling reporters he was there to talk about the World Cup rather than answer for his associations with a man who trashed the memory of nearly 3,000 murdered Americans.
It was not until an October 2025 mayoral debate that Mamdani finally called Piker’s remark “reprehensible,” a reversal that came only after sustained pressure from rivals and grieving families who found his initial silence unacceptable. Even then, critics note, the concession arrived far too late to undo the damage of his years-long association with Piker.
The families’ petition also raises alarm over Mamdani’s appointment of Ramzi Kassem as the city’s chief counsel. Kassem previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, who was convicted in connection with an al-Qaeda tanker bombing plot, a hire that has struck many 9/11 relatives as tone-deaf at best and deliberately provocative at worst.
Mamdani’s political endorsements have also come under fire. He backed candidates such as Aber Kawas, who once described the 9/11 attacks as something “a couple of people did in the context of U.S. capitalism, racism, white supremacy, and Islamophobia,” language that strips the attacks of any connection to radical Islamic terrorism and instead blames America itself.
Kawas also expressed sympathy for Ahmed Ferhani, a man who pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a Manhattan synagogue, another detail families say underscores a troubling pattern among the people Mamdani chooses to align himself with politically.
Cheri Sparacio, another organizer of the petition whose 35-year-old husband Thomas was killed on 9/11, said there were simply too many examples to list them all. She noted it would be deeply disrespectful for Mamdani to attend the ceremony given everything on the record, adding that the list the families compiled barely scratched the surface.
Critics have also resurfaced Mamdani’s past comments suggesting the United States bears some responsibility for radicalizing Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda propagandist tied to the 9/11 hijackers. Detractors say the framing amounts to blaming America rather than the terrorists who carried out the attacks, a pattern they view as consistent with Mamdani’s broader worldview.
For years as a state assemblyman, Mamdani reportedly recycled the same boilerplate 9/11 anniversary statement, simply swapping out the year each time, a habit critics say reflects a man going through the motions rather than one who grasps the true weight of the day. Families argue that pattern, paired with his refusal to distance himself from extremist-adjacent figures, paints a troubling picture ahead of the 25th anniversary.
