This writer has been honored to write the "American Heroes of 9/11" series for Townhall. That series will continue through this week and feature a person (or persons) who showed remarkable bravery and selflessness on that dark day. Writing the series meant she spent a lot of time watching videos and reading or rereading accounts of that day, including the deaths of nearly 3,000 of her fellow Americans. That's why what Zohran Mamdani did over the weekend is an insult to not only the victims of September 11, but to the survivors, the families, and every single American who was alive on that day.

On Friday, Mamdani signed an executive order recognizing September 11, and then he gave the pen to an aide and former lawyer who once represented an al-Qaeda terrorist.

The New York Post calls it "tone-deaf," but let's be honest. This was not a gaffe. This was not a misstep. This was not a mistake.

This was a direct and none-too-subtle message to New Yorkers and Americans by a sympathizer of Islamic terrorists.

Here's more:

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Administration officials were gathered at City Hall for a pair of executive orders — ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks — one establishing a Day of Remembrance and another beefing up security against future terror threats.

After Mamdani signed the last of the documents, Hizzoner gave Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch the ceremonial pen, and whispered, “Can you pass this?”

Tisch awkwardly handed it to Mamdani’s chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, who just snuck into the press conference, before she hurried out of the Blue Room — the first official to exit the press conference.


“It was calculated,” retired detective and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice Michael Alcazar told The Post.

“It happened during a ceremony meant to be about the victims, and no one else. 9/11 families didn’t come to City Hall to watch Mamdani spotlight someone whose work intersects with the very ideology that took their loved ones. Commissioner Jessica Tisch was reduced to a prop rather than acknowledging her role as the leader of the NYPD.”

Kassem smirked as he received the pen. He and Mamdani knew exactly what they were doing.

Dennis Warchola, whose brother Michael was a firefighter with FDNY Ladder 5 and was killed in the North Tower, called it "bulls**t."

"How can you defend a guy like that who wants to do Americans or any innocent person harm?" Warchola asked The New York Post.

NYC Council Member Vicki Paladino of Queens slammed Kassem and Mamdani. "Ramzi Kassem said he was inspired by 9/11 — not to join the fight against terrorism but to defend the terrorists themselves. He doesn't even belong in this country much less in our government," she said. "His participation in anything related to 9/11 is an insult to every New Yorker who survived that day, and indeed all Americans," she continued. "But I guess that's the point."

Former Democrat political consultant David Sivella was more blunt, writing on X, "Was it deliberate on your part to give your Muslim bae a hint that this is all BS to pacify other New Yorkers?"

Yes, it was. That's exactly what it is. And Mamdani plans to attend Friday's memorial service. Families of victims and survivors in attendance should make it crystal clear that he's not welcome there.