(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., faced a wave of backlash after they were captured on television smiling and laughing during New York City’s solemn 9/11 commemoration ceremony Friday.
The two socialist darlings appeared to rejoice as families and loved ones mourned and cried while the names of the 9/11 victims were read at Ground Zero for the 25th anniversary of the horrific terrorist attack.
The clip began with a man sobbing as he leaned over one of the parapets that surround the two reflecting pools where the North and South Towers once stood. The names of the victims are inscribed on the same parapets.
The camera then turned to Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani as they greeted each other. Mamdani appeared to tell the congresswoman something, prompting her to smile and laugh. Ocasio-Cortez then tilted her head up as Mamdani smirked.
Mamdani and AOC are facing backlash after appearing to share a lighthearted moment during the solemn reading of victims' names at the 9/11 Memorial.
The television feed cut from a young man sobbing at Ground Zero to Mayor Mamdani and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez appearing to smile and… pic.twitter.com/OAk115ifm4
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 11, 2026
The exchange quickly went viral, given the optics of Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez exchanging jokes amid tensions over his attendance.
Some of the 9/11 families had urged Mamdani not to attend the ceremony because of his past rhetoric surrounding the terrorist attacks.
More than 100,000 individuals reportedly signed an online petition demanding that Mamdani be barred from the event.
At the center of the demands were Mamdani’s previous remarks and actions around 9/11.
For instance, in 2015, Mamdani appeared to defend, or at least question, the FBI’s accusations against Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni American who left the U.S. and went on to become a senior al-Qaeda leader in Yemen.
Mamdani once appeared to defend infamous al Qaeda fiend Anwar al-Awlaki — and blame FBI for radicalizing him: ‘Ridiculous assertion’ https://t.co/YPFEaK1Lry pic.twitter.com/jM5TmuxOuX
— New York Post (@nypost) July 6, 2025
Ahead of the 2025 anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Mamdani also delivered a speech outside the Islamic Cultural Center in the Bronx to highlight the Islamophobia that followed the terrorist attacks.
“Growing up in the shadow of 9/11, I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion in this city,” Mamdani said at the time.
“I will always remember the disdain that I faced,” he added. “The way that my name could immediately become ‘Mohammed’ and how I could return to my city only to be asked in a double-mirrored room in the airport if I had any plan of attacking it.”
Zohran Mamdani says that the real victim of 9/11 was his aunt because she was too afraid to ride the subway in her hijab. pic.twitter.com/aILr4JtVvF
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 11, 2026
Mamdani most recently came under fire after giving his ceremony pen, which he used to sign two 9/11-related orders, to his chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, an attorney who once represented several individuals held at Guantanamo Bay.
Among those Kassem represented were Ahmed al-Darbi, an al-Qaeda member who pleaded guilty to a 2002 suicide bombing plot, and Mohammed al-Qahtani, whom U.S. authorities accused of being a potential Sept. 11 hijacker.
Zohran Mamdani hands Honorary Pen to Ramzi Kassem, a defense attorney who previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, who helped plan a 2002 Al-Qaeda attack on a French oil tanker off Yemen pic.twitter.com/mjVqbkxTW5
— DSA Watch (@DSA_Watch) September 8, 2026
Neither Mamdani’s nor Ocasio-Cortez’s teams appeared to have addressed the controversy.
