Giuliani says Mayor Mamdani should be barred from Ground Zero on 9/11 anniversary

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is calling on the city to keep Mayor Zohran Mamdani away from the 25th anniversary ceremony at Ground Zero, a demand echoed by thousands of victims' families who say his presence would dishonor the dead.

Giuliani made the case on Newsmax's "Finnerty" program Friday, arguing that Mamdani, a Muslim, should not appear at ceremonies marking a quarter-century since the September 11 attacks. The former mayor framed the issue in blunt terms, tying his objection to what he described as a broader effort to impose foreign legal codes on American soil.

Giuliani pointed to disputes over Sharia law in Texas and Dearborn, Michigan, and drew a sharp contrast between Muslim immigrants and earlier waves of newcomers.

"Why are they fighting about Sharia law in Texas and in Dearborn, Michigan? When the Germans came here, they didn't ask for German law. The Puerto Ricans didn't ask for Puerto Rican law. The Irish didn't ask for Irish law."

He went further, calling Sharia law a "barbaric foreign code" and accusing its advocates of pursuing a strategy of infiltration after the failure of direct attack.

"They want to impose a barbaric foreign code on us, given the advances that we've made as an Anglo-American country. It's a disgrace. They're trying to accomplish by infiltration what they couldn't accomplish by murderous attack."

Over 42,000 signatures demand Mamdani stay away from Ground Zero

Giuliani's remarks land in the middle of an organized push by 9/11 victims' families to formally bar Mamdani from the ceremony. A Change.org petition filed with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum has gathered more than 42,000 signatures, Fox News reported. The families cite what they call a pattern of associations with radical figures and a reluctance to condemn extremist rhetoric.

Giovanni Galante, a family member of a 9/11 victim, told the New York Post that Mamdani's attendance would cause real harm.

"His presence would be deeply hurtful and inappropriate, like an unwelcome guest at a deeply personal ceremony."

The families' objections are specific. Mamdani appointed Ramzi Kassem as the city's chief counsel, a lawyer who has defended al-Qaeda terrorists and radical organizers. Mamdani himself allegedly defended al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in 2015 social media posts, blaming America for turning al-Awlaki into a terrorist. His father, Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani, authored a book that argued moral equivalency between the United States and al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks.

New York City Councilwoman Joann Ariola put the problem plainly: "This is a mayor who has endorsed candidates and has been endorsed by individuals who openly said that 'America deserved 9/11.'"

Mamdani has stated he still plans to attend the ceremony. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum has said it wants to keep the event nonpartisan. But for families who lost husbands, wives, and children that morning, the question is not partisan, it is personal.

Giuliani rebukes Sliwa and invokes the weight of funerals past

During the same Newsmax appearance, Giuliani turned his criticism toward Curtis Sliwa, the former mayoral candidate, for remarks Sliwa apparently made about 9/11 victims' family members. The specific content of Sliwa's remarks was not detailed, but Giuliani's reaction was pointed.

"If he's attacking the victims' families, I don't know what's happened to him."

Giuliani contrasted the current situation with the approach he and his successor, Michael Bloomberg, took during their tenures. He said both administrations respected the wishes of victims' families when it came to memorial services, a standard he implied the current mayor cannot meet.

"When I was the mayor, and Bloomberg following me, we just about universally respected the wishes of those families. Because every time we would go to a service and I went to more funerals, than any mayor ever, you had to respect them."

Mamdani, 33, is the youngest mayor in modern New York City history. He defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary before Cuomo launched an independent bid. Cuomo himself has questioned whether Mamdani is ready for the job, telling Fox News that "Mayor of New York should not be your first job" and warning there is "no time for on-the-job training, when any given morning, God forbid, you could have a mass murder or a terrorist attack." Cuomo pointed to Mamdani's thin record as a state assemblyman, only three bills passed and, by Cuomo's account, the worst attendance record during his two terms.

A mayor New Yorkers keep rejecting in public

The 9/11 controversy is not Mamdani's first public confrontation since taking office. Roughly 3,500 New Yorkers booed him off stage at an NYPD event on Staten Island, a scene that captured the depth of public frustration with the new administration.

Giuliani spoke with particular feeling about the families still carrying the weight of September 11.

"You can't imagine going through what they went through, losing your child, losing your husband, losing your wife. It's awful [under] any circumstances, but having them attacked by a foreign force, Islamic terrorism, sacrificed that way, you never get over that."

That grief does not fade with time. And it does not bend to political convenience. The families' consortium made the stakes clear in their petition: "For 9/11 families, this is not simply a public ceremony, it is a deeply personal day of mourning. The presence of individuals whose words or associations are perceived as conflicting with the solemn purpose of the event risks detracting from that focus and causing additional pain."

Mamdani has also drawn bipartisan fire for blaming rising rape numbers on an "expanded definition," and Knicks owner James Dolan publicly brushed him off at a championship celebration with the line, "I don't need your vote."

Whether the 9/11 Memorial and Museum ultimately bars Mamdani from the ceremony remains an open question. The families have made their position clear. Giuliani has made his. More than 42,000 petition signers have made theirs.

Twenty-five years after the towers fell, the people who lost the most that day are asking for one thing: that the city honor their grief, not the political ambitions of a mayor whose record gives them every reason to doubt his respect for it.