The 9/11 Debate Returns to New York Politics: Zorhan Mandami’s Remarks Ignite a Firestorm

More than two decades after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the wounds of that day still shape New York’s political and cultural identity. Every generation of city leaders faces the same solemn test: how to honor the memory of nearly 3,000 victims while navigating a metropolis that has grown more diverse, more global, and more divided.

Now, that debate has erupted again — this time around a young progressive politician, Zorhan Mandami, whose comments about his aunt’s experience after 9/11 have triggered outrage from conservative commentators and drawn national media attention.

A Controversial Candidacy

Mandami, a Democratic Socialist and first-generation Ugandan-Muslim immigrant, is running for mayor of New York City in 2025. Known for his activism in housing rights, policing reform, and immigrant justice, he has long been a polarizing figure in state politics.

Earlier this month, during a campaign press conference on unity and resilience, Mandami became emotional as he spoke about his family’s experience in the aftermath of 9/11.

“I want to speak to the memory of my aunt,” he said, “who stopped taking the subway after September 11 because she did not feel safe wearing her hijab.”

The remark, meant to illustrate the fear and discrimination some Muslim New Yorkers faced after the attacks, quickly became the flashpoint of a political firestorm. Within hours, conservative media accused him of “rewriting history” and of minimizing the suffering of those killed in the Twin Towers.

The Spark That Lit the Outrage

The clip spread like wildfire across social media, amplified by right-wing influencers and Fox-adjacent outlets. Commentators like Dave Rubin and Amy Mek — a conservative activist known for tracking Islamist extremism — accused Mandami of manufacturing victimhood.

Rubin, speaking on his show The Rubin Report, summarized the anger many felt:

“If you’re going to talk about 9/11 in New York City, you’d better start with the people who died in those towers,” he said. “You don’t make yourself or your family the victim. Nearly three thousand people were murdered — that’s who the victims were.”

Others went further, suggesting Mandami’s story about his aunt was “fabricated” or exaggerated. Rubin cited a 2020 post from Mek warning that Mandami “uses unproven claims of Islamophobia to gain political sympathy.”

The right-wing ecosystem quickly mobilized around a familiar narrative: that progressives were once again trying to make Americans feel guilty for acts they did not commit, using identity politics to rewrite history.

The Candidate’s Defense

Mandami’s campaign responded with a measured statement emphasizing empathy and unity:

“Councilman Mandami shared a deeply personal story about fear within his family after 9/11. He has always condemned terrorism unequivocally and mourned the victims of that day. His remarks were never intended to diminish anyone’s loss.”

The statement also reminded critics that Muslim-Americans, too, were victims of 9/11, both directly and indirectly — from the Muslim firefighters and EMTs who died in the rescue, to the wave of hate crimes that followed the attacks.

Independent research backs that up. A 2016 report by the FBI documented a 1,600 percent spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes in the weeks after September 11. Dozens of assaults, mosque vandalizations, and workplace firings were reported across New York and New Jersey alone.

Still, nuance rarely survives the modern outrage cycle.

By the next morning, the story had mutated into headlines like “Mandami Plays the Victim” and “Socialist Candidate Cries Islamophobia During 9/11 Remarks.”

“You Cannot Lose Sight of What Happened”

Even moderate voices joined the backlash. CNN political commentator Scott Jennings said during a live panel that Mandami had made a “critical mistake” by focusing on his personal story instead of beginning with the victims.

“If you’re running for mayor of New York City and you invoke 9/11, you darn sure better start with the people who died in the Twin Towers,” Jennings said. “Those were the victims. Not your aunt.”

Jennings, who served in the Bush administration during the early War on Terror years, added that New Yorkers have an almost sacred expectation that 9/11 be treated as collective memory, not personal grievance.

“We can’t forget that nearly 3,000 people died there,” he said. “That moment in our history isn’t a prop for political storytelling.”

Rubin echoed that sentiment on his show, accusing Mandami of “turning 9/11 into a lecture about feelings.”

“He’s making it about him, his aunt, his emotions,” Rubin said. “This is what the left does — they elevate victimhood over responsibility.”

The Politics of Victimhood

That charge — that progressives exploit “victimhood culture” — has become a defining feature of conservative critique in the 2020s. In their framing, politicians like Mandami embody a new elite who gain moral power by claiming oppression, while dismissing patriotism or shared identity.

“Victimhood is at the top of their hierarchy,” Rubin said. “He’s trying to extract emotional guilt from voters, to make it seem like he and his family were the real victims — not the thousands who died.”

Such rhetoric plays powerfully among conservative audiences still animated by post-9/11 nationalism. It reinforces a worldview that divides politics into those who mourn America and those who critique it.

But for Mandami’s supporters, that narrative misses the point entirely.

“He’s not saying his aunt was more important than 9/11 victims,” said Noor El-Hassan, a community organizer in Queens. “He’s saying fear spread in many directions — that Muslims, too, were traumatized. Remembering that doesn’t erase anyone’s loss.”

A Deeper History of Fear

Mandami’s story, whether politically convenient or not, echoes real events many Muslim New Yorkers experienced after 2001.

In Bay Ridge, Brooklyn — home to one of the city’s largest Arab-American communities — residents recall men being detained by the FBI for routine visa violations. Women wearing hijabs were harassed on the subway. Mosques were vandalized.

A 2002 Human Rights Watch report titled “We Are Not the Enemy” documented “hundreds of cases of discrimination, violence, and unlawful detention” against Muslim and South Asian Americans in the year following 9/11.

To those communities, Mandami’s words struck a chord. “He was speaking for people who were told to disappear,” said Khadija Rahman, a teacher whose uncle, a Pakistani-American shop owner, was beaten outside his deli in 2002. “That fear was real. To deny it is to deny history.”

Memory, Morality, and the Politics of Pain

The backlash to Mandami’s comments reveals how 9/11 has become not only a national memory, but also a moral battlefield.

For conservatives, the story of 9/11 is about heroism, unity, and resilience — an attack on civilization met with courage and strength. For progressives, it is also a story about overreach, discrimination, and war, a tragedy that birthed new injustices.

Both narratives contain truth, but in today’s polarized climate, coexistence seems impossible.

Political theorist Nadia El-Amin of NYU explains it this way:

“Each side treats memory as possession. The right claims ownership over grief; the left claims ownership over empathy. So when someone like Mandami enters that space, he violates an unspoken rule: you don’t mix critique with commemoration.”

That rule remains potent in New York City, where 9/11 is not history but living identity. For many voters, any deviation from reverence can look like desecration.

The Shadow of 9/11 in New York’s Modern Politics

Mandami’s critics are not just reacting to one remark — they’re responding to a decade-long shift in how New York’s progressives talk about national trauma.

Younger politicians, shaped by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, often frame 9/11 as both tragedy and turning point — a day that unleashed racism, surveillance, and endless conflict.

Older generations, by contrast, see such framing as betrayal. “We lived through it,” said retired NYPD officer Raymond Lopez, who worked at Ground Zero. “We saw bodies pulled from the rubble. Don’t lecture us about compassion. We were the compassion.”

This generational divide mirrors broader American trends: skepticism of nationalism among youth versus nostalgia among older voters. Mandami, at 34, sits squarely in the middle — old enough to remember 9/11, young enough to question its political legacy.

The Islamophobia Question

Much of the current debate hinges on whether post-9/11 America truly became hostile to Muslims. Conservatives insist those fears are overblown; liberals cite data proving otherwise.

In 2001, the FBI recorded 481 anti-Muslim hate crimes, compared to just 28 the previous year. Though the numbers declined after 2002, they never returned to pre-9/11 levels.

Sociologist Sahar Aziz, author of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, argues that Islamophobia became “institutionalized” through policies like the NYPD’s secret mosque surveillance program, revealed by the Associated Press in 2011.

“Muslims were not only socially stigmatized — they were legally profiled,” Aziz said. “That’s the context Mandami is referring to.”

Yet critics counter that America also demonstrated extraordinary restraint. “There were isolated attacks, yes,” Rubin acknowledged in his monologue, “but the overwhelming sentiment in New York right after 9/11 was compassion. We went out of our way to protect Muslims from hate.”

Both may be true. For some, the city felt united; for others, it felt unsafe. Memory is not monolithic — and in the age of social media, subjective experience becomes political ammunition.

The Return of Fear Politics

As the controversy snowballed, right-wing outlets began resurrecting old claims about Mandami’s alleged ties to radical causes. Some cited his past attendance at pro-Palestinian rallies; others mentioned his imam’s alleged involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — a tenuous connection lacking evidence.

“He’s for current jihad,” Rubin declared. “He’s a Hamas supporter. There’s every reason to believe he was for the 9/11 attacks.”

Such statements, while unverified, gained traction online, illustrating how quickly religious suspicion still weaponizes politics.

For Mandami’s team, this was the nightmare scenario: a decades-old trauma re-weaponized against a Muslim candidate, casting faith itself as suspect.

“Those insinuations are dangerous and false,” his campaign said. “They echo the same Islamophobia that scarred New York after 9/11.”

Media Polarization and Echo Chambers

The incident also exposes how fragmented the media landscape has become. In conservative media, Mandami’s press conference was portrayed as a self-pitying stunt. In progressive circles, it was framed as a brave acknowledgment of forgotten pain.

Each version went viral in its own digital silo, reinforcing existing worldviews.

In the echo chambers of X, TikTok, and Rumble, 30-second clips replaced context. Viewers who only saw Rubin’s outrage never heard Mandami’s full remarks. Those who followed progressive accounts saw only defenses, never the criticisms.

“Social media doesn’t do nuance,” said journalism professor Jason Green. “It rewards outrage. In this case, both sides got what they wanted — a villain and a victim.”

The Legacy of 9/11 Storytelling

Twenty-four years after the attacks, 9/11 remains America’s most sacred trauma — and perhaps its most contested one. The struggle over how to remember it defines not just history, but identity.

In his book The Afterlife of 9/11, historian Garrett Graff writes that the tragedy “became a mirror for whatever the nation already believed about itself.” Conservatives saw it as proof of moral clarity; liberals saw it as a warning against hubris.

Mandami’s controversy fits neatly into that pattern. By centering his aunt’s fear, he offered a story of vulnerability. His critics, by demanding unwavering reverence, offered a story of strength. Both stories claim to honor the same day, but from different emotional languages.

What Comes Next

As of late October 2025, Mandami remains a serious contender in the New York mayoral race. Polls show his support rising among young voters, immigrants, and progressives — even as older and more conservative New Yorkers recoil from his comments.

In many ways, the controversy may strengthen his base. It has allowed him to frame himself as the outsider speaking uncomfortable truths — a strategy that often pays off in a city defined by rebellion.

But the episode also highlights how fragile New York’s civic memory remains. Two generations after the smoke cleared over Lower Manhattan, the city still wrestles with who gets to speak about its pain — and on what terms.

A City Still Healing

For all the noise, the heart of the matter is not politics but memory. Every New Yorker carries a piece of that day — the skyline without its towers, the smell of dust in the air, the silence of grounded skies.

For some, those memories inspire patriotism; for others, caution. But for all, they demand respect.

As one 9/11 widow, Maria Torres, told a reporter after the controversy broke:

“You can talk about discrimination, sure. You can talk about fear. But first, say their names. Say the names of the people we lost. Then talk about what came after.”

Her words capture the tension at the center of the debate — between grief and growth, remembrance and reckoning.

The Final Lesson

Zorhan Mandami’s comments may fade from the headlines in a week or two. But the storm they created reveals something enduring about America in 2025: its continuing struggle to hold multiple truths at once.

Yes, Muslims were unfairly targeted after 9/11. Yes, nearly three thousand innocent people were slaughtered by Islamist terrorists. And yes, a city of immigrants still aches to reconcile those truths without tearing itself apart.

If New York can ever find a way to honor both memory and empathy — to mourn the dead while protecting the living — perhaps it will finally prove what it has always claimed to be: a city strong enough for everyone.