Kathy Hochul blasted Rudy Giuliani’s push to keep Zohran Mamdani away from New York City’s 25th anniversary 9/11 commemoration, saying the mayor belongs at Ground Zero despite his predecessor’s objections.
The New York governor used X on Tuesday to reject the push to keep Mamdani away from Friday’s memorial, framing the ceremony as a moment for unity among New Yorkers and Americans.
“Division should not prevail over the spirit of unity that brought us together after September 11th,” Hochul wrote.
“On this 25th anniversary, we should honor those we lost by coming together again as New Yorkers and Americans. The Mayor of New York City will be there, as he should be.”
Giuliani, who was running New York City when the 2001 attacks happened, told Newsmax on Sunday that Mamdani should not attend.
Division should not prevail over the spirit of unity that brought us together after September 11th.
On this 25th anniversary, we should honor those we lost by coming together again as New Yorkers and Americans.
The Mayor of New York City will be there, as he should be. https://t.co/k216IcmhzJ
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) September 8, 2026
“Frankly, whatever he’d like to say, he doesn’t agree that Sept. 11 was an Islamic terrorist attack on the United States of America,” Giuliani said. “Having lost friends there, and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.”
The former New York City mayor also made claims about Muslims and connected Mamdani to them.
“They have every desire to take us over. This is not, they want to be just another religion, they want to dominate us,” Giuliani remarked. “Mamdani is a clear supporter of that.”
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Mamdani told reporters Monday that attention before Friday’s commemoration should remain on the families who lost loved ones 25 years ago “in the horrific act of terror on Sept. 11.”
The mayor also pointed to the first responders who ran toward the wreckage and the New Yorkers who helped one another after the attacks.
“And a focus also on the first responders who gave everything they could to this city and to the people who came together to try and help their fellow New Yorkers,” Mamdani stated.
“And so, in the days to come, my focus will be on attending events that memorialize that incredible courage and I will be there on Friday at the memorial just as I was last year.”
When reporters pressed him on Giuliani, Mamdani said he “did not have much more to add.”
Part of the opposition to Mamdani’s attendance traces back to Ramzi Kassem, whom Mamdani appointed as New York City’s top legal counsel.
ABC News reported that Kassem previously represented a convicted al-Qaeda member whose brother-in-law was one of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
Some 9/11 victims’ families have backed a petition asking Mamdani to stay away from the commemoration. The petition claims he supports people seen as “dismissive of American institutions or insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies.”
Mamdani addressed that petition in July, saying he would attend the ceremony with those affected by the attacks.
“I will proudly honor the families, the survivors, the first responders forever impacted by that horrific terror attack by standing alongside them at this year’s 9/11 commemoration, reaffirming that we will never forget the solemn day felt by all of us who call this city home and, frankly, by all of us who call this country home,” Mamdani responded.
As Giuliani and others questioned Mamdani’s place at the memorial, the mayor’s office released about 170,000 pages of records Tuesday dealing with post-9/11 assurances about the air near Ground Zero.
The batch included material found in 68 boxes at the Department of Environmental Protection in 2025 and dating back to the period after the attacks.
Mamdani appeared with Sept. 11 family members, Rep. Jerry Nadler and comedian Jon Stewart, who has long advocated for 9/11 families and first responders.
“Close to 25 years later, more people have died from 9/11-related illnesses than were killed on the day itself,” Mamdani commented.
https://t.co/xo8PaNzlap
Mayor Mamdani Holds Press Conference to Make a 9/11-Related Announcement— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) September 8, 2026
The World Trade Center Health Program and other health authorities have connected thousands of deaths to illnesses associated with toxic dust and debris after 9/11, with many others still living with related health conditions.
Mamdani argued that survivors were failed by the government they trusted.
“It would be one thing if government had stood alongside survivors and provided them with everything they needed at every step of the way,” Mamdani continued, adding that “could not be further” from what happened.
Then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said in a Sept. 18, 2001, press release that monitoring results indicated the air near the World Trade Center was safe to breathe. EPA assurances about environmental hazards had started on Sept. 13.
“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” Mamdani added Tuesday.
The records showed asbestos at some locations below applicable cleanup or exposure benchmarks, while other sites appeared to exceed them. Health authorities have said there is no known safe level of asbestos exposure.
Hochul and Mamdani are expected at Ground Zero alongside four of the five living presidents and Vice President Vance.
President Trump will mark the anniversary at the Pentagon, which was also hit during the Sept. 11 attacks, rather than at Ground Zero.
Trump and Tunnel to Towers also held a Tuesday event on the Ellipse honoring the 2,977 victims killed in New York City, at the Pentagon and aboard United Airlines Flight 93.
“On 9/11, nearly 3,000 precious souls were stolen from us, killed by evil terrorists at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on Flight 93,” Trump told the crowd.
“All of these years later, we gather on another Tuesday morning in September to reaffirm the sacred vow we made a quarter of a century ago: We will never forget.”
At the same Washington event, Trump presented a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom to Welles Crowther, an equities trader and volunteer firefighter credited with saving 18 people from the South Tower before dying in the collapse.
Crowther escaped his 104th-floor office through a surviving staircase, helped groups on the 78th floor get out and made repeated trips before the tower fell.
