Socialist and other left-wing Democrats are facing new scrutiny over past comments about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks ahead of the 25th anniversary on Friday.
Nearly 100,000 people have signed a petition urging New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to stay away from the Sept. 11 ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City, citing the mayor’s past comments and association with people linked to radical Islam.
Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate who is running on a socialist-style platform, is facing intense criticism over deleted social media posts downplaying the Sept. 11 attacks. News outlets dug up the posts as the nation gets ready to mark the somber 25th anniversary of the attacks.
Mr. El-Sayed posted on Sept. 11, 2021: “Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith. Tomorrow, I’ll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country.”
Mr. El Sayed’s social media posts also compared the death toll of COVID-19 to the Sept. 11 attacks and expressed his hope it “means we’ll spend the next ten years fighting a war for public health & against poverty … like we launched a global #WaronTerror after 9/11. We could save lives rather than take them.”
Mr. El-Sayed is facing criticism over his association with Socialist influencer Hasan Piker, who hosts a popular livestream and has campaigned with Mr. El-Sayed.
In 2019, Mr. Piker, during an August 2019 livestream, said, “America deserved 9/11.” He later called his comments “imprecise” and a form of sarcasm.
Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist who beat incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado’s June 30 Democratic primary, told Denver’s 9 News the Sept. 11 attacks were “inevitable” because the U.S. destabilized parts of the Middle East. She said U.S. actions “forced people to believe that another act of violence was the only response.”
The comments have provoked backlash ahead of the Sept. 11 anniversary Friday, showing the limits of how far the movement can go in rejecting American patriotism and capitalism. And it sparked a pushback from within the Democratic Party.
“If Democrats are going to earn the confidence of Americans this November and beyond, the answer will not be found in the Democratic Socialists of America’s platform,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, who represents parts of Queens and Long Island, which lost hundreds of residents in the Sept. 11 attack, wrote on Substack.
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a veteran Democratic operative who served as a top advisor to President Barack Obama, said Democrats aren’t going far enough in distancing themselves from Mr. Piker and should more aggressively challenge him over his Sept. 11 comment and his recent remark that American Jews who back Israel are inviting violence against themselves.
“Anybody associated with that rhetoric needs to disassociate with them, because if it was any other group in America — any other group — people would be worked up and in a tizzy, appropriately,” Mr. Emanuel said on CNN. “Now, if this was any other constituency, the party would deal with this. But everybody seems to be like, ‘Oh, this is OK, whatever.’”
The organizers of the petition to keep Mr, Mamdani away from Ground Zero on Sept. 11 said that many perceive his comments and associations as “hostile” to the memories of the victims.
Nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Victims included all passengers and crew on four hijacked jets, including those aboard Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers battled the hijackers.
More than 400 firefighters and police officers perished trying to rescue people from the Twin Towers, which collapsed along with another building, creating what is now known as Ground Zero.
A memorial service is held annually at the site, now home to a memorial commemorating all of the victims.
Presidents George Bush, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton plan to attend the Ground Zero ceremony this year. President Trump will attend the Sept. 11 ceremony at the Pentagon, which was partially destroyed by one of the hijacked jets during the attack.
Mr. Mamdani said he plans to attend the ceremony at Ground Zero, despite a letter from Port Authority retirees asking him not to attend.
“We have profound concerns about your public statements, political associations and positions that, in our view, are inconsistent with the sacrifice of the victims and the law enforcement officers who died while protecting others,” John McDevitt, president of the Port Authority Retired Police Association, wrote to Mr. Mamdani.
Mr. Mamdani has publicly described the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as “horrific,” and met Sept. 2 with some of the first responders and other city workers who he said “stepped up” to help the city recover.
The petition to keep him away from Ground Zero was started by Giovanni Galante, whose wife was killed in the Sept. 11 attack.
It urges Mr. Mamdani to stay away, citing his relationship with Mr. Piker and his past praise of Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, among other actions deemed sympathetic toward antisemitism and Islamist extremism.
“If he had any decency Mamdani would not come to the 9/11 memorial service but that’s why we know he will attend because he has no decency,” posted Joyce Cohen Day, whose mother was killed when the South Tower was hit.
On Sept. 11, 2023, Mr Mamdani posted on X, “Nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died on 9/11; 22 years later, the death hasn’t stopped. We mourn our neighbors who died that day. The hundreds of thousands who died in the wars that followed. The unknown millions injured & displaced. In their memory, we work toward a better world.”
The resurfaced post provoked outrage on social media and led to more calls that he stay clear of Ground Zero on the 25th anniversary.
“I have to say if one of my relatives had been murdered that day by Islamic terrorists out to destroy western civilization, I would not welcome the person who posted this transparent attempt at victim blaming to the memorial ceremony,” said Mark Penn, a former advisor to the Clintons.
Mr. Mamdani last year described his family’s difficulties living as Muslims in New York City after the attack, recalling an aunt stopped riding the subway because she “did not feel safe in her hijab.”
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