Socialists and other left-wing Democrats are facing new scrutiny over past comments about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks ahead of the 25th anniversary 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 the 9/11 Memorial, citing the mayor’s past comments and association with people linked to radical Islam.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Michigan 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 2001 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 Hasan Piker, who hosts a popular Twitch livestream and has campaigned with Mr. El-Sayed.
During an August 2019 livestream, Mr. Piker said, “America deserved 9/11.” He later said he should have used “more precise language” and called the remarks “inappropriate” and a “poor attempt at satire.”
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, showing the limits of how far the movement can go in rejecting American patriotism and capitalism. They also have 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 attacks, wrote on Substack.
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a veteran Democratic operative who served as White House chief of staff in the Obama administration, said Democrats are not 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 the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11 cited concerns over positions and associations they perceive as “hostile to shared American values,” including respect for 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 died trying to rescue people from the Twin Towers, which collapsed along with another building, creating what is now known as ground zero.
A ceremony is held annually at the site, now home to a memorial commemorating all of the victims.
Former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton plan to attend the New York 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 in lower Manhattan despite a letter from Port Authority retirees urging him not to.
“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 the memorial service 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 appeared on a government list of persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators 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 the site 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 adviser to the Clintons.
Mr. Mamdani, in 2025, described his family’s difficulties living as Muslims in New York City after the attack, recalling an aunt who stopped riding the subway because she “did not feel safe in her hijab.”
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