New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino escalated her criticism of Mayor Zohran Mamdani this week, suggesting his handling of 9/11-related executive orders amounted to a coded message aimed at the terrorist mastermind behind the attacks — who has been dead for more than a decade.
Paladino’s comments, made on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” come as Republicans and some 9/11 family members have publicly urged Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, not to attend Friday’s 25th anniversary commemoration. Attending such ceremonies has traditionally been standard practice for sitting New York mayors.
Last week, Mamdani signed two executive orders — one establishing an annual day of remembrance and service on September 11, and another aimed at strengthening the city’s ability to prevent future attacks. During the signing, he gave a commemorative pen to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who passed it to the city’s chief legal counsel, Ramzi Kassem. Kassem had previously served as an attorney for convicted al-Qaeda operative Ahmed al-Darbi.
Host Laura Ingraham noted that symbolism carries particular weight “in the Islamic world” and read a statement from the mayor’s office explaining that Kassem attended the ceremony to perform his official duties and was personally invested in the orders as a New Yorker who was in the city on 9/11.
Paladino dismissed the explanation outright. “I am sick to death of all of this,” she said, before adding that New Yorkers needed to see through what she called a “total, absolute farce.” She went on to argue that Mamdani’s actions, including his plans to attend the anniversary ceremony, amounted to a coded signal. “It was a message to Osama bin Laden that, look, ‘We conquered New York,'” Paladino said, adding that the mayor’s electoral base of younger transplants, rather than lifelong New Yorkers, made the situation “scary” for the city.
Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who orchestrated the September 11 attacks, was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs during a 2011 raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
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