NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he will attend New York City’s annual 9/11 remembrance ceremony Friday despite mounting criticism from some family members of victims and several prominent Republicans who have called on him to stay away.

The controversy centers on the mayor’s appointment of Ramzi Kassem as the city’s chief legal counsel. Critics have pointed to Kassem’s past legal representation of a convicted al Qaeda member whose brother-in-law was among the terrorists who hijacked the plane that struck the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

A petition launched by relatives of 9/11 victims urging the mayor not to attend the annual ceremony has gathered nearly 100,000 signatures, according to supporters of the effort. Former Gov. George Pataki has also said Mamdani should not attend.

The mayor has defended his commitment to honoring the victims of the attacks. Last week, he signed two executive orders, including one establishing Sept. 11 as an annual “Citywide Day of Remembrance and Service” and another aimed at modernizing the city’s emergency preparedness procedures. Kassem was present when the orders were signed, drawing additional criticism from opponents.

Mamdani is expected to become the first Muslim mayor to attend the city’s official 9/11 remembrance ceremony, though nearly every New York City mayor before him has participated in the event.

The debate intensified over the weekend when former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, speaking on Newsmax, said he would be offended if Mamdani attended the ceremony. Giuliani also made claims that critics and others have described as baseless, including suggesting the mayor does not believe the Sept. 11 attacks were acts of terrorism. Some have characterized Giuliani’s comments as anti-Muslim.

Ahead of the New York Carnival Parade on Monday, Mayor Mamdani vowed to be at the 9/11 remembrance ceremony, where he will focus on “the first responders who gave everything.”

“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country. And what I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11th, 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 said.

When asked about Giuliani’s comments, Mamdani said, “I don’t have much more to add.”

Security preparations for Friday’s ceremony are expected to begin later this week, including the installation of fencing and security checkpoints around the World Trade Center site. Vice President JD Vance is expected to attend, while President Trump will not be at the ceremony.

9/11 families are calling for NYC Mayor Mamdani to be banned from the 25th-anniversary ceremony in September. Giovanni Galante, who lost his wife Grace, organized a petition citing Mamdani’s public record and alleged minimization of 9/11 attacks.

Families of 9/11 victims are urging organizers to bar New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani from attending this year’s 25th anniversary remembrance ceremony in Lower Manhattan.

Several families of 9/11 victims published a petition urging the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, which organizes the annual remembrance, to reconsider inviting Mayor Zohran Mamdani, citing a laundry list of criticisms of the Uganda-born socialist Democrat.

“Concerns have been raised about Mr. Mamdani’s public positions, associations, and responses to rhetoric that many perceive as hostile to these shared values,” a Change.org petition organized by several victims’ families states.

“Given these concerns, we respectfully ask that the organizers carefully consider whether Mr. Mamdani’s participation would align with the intention of the ceremony and the expectations of the families most directly affected by the tragedy.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces that five upcoming city-owned grocery stores will offer a 30 percent discount on produce, meat, bread, and milk when they open next year. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Concerns listed include a “perceived reluctance” by Mamdani to unequivocally condemn phrases like “globalize the intifada” — a slogan associated with calls for the eradication of Jews.

They also expressed concern over Mamdani’s alleged support for or association with individuals either dismissive of American institutions or insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies.

A 2025 release by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, outlined one such association with a radical Bed-Stuy imam who hosted the Blind Sheikh, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and has made controversial statements about jihad.

Janlyn Scauso, whose husband was a New York City firefighter killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, holds family photos during a rally near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Monday, July 20, 2026. Groups representing victims of Iranian-linked terrorism urged the U.S. not to release any money to Tehran, underscoring the political risks for President Donald Trump of fulfilling a key demand under a possible peace deal. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Siraj Wahhaj, born Jeffrey Kearse, hosted Mamdani at his At-Taqwa mosque during the campaign and received criticism at the time from former FBI agents for failing to condemn the cleric.

The victims’ families also called out Mamdani’s father, Columbia government professor Mahmood Mamdani, whom they cite as authoring a book shortly after the attacks in which he argued suicide bombers should be “understood as a feature of modern political violence rather than stigmatized as a mark of barbarism.”

They wrote that Professor Mamdani’s book – “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror” – also included a passage arguing a moral equivalency between the United States and Al Qaeda.

Names of victims are read during the commemoration ceremony on the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York City. (AP/Yuki Iwamura)

When the passage was resurfaced in 2025, prominent New York billionaire Bill Ackman quipped on X that the “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”