Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani were filmed laughing together during Friday’s 9/11 anniversary ceremony at Ground Zero while victims’ families wept nearby.
The two Democratic Socialists of America allies, both 35 and 37 respectively, appeared in a live broadcast of the 25th anniversary service intercut with wrenching scenes of a man sobbing with his head in his arms as relatives read aloud the names of the dead. The footage ricocheted across social media within hours, drawing fierce condemnation from prominent conservatives and elected officials.
“Why the f–k are these two laughing?!?” Meghan McCain, former “The View” host and daughter of the late GOP Sen. John McCain, wrote on X.
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz demanded answers in his own post on the platform: “How the hell do you laugh while the names of those murdered on 9/11 are being read aloud? Why would you do so?”
Brooklyn Republican Councilwoman Inna Vernikov framed the moment as a broader failure of leadership. “After thousands of families of victims of terror beg Mamdani not to show up, he stands there and laughs while families weep. This is NYC’s Mayor,” she wrote on X.
Yet the scene may have been more complicated than the viral clip suggested. Michael Ragusa, former head of security for ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said he was standing directly beside the pair and offered a different account on X. “The camera just caught her greeting him hello. Multiple other politicians were laughing and joking behind me. Republicans and Democrats,” he wrote. “And for the record I am a life long republican who has been very critical of these two.”
A source familiar with the ceremony’s dynamics told The Post that Mamdani had been conspicuously abandoned by other top Democrats before the exchange occurred. Gov. Kathy Hochul, state Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Chuck Schumer all departed mid-ceremony, leaving the mayor standing alone. “Nobody wanted to be by him,” the source said. “It was awkward.” The mayor’s commissioners and Ocasio-Cortez then moved to fill the empty seats around him, prompting the interaction that cameras captured.
The same source defended Mamdani’s overall conduct, noting he remained until the ceremony’s conclusion and spoke with victims’ families afterward while most politicians left early. Still, the insider acknowledged the mayor invited scrutiny through his associations. “He doesn’t help his case,” the source quipped. “This guy doesn’t distance himself from people who say America deserved to be attacked. And where the f–k was his wife? She misses America 250, now this.”
Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, has largely avoided mayoral functions, citing her desire for privacy as the city’s first lady, though she has appeared at select high-profile events including the Knicks’ ticker-tape parade and NYC Fashion Week.
The mayor’s attendance at Ground Zero itself defied a direct appeal from aggrieved 9/11 families, who hand-delivered a petition earlier in the week urging him to skip the commemoration entirely. The families’ opposition stemmed in part from remarks Mamdani made during his campaign, when he fought back tears before Muslim leaders while describing how his “Auntie” stopped riding the subway after September 11 because she no longer felt safe wearing her hijab. Critics accused him of appearing to trivialize the terror attacks by centering his own family’s experience.
The ceremony also produced an awkward handshake between Mamdani and Giuliani, who led the city during the 2001 attacks. One insider said Giuliani extended a relatively warm welcome while other elected officials deliberately shunned the mayor. “None of the elected wanted to be near him,” they said.
The night before the anniversary, Mamdani participated in a Manhattan memorial walk with stops at Christian, Jewish and Muslim houses of worship, though he joined only for the final stop at an Islamic center.