Brad Lander, a former New York City comptroller who is running for Congress, apologized after claiming, without evidence, that bombs allegedly intended to harm anti-Muslim protesters outside Gracie Mansion on March 7 were actually targeting Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor who is Muslim.
“I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions and posting too soon, but I’m not sorry for hating Islamophobia as much as I hate antisemitism,” Lander said.
Mamdani drew criticism for implying in his statement that the handfuls of anti-Muslim protesters were the would-be bombers rather than the targets of the homemade explosives. Since then, CNN has issued at least three corrections after it suggested, in the same number of instances, that the bombs were aimed at the mayor.
“I want to correct something I said last night. The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS-inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protesters and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani,” wrote Abby Phillip, who anchors an eponymous CNN nighttime program, on March 11.
“That wording was inaccurate, and I didn’t catch it ahead of time,” she said. “I apologize for the error.” (Critics pointed out that the “specifically” reference could merit its own further correction.)
Edward-Isaac Dovere, a senior CNN reporter, also issued an apology after posting that Mamdani had been the “target of political violence.”
“I want to correct something I posted earlier on X, which inaccurately implied that Mayor Mamdani was the target of political violence in last week’s ISIS-inspired attempted terror attack in New York City,” Dovere wrote on March 11.
“Law enforcement officials have said the two terror suspects threw improvised explosive devices at an anti-Islam demonstration and a counterprotest near Mayor Mamdani’s home Saturday but did not say that he was the target,” he wrote. “I apologize for the error and have deleted the original post.”
“How many of these are we going to get, all in the same direction,” wrote Philip Klein, editor of National Review Online.
On March 10, CNN said that it had deleted a social media post about the bombing story.
“A post regarding the two individuals arrested for throwing homemade bombs outside of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home failed to reflect the gravity of the incident thereby breaching the editorial standards we require for all our reporting,” it said. “It has therefore been deleted.”
The deleted post, a screenshot of which many users shared on social media, stated that “two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather.”
“But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home,” it stated.
Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) questioned whether the CNN statement about not reflecting the situations’ gravity sufficiently reflected the gravity of the situation.
“Neither does this post, because it doesn’t mention radical Islamic terrorism,” he wrote. “Maybe give it a third shot?”
