During the New York City mayoral debate on Thursday, Zohran Mamdani, a state representative, said that it took Andrew Cuomo being beaten in the Democratic primary by a Muslim for the former governor to visit a mosque. “He had more than 10 years, and he couldn’t name a single mosque at the last debate we had that he visited,” Mamdani said.
On Friday, Mamdani posted photos from Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he said he had “the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century.”
Critics, including U.S. Vice President JD Vance, noted that the imam smiling alongside Mamdani in the photo is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who testified as a character witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “blind sheikh.”
“I’ve been reliably informed that Democrats are opposed to any kind of political violence, so I look forward to them universally condemning Zohran Mamdani for campaigning with an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist plot that killed six New Yorkers,” the U.S. vice president stated.
“Nothing to see here, just the Kathy Hochul-endorsed, antisemitic Democrat socialist candidate for mayor of New York City campaigning and smiling with an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,” the Republican Jewish Coalition stated.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) stated that a “hack” New York Times journalist questioned why she called Mamdani a jihadist. “Do you want another comment?” she wrote, sharing Mamdani’s photo with the imam.
