NYC Mayor Mamdani's attendance of 9/11 commemoration at center of political fight

WBUR

Published September 9, 2026 at 11:59 AM EDT

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at an announcement event of a city-wide, discounted grocery plan for city-run municipal grocery stores, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Monday, July 27, 2026. (Ryan Murphy/AP)

This year’s commemoration of the 9/11 terror attacks on Friday is at the center of a political fight, with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani calling on current Mayor Zohran Mamdani not to attend and making false claims about Islam, Mamdani’s faith.

Mamdani has said he will attend the ceremony, as he did last year.

Here & Now‘s Robin Young speaks with Moustafa Bayoumi — an English professor at Brooklyn College and author of books about being Arab in the U.S. — about the debate and Islamophobia in the U.S.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.