President Donald Trump criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Sunday over a brief exchange caught on camera at the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero, calling their behavior “inappropriate” as families of victims mourned nearby.
Video from the ceremony cut from a young man in tears in front of the names inscribed at the memorial to a shot of Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani laughing together. Asked about the footage, Trump said, “It’s not the place to be laughing, especially in that case. The fact that they were laughing together in a very important part of the ceremony was inappropriate.”
The president did not attend this year’s Ground Zero ceremony, remaining near Washington and speaking instead at a 9/11 memorial event at the Pentagon. Vice President JD Vance represented the administration in New York, joining former Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton at the site.
Backlash from Republicans
After clips of the moment circulated on social media, Republicans were quick to condemn the two Democrats. New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov wrote that Mamdani “stands there and laughs while families weep,” adding, “This is NYC’s Mayor.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) also weighed in, asking, “How the hell do you laugh while the names of those murdered on 9/11 are being read aloud? Why would you do so?”
The criticism came against the backdrop of earlier opposition to Mamdani’s presence at the ceremony. A petition launched by relatives of 9/11 victims asking the mayor to stay away from the memorial garnered more than 100,000 signatures, and several families had publicly urged him not to attend the 25th-anniversary event honoring the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks.
The Daily Wire previously reported that the backlash was fueled in part by Mamdani’s chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, who once served as a defense lawyer for Ahmed al-Darbi — an al Qaeda operative held at Guantanamo Bay whose brother-in-law helped hijack the plane that struck the Pentagon.
Mamdani has also drawn outrage over past comments about the treatment of Muslims after 9/11. Last October, he said, “I want to speak to the memory of my aunt, who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab.”
Ocasio-Cortez has her own history of controversy tied to 9/11. In 2019, she defended fellow Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) after Omar described the terrorist attacks by saying, “Some people did something.” Ocasio-Cortez claimed the backlash to that remark amounted to “incitement of violence against progressive women of color.”
The Other Side of the Video
Not everyone saw the interaction the same way. Michael Ragusa, who worked for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and attended the memorial, said the two were simply greeting each other.
“The videos of [them] laughing are not true. I was standing next to them the whole time,” Ragusa wrote on X. “The camera just caught her greeting him hello. Multiple other politicians were laughing and joking behind me. Republicans and Democrats.”
A longer clip of the interaction shows Ocasio-Cortez approaching Mamdani mid-ceremony, the two embracing before they converse and appear to laugh together. Afterward, both returned their attention to the stage, where the names of the victims were being read aloud.
Neither Mamdani nor Ocasio-Cortez has responded to the controversy.
The episode adds another flashpoint to an already tense political season, one that touches on the city’s most solemn annual ritual and the raw emotions that surround it. For the families who gather at Ground Zero each year, the reading of the names remains the ceremony’s centerpiece — a roll call of the dead that has stretched on for a quarter century. Any gesture that appears to cut against the gravity of that moment, even fleetingly, tends to be magnified once it reaches social media.
Trump’s decision to weigh in from the Pentagon rather than in Manhattan reflects how the anniversary has become entangled with broader partisan debates. The president’s remarks Sunday were his first public comments on the incident, and they landed as Republicans nationally seized on the footage to portray the two Democrats as out of step with the solemnity of the day. Democrats, meanwhile, have largely stayed silent, with neither of the figures at the center of the storm offering a defense or an explanation.
Whether the moment fades or lingers may depend on how the two handle it in the coming days. Neither has signaled they intend to address it directly, and aides have not offered any clarification. For now, the video — and Trump’s response to it — remains the latest skirmish in a long-running argument over how public officials should comport themselves at the nation’s most painful commemorations.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-blasts-mamdani-and-aoc-over-inappropriate-9-11-memorial-behavior