Vance Criticizes Mamdani’s Comments About Islamophobia After 9/11

Vice President JD Vance attacked Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic front-runner in the New York City mayor’s race, using a social media post on Saturday to taunt him for his comments about his aunt feeling unsafe after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Mr. Mamdani, who is running to become the city’s first Muslim mayor, gave a 10-minute speech on Friday to address what he and others have characterized as a rise in Islamophobia during the campaign. In his speech, he grew emotional as he recounted how his aunt stopped taking the subway after the Sept. 11 attacks “because she did not feel safe in her hijab.”

Mr. Vance and Republicans pounced on his comments, arguing that his focus should be on the victims who died during the attacks.

“According to Zohran the real victim of 9/11 was his auntie who got some (allegedly) bad looks,” Mr. Vance wrote on social media, posting a video of Mr. Mamdani’s comments.

Mr. Vance’s attacks follow similar ones regularly hurled by Mr. Trump, who has threatened to arrest Mr. Mamdani and has called him a communist. (He is a democratic socialist.)

Mr. Vance also criticized Mr. Mamdani last week for meeting with a well-known imam in Brooklyn. The imam, Siraj Wahhaj, who leads Masjid at-Taqwa in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was an unindicted potential co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center terrorist bombing. (The imam was never charged in the case, and The Times reported that the list Mr. Wahhaj appeared on was criticized by some former terrorism prosecutors as being overly broad.)

Mr. Mamdani said in an interview on MSNBC on Saturday that Mr. Vance’s comment about his aunt was inappropriate.

“This is all the Republican Party has to offer,” Mr. Mamdani said. “Cheap jokes about Islamophobia so as to not have to recognize what people are living through, attempts to pit peoples’ humanity against each other.”

Mr. Mamdani attended the Sept. 11 memorial last month and has expressed sorrow over the people who died in the attacks. He has also talked about what it was like growing up in New York City after the attacks, when Muslims faced racial profiling, police surveillance and hate crimes.

Mr. Mamdani compared Mr. Vance to his closest rival in the race, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, arguing that they practiced the same “politics of division.”

After Mr. Mamdani gave his speech on Friday outside a mosque in the Bronx, he posted a nearly seven-minute video on social media sharing a similar message. It was viewed more than nine million times.

His speech touched many Muslim Americans across the country, with some comparing it to former President Obama’s speech on race in 2008. Mr. Mamdani said it was painful to hear Mr. Cuomo laugh when a radio host said that Mr. Mamdani would “be cheering” if there were another Sept. 11-style terrorist attack on New York City.

Mr. Mamdani said that Muslims had long faced bigotry in the shadows.

“I will not change the faith that I’m proud to belong to,” he said. “But there is one thing I will change: I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.”

Mehdi Hasan, a Muslim journalist, said that it was wrong for Mr. Vance to mock Mr. Mamdani for talking “publicly and emotionally about their experience of racism,” especially when Mr. Vance’s wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants.

The tone of the mayor’s race has grown increasingly tense during its final weeks. Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican and ally of Mr. Trump, called Mr. Mamdani a “jihadist” for failing to urge Hamas to give up their weapons on Fox News. He later clarified during a debate that he believed that they should do so.

On Saturday, Ellie Cohanim, a former U.S. deputy special envoy to combat antisemitism under Mr. Trump, posted a photo on social media of the twin towers burning on Sept. 11 and a man falling from one of the buildings.

“Never Forget,” she said. “Vote Andrew Cuomo and save our city.”

Democrats criticized her post, calling it “cruel” and an effort to politicize the tragedy.