JD Vance slams Zohran Mamdani over claim 'real victims of 9/11' were Muslims in New York

New York socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani gave an impassioned speech against so-called Islamophobia on Friday, saying that criticisms against him were actually a shrouded hatred of all Muslims over their religion. Mamdani held the press conference after being targeted by political opponents, attacks he appears to believe are all rooted in Islamophobia.

In his press conference, after which he took no questions, Mamdani appeared to claim that Muslims in the city were the real victims after the terror attacks that took down the World Trade Center skyscrapers on Sept. 11, 2001. Of this moment, Vice President JD Vance said, "According to Zohran the real victim of 9/11 was his auntie who got some (allegedly) bad looks."

Mamdani spoke about an uncle who told him to downplay his identity as a Muslim during his run for the State Assembly. Mamdani said this caution was for safety reasons, and that it was only in New York City's "shadows" where "Muslims could embrace their full identities." He claimed that this is what is being called for by his political opponents, that Muslims hide in the shadows.

There are nearly 1 million Muslims in New York City–bout 9 percent of the entire population–as well as 275 mosques, 30 Islamic private schools, and many more extracurricular religious schools, and hundreds of Halal eateries and grocery stores. This is hardly a population in hiding.

"I want to use this moment to speak to the Muslims of New York City," Mamdani said. "I want to speak to the memory of my aunt, who stopped taking the subway after September 11 because she did not feel safe in her hijab."

He went on to say that "Growing up in the shadow of 9/11 I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion in this city." He said he'd been called the wrong name or been asked by customs agents, upon returning to the US, if he had malicious intent for his adopted country. Mamdani didn't become a US citizen until his late 20s after living in the US since he was 7. Yet he claimed that "To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity."

He said that he would no longer hide his Islam in the shadows and that others shouldn't either, to the extent that they have been doing so. "The dream of every Muslim is simply be treated the same as any other New Yorker, and yet, for too long, we have been told to ask for less than that and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive no more. For as long as we have lived, we have known that no matter what anyone says, there are still certain forms of hate that are acceptable in this city. Islamophobia is not seen as inexcusable. One can incite violence against our mosques and know that condemnation will never come."

There have been three incidents of graffiti on mosques since 2021. In 2024 alone, there were a recorded 976 antisemitic incidents in New York City. Yet Mamdani claims that Muslims "are being made to feel as if we are guests in our own home." Mamdani said that he "will no longer look for myself in the shadows."



The term "Islamophobia" was created after the Iranian Revolution by Islamic fundamentalists as a way to put Westerners on their back foot when they attempted to critique extremist elements of Islam. It was effective and used after 9/11 for a similar purpose, to quell criticism of Islam following the Islamic extremist attacks that stole the lives of over 3,000 people in America.