Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has said current Mayor Zohran Mamdani should not attend this week’s 9/11 memorial ceremony, criticising the Muslim mayor’s decision to take part in the commemoration.Giuliani made the remarks during an interview with Newsmax. “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming,” he said. Giuliani was mayor when the September 11 attacks took place in 2001 and is expected to attend Friday’s ceremony.Mamdani has rejected calls to stay away. He said he would attend the main ceremony and several other events to honour the families of those killed and the first responders affected by the attacks.“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” Mamdani said on Monday.Giuliani also compared Mamdani’s Muslim faith with the ideology of the September 11 hijackers and accused him of concealing his views. He further claimed, without evidence, that Mamdani supports efforts to make Islam the dominant religion in parts of the United States and Europe.The former mayor’s comments come as New York prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. The main ceremony at the World Trade Center site will include the reading of the victims’ names by relatives and survivors.Mamdani was nine years old and living in New York when the attacks occurred. He has previously spoken about the Islamophobic backlash in an interview with The New York Times, it made anti-Muslim prejudice “a fact of life” for Muslim Americans. “It was this horrific day that was also for many New Yorkers the moment at which they were marked ‘other,” he said.Last week, Mamdani signed executive orders designating September 11 as an annual “Citywide Day of Remembrance and Service” and establishing a task force to strengthen the city’s emergency preparedness.His schedule includes about a dozen memorial events, including visits to firehouses whose firefighters died in the attacks or later became ill after working at Ground Zero.Giuliani served as mayor from 1994 to 2001 and became a nationally recognised figure for his response to the attacks. He later became a close ally and personal attorney to Donald Trump.An online petition urging Mamdani to skip the ceremony had collected nearly 100,000 signatures. Former New York governor George Pataki has also opposed Mamdani’s attendance.Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama are expected at Friday’s commemorations. Vice-President JD Vance is expected to represent the White House in New York, while Trump is scheduled to mark the anniversary at the Pentagon.
