JD Vance, the U.S. vice president, stated that he looks forward to Democrats “universally condemning” the frontrunner in the New York City mayoral race.
During the New York City mayoral debate on Thursday, Zohran Mamdani, a state representative, said that it took Andrew Cuomo being beaten in the Democratic primary by a Muslim for the former governor to visit a mosque. “He had more than 10 years, and he couldn’t name a single mosque at the last debate we had that he visited,” Mamdani said.
On Friday, Mamdani posted photos from Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he said he had “the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century.”
Critics, including U.S. Vice President JD Vance, noted that the imam smiling alongside Mamdani in the photo is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who testified as a character witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “blind sheikh.”
“I’ve been reliably informed that Democrats are opposed to any kind of political violence, so I look forward to them universally condemning Zohran Mamdani for campaigning with an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist plot that killed six New Yorkers,” the U.S. vice president stated.
“Nothing to see here, just the Kathy Hochul-endorsed, antisemitic Democrat socialist candidate for mayor of New York City campaigning and smiling with an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,” the Republican Jewish Coalition stated.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) stated that a “hack” New York Times journalist questioned why she called Mamdani a jihadist. “Do you want another comment?” she wrote, sharing Mamdani’s photo with the imam.