Twenty-five years ago, nearly three thousand people were murdered on American soil. For those of us who remember that September morning – the phone calls that went unanswered, the impossible silence in the skies afterward, the funerals that seemed to never end – the anniversary isn’t just another date. It’s sacred. And every year, we expect the leaders who show their faces at Ground Zero to carry themselves with the gravity that hallowed ground demands.

So what do we do when the politicians elbowing their way to the podium have spent their careers tearing down the very people who bled there? When the mayor of New York City has shared a stage with a man who declared America deserved the attack? When the governor turned the tower erected over the ashes of the fallen into a virtue-signaling prop? The retired officers who were actually there that day have had enough.

From The Post Millennial:

Retired law enforcement officers are demanding that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul refrain from participating in the 25th anniversary commemoration of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

In an August 11 letter addressed to Mamdani, the 600-member Port Authority Retired Police Association told the mayor that he was not welcome at the memorial ceremony.

Read that slowly. Six hundred retired Port Authority officers – people who sprinted into a collapsing skyscraper while the rest of the world sat frozen in front of a television – are telling the sitting mayor of New York City he is not welcome where their brothers and sisters perished. That is extraordinary. And it is entirely deserved.

The men who were there have spoken

Association President John McDevitt was blunt. “We do not believe you have earned the privilege to stand at Ground Zero alongside us, the families, survivors, and our fellow first responders,” he wrote. He warned that Mamdani’s attendance would “cause profound pain” and “risk turning a solemn day of remembrance into a political controversy.”

The letter pointed to Mamdani’s “rhetoric and affiliations that we believe have been hostile to law enforcement” and described his political positions as “sympathetic” toward anti-American movements. Worth noting: these aren’t anonymous internet commenters. These are decorated officers who dug through wreckage looking for survivors. Their words carry weight that no press release can match.

A mayor who keeps dangerous company

Here’s the detail that should stop every American cold. Mamdani has previously campaigned alongside online streamer Hasan Piker – a man who publicly stated that America “deserved 9/11” and who displays a framed newspaper covering the attacks as set dressing during his broadcasts. Casual. Decorative. Like a conversation piece at a dinner party.

That is the company New York’s mayor chooses to keep.

And when confronted with the officers’ demand? Mamdani’s spokesperson – not the mayor himself, naturally – offered a vacuum-sealed PR statement: the mayor will “proudly honor the families, the survivors, the first responders forever impacted by that horrific terror attack.” Proudly. The sheer gall of that word from a man who stood arm-in-arm with someone who mocked the dead.

Hochul lit up Ground Zero – but not the way you’d expect

Governor Hochul earned her own letter. McDevitt called her “tone deaf” for lighting One World Trade Center in January to celebrate Muslim American Heritage Month. “Your action displayed neither concern nor reverence for the fallen,” he wrote, adding bluntly that she had “forfeited the privilege” of standing with first responders at the 25th anniversary.

Let’s be direct. Nobody is arguing against celebrating cultural heritage. But One World Trade Center exists for one reason: because terrorists obliterated what stood there before and slaughtered thousands of innocent people in the process. Commandeering that specific building for a political gesture requires either staggering obliviousness or something far more cynical.

Hochul, it appears, has offered no public response. The silence speaks volumes.

Staying home isn’t enough

Here is where the retired officers’ demand – righteous as it is – doesn’t go far enough. Telling Mamdani and Hochul to skip a ceremony is a mild rebuke. A slap on the wrist. The real conversation should be much bigger.

If you campaign alongside a man who celebrates the worst terrorist attack in American history, you have disqualified yourself from public service. Full stop. Not just from a memorial – from the office itself. If you hijack sacred ground for political signaling, you’ve demonstrated a deficit of judgment that no election can fix. Both of these Democrats should resign. Immediately.

The officers of the Port Authority Retired Police Association earned their place at Ground Zero a quarter-century ago. They carried the dying. They buried their friends. They have every right to decide who stands beside them – and every right to demand that those who dishonor the fallen answer for it. Not just on the anniversary. Every day they presume to lead.

Key Takeaways

• Six hundred retired Port Authority officers told Mamdani and Hochul to stay away from Ground Zero.
• Mayor Mamdani campaigned with a streamer who declared America “deserved 9/11.”
• Governor Hochul used One World Trade Center as a political prop, insulting 9/11 families.
• Skipping a ceremony is not enough – both Democrats should resign from office.

Sources: The Post Millennial, The Post Millennial