During an anti-Muslim diatribe, the former mayor called for Mr. Mamdani to skip the ceremonies. The mayor has said he is going.
Page A2From§Eachthe milkman edition — 7 September 2026
Giuliani demands Mamdani skip 9/11 memorial to keep it apolitical, inside an anti-Muslim diatribe
As it ran on the front
I want to tell you about a sign first, and I promise we get to the part that matters, because they turned out to be the same sign, and I didn't believe that either until I checked.
There's a corner store I go to for the paper and the dog's biscuits, and behind the register, taped up next to the lottery tickets, there's a sign that says WE DON'T DISCUSS POLITICS HERE. I've stood in that store and listened to the man behind the register tell four customers in a row exactly which city councilman is a criminal, exactly why, and exactly who they shouldn't vote for in the primary, all while that sign is looking down at both of us. I used to think that was a funny little contradiction, a guy who doesn't know his own store. Now I think the sign isn't confused at all. The sign is doing exactly what it's there to do, which is announce that the politics happening under it doesn't count as politics, because he's the one saying it.…
…(cont) I wrote this down, so bear with me, because the order matters and I want to get it right. On September 3rd, the mayor of New York — first 9/11 memorial of his term — said the ceremony should be about remembrance, not politics. That's the whole statement. Said it plain, said it early, and then, as far as I can find, said nothing else about it.
Four days later — I've got the date here, September 7th — Rudy Giuliani said Mamdani should skip the memorial. Said it so the day could stay free of politics. And he said it, this is the part I keep having to read twice, in the middle of a diatribe about Muslims. Not near it. Inside it.
Now here's my fixation, and I apologize in advance, because I'm going to come back to it once more before I let you go. The word is apolitical. Everybody in this story reaches for it. The mayor used it first, without needing to raise his voice to get there. The other man needed a diatribe about an entire religion to arrive at the same word. I keep asking myself what kind of a request for no politics requires that much politics just to be delivered.
I think about my car a little here, if you'll let me — the one with the fan belt that's been making that noise since spring. I know what's wrong with it. I could tell you what's wrong with it in one sentence, calm, over the fence, and you'd believe me, because the fact doesn't need decoration to be true. It's when somebody needs forty-five minutes and a lot of heat to convince you their engine's fine that you start checking under the hood yourself. A true thing about keeping a ceremony politics-free shouldn't need a diatribe to carry it the last ten feet.
Excuse me — before you go, one more thing, because I found the other page and I don't want to lose it. Back on August 30th, before any of this, a group of retired Port Authority officers asked two people to stay away from Ground Zero this year: Mamdani, and Governor Hochul. Two names. By September 7th, when Giuliani made his demand, only one of those two names was still on it. I don't know what happened to the other name. I just noticed it went missing somewhere between the store and the register.
So here's what I've got, laid out in order, dates and all, and I'll let you do the arithmetic I'm not allowed to do for you: one man said the day should be about remembrance, and stopped talking. The other man needed a speech about an entire religion to say the word apolitical, and the only name he kept was the mayor's. Which one of them actually kept it apolitical?
“You hear a man run a rant about an entire religion to demand somebody else keep politics out of a memorial, and you're supposed to nod along like that tracks. Mamdani already said the day should be about remembrance days before Giuliani ever opened his mouth, so who exactly walked in and injected the politics. This ceremony's for three thousand dead people, not a rerun of some guy's old press conferences, and everybody in that story knows the difference except the one telling you he doesn't.”
“Look, Mayor Giuliani — America's Mayor — is simply saying the sanctity of the ceremony shouldn't be politicized by, well, the presence of the sitting mayor of New York City at the memorial for the attack on New York City. Which — did I just defend keeping the mayor away from a memorial in his own city by calling that neutral? That doesn't sound right. He's got a right to say whatever he wants, however he wants to say it, that part's not in dispute.”
The receipts
‘Sick’
· 9/11 memorial service should be about remembrance, not politics, Mamdani says from the morgue, 3 Sep 2026
· Retired Port Authority officers tell Mamdani, Hochul to stay away from Ground Zero on 9/11 from the morgue, 30 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.