New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino used a Fox News appearance to denounce Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s expected presence at the city’s 9/11 memorial, claiming it would send “a message to Osama bin Laden that, look, ‘We conquered New York.’”
Paladino, 71, made the anti-Muslim comment while speaking with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
The conservative Queens lawmaker had been attacking Mamdani, 34, over a recent 9/11-related signing ceremony in which Ramzi Kassem, a former attorney for an al-Qaeda operative, was allowed to participate. Paladino specifically criticized Mamdani for giving Kassem one of the pens used to sign an executive order recognizing the terror attack.
“I am sick to death of all of this,” Paladino told Ingraham, after the host opened the segment by declaring, “Symbols matter.”
“We need to be able to see through this total, absolute farce that they’re trying to pawn off on New Yorkers and across the country,” Paladino added.
She called the handing of the ceremonial pen to Kassem, Mamdani’s chief counsel, ‘cryptic.’
‘But it was a message.
‘The same way it’s a message when [Mamdani] goes down to [the] 9/11 [25th anniversary commemoration ceremony].’
New York City councilwoman Vickie Paladino called Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s upcoming attendance at the city’s 9/11 memorial ‘a message to Osama bin Laden that, look, “We conquered New York,”‘ during an appearance on The Ingraham Angle on Tuesday
The politician also took issue with the 34-year-old mayor allowing a former attorney for an al-Qaeda operative, Ramzi Kassem, now Mamdani’s chief counsel, to take part in a 9/11-related signing ceremony meant to beef up the city’s security to prevent future terror attacks last Friday
Paladino went on to warn, ‘I hate to even say this, Laura,’ before making the remark about Bin Laden.
‘That’s how scary all of this really is to each and every one of us.
‘New Yorkers need to wake up. [Mamdani] won this election not with born-and-bred New Yorkers. He won this election with transplants, ages 18 to 30 years old, making promises he could never keep.’
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The councilwoman declared she was ‘furious,’ before Ingraham pointed out that the mayor’s approval scores have been, to her surprise, noticeably high.
‘Is that surprising to you, or do you think no one is answering the surveys or what?’ she asked Paladino, who is leading a group of 9/11 family members in a protest of the mayor’s plans to attend the commemoration ceremony on the Memorial Plaza this Friday.
‘Look. You got to find out who is surveying. All right?’ Paladino said. ‘[Mamdani] is not surveying people like myself, average, middle white, working class people.’
‘He’s not doing that. He is tending his nest with these young people.’
A Siena University poll, conducted in late June, showed Mamdani with an approval rating of 58 percent with 26 percent disapproval. The school has no affiliation with Mamdani.
‘I am sick to death of all of this,’ Paladino told Ingraham. The host had started the segment by asserting,’Symbols matter’
Bin Laden was the founder and leader of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group behind the attacks. He was killed by US Navy SEALs in a 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan
Other polls in recent months have shown similar results.
Mamdani beat out then-candidate Andrew Cuomo in November 2025, after defeating the disgraced former governor in the Democratic primaries.
The primary win was widely seen as an upset, as Cuomo received endorsements from dozens of high-profile Democrats – and even Republicans.
The cornerstone of the former state assemblyman’s campaign was affordability, despite previous statements rooted in democratic socialism.
The memorial event later this week, meanwhile, is exclusively for 9/11 victims’ families and will consist of the traditional reading of the names. Friday marks 25 years since the devastating attacks.
Bin Laden was the founder and leader of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group behind the attacks. He was killed by US Navy SEALs in a 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan.