A FORMER State Department worker has been pictured smirking during his arrest after a viral video showed him hurling racist remarks at a halal food cart worker.

Stuart Seldowitz, 64, called a Muslim street vendor in New York City a terrorist and asked if he “raped his daughter like Mohammad” in confrontations that were caught on camera.

On Wednesday, one day after the videos were published, Seldowitz was arrested on suspicion of hate crime/stalking, second-degree aggravated harassment, stalking causing fear, and stalking at employment.

He is seen smiling in photos published by The New York Post as cops escorted him out of the 19th Precinct.

The arrest came after the halal cart worker, 24-year-old Mohammad Hussein, filed a complaint of aggravated harassment with police, local ABC affiliate WABC reported.

He and his boss Islam Moustafa told reporters that they want to sue Seldowitz for hate speech.

Seldowitz was formerly the director of the National Security Council under President Barack Obama.

He went viral on X after a woman shared videos of him accusing Hussein of “supporting killing children” after quizzing him on his thoughts on terrorist group Hamas.

According to cart owner Moustafa, these ugly confrontations have rapidly increased since the Israel-Palestine conflict heated up.

Hours after the videos were posted, Seldowitz confirmed to multiple outlets that it was him but said they only showed one side of the story.

He went on to apologize for the outburst and said he regrets “the “the whole thing.”

“In the heat of the moment, I said things that probably I shouldn’t have said,” Seldowitz said while denying he is Islamophobic.

But the halal cart workers said they’ll know if he is truly sorry only if he gives a face-to-face apology.

“I don’t sleep well hearing those kinds of harsh comments regarding the Prophet Mohammed and asking the young kid if he raped his daughter,” said Moustafa.

DISTURBING COMMENTS

In the series of videos posted on November 21, 2023, Seldowitz is seen calling the worker a terrorist.

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“Did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?” he asked the vendor.

“What do you think of that – people who use the Koran as a toilet?”

Seldowitz went on to call the worker ignorant for not speaking English and made several vile remarks about killing children.

He told the vendor: “You support killing little children,” and, “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough.”

Seldowitz added: “That’s why you’re selling food in a food cart, because you’re ignorant.”

Seldowitz, who worked at the State Department for years, was dropped by a lobbying firm he worked with over the upsetting footage.

Gotham Government Relations, a firm out of New York and Washington, DC, cut ties with Seldowitz after the video went viral.

In a press release last November, he was named as the firm’s foreign relations chair.

The organization released a statement saying that they ended all affiliation with Seldowitz, claiming he had not contributed any work to the company in recent years.

“The video of his actions is vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm,” the statement read.

David Schwartz, founder and president of the firm, told City & State that Seldowitz was not an employee but rather an affiliate of the organization.

“By the way, I’ll represent the food vendor pro bono if he wants to bring a lawsuit against Stuart Seldowitz,” Schwartz said.

“I’m absolutely outraged by this video.”

The cart workers said that they were scared knowing that such a high-ranking government employee could speak in such a way.

“How does an ex-government official speak about religion and hatred with that much hatred?” Moustafa told the New York Post.

“A normal person wouldn’t do that, but a guy with power and ranking shouldn’t be talking like that to a 24-year-old who keeps begging him to walk away.”

The U.S. Sun contacted NYPD and Seldowitz for further comment.