Rudy Giuliani told New York’s first Muslim mayor to skip the September 11 memorial, then shook his hand at it.
Former Mayor Giuliani and current Mayor Zohran Mamdani came face-to-face at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum on Friday, despite days of heated public conflict between the two men ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
Cameras caught them shaking hands outside the memorial during the solemn ceremony, a notably civil moment given the bitter exchange that had played out in public just days before.
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Giuliani had led New York City through the 2001 attacks and their chaotic aftermath. That history, he argued, gave him standing to object to Mamdani’s presence. He said it “offended” him that the city’s first Muslim mayor planned to attend the anniversary service and urged him publicly to stay away.
As originally reported, the feud between the two men had already been building for days before the anniversary, fueled in part by a significant document release from Mamdani’s administration.
In the lead-up to September 11, the Mamdani administration released more than 170,000 pages of previously unavailable city records. The documents covered air quality conditions, public health concerns, and New York City’s broader response following the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. The release added fresh tension to an already charged moment.
Despite all of it, the two men appeared together, shook hands, and stood at the same memorial on one of the most emotionally weighted dates in the city’s history.
The moment captured something that political conflict rarely allows. Two figures with sharply different views of who belongs at a tragedy, standing side by side at the site of it.
