After ISIS Bombing in New York, Mamdani Condemns Islamic Terrorism — Nah, Just Kidding

Zohran Kwame Mamdani wouldn’t be mayor of New York City today if he weren’t a clever man, and all that cleverness was on abundant display on Monday, when he delivered a much-anticipated major address on the Saturday jihad bombing outside Gracie Mansion. The speech was a masterpiece of misdirection and deflection, as the young mayor did all he could to change the subject from what it really should have been from start to finish.

As PJ’s Scott Pinsker noted on Tuesday morning, “March 8, 2026, is the date that New Yorkers learned the truth about their young mayor, Zohran Mamdani: He’s dishonest about Islamic terror attacks.” Intifada On the Hudson: The Selling of Zohran Mamdani shows that Mamdani is a committed Twelver Shi’ite Muslim with a consistent record of far-left anti-Americanism, and so anyone who had been watching his meteoric rise could have known that Mamdani would downplay and deny Islamic jihad terror while trafficking heavily in the left’s favored tropes about “Islamophobia” and “hate.” In his Monday speech, however, Mamdani went the extra mile to turn an Islamic jihad terror attack into an instance of “anti-Muslim bigotry.”

“On Saturday,” Mamdani began, “a protest was held outside Gracie Mansion, where I live with my wife Rama. Neither of us were home at the time. This was a vile protest rooted in white supremacy, entitled Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City.” To lead off with this is to try to give the impression, as the establishment media did, that the “vile” protesters who opposed the “Islamic Takeover of New York City” were behind the bombing.

Mamdani reinforced that impression as he continued: "I'm the first Muslim mayor of our city. Anti-Muslim bigotry is nothing new to me, nor is it anything new for the 1 million or so Muslim New Yorkers who know this city as our home.” After this foray into victimhood posturing, he struck an uncharacteristic faux-patriotic pose: “While I found this protest appalling, I will not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen. Ours is a free society where the right to peaceful protest is sacred. It does not belong only to those we agree with. It belongs to everyone. I will defend that right every day that I am mayor, even when those protesting say things that I abhor.”

It sounded good, but remember: In New York City, the overwhelming majority of protesters are not demonstrating in favor of anything that Zohran Mamdani abhors; instead, most of them are opposing Israel, which Mamdani abhors as much as the protesters themselves do. When he says “the right to peaceful protest is sacred,” it should be borne in mind that protesters have menaced Jews outside synagogues and chanted calls for the killing of Jews worldwide. Is that the kind of “peaceful protest” that Mamdani has in mind?

After all that, Mamdani finally got around to addressing the actual perpetrators of the bombing: “Let me also be clear about something else: New York City will never tolerate violence, whether from protests or counter-protests. Many of the counter-protesters met this display of bigotry peacefully, with a vision of a city that is welcoming to all. But a few did not. Two men, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, traveled from Pennsylvania and attempted to bring violence to New York City. They are suspected of coming here to commit an act of terrorism.”

The contrast is stark. The demonstration outside Gracie Mansion was, Mamdani said, a “vile protest rooted in white supremacy, entitled Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City.” But Mamdani was not nearly so specific about the motivations of Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi. All he says about them is that they are “suspected,” a word which he uses even though he admits that video exists of the incident, of coming to New York in order to “commit an act of terrorism.”

Related: There Was a Jihad Bombing in New York City, and Here’s How Mamdani and the Media Framed It

What kind of terrorism? Mamdani has nothing to say about that. As he was arrested, Emir Balat said: “All praise is due to Allah lord of all worlds! I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State. Die in your rage you kuffar!” And: “This isn't a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the prophet… We take action!”

Is Zohran Kwame Mamdani, as mayor of New York, determined to take action as well — action to stop such people? That he passed up an opportunity to discuss and condemn their ideology was not a positive sign.