Kelly Rae Robertson

*(Daily Caller) It was hard to process what I was seeing when the second plane hit the South Tower. Fear. Confusion. Fires still burned at Ground Zero in the days that followed.

Through that haze walked then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani — covered in dust, steady, present. He wasn’t hiding behind podiums; he was in the streets, looking people in the eye. On September 10, he was the mayor of New York City. On September 11, he became the mayor for all of us.

That was real leadership. A month after the attacks, Giuliani said, “This is not a clash of civilizations. It’s a conflict between murderers and humanity … The only acceptable result is the complete and total eradication of terrorism.”

More than twenty years later, we have politicians like Zohran Mamdani who confuse performance for principle and weakness for wisdom. The man who couldn’t bench press 135 pounds now wants to lift an entire city — by tearing down the very foundation that holds it together.

Mamdani’s campaign isn’t really about free buses. It’s about division. Mamdani made a deliberate choice — not once, but twice — to minimize some of the darkest times in the city’s history so he could virtue signal to his progressive brethren.

Earlier this month, Mamdani posted smiling photos from Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn, celebrating “the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj” — an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who testified for the “blind sheikh,” Omar Abdel-Rahman.

That photo op should tell you everything you need to know about his moral compass — or lack thereof. But Mamdani wasn’t done there.

Enter invisible aunt, stage left. Mamdani, using his best acting skills, weepingly declared, “I want to speak to the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11 because she did not feel safe in her hijab.”

That moment should have stopped his campaign cold — a record scratch heard across the city. What did he just say?

The on-stage tears were meant to humanize his politics, but instead made a mockery of one of the worst days in American history. He equated a woman’s claimed fear of riding the subway with the horror of people forced to jump from the Twin Towers to escape the flames. Watching that speech felt like a knife twisting in the nation’s back. He paused to pretend to collect himself while telling his pretend story with his pretend tears. And the Oscar goes to … Zohran Mamdani.

Vice President Vance summed up the outrage: “According to Zohran, the real victim of 9/11 was his auntie who got some (allegedly) bad looks.” Another headline read: “He shed a fake tear… fact-checks reveal inaccuracies.” Soon after, online sleuths discovered that his supposed “aunt” never lived in New York, so there was no subway to fear. The Daily Mail reported that Mamdani “clarified” he was actually referring to “one of [his] father’s distant cousins,” a woman named Zehra. (RELATED: Mamdani Admits ‘Aunt’ In Hijab Sob Story Isn’t Actually His Aunt) 

Whether this woman existed or not, inserting her — and her alleged fear — into a day when passengers on a hijacked plane were fighting to take back control from terrorists just to see their loved ones again is disgusting at best.

I’m offended for every single person who was alive and old enough to truly comprehend September 11, 2001. That wasn’t a game. It was acts of bravery, scenes of horror, and one burial after another. Months of digging. New York City has now lost more firefighters to 9/11-related illnesses than it did that day.

No one — I repeat, no one — who remembers that day ought to be voting for this person. In fact, I’m surprised he isn’t being chased down Fifth Avenue by first responders who can still recall every second of that morning. Then again, most of them are too sick or dying to partake. That’s part of the problem, isn’t it? He’s going unchecked, speaking without fear, without honesty, without empathy. (RELATED: Socialist Zohran Mamdani’s Once Massive Lead Evaporates With Just One Week To Go, Poll Shows) 

I am outraged by the thought of this man becoming the mayor of New York City, and I don’t even live there. He’s a proven liar who’s never held a real job, couldn’t get into Columbia — the university where his father teaches — and reportedly identified himself as Black on his citizenship application. These aren’t innocent mistakes. They’re deliberate, calculated moves by someone clawing for power he can’t handle and doesn’t deserve.

On September 11, 2001, I was a 22-year-old reporter in Pittsburgh, watching the horror unfold in real time 370 miles away. I can’t vote in this election, but I am human. And I am terrified for New York’s people, for its police, for its first responders. That’s what perspective and empathy are supposed to look like. And maybe that’s why I still remember the first time I visited New York, buying an NYPD sweatshirt off a street vendor for ten dollars and wearing it until it fell apart. My heart was with the city then. It still is now.

Kelly Rae Robertson is a licensed trauma and grief counselor, victim advocate, former criminal-justice investigator, and published op-ed contributor to the Daily Caller, American Thinker, and The Washington Times.