New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed two executive orders at a formal ceremony last week. One order designated Friday, September 11, 2026, as a Day of Remembrance and Service in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
 
When Mamdani finished signing the order, he handed the ceremonial pen to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Elected officials often give the pens they use to sign important documents to others as a way of honoring their work on a particular issue. President Trump presented me with a pen he used to sign an executive order on religious liberty.
 
But Mamdani wasn’t giving the pen to the police commissioner. He asked Tisch to pass the pen to Ramzi Kassem, who was standing next to her. Who is Ramzi Kassem, and why would Mamdani want him to have this pen?
 
Kassem is the mayor’s chief legal counsel. The official reason for handing the pen to Kassem is because his office reportedly helped to draft the executive orders that Mamdani signed. But no one is buying that explanation.
 
In 2009, Ramzi Kassem represented Ahmed Al-Darbi, an Al Qaeda terrorist who was once held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Al-Darbi is the brother-in-law of Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the Al Qaeda hijackers who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
 
Kassem also represented Mahmoud Khalil, the radical Islamist on a foreign student visa who led pro-Hamas demonstrations at Columbia University. 
 
Of course, Mamdani has to publicly condemn radical Islamic terrorism and antisemitism. But he did not have to hire an Al Qaeda lawyer to be the chief legal counsel for New York City. That move — and handing Kassem the pen used to sign the 9/11 executive order — was a “wink and a nod” to Mamdani’s Islamist fan base.
 
By the way, Mayor Mamdani still plans to attend the 25th anniversary of 9/11 memorial in New York City this week. This is in spite of vehement objections from 9/11 families and more than 100,000 signatures on a petition requesting that he stay away.
 
Last year, Mamdani told the New York Times that 9/11 was a difficult day for New York City Muslims, too. How’s that exactly? He claims it was the day that Islamophobia became “a fact of life,” the day “many New Yorkers ... were marked [as] an ‘other.’”
 
Mayor Mamdani is in no position to lecture us about “Islamophobia.” Hate crimes in New York City are surging under his watch. More than half of them — 54% — were committed against Jews, while 6% of hate crimes targeted Muslims.