Why 9/11 families furiously want to exclude NYC Mayor Mamdani from Ground Zero ceremony

The fight over Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s presence at Ground Zero has exposed a raw fracture inside a community already defined by loss. For petition organizer Giovanni Galante and others, Mamdani’s past words, influences, and appointments feel like a betrayal of the very people whose names are read each year. Their planned act of turning their backs is not about blocking a door, but about drawing a moral line in public.