Zohran Mamdani plans to show up at Ground Zero Friday over the objections of 9/11 victims' families.
A former FBI agent who watched the South Tower get hit had been waiting all week for that moment.
What she said to him on live television is something he won't forget.
The Woman Who Watched the South Tower Burn
Nicole Parker was a Merrill Lynch investment associate on the top floor of the World Financial Center when the second plane hit the South Tower. She watched people jump. What she saw that morning caused her to join the FBI.
Twelve years later, she was the only woman in the FBI's highest-ranked Violent Crime and Fugitive Task Force – and she has three Law Enforcement Officer of the Year awards to show for it.
Fox News anchor John Roberts invited her to respond to Mayor Zohran Mamdani's insistence on attending Friday's 9/11 ceremony at Ground Zero despite a petition signed by more than 101,000 people – including the families of victims, retired NYPD officers, and Port Authority police – demanding he stay away.
Parker didn't hedge.
"It is abhorrent," she said. "I am disgusted."
Mamdani Handed the 9/11 Pen to an al-Qaeda Lawyer
The controversy is not simply about Mamdani being New York's first Muslim mayor.
It is about who he chose to stand beside him.
Last Friday, Mamdani signed a series of executive orders purportedly honoring 9/11 victims, first responders, and survivors.
He then passed the ceremonial pen to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch – who handed it to Ramzi Kassem, Mamdani's chief counsel.
Kassem is the lead defense counsel for Ahmed al-Darbi – an al-Qaeda operative who pleaded guilty before a U.S. military commission to conspiracy in connection with a terrorist plot to bomb a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen.
Al-Darbi's sister married Khalid al-Mihdhar – one of the hijackers who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
When the Trump administration transferred al-Darbi to Saudi custody in 2018, Kassem expressed sympathy for the convicted terrorist, describing his time in American custody as "16 long and painful years in captivity."
He also wrote, in the weeks after 9/11, that the hijackers were not driven by "intrinsic evil" – blaming American foreign policy instead.
That is the man Mamdani chose to receive the 9/11 remembrance pen.
9/11 Families and GOP Senators Demand Mamdani Stay Away From Ground Zero
Parker remembered the unity – New York, the whole country, the world – in the days after the attacks. Twenty-five years later, she never imagined Americans would be "saying that the United States of America deserves this."
Left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker – who has appeared alongside Mamdani and who Mamdani has refused to disavow – said exactly that.
"If you are within the sound of my voice, Mayor Mamdani, they have said they do not want you there," she said. "They do not want your support. Please do not attend."
Maureen Santora, whose 23-year-old firefighter son Christopher died with Engine 54, put it simply: "I just hope that he doesn't say a single word because most of us will be very upset."
Republican senators backed the families.
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told Fox News Digital it might be appropriate for Mamdani to attend "while wearing a paper bag over his head."
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the mayor's views on America's place in the world were "pretty different" from how most of the families feel.
Mamdani said he will attend anyway – that he will "proudly honor the families" by standing alongside them.
Giovanni Galante, whose wife Grace Catherine was killed by al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, called Mamdani's presence "a slap in the face."
"Not because he is Muslim," Galante said, "because of who he supports."
Parker spent a dozen years chasing killers and human traffickers after watching the towers fall.
The man who now runs New York City handed the 9/11 remembrance pen to a lawyer who called a convicted al-Qaeda operative's prison sentence an injustice.
If Mamdani shows up at Ground Zero on Friday, 101,000 Americans already told him what they think of that.
Sources:
- Peter Pinedo, "Mamdani Taps Controversial Lawyer Who Defended al Qaeda Terrorist for Top Role," Fox News, December 30, 2025.
- "GOP Senators Rally Behind 9/11 Families in Push to Ban Mamdani From Anniversary Ceremony," Fox News, September 2026.
- "Most of Us Will Be Very Upset: Many 9/11 Families Not Too Thrilled About Mamdani Attendance at Memorial Ceremony," The Daily Caller, September 5, 2026.
- "Nicole Parker on Mamdani and the 9/11 Ceremony," Fox News, September 8, 2026.