A viral graphic declares:

“Mamdani Does the UNTHINKABLE During 9/11 Ceremony”

The image is designed to make viewers believe New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani did something shocking during the Sept. 11 memorial ceremony at Ground Zero.

There is a real controversy behind the headline — but the graphic misrepresents both the timing and the setting.

Four days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Mamdani signed two executive orders at City Hall. Afterward, he had the ceremonial signing pen passed to his chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, who previously represented Guantánamo detainee Ahmed al-Darbi, a man who later pleaded guilty before a military commission to war-crime charges stemming from the 2002 bombing of the French tanker Limburg.

That handoff became the subject of fierce criticism.

But it did not happen during the Sept. 11 Ground Zero memorial ceremony, and the viral image itself isn't from that ceremony either.

Verdict: MISLEADING — REAL CONTROVERSY, WRONG CONTEXT AND EXAGGERATED FRAMING

What actually happened?

On Sept. 4, 2026, Mamdani held a City Hall ceremony to sign two executive orders related to the upcoming 25th anniversary of 9/11.

The first designated Sept. 11 as a citywide Day of Remembrance and Service.

The second established new continuity and emergency-preparedness measures intended to strengthen the city's ability to maintain essential services during emergencies. Mamdani said the anniversary required the city to remember the victims and first responders while improving preparedness for future attacks.

After signing the orders, Mamdani handed the ceremonial pen to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and asked her to pass it to Kassem, according to multiple reports.

That was the action that triggered the “unthinkable” headlines.

Why was Kassem controversial?

Kassem is not simply a political aide.

He is a law professor and civil-rights lawyer who has worked extensively on constitutional, immigration, national-security and wartime-detention cases. CUNY identifies him as the founding director of its CLEAR clinic and says he has argued cases before the Supreme Court, federal appeals courts and the Guantánamo military commission.

Mamdani appointed him chief counsel to the mayor effective Jan. 1, 2026.

One of Kassem's most controversial past cases involved Ahmed al-Darbi, a Saudi detainee at Guantánamo.

Kassem represented al-Darbi before the military commission. In 2014, al-Darbi pleaded guilty to charges arising from his involvement in the 2002 attack on the MV Limburg, a French oil tanker off Yemen. A military commission later sentenced him to 13 years.

Al-Darbi also had a family connection to 9/11: he was married to the sister of Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.

That connection is the reason critics viewed the ceremonial pen handoff as particularly offensive.

But Kassem was the defense lawyer — not an al-Qaeda operative

This distinction is essential.

Some viral descriptions call Kassem an “al-Qaeda lawyer” or say Mamdani gave the pen to an “al-Qaeda terrorist.”

That wording is misleading.

Kassem was the attorney representing al-Darbi. He was not charged with terrorism, was not a member of al-Qaeda and was not accused of participating in al-Darbi's crimes.

Indeed, the official military-commission transcript shows Kassem telling the commission in 2017 that al-Darbi had pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility for his actions.

Representing an accused or convicted person — including someone accused of terrorism — is a fundamental part of the legal system.

A former military lawyer who worked alongside Kassem, retired Lt. Cmdr. Travis Owens, recently defended Kassem's role, arguing that it is wrong to equate a defense lawyer with the conduct of his client.

Why did Mamdani give him the pen?

This is where the controversy becomes more complicated.

City Hall's explanation was straightforward: Kassem and his office helped draft the executive orders, so he was involved in the work that produced the documents Mamdani had just signed.

Fox News reported that City Hall specifically cited Kassem's official role in drafting the orders as the reason he received the pen.

That explanation is plausible because Kassem is the mayor's chief legal adviser and the orders were legal documents.

But critics argue that the choice was extraordinarily insensitive because the ceremony concerned the 9/11 attacks and Kassem's past representation of al-Darbi.

That criticism is legitimate as an opinion about symbolism.

What cannot be established from the available evidence is the much stronger claim that Mamdani deliberately intended the handoff as a secret message to extremists or as a celebration of al-Darbi.

Some commentators have alleged exactly that, but there is no evidence proving that motive.

The biggest problem with the viral graphic: it wasn't the Ground Zero ceremony

This is perhaps the most important correction.

The pen incident happened on Sept. 4 at City Hall.

The actual 25th-anniversary memorial ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum occurred on Sept. 11.

Mamdani did attend that ceremony.

He did not, however, repeat the pen gesture there.

At Ground Zero, Mamdani participated in the solemn remembrance alongside families of victims, first responders and national political leaders. All four living former presidents were present, as was Vice President JD Vance.

Mamdani also released a video message emphasizing the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and the thousands who later died from illnesses associated with exposure to toxic dust.

He described 9/11 as “a horrific act of terror” and called the anniversary a “sacred obligation” to care for one another.

So the viral headline takes an incident from Sept. 4 and associates it with the Sept. 11 Ground Zero ceremony.

That is a significant contextual distortion.

And the photograph in the graphic is not from the 9/11 ceremony

There's an even bigger problem with the picture itself.

The photograph used in the graphic can be traced to a Resist Fascism rally in Bryant Park on Oct. 27, 2024.

The original photograph shows Mamdani speaking into a handheld microphone at that rally while wearing the same black jacket. It was published on Wikimedia Commons with the event and date identified.

So the viral graphic combines:

1. A 2024 protest photograph;
2. A Sept. 4, 2026 City Hall pen incident; and
3. The Sept. 11, 2026 Ground Zero memorial.

Those are three different things.

That is a textbook example of how a political graphic can manufacture a stronger impression than the underlying facts justify.

Mamdani's actual 9/11 record in 2026

The viral controversy should also be viewed against what Mamdani actually did in the days surrounding the anniversary.

On Sept. 2, he participated in an FDNY memorial-wall dedication and spoke extensively about the 343 firefighters who died on Sept. 11 and the more than 600 FDNY members who have since died from 9/11-related illnesses.

On Sept. 4, he signed the Day of Remembrance and Service order and emergency-preparedness order.

On Sept. 9, he joined NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch for the unveiling of a memorial honoring officers who died as a result of their 9/11 service. His remarks focused heavily on the sacrifice of NYPD officers and the continuing health consequences of the attacks.

And on Sept. 11, he attended the main Ground Zero ceremony.

Whatever one thinks about Mamdani's politics or the decision to give Kassem the pen, the record does not support the idea that he ignored or rejected 9/11 remembrance.

The more dramatic moment at Ground Zero involved Rudy Giuliani

Ironically, the most newsworthy interaction involving Mamdani at the actual Sept. 11 ceremony was not the pen controversy at all.

It was his encounter with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani had publicly urged Mamdani not to attend the ceremony and had sharply criticized him beforehand.

Yet at Ground Zero, the two men shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. The New York Times reported that Giuliani told Mamdani he was praying for him and that it was a difficult job. Mamdani later said the two exchanged pleasantries and that the focus should remain on victims and first responders.

That was an actual interaction at the actual ceremony.

The “unthinkable” pen incident was something else entirely.

What the Viral Graphic Gets Right — and Wrong

The Bottom Line

There is a genuine controversy here.

Mamdani really did arrange for a ceremonial pen used to sign 9/11-related executive orders to be passed to his chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem. Kassem previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, who pleaded guilty to war-crime charges involving the Limburg bombing and had a family connection to one of the 9/11 hijackers.

Critics are entitled to argue that giving the pen to Kassem was tone-deaf or inappropriate.

But the viral graphic goes much further than the evidence.

It suggests the incident happened during the 9/11 memorial ceremony, when it actually happened a week earlier at City Hall. It uses a 2024 photograph unrelated to the ceremony. And descriptions portraying Kassem himself as an “al-Qaeda lawyer” or terrorist go beyond the facts: he was a defense attorney representing a defendant who later pleaded guilty.

Meanwhile, at the actual Sept. 11 ceremony, Mamdani explicitly called the attacks a “horrific act of terror” and focused his remarks on the victims, first responders and the continuing health consequences of 9/11.

Verdict: MISLEADING

The pen handoff happened. The viral graphic's version of when, where and what it supposedly meant is heavily distorted.