Democratic socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani finally broke his silence Sunday over his relationship with allegedly terror-tied Imam Siraj Wahhaj, whining over the controversy.
Mamdani — who earlier in the day had smiled, waved, and stayed silent over the controversy — claimed critics were fired up because of his “faith.”
“The same imam met with Mayor Bloomberg, met with Mayor De Blasio, campaigned alongside Eric Adams, and the only time it became an issue of national attention was when I met with him,” Mamdani told reporters at an unrelated event.
“That’s because of the fact of my faith and because I’m on the precipice of winning this election,” the Democratic front-runner said, then turned his attention to rival candidate, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“Andrew Cuomo joins a list of those who would cheer threats to blow up my car, those who would call me a jihadist – Laura Loomer, Elon Musk, the vice president and he would rather seek to smear my plans to support queer New Yorkers across the five boroughs than speak about his own, and that’s because he has none,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani had earlier ignored questions on the imam.
“Mr. Mamdani, anything to say about the imam? He said some nasty stuff, does it bug you?” a Post reporter asked the 34-year-old assemblyman Sunday. “Anything?”
Mamdani, however, just smirked without a word as he climbed into the back of a waiting SUV.
Pressed later in the day, Mamdani again grinned and refused to comment on the Brooklyn imam, who has a history of homophobic comments on top of his terror allegations.
Mamdani has been in hot water since the Friday rendezvous with Wahhaj, whom he spoke glowingly of in a post on X.
“Today at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century,” the candidate wrote.
But critics were quick to raise an eyebrow over the meeting, given Wahhaj’s questionable past.
He was considered by federal prosecutors to be an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — which left six people dead — because several people involved in the terror attack attended his mosque, the New York Times reported.
Wahhaj was never charged in the bombing and denied any connection, but later defended the people behind the attack and called the FBI and CIA the “real terrorists.”
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His own son, however, was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of keeping a band of teenagers in squalor in the New Mexico desert while training them to carry out terror attacks across the country.
Wahhaj personally homeschooled that son, but later called him sick and said he was the one who called police and thwarted his plans.
He has also quoted Islamic scripture that calls for the death of gay men.
While he told his followers to avoid physical violence against the LGBTQ community, Wahhaj encouraged them to try to convert them and “make them feel uncomfortable” for being gay.
Mamdani’s opponents in the November race — Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa — called his association with Wahhaj “disqualifying.”
“New York needs a mayor who protects New Yorkers from terrorism, not embraces terrorists,” Sliwa said.
