Mamdani’s first 100-plus days: Far-left mayor flunks a key leadership test

Two men precocious attempted to transportation retired an alleged violent onslaught successful New York City, an onslaught that, according to investigators, was intended to termination arsenic galore arsenic 60 people. Details are inactive unfolding, but the intent appears unmistakable: wide casualties and maximum fear.

For galore New Yorkers, the contiguous question wasn’t conscionable however the crippled was stopped. It was however the city’s caller enactment would respond — specifically, however Mayor Zohran Mamdani would react. The reply was not encouraging, and it’s not a reassuring motion for the adjacent 4 years.

We’ve been present before

After the 9/11 attacks, the metropolis faced profound uncertainty. I was present then, moving arsenic a bull successful Manhattan. No 1 knew what would travel adjacent oregon whether the metropolis could recover. We initially didn’t adjacent cognize who had attacked us.

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What steadied New York was leadership. Mayor Rudy Giuliani projected calm and resolve, offering reassurance erstwhile it was needed most. Just arsenic captious was the relation of the NYPD, which secured Lower Manhattan, restored bid and helped normalize life. There was nary prolonged subject presence. The constabulary handled it.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has passed 100 days connected the occupation but not without a large failure. (Getty)

What followed was a singular recovery. Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, transgression fell to historical lows, tourism surged and neighborhoods flourished. It worked truthful good that, implicit the ensuing years, galore came to judge coercion was nary longer an contiguous threat. In the Intelligence Bureau, wherever I served, we had a saying: "The further we get from 9/11, the person we get to 9/10."

Now, arsenic we attack the 25th day of 9/11 and with planetary tensions rising — including struggle involving Iran — New York erstwhile again faces that reality. And erstwhile again, it has been the NYPD that stepped forward. When the 2 suspects allegedly attempted to deploy improvised explosive devices, it wasn’t rhetoric that stopped them. It was constabulary enactment — officers pursuing and tackling a fleeing fishy successful existent time.

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Rhetoric implicit reality

The effect from metropolis hall, however, was little inspiring. Mamdani appeared to pivot rapidly to a favored governmental narrative, initially focusing connected "White supremacy" earlier grudgingly admitting the violent attack. It is telling that the mayor’s and different metropolis leaders’ reflex was to instantly absorption connected the idiotic — but peaceful — objection the terrorists were targeting alternatively than 2 allegedly ISIS-inspired perpetrators.

Compounding that interest was a highly publicized Ramadan lawsuit astatine Gracie Mansion featuring Mahmoud Khalil, who was antecedently taken into national custody pursuing his engagement successful disruptive protests astatine Columbia University. 

The optics were hard to miss, peculiarly coming connected the heels of a adjacent mass-casualty attack. Khalil, facing deportation for field activism, is the hero. The police, who conscionable days earlier apprehended 2 terrorists, are not. None of the cops progressive got their Gracie Mansion moment.

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Mamdani represents a younger procreation that did not acquisition 9/11 successful the aforesaid formative way. For galore New Yorkers, that time inactive defines however earnestly threats are taken. Yet the mayor’s dogged ideological posture — peculiarly his clasp of "collectivist" themes — suggests a naive worldview that risks prioritizing mentation implicit hard-earned lessons. In short, erstwhile it comes to nationalist safety, helium does not look to beryllium learning.

At a clip erstwhile New York is inactive recovering from COVID-19, that carries real-world consequences. Financial informing signs are already visible, with 3 antithetic standing agencies raising concerns astir the city’s fiscal outlook by downgrading New York’s enslaved rating.

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Emir Balat, 18, is arrested aft allegedly throwing a handmade fume grenade during a "Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City" protestation March 7, 2026. (Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)

Mamdani astatine the 100 day-plus mark

New York’s past makes 1 constituent clear: Everything begins with nationalist safety. Investment, tourism, the system and prime of life, each beryllium connected it — and connected a supported NYPD. There was a clip erstwhile Wall Street could beryllium counted connected to resistance america retired of the doldrums. But successful a distant idiosyncratic economy, that cushion is gone.

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So, astatine the 100-day people of Mamdani’s administration, residents present — and indeed, successful galore bluish cities astir the state — are forced to consider: bash we person enactment that is up to handling crisis?

Based connected what we’ve seen truthful acold successful New York, the reply is acold from reassuring.

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