Rudy Giuliani accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of undermining the NYPD and fostering an atmosphere in which criminal behavior is tolerated, as a series of random attacks on subways and city streets has renewed concerns about public safety. Giuliani made the remarks today during an appearance on Newsmax’s “Saturday Report.”
The former New York City mayor said seemingly random acts of violence have become a particularly disturbing problem for New Yorkers and argued that the approach taken by City Hall plays an important role in determining how criminals behave.
“You have a mayor who is indifferent,” Giuliani said, referring to Mamdani. He went on to contend that crime has declined nationally since President Donald Trump took office because authorities have adopted a firmer posture toward criminal behavior.
Giuliani maintained that even when police officers are performing effectively, the message coming from political leadership can make a substantial difference. In New York, he argued, a change in the level of tolerance for criminal activity can produce a 10% to 20% swing in crime.
At the same time, Giuliani praised the city’s police commissioner and the work being done by NYPD officers. His criticism was directed at Mamdani, whom he accused of making their jobs more difficult. Giuliani said the mayor “might as well get on television and tell people to commit crimes.”
Giuliani also addressed recent incidents involving people being randomly shoved or stabbed in the subway system, linking such attacks to what he described as an uncontrolled mental-health crisis. He acknowledged that overall crime was higher during his own tenure as mayor and that organized crime posed a more substantial threat at the time.
Discussing proposals to dispatch social workers to potentially dangerous encounters involving mentally ill individuals, Giuliani argued that sending them without police protection could have deadly consequences. A social worker responding alone, he said, “would have been killed by now.” He recalled that under his administration, police officers accompanied social workers and individuals living on the streets were given “virtually no other choice” but to leave. Giuliani rejected the notion that people have a right to establish encampments or live on sidewalks and accused the current administration of encouraging such conditions.
The discussion then shifted to the approaching 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Giuliani argued that the United States has lost sight of some of the lessons learned after 9/11 and warned about extremist Muslims seeking political influence or control in communities including Dearborn, Michigan, and New York. He stressed that his criticism was not directed at Muslims as a whole. Giuliani has made similar warnings in recent Newsmax appearances ahead of the anniversary.
Giuliani recalled that following the 9/11 attacks, he explicitly urged New Yorkers not to retaliate against Muslims or Arabs. He said his administration established a task force aimed at preventing such a backlash. At the same time, he argued that the thousands of Americans killed in terrorist attacks should be remembered accurately and that the historical record should not be recast as though Islamists had been the victims.
Turning specifically to this year’s Ground Zero commemoration, Giuliani said he believes relatives of 9/11 victims do not want Mamdani to attend the ceremony.
“If he had a little bit of a heart, even with his views, he wouldn’t go,” Giuliani said, arguing that Mamdani’s attendance would upset victims’ relatives, whom he described as the most important people at the commemoration. Giuliani further charged that Mamdani “stands in direct support of the movement that killed their children.”
Giuliani said that during his administration, and later under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, considerable deference was given to the wishes of 9/11 families when decisions were made about commemorating the attacks. He argued that the terrorist threat remains serious today, warning that an attack “could happen again tomorrow,” even with President Trump in office.
Giuliani’s comments come amid an ongoing debate in New York over public safety, the city’s response to homelessness and mental illness, and Mamdani’s planned participation in events marking a quarter-century since the Sept. 11 attacks.
