New York City just survived an ISIS bombing attempt outside the mayor's front door.
The next night, Mayor Zohran Mamdani threw a dinner party.
His guest of honor was Mahmoud Khalil – the Hamas-aligned Columbia agitator the Trump administration has been trying to deport for a year.
The Gracie Mansion ISIS Attack Mamdani Wants You to Forget
On Saturday, March 7, two Pennsylvania men drove to Manhattan loaded with homemade IEDs packed with TATP – the same volatile explosive used in terror attacks worldwide.
Their target was a protest outside Gracie Mansion.
Their stated inspiration was ISIS.
One device was lit and thrown toward the crowd on East End Avenue.
It didn't go off.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed the devices were real – not smoke bombs, not hoaxes – and capable of killing people if they had detonated.
One of the suspects, 18-year-old Emir Balat, told investigators he wanted an attack "even bigger" than the Boston Marathon bombing – which he noted killed "only" three people.
He waived his Miranda rights and put his allegiance to the Islamic State in writing.
His partner, 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi, said one word when officers arrested him: "ISIS."
Attorney General Pam Bondi called them exactly what they are – ISIS-inspired terrorists – and promised they would be held accountable.
Mamdani Hosts Mahmoud Khalil at Gracie Mansion While His Wife's Hamas Posts Go Viral
The night after the bombing attempt, Mamdani sat down for a Ramadan dinner inside Gracie Mansion with Mahmoud Khalil, his wife Noor, and their infant son.
Then he posted the photo on X.
"For Mahmoud Khalil, this past year has been marked by profound hardship – and by profound courage," Mamdani wrote, in a post viewed nearly 3 million times.
"Mahmoud is a New Yorker, and he belongs in New York City."
The Trump administration disagrees – emphatically.
The Department of Homeland Security has labeled Khalil a national security threat and has been working to deport him since ICE agents arrested him at his Columbia University apartment in March 2025.
Federal officials accuse Khalil of leading campus activities "aligned to Hamas."
An immigration judge in Louisiana has twice ordered his deportation.
In January, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Trump administration 2-1, clearing the path to re-detain him.
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told Khalil to "self-deport now before he is arrested, deported, and never given a chance to return."
Mamdani's response was to invite him to dinner and post the photo.
Rama Duwaji Liked 70 Hamas Posts and Mamdani Called Her a Private Person
The timing isn't the only scandal.
Days before the Gracie Mansion dinner, reports from Jewish Insider revealed that Mamdani's wife, Rama Duwaji, had engaged with dozens of Instagram posts on and immediately after October 7 – content that framed Hamas's massacre of 1,200 Israelis as justified resistance.
The posts she engaged with included images from the day of the attack itself, with captions celebrating the breach of Israel's border as liberation.
She also liked a post dismissing The New York Times' documented investigation into October 7 sexual violence as fabricated.
The Free Press dug deeper and found more than 70 anti-Israel posts in her history.
When reporters confronted Mamdani, he reached for one word: "private."
"My wife is the love of my life, and she's also a private person," he told reporters.
That defense collapsed on contact.
Duwaji appeared on New York Magazine's digital cover in December.
She sat for multiple New York Times profiles.
She told the magazine herself: "I realized that it was not just his thing but our thing."
Leo Terrell – civil rights attorney and Chair of the DOJ Taskforce on Antisemitism – put it plainly on X: "After getting exposed for liking posts about Oct. 7, why waste any time before hosting a man who justifies terrorism too? These people are proud!"
What Three Days in New York Tells You About Mamdani
Saturday: Two ISIS-inspired terrorists tried to bomb the mayor's home.
Sunday night: The mayor of New York City hosted a man the federal government calls a Hamas-aligned national security threat for dinner at that same home – and posted the photo like it was something to celebrate.
This is Zohran Mamdani telling you exactly who he is.
He governs the largest Jewish population outside of Israel – more than a million people – and chose the night after a terror attack on his own residence to publicly embrace a man two courts have ordered deported.
He can't keep ISIS bombers off his sidewalk, but he made sure a Hamas sympathizer got a seat at the people's table.
New York elected a mayor who sees October 7 as a politics problem, not a civilizational threat.
They're going to spend four years finding out what that costs.
Sources:
- Andrew Mark Miller, "Mamdani sparks viral outrage over dinner photo with Mahmoud Khalil inside Gracie Mansion," Fox News, March 10, 2026.
- "Mamdani's wife liked social media posts 'cheering on' Hamas' Oct 7 massacre of Israelis: report," Fox News, March 6, 2026.
- "Suspects charged in alleged 'ISIS-inspired' attack near NYC's Gracie Mansion," CBS New York, March 9, 2026.
- "What we know about 2 terror suspects accused of tossing makeshift bombs near NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani's home," CNN, March 10, 2026.
- "2 men are charged with using a weapon of mass destruction after IEDs are tossed near NYC mayor's home," CNN, March 9, 2026.
