President Donald Trump will not be standing at Ground Zero this Friday. For the first time since he showed up there as the Republican nominee in 2024, he is marking this year's milestone from the Pentagon, while New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spends the week fighting to keep his spot on the Lower Manhattan program, pushing back against a petition drive that has climbed past 100,000 signatures.
Friday marks 25 years since 2,977 people were killed in the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil, a milestone that would normally center on unity. Instead, a split travel schedule and a public campaign against the sitting mayor have turned the day into a preview of how fractured the country's political leadership remains a quarter-century later.
Why Trump chose the Pentagon over New York
Trump locked in his plans on August 28, telling reporters at Joint Base Andrews, "Because I'm going to the Pentagon," after being pressed on skipping the New York event, a moment captured in Fox News's reporting on his plans. The Ground Zero program has barred political speeches since 2012, and outside reporting pointed to that rule as a driving factor in his decision. The White House disputed that framing outright: communications director Steven Cheung branded the account inaccurate, and officials instead described a president who simply wants to pay tribute to victims and first responders in his hometown.
Vice President Vance will represent the administration in Lower Manhattan, and other officials head to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, per the White House's rundown of the day's split itinerary. He is far from going it alone on the New York side: every living former president has confirmed plans to attend, with Joe Biden, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all planning to gather downtown, a remarkable show of bipartisan continuity even as the sitting president stays away.
It is a departure from his own recent habit. Trump stood at Ground Zero in 2024 alongside then-President Biden and his rival, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, while campaigning as the Republican nominee, and he had shown up at that same ceremony as a candidate in 2016 too. During his earlier White House term, he skipped the New York service entirely: Pentagon remarks came in 2017 and again in 2019, while Shanksville got the visit in 2018 and once more in 2020. Out of office for the 20th anniversary in 2021, he instead toured a Manhattan firehouse and an NYPD precinct.
Mamdani's executive orders, and his fight to attend
A week before the anniversary, Mamdani put pen to two executive orders at City Hall. One establishes September 11 as a permanent, citywide "Day of Remembrance and Service," pairing an annual moment of silence with encouragement for city agencies to build their own memorial programming. The other creates the Continuity and Mission Assurance Team, a standing task force built to keep essential city services running through a disaster or attack, according to the mayor's office release announcing both measures. City Hall called it the first time any New York mayor has formally designated the day at the municipal level, a point echoed in coverage of the signing and the new task force.
Despite months of pressure to stay home, Mamdani has repeated at nearly every opportunity that he intends to stand with the crowd downtown, alongside Vance and the four former presidents. "I will proudly honor the families, the survivors, the first responders," he told reporters at a City Hall briefing, framing his presence as a way of marking what he called a solemn day for everyone who calls the city, and the country, home.
A six-figure petition and a City Hall showdown
The pressure campaign traces back to a 2023 social post in which Mamdani wove the anniversary into a broader antiwar message, and to his interview with streamer Hasan Piker, whose 2019 remark that the country "deserved" the attack sits at the center of the backlash. Mamdani has since addressed the comment directly, calling it "objectionable and reprehensible" during an October 2025 mayoral debate, though critics note that response came only after months of pressure. Petitioners have also pointed to his reluctance to disavow the phrase "globalize the intifada" and to his decision to keep chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, who previously represented a client linked to an al-Qaida bombing plot.
Former Gov. George Pataki added his voice to the calls for Mamdani to skip the event, telling reporters that "anyone who doesn't intentionally distance themselves from Hasan Piker...should not be there," referencing the streamer's comment about the attacks. City Council Member Vickie Paladino personally carried the petition, which had cleared 100,000 verified signatures by September 8, into the mayor's office, with organizers saying the tally had reached roughly 101,000 names by the time it landed at City Hall. Memorial organizers have not announced any change to Mamdani's attendance, and some 9/11 families have publicly defended his right to be there.
What sets the 25th year apart
Beyond the political drama, this anniversary brings real structural changes to the ceremony itself. The program at the Memorial plaza opens at 8:30 a.m. on September 11, when relatives begin reading aloud the 2,983 names memorialized at the site, the 2,977 people killed in the 2001 attacks plus six victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. New this year, organizers are adding a seventh, permanent pause for silence honoring people who later died from illnesses tied to the recovery and cleanup effort, a change the museum says will stay part of the program every year going forward.
The FDNY held its own principal 25th-anniversary ceremony today, Wednesday, at the Staten Island FerryHawks stadium, honoring the 343 firefighters lost that day alongside the roughly 400 members who have since died from illnesses tied to Ground Zero recovery work. Tribute in Light will illuminate Lower Manhattan from dusk Friday until dawn Saturday, and other citywide observances round out the week, including a New York Philharmonic "Sounds of Remembrance" concert at the Perelman Performing Arts Center on September 11 and an NYPD Pipes & Drums memorial concert at Madison Square Garden the following night, both listed in NYC Tourism's roundup of the week's commemorations. A pregame tribute will also precede Friday's Yankees-Mets game at Yankee Stadium.
