Veteran Journalist Charles Gasparino Blasts Mamdani, Warns Against Rewriting 9/11

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Veteran journalist Charles Gasparino is warning that the memory of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is being politically reshaped, accusing Mayor Zohran Mamdani and what he describes as the radical left of downplaying the nature of the tragedy as New York approaches the 25th anniversary of the attacks.

Gasparino’s criticism carries particular weight because he experienced the attacks firsthand as a New York journalist.

At the time, Gasparino was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where he covered Wall Street and financial institutions. He was in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, and has described being only blocks from the World Trade Center when the first plane struck the North Tower.

He witnessed the panic as New Yorkers fled through the streets and later watched the Twin Towers collapse. He went on to spend much of the following year reporting on the attacks, the destruction at Ground Zero and New York’s recovery.

Gasparino also had a deeply personal connection to the buildings. His father, William Gasparino, was a union ironworker who had worked on the World Trade Center years before the attacks. His brother, meanwhile, was a doctor at Bellevue Hospital and joined the recovery effort at Ground Zero after the expected wave of injured survivors failed to arrive.

Gasparino has also written that he believes his own cancer may have been connected to the chemicals and smoke he inhaled while working downtown after the attacks.

Those experiences form the backdrop to his latest criticism of the way 9/11 is being discussed.

In a column published Saturday in the New York Post, Gasparino argued that the attacks should be remembered first and foremost as the killing of nearly 3,000 innocent people by terrorists, rather than being reframed primarily through debates over Islamophobia, the war on terror or subsequent U.S. policy.

He specifically targeted Mamdani, accusing the mayor and his political allies of contributing to what Gasparino sees as an effort to alter the public understanding of 9/11.

Gasparino pointed to Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” and criticized the mayor for emphasizing Islamophobia and the consequences of the war on terror in discussions surrounding the anniversary.

The columnist also recalled the people he saw in the aftermath — firefighters, police officers, construction workers, medical personnel and ordinary New Yorkers who worked through the rubble searching for survivors and helping the city recover.

His firsthand experience is particularly significant because Gasparino witnessed not only the destruction but also New York’s response. He described watching Wall Street scramble to restore financial markets, first responders dig through the ruins and New Yorkers from across the city come together in the aftermath.

The New York Post identifies Gasparino as a Bronx native and senior correspondent for Fox Business. He previously worked for The Wall Street Journal and CNBC and has spent decades reporting on Wall Street, financial scandals and the intersection of business and politics. He has also received a New York Press Club award for his coverage of Wall Street research scandals.

That background is central to his argument: Gasparino is not writing about 9/11 solely from a political or ideological perspective. He was a reporter in Lower Manhattan when the attacks occurred, witnessed the destruction firsthand and spent months covering the city’s recovery.

Nearly 25 years later, he argues that the passage of time should not allow the central facts of that morning to become blurred.

“Never forget,” Gasparino wrote, arguing that the attacks should not be transformed into something fundamentally different from what he and millions of other New Yorkers witnessed.

His column comes as New York prepares for the 25th anniversary of the attacks and as debates continue over how 9/11 should be remembered, taught and discussed by a generation that largely did not experience it firsthand.

The long-term consequences of the attacks also remain visible. The World Trade Center Health Program has certified more than 57,000 9/11-related cancer cases among responders and survivors, with thousands of people having died from illnesses associated with exposure at Ground Zero.

For Gasparino, the anniversary is therefore not simply a historical commemoration. It is also a personal reminder of people he knew, a city he watched suffer and the reporters, first responders and ordinary New Yorkers who witnessed one of the darkest days in the city’s history.

And that, he argues, is precisely why he believes the memory of 9/11 must be preserved without political revisionism.