A video clip authentically showed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sharing a smile and a laugh as victims’ names were being read during a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
While the brief clip of Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez is authentic, it omits crucial context. Additional footage shared by CNN shows Mamdani was listening to the names of 9/11 victims before Ocasio-Cortez approached him. According to the footage and several eyewitness reports, the two briefly greeted each other before refocusing on the ceremony.
In September 2026, a rumor spread that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both progressive Democrats, exchanged a smile and a laugh as victims’ names were read during a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The claim circulated across social media platforms, including on Facebook, Reddit and X:
Several news outlets also relayed the claim, including right-leaning tabloid The New York Post, conservative news channel Fox News and Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post.
Meanwhile, numerous Snopes readers
The brief clip is authentic. As such, we’ve rated this claim true — with the caveat that it omits crucial context.
A review of the 9/11 ceremony livestream on the The Associated Press YouTube channel showed the moment where Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani briefly interactied and smiled. Ocasio-Cortez also appeared to laugh.
However, additional footage shared by CNN shows Mamdani was listening to the names of 9/11 victims before Ocasio-Cortez approached him. According to the footage and several eyewitness reports, the two briefly greeted each other before refocusing on the ceremony.
We reached out to Mamdani’s and Ocasio-Cortez’s offices seeking comment and will update this story if we receive responses. We also reached out to eyewitnesses who described the exchange as a greeting.
The AP livestream lasted a total of four hours and 16 minutes. Halfway through the video, the cameras showed a man seemingly sobbing by the parapet of one of the memorial waterfall pools. The names of the 9/11 victims are inscribed on the pools’ parapets, where mourners customarily place flowers in remembrance.
As the man cried, the cameras faded away from the shot focusing on him and focused on Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez interacting and smiling (at the 02:08:00 mark):
The exchange occurred as speakers read some of the 9/11 victims’ names in alphabetical order.
Eyewitnesses and footage confirm brief greeting
In response to the social media outrage over Ocasio-Cortez’s and Mamdani’s interaction, people at the ceremony said the two were only greeting each other. One of those eyewitnesses was Michael Ragusa,
Ragusa said in an X post that he was “standing next to them the whole time” and Ocasio-Cortez was greeting Mamdani before they quickly turned their attention back to the ceremony (archived):
Ragusa added in his post that other politicians from both parties were also laughing and joking behind him, though he declined to identify them in an email exchange with Snopes.
In addition, former New York Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou, a Democrat, characterized the interaction as a greeting in an X post, adding that both Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez stayed for the entire ceremony and focused on it (archived):
Lastly, CNN reviewed and shared isolated and unaltered footage of the pair, before and after the exchange. It appeared to confirm reports that the two greeted each other before refocusing on the reading of the names. We contacted the CNN reporter whose byline appeared on the story to ask for the video’s source and will update this story if we hear back.
For further reading, Snopes has covered several claims regarding 9/11, Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez, including the claim that some families of 9/11 victims wanted Mamdani not to attend the 25th anniversary ceremony.
