Tuesday, September 8, 2026

The war over the wars: How 9/11 became a political battlefield 25 years on

In three days, America wil mark the 25th anniversary of the attack that changed this country forever.

A quarter century on, it's clear to most Americans that we're never going back to the way things were. The U.S. now exists under a permanent surveillance umbrella with boundaries that are still being debated today.

This year, the day itself is beginning to resemble a battlefield.

New York City's first mayor of the Muslim faith, Zohran Mamdani, once again finds himself in the crosshairs as a wave of Islamophobic abuse is hurled his way by Republicans like Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki, the former being the mayor who led the city through 9/11.

Once known as "America's Mayor," Giuliani's legacy is now much more complicated after serving as Donald Trump's attorney through multiple election cycles and betting it all on the Trump campaign's false claims of election fraud in 2020.

The ex-mayor's reputation never recovered from a months-long charade he launched to overturn the 2020 election, during which the bumbling, aging Giuliani became more of a spectacle than a sharp legal voice. Many still remember his press conference at the Philadelphia "Four Seasons", accidentally held across town at a landscaping company of the same name.

Now, he finds himself in a war with Mamdani, who is still riding a wave of popularity that especially amplified among younger New Yorkers.

Trump, meanwhile, found himself enamored with the charismatic mayor when he visited the White House last year. The president, suffering his worst approval ratings to date, kicked off 9/11 commemorations this week with a bizarre political speech aimed at saving his party and brand from humiliation in the rapidly approaching midterm elections.

Read more here.

By John Bowden

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Daily briefing

How schools are struggling to teach 9/11 to a generation that wasn’t alive to see it

Telling the story of 9/11 has become the labor of U.S. schools now that about one third of Americans weren’t yet born on Sept. 11, 2001. Jennifer Peltz writes about how America's educators are taking on an unprecedented challenge.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

They grabbed me under the arm, said, ‘Got to get out of here!’ And they literally lifted me up.

Donald Trump told a new story about his own connection to the 9/11 attacks on Tuesday.

What else you need to know

25 years of TSA: Americans have been waiting in line for airport security for a quarter century — or at least it feels that way for some travelers. Nearly 25 years after the founding of the TSA, Rio Yamat looks back at how America's darkest day shaped the future of air travel.
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