A Change.org petition telling New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to stay away from Friday's 25th anniversary 9/11 ceremony at the World Trade Center has hit 100,975 verified signatures. The petition was launched by relatives of people who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

The mayor says he's going anyway.

The controversy centers on Mamdani's appointment of Ramzi Kassem as the city's chief legal counsel. Kassem previously provided legal representation to a convicted al Qaeda member whose brother-in-law was among the terrorists who hijacked the plane that struck the Pentagon on September 11. Mamdani chose that man's lawyer to be the top attorney for the city that lost nearly 3,000 people that morning.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani — the man who was actually running New York City when the towers fell — appeared on Newsmax to say he would be personally offended if Mamdani attended the ceremony. Former Governor George Pataki joined the call for Mamdani to stay home. These aren't pundits. These are the men who led New York through the worst attack on American soil.

Even Democrats are breaking ranks. Michael LaRosa, former spokesman for First Lady Jill Biden, signed the petition and explained why: "I spent my career in Democratic politics helping elected officials find the spotlight. That's why I signed this Change.org petition. The 25th anniversary of 9/11 is one morning that must stay free of politics. Mayor Mamdani's presence at Ground Zero will be a lightning rod that diverts attention away from the only people that morning belongs to: the victims of this heinous attack and their loved ones."

When a career Democratic operative is publicly telling you to sit this one out, the partisan-attack defense doesn't hold up.

Mamdani's response has been to wrap himself in platitudes. "I'm proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country," he said Monday. "And what I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11th, and a focus also on the first responders who gave everything they could to this city."

He signed two executive orders in advance of the anniversary, including one designating September 11 as a "Citywide Day of Remembrance and Service." Proclamations are easy. Personnel decisions reveal actual priorities. And the personnel decision was Ramzi Kassem.

Vice President JD Vance is expected to attend Friday's ceremony. President Trump will not be in attendance. The security apparatus is already going up around the World Trade Center site — fencing and checkpoints for a ceremony that has managed to remain above politics for a quarter century.

Mamdani would be the first Muslim mayor to attend the official NYC 9/11 ceremony. That fact alone makes the Kassem appointment more baffling, not less. If you wanted to demonstrate that your faith and your reverence for the victims are not in conflict, you wouldn't hand the city's legal portfolio to a man whose career highlight is defending people connected to the attack.

One hundred thousand signatures is not a protest. It's a consensus. Giuliani, Pataki, 9/11 families, and a former Biden spokesperson all arrived at the same conclusion independently. The ceremony on Friday belongs to the people who lost someone. The mayor made his own choice about where he stands when he chose his chief counsel.