A comprehensive account of the incident, the apology, and the questions that remain
The Timeline of a Controversy
Monday evening, March 2, 2026: WABC 77 morning host Sid Rosenberg posts to X. In the post, he calls Mayor Zohran Mamdani an “America hating, Jew hating, Radical Islam cockroach running our once beautiful city” and describes him as a “terrorist sympathizer,” calling on President Donald Trump to “put this little antisemite in his place.” He notes that he has been outraged by the mayor’s criticism of U.S. military operations in the Middle East. The post goes viral. Tuesday morning: Rosenberg follows up with another tweet defending his position. Condemnations begin pouring in from elected officials. Tuesday afternoon: Mamdani, speaking to reporters at a childcare event, addresses the remarks without naming Rosenberg. His words are measured and personal: “To be called animals, insects, to be called a jihadist mayor, to be called a cockroach, this language is both painfully familiar to me as a Muslim New Yorker, but also as someone who was born in East Africa.” He warns against treating the language as “politics as usual” and calls for pushback against dehumanizing rhetoric. Rosenberg deletes the original post. Tuesday night: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer condemns the remarks. Governor Kathy Hochul calls them “hateful, racist, and disgusting.” CAIR-NY calls on WABC to remove Rosenberg from the air entirely. Wednesday morning: Rosenberg returns to the air and issues an apology. “Not nice to call somebody a bug, I get it,” he says. He claims the remark “had nothing to do with anyone’s religion or faith.” He does not address his description of Mamdani as a jihadist. WABC CEO John Catsimatidis says personal attacks are not acceptable on the station. Wednesday afternoon: Mamdani, asked by WABC’s own reporter N.J. Burkett whether he accepts the apology, says: “Time will tell how sincere of an apology it is.”
Unanswered Questions
The controversy surfaced at least one significant unresolved question: an earlier reported dinner between Rosenberg and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. This dinner occurred after Rosenberg and Andrew Cuomo made comments on air in October 2025 suggesting Mamdani would be indifferent to a terrorist attack. Rosenberg said of Mamdani’s hypothetical response to a 9/11-style attack: “Yeah, I could. He’d be cheering.” Mamdani declined to address the Tisch dinner when asked by reporters.
The Larger Context
The incident received significant coverage partly because of its raw language, but also because of what it represents: the difficulty of holding simultaneously the identities of New York City mayor, Muslim American, and son of East Africa in a political environment that has long treated those identities as inherently suspect. The Pew Research Center has documented persistent negative attitudes toward Muslim Americans in public opinion polling, noting that Islamophobia intensified sharply after September 11, 2001, and has not returned to pre-attack levels. The Brennan Center for Justice has published extensive research on the weaponization of “terrorism” framing against Muslim American political figures. The incident is a case study in how language operates in political life — and in how a public figure chooses to respond when that language is used against them.
