Two men were stabbed on New York City's Upper West Side by an attacker who reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar", and Mayor Zohran Mamdani's first public response was about a luxury housing tax.
A 57-year-old man was found near West 84th Street and Central Park West just after 1:30 p.m. Thursday with a stab wound to his back. Investigators found a second victim, a 50-year-old man, nearby with a stab wound to the torso. Both were conscious and alert when paramedics transported them to local hospitals, where they remained in stable condition. The NYPD arrested Raul Morales in connection with both assaults.
Witness and victim statements indicated the attacker yelled "Allahu Akbar" during both attacks. Mamdani's own statement identified the victims as "an Asian man and a Jewish man." City officials described the violence as an antisemitic stabbing. Yet the mayor's office said nothing publicly for hours, and when Mamdani did break his silence on social media, it was not about the stabbings at all.
At 3:55 p.m., roughly two and a half hours after the first attack, Mamdani posted on X about his administration's new pied-à-terre tax on second homes worth more than $5 million. "Check your mailbox when you're back in the five boroughs, because you've got mail," the mayor wrote. Only later, after what Fox News Digital described as "several hours" of silence, did Mamdani address the stabbings.
By that point, Gov. Kathy Hochul, City Council Speaker Julie Menin, and Councilwoman Inna Vernikov had already publicly condemned the attack.
Hochul posted on X that she was "disgusted by what appears to be another senseless attack on New Yorkers simply because they're Jewish." She added:
"While we await additional details to be confirmed, we know that what is happening in our city is abhorrent. The fear in the Jewish community is real. Every New Yorker deserves to feel safe in their neighborhood, regardless of their faith or identity."
Menin, the Council speaker, called the attack an apparent antisemitic stabbing. The New York Post reported Menin's fuller statement: "I am absolutely sickened and furious by what appears to be an antisemitic stabbing. The fear in the Jewish community is real."
Vernikov went further. The councilwoman posted on X that "the attacker was yelling 'Allahu Akbar' during his attempted murder" and directed her anger squarely at the mayor:
"I pray for the speedy recovery of the victims. [Mamdani,] you got blood on your hands."
Mamdani's eventual statement acknowledged the attacks and the suspect's reported cries. "I have been briefed on today's horrifying stabbings on the Upper West Side," he wrote, adding that "the perpetrator yelled 'Allahu Akbar' during both attacks." He praised the NYPD for arresting Morales swiftly. But the statement contained no explicit condemnation of antisemitism, no mention of radical ideology, and no explanation for the hours-long gap between the stabbings and his response.
The New York Post reported that Mamdani emphasized mental health as a possible factor in the attacks, a framing that drew its own scrutiny, given the suspect's reported statements during the stabbings and the fact that one victim was a Jewish man wearing a yarmulke who had just left synagogue services on Tisha B'Av, the Jewish day of mourning.
An observer identified on X as @jpodhoretz posted a detailed account of the attack:
"A man yelling 'allahu akbar' stabbed a man in a kippah at 86th and Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side at 1:30 pm today, then likely stabbed someone else at 84th and Central Park West. Has apparently been caught. On the Jewish day of mourning. In Zohran Mamdani's city."
That last line, "In Zohran Mamdani's city", captured the frustration running through much of the public response. The mayor who drew backlash from Jewish leaders after calling AIPAC supporters "monsters" at a Brooklyn rally was now conspicuously slow to address an apparent antisemitic attack on his own streets.
The NYPD confirmed to Fox News Digital that Morales is in custody. But police have not yet identified a motive or said whether the attacks are being investigated as a hate crime. The New York Post reported that the NYPD is investigating the stabbings as potential hate crimes and that Morales barricaded himself in a nearby public housing apartment before his arrest.
Mamdani's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether factors behind the scenes caused the delay in the mayor's public response.
The stabbings came against a backdrop of rising hate crime reports in New York City. In the first quarter of 2026, the NYPD received 146 hate crime complaints and made 71 arrests, up from 137 complaints and 51 arrests in the same period of 2025. Those numbers represent a roughly 7 percent increase in complaints and a 39 percent jump in arrests.
Mamdani has faced sustained criticism from across the political spectrum over the past year. He floated arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a potential visit to the United Nations General Assembly, a threat that prompted a direct rebuke from the White House and Netanyahu's office alike.
Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican representing New York, criticized Mamdani's handling of the stabbings. A Fox News Digital video segment described Lawler as calling the mayor's response "pathetic" for not explicitly condemning radical Islam. Lawler's full on-the-record statement did not appear in the written report.
The mayor's pattern of confrontation with Jewish leaders and organizations has made his delayed response to Thursday's stabbings harder to dismiss as a scheduling lapse. He has also drawn criticism from Sen. John Fetterman for defying a Supreme Court immigration ruling, a separate controversy that added to the portrait of a mayor willing to challenge federal authority while struggling to manage basic responsibilities at home.
Several key questions remain unanswered. No charges against Morales have been publicly announced. His background, age, and other identifying details have not been released. And the NYPD has not confirmed whether the two attacks are formally linked beyond the suspect's arrest in connection with both.
President Trump previously guaranteed that Netanyahu would not face arrest on U.S. soil, directly rebuking Mamdani's posturing on the international stage. That episode, combined with the mayor's "monsters" remark about AIPAC supporters, forms the backdrop against which Thursday's silence landed.
Two men lie in hospital beds because someone decided to stab them on a Jewish day of mourning. The mayor of New York City found time to post about luxury real estate taxes before he found time to address that. Voters can draw their own conclusions about where his priorities sit.
