A terminally-ill 9/11 hero and his first responder wife on Tuesday slammed Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani for associating with vile left-wing influencer Hasan Piker, who once said “America deserved” the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
“How can you hang around with someone who said, ‘America deserved 9/11?’ That’s disgraceful,” Wendi Turturici, 52, who became an EMT after the 9/11 attacks told The Post in an interview.
“Mamdani doesn’t deserve to be mayor,” she said. “I’m calling on [him] to disavow Hasan Piker and his hateful words.”
Her husband, Sal Turturici, 60, an FDNY emergency medical technician who removed bodies and body parts from Ground Zero to be sent to the morgue and now suffers stage 4 Neuroendocrine cancer added: “I don’t like Mamdani.”
The couple said they were endorsing Mamdani’s rival, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in the November election, joining him for a press conference two days before the 24th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed 2,977 people.
Mamdani raised eyebrows when he sat down for an interview with Piker released in April as the pair waded into the Israel-Hamas war.
At one point, the mayoral frontrunner suggested Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza and accused Cuomo of “weaponizing” antisemitism for his own political gain.
Piker, a popular left-wing Twitch streamer with millions of followers, has a history of spewing hate – including once declaring that America “deserved 9/11.”
“America deserved 9/11, dude. I’m saying it. I’m saying it. We f—ing totally brought it on ourselves dude. Holy shit. We did. We f–ing did,” he said during a 2019 livestream.
The 33-year-old New Jersey-born streamer has also called Israelis “inbred” and said it “doesn’t matter if rapes happened” to women during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Piker has repeated assertions, too, that Israel is committing “genocide” in its war against Hamas — and was temporarily booted from Twitch after he shockingly suggested the killing of two Israeli Embassy diplomats in Washington, DC earlier this year looked like it could be a “false flag” operation.
Wendi Turturici said Mamdani palling around with Piker given his remarks was beyond the pale — and should disqualify him from being mayor.
She also pointed out that Mamdani once voiced his “love” for the five leaders of a notorious nonprofit convicted of funneling more than $12 million to the terror group Hamas. They were referred to as the Holy Land 5.
The Turturicis noted that as governor, Cuomo approved legislation providing benefits and disability pensions to 9/11 survivors. They appeared at Cuomo’s side during a bill signing ceremony in 2017.
Sal Turturici and Cuomo also rode motorcycles together to honor 9/11 first responders.
“I know firsthand what kind of leader Andrew Cuomo is,” Wendi Turturici said.
“As governor, he fought to secure benefits for 9/11 families, and he treated our community with the respect and dignity we deserve. That’s the kind of leadership New York City needs again.”
The Mamdani campaign in response accused Cuomo of engaging in a smear campaign against the first Muslim nominee for Big Apple mayor. But it did not specifically address the Turturicis’ criticism of Mamdani associating with Piker.
“Andrew Cuomo knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s holding a press conference to suggest that Zohran Mamdani — who is poised to become New York’s first Muslim mayor — somehow supported 9/11. It’s vile, it’s dangerous, and it’s deliberate,” a Mamdani spokesperson said in a statement..
“Cuomo would rather you forget his own record: that he had to be pressured into ever setting foot in a mosque, that he’s repeatedly trafficked in Islamophobia when it suited him politically, that he’s used Muslims as convenient punching bags for decades.”
The Mamdani rep added, “New Yorkers can see this for what it is — a cynical attempt to recycle the ugliest playbook in our politics. Cuomo is not protecting the memory of 9/11 victims; he’s once again desecrating it by weaponizing grief and pain for his own ambition.”
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