CNN’s “NewsNight” anchor Abby Phillip apologized on Wednesday after she read a line during her Tuesday broadcast that falsely claimed the suspects arrested in a New York City bomb plot had targeted Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“I want to correct something I said last night,” Phillip wrote in an X post. “The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS-inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani. That wording was inaccurate and I didn’t catch it ahead of time. I apologize for the error.”
Phillip on Tuesday led into a story about Republican lawmakers who’ve made Islamophobic remarks by noting one comment came “after an attempted terror attack against New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani.” The statement angered conservatives, with the Libs of TikTok account claiming Phillip was trying to “rewrite history.”
HOLY CRAP. CNN’s Abby Phillip faces calls to retract or resign after she LIES that the NYC IEDs were “an attempted terror attack against Mayor Mamdani.” They are ADMITTED Islamic and ISIS terrorists who tried killing CHRISTIANS. This is CNN. GROSS.pic.twitter.com/ZTXcHLMfDV
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 11, 2026
The comment came hours after CNN deleted an X post about the attackers that “failed to reflect the gravity” of the Saturday incident outside Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence. It described suspects Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, as “two Pennsylvania teenagers“ who “crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather.”
“A post regarding the two individuals arrested for throwing homemade bombs outside of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home failed to reflect the gravity of the incident thereby breaching the editorial standards we require for all our reporting,” the outlet wrote in a second X post. “It has therefore been deleted.”
Balat and Kayumi were arrested after they attempted to set off two improvised explosive devices(IEDs) during an anti-Muslim Saturday protest outside Gracie Mansion, according to a federal criminal complaint. Balat threw one of the explosive devices toward the anti-Muslim protestors, according to officials, and the two later allegedly expressed support for ISIS.
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