Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Mayor Mamdani had a tense – but civil – exchange at the 9/11 memorial service Friday, with an expert revealing the message “America’s Mayor” passed on to Hizzoner.
“I prayed for you,” Giuliani, who is a devout Roman Catholic, told Mamdani as the two men shook hands, according to Jeremy Freeman, a UK-based expert lipreader. “Good job. OK.”
The greeting — which came at Ground Zero after Giuliani joined growing calls for Mamdani to skip the memorial services — was awkwardly fraught, body language expert and behavior analyst Traci Brown told The Post.
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“Giuliani’s eyebrows [are] up in recognition and acknowledgment. But his frown grows the longer they shake hands. So he’s not happy about the connection,” Brown said after viewing footage of the interaction.
“Mamdani is leaning in and wants to connect. After he’s not feeling so good about it. And works to counteract that feeling by making himself confident. That’s what the hand on his hip is,” she added.
The pleasantries came after Giuliani, 82, claimed Sunday that Mamdani “doesn’t agree that September 11 was an Islamic terrorist attack on the United States of America” before launching on an anti-Muslim conspiracy-laced rant.
“No question,” he said during an interview with Newsmax — saying that Mamdani attending 9/11 memorials “offends me.”
Mamdani on Tuesday took a subtle dig at his predecessor, who led New York City during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” Mamdani said, without outright naming anyone, as City Hall released 170,000 long-hidden documents on air quality risks after the attacks
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