NYC mayor’s wife gets media pass after liking controversial Oct 7 posts

The wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has gotten a pass from much of the media after reports that she liked social media posts celebrating the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis carried out by Hamas.

Rama Duwaji, a Houston-born illustrator who identifies as Syrian and married Mamdani in early 2025, liked several posts in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that were critical of Israel, Jewish Insider first reported. Duwaji also liked a February 2024 Instagram post claiming The New York Times’ investigation into sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attack was “fabricated,” according to The Free Press.

The reports sparked immediate and intense backlash toward the socialist mayor from conservatives and pro-Israel accounts on social media, but much of the mainstream media has downplayed the situation. 

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The wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rama Duwaji (right), has gotten a pass from much of the media after reports that she liked social media posts celebrating the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis carried out by Hamas. (TIMOTHY A.CLARY / AFP via Getty Images)

NBC 4 New York’s report stressed that it occurred “almost a year and a half before she married Mamdani” and that “roughly 35,000 other accounts also liked that same post.” Vanity Fair made sure to note that she is “not” a Hamas sympathizer in parentheses immediately after noting that many have claimed Duwaji does sympathize with the terror group. 

MS NOW did not mention Rama Duwaji by name from the time the Jewish Insider report came out on Friday through Monday afternoon, according to a search of transcripts using Grabien Media. CNN only mentioned her name once during the same time period for an unrelated story. 

The New York Times covered the story with a headline, “After Social Media Scrutiny, Mamdani Says His Wife Is a ‘Private Person,’” that was widely criticized by the right. 

“The mayor said his wife’s views should not be subject to broad public scrutiny. They were not married when she liked the posts; the couple wed in early 2025, and he did not enter the Democratic primary for mayor until October 2024,” the Times reported after a brief mention that “Duwaji liked posts on Instagram that were supportive of the Palestinian cause immediately after the attacks” of Oct. 7.

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Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York, and his wife Rama Duwaji smile during a news conference at Gracie Mansion in New York on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (John Lamparski/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Times then compared Duwaji’s actions to the wife of Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y. 

“Public officials have faced questions over the political activities or other actions of a spouse or partner, most recently earlier this week. The Times reported that Corinne Levy Goldman, the wife of Representative Daniel Goldman of New York, liked or reposted social media posts from several right-wing accounts that some saw as hateful or insensitive toward Palestinians and Black people,” the Times noted. 

The Times enlisted Sophie Ellman-Golan, the director communications at Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, which the Times called “a progressive organizing group for the Jewish left,” to further downplay Duwaji’s actions. 

“Ellman-Golan said it was unfair to equate Ms. Duwaji’s social media likes with those of Ms. Goldman’s, in part because Mr. Goldman’s wife serves as his campaign treasurer while Ms. Duwaji had no official role in Mr. Mamdani’s campaign for mayor,” the Times reported. 

Many of the posts that Duwaji liked weren’t typical social media messages that are critical of Israel, but rather messages that “unambiguously celebrated the terrorist attack, which saw nearly 1,200 Israelis and foreign workers killed, thousands wounded, 251 civilians and military personnel kidnapped and numerous episodes of sexual assault,” according to Jewish Insider. One of the posts featured livestreamed footage of the terror attack and the words “breaking the walls of apartheid and military occupation,” according to the publication, while others featured the slogan “from the river to the sea,” which is often used as a rallying cry for the total elimination of Israel. 

Status, a media newsletter run by former CNN employees, used the fact that CBS News covered the story to put a harsh spotlight on its pro-Israel editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. 

“The report focusing on the social media use of the mayor’s wife—who does not hold public office—more than two years ago, struck many as peculiar, something that might have appeared on The Free Press, Bari Weiss’ anti-woke and vehemently pro-Israel opinion site,” Status reported.

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New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani stands on stage with his wife Rama Duwaji after he was ceremonially sworn in as New York City’s 112th mayor at City Hall. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

“Some CBS staffers who spoke to Status on condition of anonymity, expressed growing concern that Weiss—who has been an outspoken supporter of Israel—was making editorial decisions more in line with the type of content published by The Free Press, blurring the ideological lines between the two and fundamentally altering CBS News’ DNA in the process,” the newsletter continued before quoting a “Mamdani confidant” who anonymously scolded Weiss as biased.  

Obama staffer turned writer and podcaster Ben Rhodes took a similar path and quoted CBS News’ report on Duwaji’s actions with his own commentary about Weiss. 

“There’s a war, high prices, job losses, AI unleashed, and on and on. But Bari Weiss’s CBS is on the case of the NY Mayor’s wife’s likes from years ago. WTF is going on,” Rhodes posted. 

When asked about the reports, Mamdani did not deny that his wife liked the posts, but argued she is a “private person.”

“My wife is the love of my life, and she’s also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall,” Mamdani said. “I, however, was elected to represent all 8.5 million people in the city, and I believe that it’s my responsibility, because of that role, to answer any questions about my thoughts and my policies and my decisions.”

“Mayor Mamdani has been clear and consistent: Hamas is a terrorist organization, October 7 was a horrific war crime, and he has condemned that violence unequivocally,” a City Hall spokesperson told Jewish Insider.

CNN, MS NOW, New York Times, NBC4 New York, Vanity Fair, Status and Crooked Media did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

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Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller and Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.