Why Is NY’s Republican Candidate for Governor Embracing 9/11 Truthers?

Bruce Blakeman, the Republican vying to be New York’s next governor, has an uphill battle ahead of November: The 70-year-old Nassau County executive will have to overcome an incumbent Democratic governor in one of the nation’s fiercest Democratic strongholds. But his recent efforts to boost his public profile before the New York electorate have been dubious at best, as he happily ties himself to multiple 9/11 conspiracy theorists.Last week, Blakeman offered a “full endorsement” of Joel Anabilah-Azumah, a Republican running to represent New York’s 9th congressional district, which is situated entirely in Brooklyn. Anabilah-Azumah is the founder of a citywide private bus company and a former volleyball coach. But over the span of his rootless political career, Anabilah-Azumah has also publicly declared that 9/11 was the sinister machination of the U.S. government.“9/11 was an inside job. I don’t even bother to argue it any more. You don’t have to believe it, but that is what happened and history is pretty clear on that,” he wrote on X in 2024. “Whoever had the put option on the American Airlines stock dropping is still spending that money and their children are still spending that money,” he added, referring to unusual stock trades that took place before the attack that effectively bet the airline would drop in value. Investigators from the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission concluded in 2004 that the trades were not connected to terrorism, and were not made with insider knowledge of the attacks.The native New Yorker also offered his bus service to shuttle MAGA protesters to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and later called on President Donald Trump to pardon “our January 6 friends.”Nonetheless, Blakeman tied himself to Anabilah-Azumah, campaigning with the conspiracist in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood on September 1. “He is going to make a great member of Congress,” Blakeman said of Anabilah-Azumah, in an endorsement video Blakeman ultimately chose not to circulate. “We need fighters like that in Congress.… Joel, you have my full endorsement.”Anabilah-Azumah reiterated his 9/11 stance twice in the last 24 hours, continuing to question the destruction of the Twin Towers while simultaneously claiming that he was “not the kind of prick that harps on this issue every September 11.”Anabilah-Azumah is not the only 9/11 truther in Blakeman’s orbit. Last week, Blakeman filmed a campaign video with Marcus C. Williams, a onetime Republican candidate for the New York State Assembly who shared a video in December claiming that 9/11 “was planned and executed by the Zionists.” “We’re gonna win because of people like you, Marcus,” Blakeman said in a clip Williams posted to his Facebook page.Blakeman has also protested New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s participation in the upcoming 9/11 memorial event marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the attack. Blakeman has claimed that the mayor is “not welcome” at the ceremony, and that Mamdani’s reluctance to condemn the phrase “Globalize the intifada”—which pro-Palestine activists have used as a universal call for Palestinian liberation from Israeli occupation—should disqualify him from attendance.“He’s not welcome there because he has yet to say anything in opposition to the global intifada. As a matter of fact, it seems like he supports that phrase, which is part of the reason why we had the tragedy we had on 9/11,” Blakeman told reporters in early August. (It does not appear that Palestinian liberation movements had anything to do with the Al Qaeda attack.)Blakeman’s position echoed a bogus July report that thousands of 9/11 families had signed a petition to keep Mamdani away from the event. But by the time of Blakeman’s comments, the petition had been debunked: Its creator admitted that there was no verified list of families that opposed Mamdani’s participation, and that the online petition’s “verified signatures” could have come from anyone, anywhere.Neither Blakeman’s campaign nor Williams responded to a request for comment prior to publication. Anabilah-Azumah told The New Republic that his comments were not about 9/11 victims, their families, or the first responders who acted that day, but were instead commentary on the militaristic shift that occurred in the country following the attack. “I believe that elements within the US government orchestrated 9/11 in order to get the public to accept mass surveillance and ‘forever wars,’” Anabilah-Azumah told TNR.Local leaders were outraged by Blakeman’s attachments. Democratic Representative Jerry Nadler, whose district includes Ground Zero, said that it was “downright appalling” that Blakeman would “campaign with, and seek endorsements from dyed-in-the-wool 9/11 conspiracy theorists.”Nadler’s colleague Representative Nydia Velazquez shared his sentiment. “I’ve spent more than two decades fighting for 9/11 victims and their families to get the care they need after that horrific day,” she said. “I never thought I’d see someone, like Bruce Blakeman, running for governor while associating with 9/11 conspiracy theorists.“These were no casual meet and greets: Blakeman filmed campaign endorsements and videos with these extremists,” Velazquez continued. “New Yorkers deserve better than this.”