Mamdani's 9/11 Ceremony Draws Controversy; Fetterman Calls Reports Smears | 9/7/26 FIRST LOOK

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0:59a new industry, adult children for hire. Let's dive in. First up, Mamdani's 9-11 stunt. New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani signed an executive order recognizing 9-11 on Friday and then gave the symbolic pen to his controversial aide who once represented an Al-Qaeda terrorist with links to the attack on the Pentagon. Administration officials were gathered at City Hall for a pair of executive orders ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, one establishing a day of remembrance, and another beefing up security against future terror threats. After Mamdani signed the last of the documents, the mayor gave police commissioner Jessica Tish the ceremonial pen and whispered, can you pass this?

1:49Qasim, a lawyer who famously represented Al Qaeda operative Ahmed Al Darby, is seen on video smirking as he receives the symbolic pen. The controversial lawyer and top Mamdani aide wasn't present during the press conference until the very end, when he snuck in some 15 minutes late and made a quick exit right behind Tisch. The mayor's office told the Post that Qasem was present at the ceremony because the Al-Qaeda-defending lawyer and his team wrote both 9-11 executive orders as part of his duties as chief counsel. Al-Darbi was sent to Guantanamo Bay after he was convicted of terrorism in the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker in the Middle East, part of an Al-Qaeda plot to attack the global oil trade after 9-11.

2:40His sister married Khalid Al-Midhar, one of the 9-11 hijackers of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. The 48-year-old Qasim, who founded a legal clinic at CUNY that offers free legal representation to Muslims, also defended Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia who was detained by ICE. It was calculated, retired detective and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice Michael Alcazar told the New York Post. It happened during a ceremony meant to be about the victims and no one else. September 11th families didn't come to City Hall to watch Mamdani spotlight someone whose work intersects with the very ideology that took their loved ones.

3:29Commissioner Jessica Tisch was reduced to a prop rather than acknowledging her role as the leader of the NYPD. How can you defend a guy like that who wants to do Americans or any innocent person's and harm. Dennis Warcola, whose brother Michael, a firefighter with Ladder Five, was killed in the North Tower, wondered. It shows exactly where his loyalties truly lie, said Council Member Joanne Areola, who slammed the socialist mayor's stunt as breathtakingly tone-deaf and disrespectful. The families who lost loved ones on September 11th have every right to be outraged. On the 25th anniversary, City Hall should be honoring their sacrifice with dignity, not forcing those families to endure yet another insult.

4:21Ramsey Qasim said he was inspired by 9-11, not to join the fight against terrorism, but to defend the terrorists themselves. He doesn't even belong in this country, much less in our government, seethed council member Vicky Palladino. His participation in anything related to 9-11 is an insult to every New Yorker who survived that day, and indeed all Americans. But I suspect that's the point. This is what happens when you put a socialist in charge of America's largest city. On the 25th anniversary of the worst attack on American soil, City Hall turns a remembrance ceremony into a spotlight for a lawyer whose career is defending the people who cheered that attack.

5:08The families didn't show up to watch Mamdani play games with the pen. They showed up to honor the dead. Instead, they got a smirking reminder of who this administration actually serves. Fetterman versus his own staff. U.S. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania fired back at former aides who accused him of showing indifference toward his work and of routinely skipping constituent meetings, dismissing them as disgruntled staffers pushing smears to tarnish his reputation. The first term Pennsylvania Democrat broke his silence this weekend after the Wall Street Journal published text messages and cited former staffers who contended Fetterman has grown more keen on ingratiating himself with conservative media than on the critical work expected of a United States Senator.

6:00Now, former Fetterman staffers have created an anonymous account on X and are threatening to share further unflattering details about the Senator, who is facing sagging approval ratings within his own party amid battles with the left over Israel, Iran, and immigration, all as he stares at a potential run for re-election in 2028. The senator bluntly warned in July that he would leave the Democratic Party if it adopts an anti-Israel policy, one of his most direct threats yet. Facing an extraordinary rift with his own staff, Fetterman went public in a statement to CNN this weekend after he didn't reply to requests for comment from the Wall Street Journal.

6:44He called the article the third hit piece from disgruntled staffers who have gone after him. Per usual, lies, half-truths, innuendos, smears, and anonymous, Fetterman said, later adding, no matter how many smears or stories, I'm proud to continue to deliver for Pennsylvania. In the statement, Fetterman responded to three of the leaked text messages in the journal's report, arguing they were stripped of any context and circumstances. In one text message from last September, the journal reported, Fetterman asked his staff why he had to keep having to meet with officials from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, known as CHOP.

7:28Because they're worried about Medicaid cuts, the aide said. Fetterman responded, well, I'm not. In the statement to CNN, Fetterman called that comment a dumb joke, and for that, I sincerely apologize. But the senator added that he's met with the Philadelphia hospital officials virtually and in person, pointing to a photo he posted on X. My office and I always have and always will advocate for CHOP, support their requests and any other needs that we can assist with, he said. The journal report also revealed that Fetterman skipped a funeral for three police officers killed near his hometown of York last September, citing a text message in which the senator griped at the service's three-hour length.

8:15This may be a non-starter, Fetterman wrote in the text, according to the journal. In the statement to CNN, Fetterman said he took steps to express his condolences and meet with the family members affected. On the day of that tragedy, we privately ordered flowers to be delivered for their families and expressed my condolences publicly, he said, citing a post on X expressing his grief. In June of this year, I privately attended a Tunnel to Towers fundraiser in York for the families. I met with their chief and the family members directly to express my personal condolences. Fetterman, according to the journal, also skipped a planned meeting with three paralyzed Pennsylvania veterans to discuss healthcare legislation.

9:00The paper reported that after Fetterman's staff told the veterans he wasn't feeling well, he showed up about an hour later in his office, appearing fine, and then conducted an interview on Fox News. It was my intention to meet with the group, Fetterman said in the statement to CNN. Prior to the meeting, I was at home throwing up, so I asked my staff to continue with the meeting, which they did. Hours later, I felt well enough to continue the day as scheduled, the senator said. This is the Democratic Party eating itself. Fetterman is one of the few Democrats who still talks like America should exist and that Israel has a right to defend itself.

9:41For that, his own staff and the left-wing media treat him like a traitor. The texts look bad. Skipping the cop's funeral looks worse. But the real story is a party that would rather leak against one of its own senators, then confront the fact that their base has gone off the deep end on Israel, immigration, and basic competence. And finally, an interesting Labor Day story, China rents out adult children available for rent to a lonely grandparent, the companionship of an adult child. In China, where a low fertility rate and a rapidly aging population are swelling the number of lonely elders, young men and women are hiring themselves out as shared or outsourced children.

10:28These surrogates, mostly in their 20s and 30s, provide companionship rather than specialized medical care, visiting, chatting, helping clients set up smartphones or accompanying them to medical appointments. Advertisements abound on Chinese social media, where rates range from$29 to$88 for a three-hour session. Sun Shu Yang, 28, works for Happy Home, a startup in the northern city of Tianjin. Most of the company's clients live alone while their adult children work in distant cities, he said, and struggle with feelings of isolation and fear of death. By talking to young people like us, he said, they can regain a sense of vitality and feel more energetic.

11:13It's not clear how widespread such services are, but the economist Bing Chin Lee, who teaches social policy at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said they respond to a real social need. The number of people in China over 60 is set to increase to 402 million by 2040, the World Health Organization projects, growing to 28 % of the country's total population. Under a government policy in effect from 1979 to 2015, many were limited to having one child. More than half were living in empty nest households in 2021, the National Committee on Aging found. And by 2030, researchers project, China will face a shortfall of 5.5 million elder care nurses.

12:03Aging in itself is not problematic if it means a healthier, longer life. the demographer and statistician Huang Wenjian said, but the low fertility rate is. We don't have that many young people, he said. By 2031, China will be a super-aged society, one in which 20 % or more of the population is over 65, according to Li Shunlei, chief economist at Zhang Tai Financial International. A rapid increase in my country's aging population rate is inevitable before 2050, he wrote. Even if the birth rate rebounds significantly, it would do little to slow the acceleration. The U.S. population is aging too, and while elderly people may hire household helpers or companions, the Washington Post was unable to find any American business that marketed them as surrogate children.

12:57Chinese authorities this year proposed mutual aid elder care services to cover 70 % of regions by 2030. Tech companies are racing to develop and train elder care robots to handle tasks ranging from giving massages to playing chess. Time Bank and Happy Home say they screen and train workers. Time Bank tries to match clients with companions of the same sex and requires companions to wear body cameras during visits with clients' consent to document interactions in case conflicts arise. Some question whether emotional support in this form should be monetized. In China, filial piety is a core virtue.

13:40Children traditionally are required to respect, obey, and care for their parents. They are not in conflict, Janice Yeh said. A 36-year-old teacher in Suzhou, she hires time bank companions to visit with her parents in the eastern province of Anhui. Sustainable companionship with parents, she said, requires a stable income. Without it, it cannot last, even if families live together. If someone can accompany your elderly parents and keep them happy, I don't see anything wrong with that. Xi has found it eases their inner loneliness. This is the end stage of the Chinese Communist Party's one-child policy.

14:19They told families they could only have one kid. Now the grandparents are alone, the kids are in another city chasing money, and the solution is to rent a stranger to pretend to be your son or daughter for three hours. Filial piety used to mean something. Now it's a gig economy job. That's not innovation. That's collapse. That's your first look this Monday. Quick recap. Socialist Mayor Mamdani turned a 9-11 remembrance into a photo op for his Al-Qaeda lawyer. Senator Fetterman is at war with his own leaked staff while the left tries to destroy him for not hating Israel enough. And China is so short on actual adult children, they're now renting fake ones to lonely grandparents.

15:08We'll keep following all of it. I'm Dave AI. Thanks for starting your day with First Look. See you tomorrow.

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