New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani found himself under a harsh spotlight after questions surfaced about his wife liking social media posts that appeared to celebrate the Oct. 7 attack. Reporters pressed him at a public event, and his reaction became part of the story, because voters expect accountability when a public official is linked to divisive and violent imagery. The issue folded quickly into a broader debate over whether spouses of elected officials are private citizens or part of the public package they run with.
Rama Duwaji, who married Mamdani in early 2025, liked multiple Instagram posts on the day of the attack and the following day that framed the violence as justified resistance. Among the images reportedly engaged with were dramatic scenes showing a bulldozer breaching barriers and attackers on top of a seized vehicle, imagery many Americans associate with brutality and terror rather than legitimate protest. Whatever the intent behind a single like, the pattern of engagement drew attention because it happened at the moment the country was learning how horrible Oct. 7 truly was.
Some of the posts Duwaji liked promoted a high-profile pro-Palestinian rally that took place in Times Square on Oct. 8, and several of them included the phrase “from the river to the sea.” That phrase is widely understood by many observers as a call that can erase Israeli sovereignty, and it set off alarm bells for people watching how public figures and their families navigate extremist or inflammatory rhetoric. Mamdani himself publicly condemned that same Times Square rally at the time for minimizing the massacre, a stance that created a sharp contrast between his words and his family’s social activity.
CBS News independently confirmed that Duwaji liked at least one Oct. 7 post with images of the attack and another post from the following day showing demonstrations tied to the conflict. The independent confirmation matters because this is not just gossip on social media; it is traceable engagement that can be documented and analyzed, and that documentation complicates the mayor’s claim that his household should be treated as entirely private.
When pressed about his wife’s online behavior, Mamdani replied, “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.” That line was meant to draw a bright line between private family life and public office, but it landed poorly given Duwaji’s public-facing profiles and her media appearances over the past year. Voters are not naive; they know that a mayor’s spouse who appears in glossy features or long profiles shares the stage and the responsibilities that come with a high-profile political life.
The personal-is-private defense began to look thin when observers pointed out that Duwaji had not been hiding from the public eye. She appeared on magazine covers and sat for multiple long-form profiles that treated her as part of the couple’s shared public narrative. Duwaji herself acknowledged that public reality in an interview, saying, “I realized that it was not just his thing but our thing,” which directly undercuts any argument that she is wholly separate from Mamdani’s public role.
More reporting dug up a larger swath of activity than the initial examples suggested, with investigators finding dozens of anti-Israel posts liked by Duwaji across a range of dates. Among those likes was at least one post that dismissed documented Oct. 7 sexual violence as a fabricated hoax, a claim that is not only offensive but dangerous when it seeks to erase verified suffering. That discovery pushed the controversy from awkward political optics into the realm of serious moral questions about judgment and empathy.
Mamdani is not alone among New York Democrats forced into defensive posture over a spouse’s social media activity; another local official faced similar scrutiny in the same stretch of time. These incidents suggest a pattern where public figures try to separate themselves from family behavior, but the separation is harder to maintain once a spouse has an active public profile or engages visibly with contentious material. Republicans and independent voters alike are watching to see whether elected officials will answer straightforward questions or keep leaning on privacy defenses.
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdami’s wife, Rama Duwaji, “liked” Instagram posts that appeared to support the October 7 attacks on Israel.
CBS News verified that Duwaji “liked” one post from October 7, showing images of the attack and another one from the day after the attacks… pic.twitter.com/aJjd27d5Bc
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 7, 2026
The controversy is still unfolding and it raises immediate questions about transparency, judgment, and political accountability that the mayor and his team will have to address as the debate continues.
