MEDIA CAN’T HIDE THE TRUTH ABOUT GRACIE MANSION BOMB ATTEMPT*:
There is no doubt as to their motivations: Both men spoke freely and unrepentantly to police at the scene, proudly claiming inspiration from ISIS and stating they had intended their terrorist atrocity to be “bigger than Boston” — a reference to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that took the lives of three and injured scores more. Only the incompetence of the bombers prevented Saturday from turning into one of the darkest days in recent New York history.
Yet one would know none of this were one to go only by the headlines and framing devices the mainstream media have consistently used to explain this story to American readers, who — like it or not — primarily consume their news in headline rather than article form. NBC New York got an early start on what would quickly become an overwhelming trend, telling a curiously noncommittal story over the weekend: “Multiple arrests made after ‘suspicious devices’ found outside Gracie Mansion, home of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, during anti-Islam rally and counterprotest.” The Daily News’ headline whimpered, “Protestors throw smoking improvised device, clash over Jake Lang pig roast at ‘anti-Islamification’ rally at Gracie Mansion.” The tone-setting New York Times itself wrestled with curiously tortured locutions: “Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses Thrown at Protest Near Mayor’s House.”
It is impossible not to notice that all of these headlines — or countless others from similarly situated media outlets — are carefully crafted to avoid stating a politically inconvenient truth: Islamic terrorists came horrifyingly close to detonating bombs in a crowd of protesters. Instead, our attention is directed toward the “hateful” nature of the rally, and readers are asked to fill in the missing narrative gaps with their own imaginations instead.
By Tuesday, the sugarcoating of the obvious — that homegrown, self-radicalized jihadis had targeted a protest and nearly murdered who-knows-how-many people outside Gracie Mansion — had moved well into parody. CNN led the morning with a widely mocked (and subsequently deleted) tweet framing the acts of Balat and Kayumi as a soft-focus human interest story: “Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather . . .” the piece begins. (You’ll never believe what happened next!)
* But CNN is determined to do their damndest: After CNN’s Horrible Tweet About NYC Bombing Attempt, They Just Made It Worse With New Comment From Host.
During Abby Phillip’s show on Tuesday, she made things even worse, claiming in two places during her broadcast that the NYC attack was an attempt to target Mamdani. She said it at the start of the program at about one minute in, where she talks about “after that attempted terror attack against New York’s mayor.” Then later in the program, she repeats it here:
CNN's Abby Phillip claims that the attempted NYC bombing was "an attempted terror attack against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani."
The suspects were two Muslim terrorists who pledged allegiance to ISIS and were targeting anti-Islam protesters. pic.twitter.com/xtGIirLPb3
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 11, 2026
She called it ‘an attempted terror attack against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani,’ while accusing House Speaker Mike Johnson of staying silent on what she characterized as anti-Islam comments from two Republican lawmakers.
As we reported, one of the suspects allegedly threw a bomb at the protest crowd, then he dropped another on the street as police started to chase them. The police have made multiple statements regarding the alleged ISIS comments made by the suspects.
The CNN tweet about the suspects was bad enough, but how does a CNN host actually say this live on air, twice, no less? Then, apparently, trying to paint it as a part of an anti-Islam sentiment? How do you justify this?
By going to X instead of apologizing on-air: Abby Phillip DRAGGED After Tweet-Correcting On-Air Distortion of NYC ISIS Attack.
The most generous interpretation of Phillip’s gross mischaracterization of what is now obvious is that it was an ill-fated teleprompter read. Nonetheless, it went viral to the point of drawing a correction via social media:
I want to correct something I said last night. The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani. That wording was inaccurate and I didn’t catch it ahead…
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) March 11, 2026
The correction appears to have drawn more virality than the underlying video. This is due in large part to its careful wording which, in part, appears to validate the Bad ‘Prompter Load Theory. However, the correction reads as needlessly vague about the potential targets of the bombing. There were protesters, counterprotesters and NYPD all assembled at Gracie Mansion and all within range of the improvised explosive devices.
Condemnation of the correction has been swift. A sampling:
Will you be leading tonight’s show with an apology and a correction?
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) March 11, 2026
There are several tweets condemning Phillip for tweeting out an apology rather than going on-air.
Earlier:
And not a single person will be disciplined or fired over any of this which is exactly why we cheer when Larry Ellison comes in and absolutely guts this horse shit of a network. https://t.co/C2AVIsPoi5
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 10, 2026
