This is the kind of political irony that you simply cannot make up, folks.
New York City's mayor built his whole brand on trashing the NYPD, calling them racist, anti-queer, and a genuine danger to public safety. He ran on gutting their budget and swapping cops for social workers. So naturally, his wife Rama Duwaji figured those same officers should fly overseas and personally protect her on a leisure trip to active war zones. As USA Journal reported, the NYPD had a very quick and very firm answer for that request.
Absolutely not.
Duwaji apparently wanted police protection for a September 20 personal trip to Syria and Lebanon. Both countries carry the highest possible State Department warning, Level 4, which literally means "Do Not Travel." A department spokesperson told the New York Post that officers are not dispatched to those destinations for discretionary purposes unrelated to investigations. End of discussion.
But here is where things get truly spicy. City Hall was out there telling everyone that this NYPD detail would accompany Duwaji based on a "strong recommendation" from the department itself. A source close to the situation revealed she had specifically asked for police protection after taking a previous overseas trip without any.
The NYPD publicly rejected that framing. They contradicted City Hall's version of events for everyone to see. When the cops your husband tried to defund are openly calling your office a liar, that is not exactly a sign of a functional relationship.
Former Bronx Assemblyman Dov Hikind did not hold back either. He pointed out that sending officers into war zones puts them at serious risk and that they would be seen as adversaries. Then he dropped the real bomb, saying Duwaji "will get a hero's welcome and be protected by Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis."
That comment carries extra weight considering Duwaji's documented social media history. She has posted content that appeared to celebrate the October 7 Hamas massacres and dismissed reports of sexual violence against Israeli women as a "mass rape hoax." So Hikind's observation was not exactly a stretch.
This whole fiasco also demolishes Mayor Mamdani's favorite talking point about his wife being a "private citizen" with no political role. Regular private citizens do not have City Hall issuing official statements about their travel security. They do not request taxpayer funded police escorts to foreign countries. Previous reporting already established that Duwaji functioned as an unofficial campaign strategist during Mamdani's mayoral run, shaping messaging, strategy, and visual branding.
So let us recap this beautiful mess. A mayor who campaigned on abolishing the police needed those very same officers to babysit his wife on a personal vacation to countries the U.S. government begs Americans to avoid. The department he wanted to dismantle looked at the request, looked at the war zones, and told him to pound sand.
The hypocrisy practically writes itself.
Read more conservative news commentary at: USA Journal News
Last edited by a moderator:
