CNN’S worst tweet ever: sympathy for ISIS-inspired Gracie Mansion terrorists! 

It finally happened. Someone wrote the worst tweet of all time, which inadvertently — I hope — expressed sympathy for the two men accused of attempting an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack on protesters outside Gracie Mansion in New York City over the weekend. 

The tweet, from CNN, reads thusly: “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. But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home.” 

The tweet makes it sound like they’re lovable rogues who got swept up in the moment, or maybe that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and somehow unintentionally found themselves in the position of trying to bomb protesters? Boys will be boys! Well, no, that’s not what happened.  

Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi pledged allegiance to ISIS and planned to carry an attack on behalf of radical Islam and against anti-Muslim protesters. The perpetrators weren’t conservatives. The target wasn’t Zohran Mamdani. The target was people who had offended these Muslim extremists. 

It’s actually kind of funny that CNN got this so wrong, though I suspect it was done in service of minimizing the responsible party: Muslim terrorism. If the right-wingers had been responsible for the attempted bombing, could you conceivably imagine CNN writing something so friendly about them? I can’t imagine a similar tweet applied to a January 6ther: “Joe Smith crossed into Washington, D.C., for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city, but in less than hour, his life changed drastically as he would be arrested for storming the Capitol.” Hard to picture. 

Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt sets the record straight, writing: “CNN got this headline wrong. It should be: ‘Two radical Islamic terrorists came to NYC pledging allegiance to ISIS with bombs meant to kill Americans.’ There. Fixed it for you.” 

Now CNN has actually admitted they got this one wrong, deleted the tweet, and apologized. “A post regarding the two individuals arrested for throwing homemade bombs outside of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home failed to reflect the gravity of the incident thereby breaching the editorial standards we require for all our reporting. It has therefore been deleted.” 

That was obviously the correct course of action. But look, the damage is really already done. Mainstream media has absolutely obfuscated responsibility of this attempted terrorist attack, to the extent that many people are unaware that the pro-Muslim side perpetrated the bombing, not the anti-Muslim side.  

NewsNation’s Batya Ungar Sargon writes: 

“Last night, a friend mentioned how strange he found it that two Muslims would target a Muslim mayor’s residence. I had to explain that that’s not what happened. But it’s proof of what a good job outlets like CNN have done obfuscating the truth. Together with Mayor Mamdani, the liberal media has worked assiduously to make it seem like Mamdani—rather than a group of anti-Mamdani non-violent protestors—was the real victim of Saturday’s terrorism.” 

It’s true. This is what the media does when they’re sympathetic to the perpetrators, or worried that criticism of this perpetrators’ identity group or ideological faction will result in bigotry.  

Look, I know what they’re doing. The media doesn’t want anybody to get mad at otherwise peaceful Muslims — to lend credence to what those protesters are doing. So they minimize the responsible party: ISIS-inspired terrorists. As a reminder, mainstream media would never ever ever do this if the perpetrators were conservative white males, because the mainstream media has no interest in limiting bigotry toward that group. 

But I say we can handle the truth. We deserve the truth, even if it’s inconvenient for the mayor, for the media, or for Muslims — because they deserve the truth too. I do not believe that ISIS terrorists are representative of the vast majority of American Muslims, so I don’t think we need to hide the facts in order to spare their feelings. 

Robby Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary. 

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