Ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, MS NOW’s Chris Hayes had another outrageous 9/11 hot take on All In. On Tuesday, Hayes not only claimed the county had “dysregulated psychosis” after 9/11, but that the GOP still has it. Somehow, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg had an even worse take as she took Hayes’s diagnoses and also applied it to how conservatives reacted to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Ahead of Friday’s ceremonies, former Mayor Rudy Guiliani and some victims’ families have demanded Mayor Zohran Mamdani stay away. This did not sit well with Hayes, who teed up two clips of City Councilwomen Joann Ariola and Vickie Pladino, “This is some of the—just some of the sort of invective that's been directed at Mayor Mamdani, again, who was nine at the time, like who is—recent poll has like a 60 percent approval rating in the city. This is some of it.”
Ariola was shown telling a crowd, “He doesn't understand that the people standing behind me and the 101,000 people who signed the petition feel that he is as much against them as those terrorists were on the day they lost their loved ones.”
Ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Chris Hayes claims "There's some level of progress it feels to me, which is that we're not in the I think you're right, like psychosis. I mean, it truly felt like psychosis of right-wing media discourse in the aftermath of 9/11. This kind of… pic.twitter.com/C42qo9Y4bR
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) September 9, 2026
Immediately afterwards, Pladino was shown telling Fox’s Laura Ingraham that, “I hate to even say this, Laura, but you know, it's a message to Osama bin Laden that, ‘look, we conquered New York.’ That's how scary all of this really is.”
Of course, Hayes never cared to mention that this controversy has its roots in Mamdani giving a symbolic 9/11 pen to his chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, who previously was a defense lawyer for an al-Qaeda terrorist. Instead, he retorted, “I don't think that message is going to get to Osama bin Laden. I feel duty bound to note. But yeah, I mean, it's and again, the thing that, I mean, there's some level of progress it feels to me, which is that we're not in the—I think you're right, like psychosis. I mean, it truly felt like psychosis—of right-wing media discourse in the aftermath of 9/11.”
Hayes further claimed, “This kind of—the kind of feeling you have when you're dealing with a person who's dysregulated and you can't, like, get—you can't get through. But that dysregulated psychosis still is the go-to mode of operating politics all these years later.”
Before the 25th anniversary of 9/11 on Friday, Thursday will mark one year since Kirk was assassinated, and Goldberg replied by adding that to the list of things conservatives are allegedly psychotic about, “Right. And I think we felt moments of it in the years since. I mean, there was elements of it after, frankly, after Charlie Kirk was murdered.”
Goldberg also added the Iran War to the list before returning to the old idea that the GOP is racist, “And just like how bizarre is it that 25 years after launching these catastrophic wars in response to 9/11, we're in another one. I mean, it's almost unbelievable. And the other thing that I think is, although there are signs of progress in some regards, the Republicans now are so much more naked in their anti-Islamic, anti-Muslim racism than they were at the time.”
Nobody in the Republican Party or “right-wing media” forced Mamdani to give a ceremonial 9/11 pen to an al-Qaeda defense lawyer. The calls for him to not show up at Friday’s ceremonies are a result of him facing the consequences for his own actions.
Here is a transcript for the September 8 show:
MS NOW All in With Chris Hayes
9/8/2026
8:51 PM ET
CHRIS HAYES: This is some of the—just some of the sort of invective that's been directed at Mayor Mamdani, again, who was nine at the time, like who is—recent poll has like a 60 percent approval rating in the city. This is some of it.
JOANN ARIOLA: He doesn't understand that the people standing behind me and the 101,000 people who signed the petition feel that he is as much against them as those terrorists were on the day they lost their loved ones.
VICKIE PLADINO: I hate to even say this, Laura, but you know, it's a message to Osama bin Laden that, "look, we conquered New York." That's how scary all of this really is.
HAYES: I don't think that message is going to get to Osama bin Laden. I feel duty bound to note. But yeah, I mean, it's and again, the thing that, I mean, there's some level of progress it feels to me, which is that we're not in the—I think you're right, like psychosis. I mean, it truly felt like psychosis—of right-wing media discourse in the aftermath of 9/11. This kind of—the kind of feeling you have when you're dealing with a person who's dysregulated —
AMANDA LITMAN: Yeah.
HAYES: — and you can't, like, get—you can't get through. But that dysregulated psychosis still is the go-to mode of operating politics all these years later.
MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right. And I think we felt moments of it in the years since.
HAYES: Yes
GOLDBERG: I mean, there was elements of it after, frankly, after Charlie Kirk was murdered.
HAYES: Yes.
GOLDBERG: There was elements of it at the beginning of the Iran War.
HAYES: Absolutely.
GOLDBERG: And just like how bizarre is it that 25 years after launching these catastrophic wars in response to 9/11, we're in another one. I mean, it's almost unbelievable. And the other thing that I think is, although there are signs of progress in some regards, the Republicans now are so much more naked in their anti-Islamic, anti-Muslim racism than they were at the time.
