NYPD Smacks Down Mamdani, Refuses To Escort His Wife On Middle East Trip

The NYPD will not send officers to Syria and Lebanon to protect Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife during a planned family trip, contradicting an earlier claim from City Hall that her security detail would make the journey.

“The NYPD does not send officers to countries with level 4 travel advisories for discretionary reasons such as personal travel,” an NYPD spokesperson told Fox News.

Rama Duwaji, the mayor’s wife, is expected to visit relatives in Syria and Lebanon in September, according to the New York Post.

Both countries are on the State Department’s “Do Not Travel” list due to terrorism concerns.

City Hall initially said Duwaji’s NYPD protection would accompany her overseas and suggested the department itself had recommended the arrangement.

“Upon the strong recommendation of the NYPD, the first lady’s security detail will be joining her when she travels to visit family in Syria and Lebanon,” Mamdani’s spokeswoman Dora Pekec reportedly said.

That account quickly unraveled after the NYPD made clear it would not dispatch officers to either country for Duwaji’s personal trip.

Mamdani blamed the conflicting statements on a staff “miscommunication” when PIX11 pressed him about the issue Tuesday.

🚨 JUST IN: NYPD has DENIED giving Ugandan Mayor Mamdani’s wife a security detail when she visits Syria and Lebanon

NO taxpayer-funded “escort” despite her asking for it! 💯

Mamdani tried announcing she’d have a detail but never checked in with the NYPD commissioner

“The NYPD… pic.twitter.com/7KU52KB4p5

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 12, 2026

The suggestion that New York detectives could be sent into two countries under Level 4 travel advisories also drew a blistering response from NYPD Detectives’ Endowment Association President Scott Munro.

POLL: Ilhan Omar Now Claims She’s Broke – Do You Believe Her?

“Our detectives put themselves in harm’s way every day protecting New Yorkers,” said Munro. “The DEA would never remain silent if our members were asked to travel to a dangerous, off-limits foreign country for anything other than a legitimate law-enforcement or intelligence operation.”

“Our detectives are needed here in New York City protecting residents and fighting crime,” he added.

The security flap comes with an added political wrinkle for Mamdani, who repeatedly targeted the NYPD with calls to defund the department in 2020.

“There is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt. Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence,” Mamdani said in reference to the NYPD in a viral 2020 post on X.

Mamdani also accused the department of racism and being a threat to public safety.

“We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety,” he said in another 2020 post, adding in a follow-up: “What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.”

“Queer liberation means defund the police,” he said in yet another post.

POLL: Should Foreigners Be Banned From Buying American Farmland?