Former New York Gov. George Pataki said this week that he has a lung condition caused by exposure at ground zero of the Sept. 11 terror attack.
“You know, 25 years later, I feel great. I have this minor residual impact from that time. But compared to so many others, I consider myself very lucky,” Mr. Pataki, a Republican who served as governor from 1995 to 2006, told The New York Post.
The New York Post specified that Mr. Pataki, 81, “suffers from restrictive airway disease that stems from his exposure to toxins at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in downtown Manhattan.”
Nearly 3,000 people were killed Sept. 11, 2001, when Islamist hijackers crashed passenger airliners into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Pataki is not the only New York politician to attribute health problems to the attack: In May, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was hospitalized with pneumonia. A spokesman said he had restrictive airway disease due to exposure at ground zero.
Mr. Giuliani, 82, has applied for medical care coverage by the World Trade Center Health Program, a federal program for medical costs related to the attacks.
Mr. Pataki and Mr. Giuliani have expressed opposition to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat, attending the upcoming 9/11 memorial ceremony.
Mr. Pataki told the New York Post that he wants Mr. Mamdani to condemn left-wing commentator Hasan Piker, who once said America “deserved” the 9/11 attacks.
“If he says he will have nothing to do with Hasan Piker, and if he says he will condemn the statement, ’globalize the intifada,’ then I would have no problem with him being here,” Mr. Pataki said of Mr. Mamdani.
Mr. Giuliani said Mr. Mamdani’s scheduled attendance “offends” him, alleging the mayor “doesn’t agree that Sept. 11 was an Islamic terrorist attack.”
Mr. Mamdani said of the anniversary in a recent interview with CBS: “The day is about those that were killed. In politics there’s a tendency to make these days about politicians, and it shouldn’t be.”
His office did not respond to a request for comment.
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