On the 25th anniversary of September 11th, a question of presence has become a question of conscience: whether New York City's sitting mayor, Zohran Mamdani, belongs at the World Trade Center memorial. Actor Robert De Niro, speaking from instinct rather than full knowledge, offered a defense rooted in the presumption of good faith — that office itself confers a kind of standing. But more than 100,000 petition signers, many of them families of the fallen, argue that a man's record of associations and rhetoric cannot be set aside simply because he holds a title.