Mayor Zohran Mamdani wouldn’t commit Tuesday to revoking the city-issued press passes for three Luigi Mangione fangirls who publicly spouted unapologetic calls for violence this week.
Self proclaimed “Mangionistas” Abril Rios, Ashley Rojas and Lena Weissbrot set off a firestorm Monday when they proclaimed outside a Manhattan courthouse that slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s children were “better off without him” while wearing New York City press credentials.
Asked about pulling their official passes, Mamdani acknowledged that the ghoulish trio shouldn’t have received them — but stopped short of saying the credentials should be revoked.
“We will initiate our own process to review these, and what I will say is there is a good-natured debate to be had about where a press pass should extend and where it shouldn’t,” Hizzoner told reporters during an unrelated press conference in Queens.
“However, the three people that we are talking about don’t fall within that debate,” he added.
The mayor wouldn’t commit to revoking their press passes, even when pressed by reporters.
“As part of the review, we’re going to look into what the immediate next steps are,” he said.
Press passes are doled out by the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment after a 2021 law moved the credentialing process away from the NYPD.
While the city press pass process often requires submitting clips of breaking news stories, Weissbrot told the New York Times that she got approved using her “personal notes” from the Mangione case — rather than using actual articles.
The mayor’s office said it was reviewing the process following the fangirl fiasco.