New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is taking heat for wearing a Muslim head scarf while speaking at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York in Queens over the weekend.

Video footage and photos showed the governor wearing what many Muslim women do as she spoke during a service, the New York Post reported Monday.

“Hochul addressed the congregants during the weekly Friday Jummah prayer service, giving a shout out to “his excellency” Tareq Albanai — the United Nation’s permanent representative for Kuwait — thanking him for welcoming her to ‘be part of the family,'” the outlet said.

The video clip of Hochul also showed she was not wearing any shoes as she spoke to what appeared to be a group of only men. Social media users mockingly called her a “feminist icon”:

“Hijabs are tight or loose headcloths that leave the face uncovered. They’re a less restrictive version of the face-hiding burkas imposed on Afghans women, or the eye-revealing niqabs forced on Saudi women, including Saudi journalists,” Breitbart News reported in 2016.

Social media users and conservatives blasted the Democrat for wearing the head covering:

Her decision to wear the head scarf came days before the nation remembers and honors the nearly 3,000 lives lost during the Islamic terrorist attacks on 9/11.

Hochul also wore the Muslim hijab in 2025 during a funeral for a New York Police Department Detective Didarul Islam, a Muslim who was killed in a mass shooting, per the National News Desk.

It is important to note that before he became mayor of New York City, Democrat Socialist Zohran Mamdani “proudly shared photos of himself smiling beside Imam Siraj Wahhaj — an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — with lawmakers and public figures warning that jihad is coming to New York unless voters wake up,” Breitbart News reported in October.

Hochul endorsed Mamdani before he was elected, and he took the oath of office while placing his hand on the Islamic Quran.