Right-wing NYC Council member agrees to delete Islamophobic tweets in settlement

MANHATTAN (CN) — The New York City Council on Monday agreed to drop disciplinary charges against Republican Vickie Paladino for a series of anti-Muslim tweets, so long as the Queens council member deletes the posts at the center of the controversy.

Pursuant to the agreement, Paladino — a MAGA-aligned city politician whose rhetoric has stirred uproar on numerous occasions — has agreed to drop her First Amendment lawsuit against the council and remove three of the scrutinized posts.

She also agreed to make the following statement publicly within 48 hours:

“The disciplinary charge against me has been withdrawn and I am withdrawing my lawsuit. To be clear, my personal social media posts were not directed at any council member or staff. I am responsible for the content, I never intended to make council members or staff feel unwelcome or unsafe in their work environment. I send a heartfelt thank you to the court for facilitating the resolution.”

Sandra Ung, chair of the council’s standards and ethics committee, which spearheaded the effort to discipline Paladino, similarly agreed to make the following comment, which she posted on X Monday afternoon:

“The disciplinary charge against council member Paladino has been withdrawn, and she has withdrawn her lawsuit. I appreciate that CM Paladino took down her tweets. I also want to thank the court for facilitating settlement discussions. I believe the resolution strikes the right balance between protection of council staff and the First Amendment liberties of council members. I met with CM Paladino and told her that I did not approve of the contents of her tweets.”

Both sides have vowed not to comment publicly about the situation outside of these two statements.

The settlement ends a monthslong feud between Paladino, whose inflammatory and Islamophobic social media posts sparked widespread criticism, and her Democratic colleagues who sought to censure her for them.

On Dec. 14, 2025, Paladino posted on X that “we need to take very seriously the need to begin the expulsion of Muslims from western nations,” cautioning that “another 9/11 or worse” is bound to happen without such action. It was just one of several posts the council’s standards and ethics committee pointed out as examples of “discrimination or harassment” against Muslim colleagues.

In a subsequent post from February, Paladino compared New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s leadership to “Islamic conquest” and said “we are being replaced.”

The council called Paladino’s statements “unbecoming of the office” in their March motion to discipline her. Paladino responded with a lawsuit, in which she claimed that punishing her for her social media comments would be a violation of her free speech rights.

“For the first time in history, a duly elected member of the New York City Council has been charged with ‘disorderly behavior’ for content-based objections to her public advocacy on social meia unrelated to her work as a council member,” she argued in her lawsuit, filed a week after the council charged her for the posts.

Paladino also claimed that the council, which skews overwhelmingly Democratic, was punishing her for her conservative views.

The city had sought to dismiss her lawsuit, and the parties met in April to argue in front of New York Supreme Court Justice Sabrina Kraus. The judge declined to rule at the time and encouraged the parties to meet outside of court to reach a settlement.

Without her lawsuit, Paladino could have faced disciplinary actions, including stripping her of committee assignments, fining her or even expelling her from the council altogether.

It’s unclear from the settlement which three posts Paladino will be ordered to remove. She had argued in her lawsuit that her X account was created “long before taking office” and is used to express her personal views, not as an arm of the council.

But the account is currently named “Councilwoman Vickie Paladino” — she has agreed to drop “Councilwoman” from the header, pursuant to the settlement.

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