UPDATED: 10:00 a.m. Sept. 11, 2021Originally published: Sept. 11, 2020As the nation pauses to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept, 11 terror attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon and on Flight 93, there was one person in particular who was conspicuously missing from the official memorial ceremony: Former President Donald Trump.
Beginning with the actual fateful date of Sept. 11, 2001, Trump insisted to anyone who would listen that he played a heroic role in different aspects of responses to the al Qaeda terror attacks on the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan’s Financial District. But, in a now-very familiar trend, most, if not all of the claims that he made at the time and in following years have since been debunked and exposed as bald-faced lies.
Time after time, while feigning concern for the nearly 3,000 people who died and their families, Trump would faithfully try to steer the conversation back in his own direction. He did it as a civilian businessman, he did it as a presidential candidate, and he is still doing it as the president of the United States of America.
In fact, he did again last year when he delivered remarks near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after being hijacked by terrorists. Trump made sure to let everybody know that it was he who is responsible for the killing of Iranian army Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in January. He also bragged about ordering the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Bagdhadi.
As journalist Andrew Feinberg reminded his followers, neither of them “had anything to do with 9/11.”
But Trump never let the facts get in the way of his self-aggrandizing rhetoric that far too often collides with important topics, now has he? That obviously includes the 9/11 anniversary and the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 677,000 people in America.
Scroll down to get a better idea of the gravity of the steady stream of lies that Trump has repeatedly told surrounding his purported heroism and generosity on and around the 9/11 terror attacks.
1. Trump said he went to Ground Zero "to help"
“I was looking out of a window from a building at Midtown Manhattan directly at the World Trade Center when I saw a second plane at a tremendous speed go into the second tower. It was then that I realized the world was going to change. I was no longer going to be, and it could never, ever be that innocent place that I thought it was,” Trump said during an address at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2019. “Soon after, I went down to Ground Zero with men who worked for me to try to help in any little way that we could. We were not alone. So many others were scattered around trying to do the same. They were all trying to help.”
As a presidential candidate, Trump bragged about how generous he had been with monetary donations for Sept. 11 relief efforts, but the New York Daily News reported at the time that the alleged billionaire never even made good on a promise to give $10,000 “to a major 9/11 charity.”
New York City Controller Scott Stringer’s office confirmed Trump did not make the donations he said he did.
“For the periods covered by the audits, we did not find any record of a donation from Trump himself or a Trump entity to either the Twin Towers Fund or the New York City Public/Private Initiatives Inc.,” Stringer’s office told the Daily News in October 2016.
3. He claims Muslims were cheering 9/11
“Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering” Trump said during a campaign rally in 2015. He went on to add: “There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good.”
The Washington Post later reported that “an extensive examination of news clips from that period turns up nothing” and noted that in “an article in the New York Post interviewing Trump just eight days after the attack; he makes no mention of having witnessed the alleged celebrations.”
In other words, Trump lied.
4. Trump bragged one of his building's was ‘the tallest’ immediately after the towers fell"
“40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest — and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second tallest,” Trump told local news channel WWOR in an interview hours after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. “And now it’s the tallest.”
It is true that Trump said this, but his claim is, of course, not true. Disregarding his lack of empathy that allowed him to focus on his own properties while the nation was in the onset of mourning thousands of deaths from a devastating terror attack, he staked a claim to having the tallest building in Manhattan.
Not only was it an ill-advised comment, but it was also wrong. A building at 70 Pine Street was 25 feet taller than Trump’s building n Wall Street.
5. Trump said he saw 9/11 terror attack from his apartment
“I have a window in my apartment that specifically was aimed at the World Trade Center because of the beauty of the whole downtown Manhattan. And I watched as people jumped, and I watched the second plane come in,” Trump said at an Ohio rally in 2015.
But in the above video interview with WWOR, he said he was watching from his office:
“I have a window that looks directly at the World Trade Center, and I saw this huge explosion. I was with a group of people,” Trump said. “I really couldn’t even believe it.”
6. Trump suggested that he spent "a lot of time" with first responders after Sept. 11
“Many of those affected were firefighters, police officers, and other first responders. And I was down there also, but I’m not considering myself a first responder. But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you,” Trump said July 29 in the Rose Garden.
The New York Times determined that claim was an “exaggeration” since no one could corroborate those reports.
7. Trump said he helped with clearing the rubble
“Everyone who helped clear the rubble — and I was there, and I watched, and I helped a little bit — but I want to tell you: Those people were amazing,” Trump said at a rally in Buffalo in 2016. “Clearing the rubble. Trying to find additional lives. You didn’t know what was going to come down on all of us — and they handled it.”
Politifact reported that “the Washington Post and the Associated Press sought information from the Trump campaign in 2016 about how he helped, and they didn’t receive responses. We also tried to verify his claim and could not.“
