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\n President Donald Trump arrives to speak during the Tunnel to Towers Foundation event on the Ellipse near the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
\n Photo: Jacquelyn Martin\/AP Photo\n <\/p>\n
President Trump<\/a> took part in the Tunnel to Towers Foundation\u2019s Steel Across America tour Tuesday, delivering remarks<\/a> from the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., in honor of the upcoming 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.<\/p>\n But naturally, his appearance couldn\u2019t pass without a bit of unpleasant weirdness. Trump did honor first responders and the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks, but he also used his speech to offer yet another questionable anecdote about his whereabouts and actions in the aftermath of the tragedy.<\/p>\n The president told the assembled crowd that he had been working on a \u201cbig building\u201d when the attacks took place and that he took the entire construction crew down to ground zero \u201cright after this happened.\u201d It was then, Trump claims, that a pair of firefighters rushed him to safety out of concern that the nearby U.S. Steel Building, which is now known as One Liberty Plaza, was at risk of collapse. Trump said Tuesday that the building was \u201ccreaking\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll never forget. Two firemen \u2014 we thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big strong guys \u2014 and I\u2019m not the smallest guy in the world \u2014 they grabbed me under the arms and said, \u2018Gotta get out of here.\u2019 And they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I\u2019m big. They lifted me up and started running with me. I said, \u2018Fellas, I can run myself.\u2019 But they were amazing,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n Trump on 9\/11: I was building a big building in New York, and I took the whole crew down there right after this happened., Wasn’t too much we could do. We had other buildings, the United States steel building was creaking. I’ll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/kEt6IO71qR<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Acyn (@Acyn) September 8, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n CNN\u2019s Daniel Dale<\/a>, known for his extensive fact-checking efforts during Trump\u2019s time in office, quickly rebutted the president\u2019s claims. \u201cPresident Trump was not in the vicinity of the World Trade Center when it was hit. He was in Trump Tower, miles away from the towers and nearby One Liberty Plaza, which is\/was also known as the US Steel building,\u201d Dale wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dale continued, \u201cWhile campaigning in 2016, he told a version of today\u2019s story about being whisked away from One Liberty Plaza by big firemen, but he said in 2016 that the alleged incident happened \u2018a couple of days\u2019 after 9\/11 and claimed the creaky building was \u2018not so far from us,\u2019 instead of leaving open the impression he might\u2019ve been a) inside it b) on 9\/11 itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly, PolitiFact<\/a> noted that while there were concerns at the time One Liberty Plaza might collapse, Trump was not mentioned in recollections about it. In addition to his retelling on the 2016 campaign trail<\/a>, Trump also appears to have told a version of this story during a 2021 Newsmax interview<\/a>, calling it a \u201cscary situation.\u201d<\/p>\n This is far from the first time Trump has seemed to embellish his post-9\/11 actions. In 2019, the New York Times<\/a> dug into a claim the president made while signing a bill to fully fund the medical care of 9\/11 first responders. During the Rose Garden event, Trump reportedly claimed he spent a large amount of time alongside emergency workers at ground zero in the days following the attacks. \u201cMany of those affected were firefighters, police officers and other first responders. And I was down there also, but I\u2019m not considering myself a first responder. But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you,\u201d he said, per the Times.<\/p>\n But Richard Alles, a retired New York Fire Department deputy chief, told the Times he personally never saw Trump at the Twin Towers site. \u201cI spent many months there myself, and I never witnessed him,\u201d he told the outlet. \u201cHe was a private citizen at the time. I don\u2019t know what kind of role he could have possibly played.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview Trump gave to a German outlet<\/a> two days after the attacks, he claimed he had 100 men down working at the ground zero site with another 125 planned to join them. But USA Today<\/a> noted that there\u2019s no evidence a crew was sent.<\/p>\n In 2015, Trump told the crowd at an Columbus, Ohio, campaign rally he personally saw people jumping from the World Trade Center. \u201cMany people jumped, and I witnessed it \u2014 I watched that. I have a view, a view in my apartment that was specifically aimed at the World Trade Center,\u201d he said, per CNN<\/a>. \u201cAnd I watched those people jump, and I watched the second plane hit \u2026 I saw the second plane hit the building, and I said, \u2018Wow, that\u2019s unbelievable.\u201d But CNN also noted at the time that Trump\u2019s penthouse apartment in midtown Manhattan was four miles away from the towers, a logistical reality that likely would make it impossible for Trump to have seen what he claimed.<\/p>\n Trump has also invoked inflammatory rhetoric when discussing 9\/11 in the past, falsely claiming in 2015 that he saw Muslim Americans in nearby New Jersey celebrating the attacks \u2014 comments that state officials and critics swiftly denounced<\/a> false and Islamophobic.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s most infamous comments about 9\/11, however, came hours after the attacks, when he phoned into Secaucus\u2019s WWOR-TV<\/a>\u00a0that afternoon and described seeing the explosion from a window in Trump Tower, which gave him a view of the city\u2019s skyline. \u201cI\u2019d see the Empire State Building in the foreground and the World Trade Center in the background. And now I\u2019m looking at absolutely nothing. It\u2019s just gone. It\u2019s just hard to believe,\u201d he said during the interview. But when the anchor asked whether a Trump building in the Financial District, 40 Wall Street, had been damaged, the future president boasted that his building was now the tallest in the city following the attacks, a statement that was ultimately debunked<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201c40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest \u2014 and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second tallest. And now it\u2019s the tallest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As New York City prepares to mark the solemn 25th anniversary of the attacks on Friday, Trump will be taking part in a ceremony held at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, instead. The New York Times<\/a> reported last month that the president won\u2019t be present at the ground zero ceremony because he wanted to give a speech, something that is prohibited at the apolitical event. Instead, Vice-President J.D. Vance will represent the White House. Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden are all expected to attend as well.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Intelligencer\u00a0Newsletter<\/p>\n Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n