US President Donald Trump claimed firefighters carried him to safety in the aftermath of 9/11 and made a joke about a deceased first responder during a speech near the White House. The remarks came at a 'Steel Across America' event honouring first responders and victims of the attack, close to the 25-year anniversary.
Trump's account of the rescue
Trump told the crowd that the United States Steel Building was "creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was gonna fall down." He said two firefighters grabbed him under the arms and lifted him up, despite his protest that he could run himself. "They literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. They lifted me up and they started running with me," he said.
He also joked about the volunteer firefighter known as "the man in the red bandana," saying, "He's become more famous than me, I don't like it. Very unhappy, but he's become much more famous than me." He later praised the rescuer's efforts in carrying people who could not walk to safety.
Previous claims and criticism
Trump has previously claimed to have visited the World Trade Center site and worked alongside first responders near Ground Zero. However, retired deputy chief with the New York Fire Department Richard Alles said in 2019 that he never witnessed Trump at the site. "I spent many months there myself, and I never witnessed him," Alles told reporters. "He was a private citizen at the time. I don't know what kind of role he could have possibly played."
On 9/11, Trump called local station WWOR-TV and said he could see the Twin Towers from Trump Tower, four miles away. He mentioned that 40 Wall Street was now the tallest building in downtown Manhattan after the World Trade Center's construction. In 2015, he claimed to have seen people jump from the towers and Muslims celebrating the attack in New Jersey, though no evidence supports that claim.
Response and impact
Timothy O'Brien, author of "TrumpNation: The Art of Being Donald Trump," told The New York Times that Trump "was absolutely not a first responder by any standard definition." He added, "If we're defining it as the first wave of people who arrived at ground zero to provide help, he was not in that wave."
Trump confirmed to a German news station on September 13 that he hoped to have dozens of people involved in the recovery effort, saying, "We will be involved in some form helping to reconstruct." The attacks killed 2,977 people and were carried out by 19 hijackers, ushering in the War on Terror era with over 3.5 million US and NATO service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
