President Donald Trump repeated a dubious claim about his actions on Sept. 11, 2001, during a ceremony Tuesday honoring emergency personnel who died during the terrorist attacks 25 years ago.
The 80-year-old president again placed himself at Ground Zero after two hijacked passenger jets struck the World Trade Center, saying that a pair of firemen spirited him away from the wreckage before the towers collapsed – although there's no evidence he was anywhere near the site that day.
"I'll never forgettwo firemen," Trump said. "We thought it wascoming down on top of us, andtwo firemen – big, strong guys, and I'm not the smallest guy inthe world. They grabbed me underthe arms, they got to get out ofhere, and they literally liftedme up. This is not easy to do –I'm big. They lifted me up andthey started running with me. Isaid, 'Fellas, I can run myself.' But they were amazing."
"But theythought it was coming down," he added. "Itdidn't come down. U.S. Steel,the 1,600-pound beam liftedfrom the wreckage of the South Tower, will forever testify tothe courage and resilience andspirit of a city and a nationthat saw our homeland, struckour towers, knocked down andstood back up stronger, moredetermined and more united thanever before."
Critics served the president reminders from the public record of his activities on 9/11 and in the immediate aftermath.
"Big if true," snorted political strategist Greg MacEachern.
"President Trump was not in the vicinity of the World Trade Center when it was hit," pointed out CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale. "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. There was public concern in the days following the attack that One Liberty Plaza might collapse, but the authorities repeatedly said it was structurally sound, and there's not currently any public evidence Trump went into it amid these collapse worries (?), much less that he was rushed out by firefighters."
Trump has repeatedly suggested he was at Ground Zero with his workers to help with recovery efforts, but no witnesses who were provably there have recalled seeing him or an organized crew of his employees, Dale said.
"While campaigning in 2016," Dale added, "he told a version of today's story about being whisked away from One Liberty Plaza by big firemen, but he said in 2016 that the alleged incident happened 'a couple of days' after 9/11 and claimed the creaky building was 'not so far from us,' instead of leaving open the impression he might've been a) inside it b) on 9/11 itself."
"Here is the President of the United States lying about being at Ground Zero. It doesn’t get more despicable than this," argued former Barack Obama appointee Tim Fullerton.
"A lifetime of lying + slowly becoming more senile at age 80 produces bizarre lies like this," opined columnist Alex Zeldin. "Trump was nowhere near the Twin Towers. We have audio recording of him from a few days after 9/11 bragging that he now has the tallest building in lower Manhattan."
"On 9/11, Trump called into channel 9 news from the safety of Trump Tower in midtown to brag about how he now had the tallest building in downtown Manhattan," recalled progressive activist Melanie D'Arrigo.
"On 9/11 Trump was calling the news to brag about having the tallest building in Manhattan after the towers fell," agreed popular X account Wu Tang is for the Children, sharing a video clip of the phone call.
"Who are these lies for?" asked political commentator Tim Hannan. "No one believes this."
"He is so used to just telling hundreds of random, petty lies a day, sometimes he just blurts out a truly awful fabrication like this," observed political researcher Mark Raymond. "He's such a piece of s---."
"Hogwash," sneered legal analyst Joyce White. "But I guess if you can rewrite the history of January 6 you can rewrite 9/11 too."
"Jesus Herman Christ. Trump's cartoonish lying about 9/11 is particularly grotesque," slammed ex-GOP strategist Jeff Timmer.
"This is called 'confabulation.' It's a classic sign of dementia," surmised popular X user Roshan Rinaldi. "Parts of his mind no longer work, so the brain fills it in with falsehoods and crazy fantasy. But the dementia patient actually believes it to be true. He's absolutely nuts. It's why there's a 25th Amendment."