Donald Trump invents fake story about stock market opening the day after 9/11 at Illinois rally

On Saturday, President Donald Trump completely made up a story about the New York Stock Exchange opening the day after the September 11 attacks.

In order to justify his decision not to cancel his campaign rally in rural Illinois the same day as a politically motivated massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Trump invented a false story about the NYSE opening on 9/12.

“With what happened early today, that horrible, horrible attack in Pittsburgh, I was saying maybe I should cancel both this and that. And then I said to myself, I remembered Dick Russell, a friend of mine, great guy, he headed up the New York Stock Exchange on September 11th, and the New York Stock Exchange was open the following day," Trump falsely claimed. "He said — and what they had to do to open it you wouldn’t believe, we won’t even talk to you about it. But he got that exchange open.”

But he did not get the stock market open.

In fact, as Bloomberg points out, the NYSE was closed for a full week, finally opening on September 17.

“We have our schedules. And nobody’s going to change it. So we’re here. And let’s have a good time,” Trump said at the rally.

It's not the first faulty 9/11 story Trump has told.

The president has also falsely claimed that he remembered seeing Muslims celebrate the 9/11 attacks.