TRUMP'S 9-11 LIES
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18 Years of Donald Trump’s 9/11 Lies, Insults, and Slights
From the ‘Muslims cheered’ lie to charity claims, the New Yorker has a huge history of indifference and contempt for the darkest day in his city’s history.
Editor’s Note: On the 18th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, President Donald Trump repeated his lie he visited the ruins of the World Trade Center with employees to “help in any way that we could.” When he ran for president in 2016, Michael Daly held him accountable for lying about America’s darkest day.
Six months after Donald Trump claimed to have lost “hundreds of friends” in the 9/11 attacks, his campaign continues to ignore a request from The Daily Beast that he name even one.
His silence becomes all the more shameful as we come to the 15th anniversary of the day 2,983 innocents were murdered in downtown Manhattan.
“If he has hundreds of friends, he should be able to tell us about them,” remarked a Port Authority police officer who has felt a duty to learn as much as he can about as many of the victims as possible. “If he can tell us about the hundreds of friends he lost, who they were, what kind of [people] they were, I might have some respect for him.”
The only time anybody can remember Trump being down at the September 11 Memorial and Museum was this April, when he made what seemed more like a campaign stop. Those who escorted him noted that he did not seem to pay particular attention to any of the names around the memorial pools or pictures of the victims displayed in the museum. His own math would say that at least a tenth of these people were his friends.
Trump’s then-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, reacted as might be expected of anybody who had lost even one friend. A museum staffer later reported that Lewandowski had seemed greatly moved as he paused before a picture of Brian Kinney, who had been a passenger aboard the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 175. Kinney had been one of Lewandowski’s best friends and had married a young woman named Alison Hardy whom Lewandowski had dated in high school. Lewandowski and Hardy had subsequently become one of the many post-9/11 romances in which shared loss became love. They are now married.
Trump proceeded past the faces with no manifest interest. He breezed by a haunting photo of a woman standing at the edge of the monstrous charred hole that an airliner had punched in the uptown side of the North Tower. That is the same façade that faced Trump’s penthouse apartment four miles uptown.
Along with saying he lost hundreds of friends and that he saw news footage of “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey cheering the attack ( he was the only one to see that footage if so ) Trump had spoken of standing at his apartment window and possessing such remarkable eyesight that he could see the jumpers four miles south. The woman in the photo—identified as Edna Cintron, an administrative assistant who had been working there to augment the income of her family flower shop in Harlem—is believed to have become one of those forced by the flames to leap.
To look at that photo of her in her final moments at the abyss is to know that telling lies about her or about those who perished with her are far more heinous lies than such a standard politician’s fib as saying you were always against the Iraq war when you started out saying on The Howard Stern Show that you supported it .
Trump did present the museum on his first and only visit there with his very first recorded charitable donation in connection with 9/11. The check was for $100,000, but it was drawn on his foundation, to which he has not contributed a penny in more than six years. He therefore continued a perfect record of not giving a penny of his own money to the memorial, not even the admission price, which the museum said was waived for him and his entourage, a saving of $24 for the adults, $18 in the case of a senior citizen such as Trump.
Trump then returned to his tower just up Fifth Avenue from Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, where so many 9/11 funerals were held. Trump is not known to have gone to any 9/11 funerals, even though the FDNY lost so many—343 members—that it worried it might not be able to fill services and so asked the public to attend.
The 9/11 funerals at the cathedral a few moments’ amble from Trump’s home included the one for FDNY Captain Terence Hatton, who was married to then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s executive assistant. Giuliani gave a tender eulogy, terming the loss a death in the family and calling Hatton the kind of man he would want his son to become.
“He was what real courage was all about,” Giuliani rightly said.
Anybody who listened to Giuliani that day could not have imagined that he would ever countenance, much less support, someone who sought to elevate himself by telling lies about 9/11.
Let us hope that Giuliani believes that Trump really did lose hundreds of friends on 9/11 and really was able to see jumpers from four miles away and really did see footage of cheering Muslims.
And let us hope that Giuliani is being completely truthful when he seeks to explain why there are no documented donations by Trump in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when Americans gave more than $1.2 billion.
On record, the self-proclaimed billionaire Trump gave less than the impoverished septuagenarian widow who arrived at a Ground Zero checkpoint on West Street with a small bag of ice, saying it was all she had to give the first responders.
Giuliani told the Republican National Convention that this man who works harder than anybody not to be anonymous and likes to put TRUMP on everything from buildings to steaks to doggie sweaters prefers to go unnamed when he gives to the families of fallen first responders and the victims of terrorism.
“Every time New York City suffered a tragedy, Donald Trump was there to help,” Giuliani said. “He’s not going to like my telling you this, but he did it anonymously.”
Giuliani called Trump a “man with a big heart” and went on, “When police officers were shot, when firefighters were hurt, when people were in trouble, he came forward and he helped, and he asked not to be mentioned. Well, I’m going to break my promise to him. I am going to mention it.”
Giuliani continued, “I am telling you this because I am sick and tired of the defamation of Donald Trump by the media and by the [Hillary] Clinton campaign. This is a good man and America should be sick and tired of their vicious, nasty campaign. You deserve to know this about your next president.”
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Donald Trump reportedly called The Howard Stern Show and pledged to donate $10,000 to the Twin Towers Fund. That is the charity Giuliani set up to benefit the families of first responders who perished on 9/11.
In his contribution this year to the memorial—his only documented 9/11-related donation—Trump used funds from the foundation that bears his name, but none of his own money of late. The same is true of all his other significant charitable donations that are not a failed real estate venture made via a donation into a tax deduction .
Despite his pledge, the Trump Foundation shows no donations at all to the Twin Tower Fund.
Giuliani would have us believe that Trump would make a very public $10,000 pledge on The Howard Stern Show , but ask that any donations he actually made to first responders remain anonymous.
On Sunday, Giuliani is expected to be at Ground Zero for the observance of the 15th anniversary of 9/11, just as he has been present for all the previous anniversaries.
Also expected is another Trump booster, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has attended every anniversary observance while in office. Christie prompted frowns at the 13th anniversary, when he stood laughing at Ground Zero with his then-aide, David Wildstein, two days into the five-day lane shutdown at the George Washington Bridge that led to the present trial in New Jersey federal court.
The frowns turned to grumbles at the 14th anniversary, when Christie sat chatting on his cellphone in his SUV while it blocked two busloads of families of fallen NYPD officers, keeping them from reaching their prearranged arrival point at Ground Zero.
As of Thursday night, Trump was not on the list of those expected to attend. The Port Authority cop who has tried to learn all he can about as many victims as possible and who really does prefer to remain anonymous says that he hopes Trump will stay away as the names of the dead are read once more.
“It would only serve as a distraction from the people and the families that day is about,” the cop said.
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A Timeline Of Trump’s Misleading 9/11 Claims
TOPLINE
President Trump has a history of making unfounded claims and misleading statements about the September 11 attacks that begins 19 years ago, on the day of the attack
TIMELINE
September 11, 2001 Trump claimed in a TV interview that one of the buildings he owns, 40 Wall Street, became the tallest building in downtown Manhattan after the Twin Towers came down, but it’s actually 25 feet shorter than 70 Pine Street, just one block away.
November 16, 2015 Trump told campaign rally attendees that he predicted 9/11 orchestrator Osama bin Laden would target the Twin Towers in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve , but reports from as early as 1999 prove a possible bin Laden attack was on the radar for U.S. officials.
November 21, 2015 Trump said during a campaign rally he witnessed Muslims cheering the towers’ collapse from Jersey City, but an exhaustive investigation by the Washington Pos t , bolstered by interviews with law enforcement, debunked this ever happened.
November 23, 2015 During another campaign rally, Trump claimed he witnessed people jumping from the towers, even though he said on the day of the attacks he was at home when the planes hit—and Trump Tower is four miles north of Ground Zero.
April 12, 2016 Trump told Time magazine his organization received a $150,000 federal grant for 40 Wall Street because he let people impacted by the attacks use the building, but a New York Daily News investigation found the money was intended for small business recovery, and that the Trump Organization said it was used for rent loss, cleanup, and repair—not for helping people.
April 18, 2016 Trump told campaign rally attendees he “helped a little bit” to clear rubble at Ground Zero with other first responders, though there’s no contemporaneous reports this ever happened.
July 29, 2019 Before he signed a bill extending the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, Trump claimed he “spent a lot of time down” at Ground Zero with first responders, but was not a presence there according to a former FDNY chief deputy, although Trump did make visits to the New York Stock Exchange and surrounding area in the days after the attack, which is a few blocks east of Ground Zero.
September 11, 2019 During a commemoration of the attacks, Trump said that he watched the second plane hit the Twin Towers from a building, but he made no mention of this during his 2001 TV interview and, again, his home is four miles away.
Also that day Trump repeated his claim that he assisted first responders at Ground Zero.
September 18, 2019 Trump attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., again by tweeting a misleading video that he claims shows the Congresswoman dancing on the anniversary of 9/11, but Omar refuted this, explaining the video was from a Congressional Black Caucus event days before the anniversary.
BIG NUMBER
Over 20,000. That’s how many false or misleading claims Trump has made just during his first presidential term, according to an ongoing tracker from the Washington Post . Trump passed the 20,000 threshold in July, by then averaging 23 claims per day over a 14 month period, the Post reported.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“[Trump] seems so willing to say whatever suits him at that moment regardless of whether it’s true,” PolitiFact founder Bill Adair told the New York Times in 2018. “I’ve just never seen any political figure distort the truth so recklessly.”
KEY BACKGROUND
Trump was known for making brash, controversial and wild statements before he ascended to the presidency in 2016. In his bestselling book The Art Of The Deal, Trump had his own terms for this practice: “truthful hyperbole” and “innocent exaggeration.” But once he took office, fact-checkers and other institutions rooted in shared facts have struggled to keep up with the volume of Trump’s misleading or false claims. The bombshell revealed by journalist Bob Woodward on Wednesday ignited intense debate over what Trump knew when about the coronavirus, and when he should have shared that knowledge with the American people. All those years of truthful hyperbole could be catching up with Trump. According to an August 4 poll by NBC News and Survey Monkey, 58% of Americans don’t trust what Trump has to say about the coronavirus pandemic.
FURTHER READING
Trump’s outrageous claim that ‘thousands’ of New Jersey Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks (Washington Post)
Trump makes dubious claim (again) about his 9/11 efforts (MSNBC)
A Timeline Of Trump’s Misleading 9/11 Claims (forbes.com)
He's a scumbag that would lie about one of the most solemn days in American history, but we still love him, because he's got good "policies".
He's a scumbag
Is there any doubt after that disgraceful episode a couple of years ago where he used the graves of the fallen soldiers in France as a backdrop and did nothing but trash talk people he does not like.
Trump said he lost "hundreds" of friends on 9-11, but later changed that number to "many many" . When requested by media outlets to identify even one of them by name, Trump has failed (for years) to respond.
One would think that getting caught time and time again in lies would change one's behavior. Clearly this it not the case with everyone.
Where is Vic? I want Vic to come on here and tell us that its ok that Trump has been lying about 9-11 for 20 years and said he lost "many many friends " that day but cant name even one of them.
Vic says all Trumps lying is ok because he "got things done".
Thing is, you can understand why some would favor Trump for his policies. What blows my mind, however, is that extant Trump supporters seem to collectively not recognize that there are plenty of other human beings who would state the same policies as Trump and are not lying sacks of shit. As for getting things done, well, that has to be discussed policy by policy.
Whether or not a policy is good for the country is a matter of opinion. Whether or not someone is fit for office should not be a matter of opinion. Trump is provably the most unfit for office person (president) in American history.
Fitness for office comes first. Trump brought utter and constant chaos to this country and that is unforgivable.
Now they are trying to continue it.
But it is a matter of opinion. Everything, literally, about a candidate is a matter of opinion.
The question really is why someone would vote for PotUS someone who is demonstrably of abysmal character and who has proved that he will use the office of the presidency to his own perceived benefit in spite of the harm he causes to the nation.
I cannot explain the above ⇡, but I can comprehend how, if someone is able to put aside Trump's abysmal character, why an R-favorable person would vote for him based on policies. He clearly talked the R talk and walked the R walk.
Then why havent we had a series or history of abysmal figures in the presidency? Being president of the United States used to be a role of at least a little dignity and gravitas. Trump brought that level down to zero. When he pushed the president of a small European country out of the way so Trump could get to the front of a photo op of NATO leaders it should have appalled Americans like it did Europeans, but Trump fans ate it up.
Is the presidency automatically a role model? No but it shouldnt be a constant buffoon either.
But its not just the buffoonery . Trump is a malignant narcissist, pathological liar, and crook. None of that is up for debate.
Having such a person as the national figurehead and leader is a constant cancer on the society.
And that should not be subject to "opinion" .
Whether we should remove troops from a war zone is a matter of opinion. Whether taxes should be raised or lowered is a matter of opinion.
Whether or not a total asshole should be president of the United States should not be subject to opinion.
I don't necessarily agree with this. Were it true there wouldn't have been such a pushback from the "Establishment Republicans". He's stickily a populist that rode in on the Tea Party - Alt+Right wave. The talk was about slim lining government, but the walk was about self enrichment for him and his business insider buddies that he gave cabinet positions to.
Much of the Trump "agenda" was stalled by court action. In defense of Trump, though, much of what he tried to do through Congress could not pass because of the partisan political divide and he had to try to push things through by EO and department rule changes. Now that things are even worse in Congress Biden is trying to work similarly and again, that's not going to work well.
Good question. Why has the electorate reduced its standards? Or, alternatively, why are the candidates of such reduced quality? Why are all the highly qualified, potentially good statespersons not running for PotUS?
Indeed, but clearly there are tens of millions who put that aside because they like what he says.
But it is. The voters decide. That is opinion.
They pushed back (initially) because he was not one of them and (quite likely) because they knew he was an abysmal character and junkyard dog and they did not want that kind of person leading the party (and tarnishing the R brand). Note, however, they eventually succumbed.
But his supporters like what he says. Note that they actually buy his lies. He paints a fake reality that they like with his lies and they suck it up. Actual accomplishments apparently are not as important as promises and lies of accomplishments whereas failures are ignored (or not even comprehended).
He lost, they did not all succumb. It's a smaller group for sure, but there are those out there that won't compromise to the unruly mob that makes up the Trumpublican base. Others just follow the political winds wherever they blow.
His supporters like what he says because he says what they want to hear. For years there have been magazine articles trying to explain the Evangelical populist movements from the Tea Party to the Alt+Right and now beyond to the Q nutters. Trump fed that beast. Trump got hammered in the beginning of his term when he tried to compromise with Dems so that he just leaned in to where he got the most love. They feed each other's narcissism. Doesn't this make him a populist by definition?
No, I mean that the R leadership after about a year succumbed and started supporting Trump as PotUS.
Exactly.
IMO, it all changed when Obama was elected. We had the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and the biggest birther of all...D. Trump. The TP, SP, and DT all fed into the mood of the country. Obama wasn't elected by a large margin, but he managed to get the electoral votes and that's what counted. We all know he wasn't much loved in the south or flyover country. So the villains that I've named, tapped into that anger and mistrust and watered it until it bloomed with the smelliest flower ever.
Trmp recognized the mood when he came down that elevator in 2015 and vowed to every body who would vote for him that he wasn't going to change the atmosphere, he was going to make it worse.
So that's the legacy of trmp and why it will lead to more buffoons seeking the highest office.
Oh.. yeah. Any number of politicians will ride whatever horse gets them where they want to be. In this case McConnel has played things as well as anyone can. He's a master. McCarthy not quite as well. McCarthy's game with Pelosi on the 1/6 commission might blow up in his face. We'll see. I'll also be watching Cheney as she navigates politics after losing her leadership position.
We have. You just refuse to acknowledge it.
Overlooking the incredibly obvious idea that whether or not a person IS a total asshole is completely the subject of opinion, ALL elections are decided by opinion. Which, come to think of it, is equally obvious and I'm not sure a person over the age of 12 is still struggling with the concept.
That's not unique to his supporters, BTW.
I don't think it was his election, although they were obviously not happy about it. The TP and other idiots didn't become viable political forces until the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Disapproval of the ACA drove the record setting midterm bloodbath of 2010, where being the most fervently opposed to "Obamacare" was a selling point that got lots of these crazies elected.
Can you help explain this to HRC supporters?
Let's also don't forget about the free media coverage Trump got during the campaign. As much as CNN claims to hate him, they definitely made him president.
I would like to disagree with that. I would like to say something like "surely we've seen the worst of this". But alas, I live in the real world, where buffoons and the idiots who support them seem to appear like gremlins in water.
No. Trump is a liar, cheat, fraud, grifter and more we do not know yet. As far as the GOP, they---------are afraid of something.
How do you get to trash members not here?
"He's a scumbag that would lie about one of the most solemn days in American history, but we still love him, because he's got good "policies".
His only 'policy' while 'president' was to rape and loot and pillage - him and his 'donors' for their positions - the treasury as fast as his fat little fingers would allow.
It's the 20th anniversary, not the 15th
Lies know no calendar.
That video was from last September as they said "19 years" if you bothered to watch it, which I rather doubt since it clearly exposes dishonest Donald as the liar and charlatan he is. But I doubt any of his sycophant followers care since their heads are stuck so far up his ass they can see the black corroded lump of shit where his heart should be.
Another topic the right doesnt want to touch.
In two days it will be the 20th year to the day since the 9/11 attacks. We had a president of the United States who lied about numerous things related to that event , mostly to puff himself up and make himself seem in some small way important to the story.
Trump said that he had "many many" friends who died in the Twin Towers collapse. He has yet, 20 years later, to identify a single one of them.
I know that Trumpsters do not wish to discuss his 9-11 lies. No one enjoys discussing such disgraceful behavior by someone they voted for.
If someone is still supporting a man who, as PotUS, intentionally spent two months feeding the nation outrageous lies about our electoral system in a failed attempt to not be seen as a 'loser' and whose influence as PotUS worked people up into a violent frenzy —which continues even now— then they will overlook his 9/11 lie.
My key point here is that I remain baffled that anyone would not dismiss Trump after his Big Lie con-job. If that is not enough to show his abysmal character and malignant narcissism then nothing will. His con-job was historic; no PotUS has ever engaged in such an intentional dishonest practice. But his remaining supporters cannot see this. Truly amazing.
In 2019 a "whistleblower" made a report describing the contents of Trumps phone call with Ukrainian president Zelensky in which Trump suggested Zelensky should investigate Joe Biden. After a few days the White House, under pressure, released a transcript of the phone call that verified the accuracy of the whistleblowers report.
Nonetheless, Trump would go on to , 75 different times, tweet or say that the whistleblower had completely misrepresented the phone call. Trump said this even though the evidence was in plain sight for everyone.
A year later 74 million people voted for him for president. They dont care what he says. It is one of the reasons we are now a degraded nation.
They care about what he says in terms of policies and ignore all negative reality of Trump. Confirmation bias in action.
MAGA is a social disorder.
It's more like Trump's 24/7/365 lies.
Nearly tinkled my bloomers over this comment by Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal fart and dye man:
“Every time New York City suffered a tragedy, Donald Trump was there to help,” Giuliani said. “He’s not going to like my telling you this, but he did it anonymously.”
In addition, Trump's 'foundation' was shut down due to unethical shenanigans 7 years ago, and it is still under investigation. About what, you ask? How about all this crappola:
In case you missed it, 3.6 is of particular interest.
What a creep.
You think Donald Trump is unethical ? You must be a Democrat.
No. Certified sane.
lol
I can't believe Ghouliani is still sucking that little orange weiner after being thrown under the bus/and stiffed.
I know! I bet he thinks he will still get paid $20,000.00 per day for working for that slime bag.
Rudy used to be such a great guy. I can't help but wonder if something medically happened to his mind to make him worship someone so clearly undeserving. Either that, or Trump has something on him...something huge.
Rudy has always claimed to have something on Trump. Not sure what he is waiting for.
his check, in the mail...
Err, don't you mean, "sniffed?"
I knew that his cheese fell off of his cracker the day he told an interviewer that no successful Islamic terrorist attacks on U.S. soil happened until Obama took office. We all have brain farts, but geezes, how the fuck did he not remember that 9-11 happened on his watch as the then mayor of NY.
The man is the most despicable, cringe-worthy, piece of shit, asshole, monkey fart, animal ever to knuckle drag the Earth.
I ran out of descriptive terms but feel free to add on
bozo, dimwit, jackass, balloon knot, schmuck, anal wart, fuckface
Looks like someone got a thesaurus for Christmas!
we are only scraping the surface
Yes, a thesaurus contains thousands of words!
mental midget, douche bag, jag off, scallywag
Fuckwad, jizzman, only living brain donor...
bigot, lazy, fat, STOOPID
incestophile, fappy, douche nozzle, imbecile
Hahhahahahahaha!!!!
Bigger hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
You guys are killin' me here!!
To me, pathological liar and malignant narcissist sum it up well, are descriptive, and are both demonstrable by Trump's public actions alone.
Moosh noosh cockwomble
Tip of the hat to the Ojibwe and Brits for this.
I wish there was an Ojibwe term for cockwomble. Can you come up with one?
Twat waffle, turd sandwich, douche canoe, chump stain, mucous plug, cocksplat....
I really hate eminent domain cases. They suck. The taxpayer/property owner almost never gets a fair deal.
Vera Coking battled Trump in Atlantic City for a decade and won, barely.
Infamously the City of New London decide to condemn a nice biracial community for a new Pfizer research facility
and one woman Suzette Kelo took the matter to the Supreme Court and lost 5-4.
4 years later Pfizer changed their mind leaving behind an empty field and lowering New London's tax base.
The Texas border with Mexico is awash in eminent domain cases with as many as 5,000 parcels within 500 yards of the Rio Grande,
the gubmint prefers to build their walls as far as a mile inland on deeds or land grants
in many cases older than Texas or the United States.
People almost never get fair compensation and in Texas there's a real possibility that your home ends up on the wrong side of the fence
with your fields or ranch on the other miles from any gates.
That POS has no friends.
He screwed over his father. He screwed over his siblings. He screwed over his employees. He has screwed over just about every small business that made the horrible mistake of entering into a business agreement with him. He screwed over our entire country and our allies. It's time to find a pasture and put him out in it. I wouldn't mind putting his 3 eldest children out in it with him.
Agreed.
Seems like the only good one of the bunch is Mary Trump. She openly hates her uncle Donald. I follow her on Twitter, she makes excellent points.
Who could blame her? In addition to Trump's abysmal character, Trump cheated her and her brother out of their inheritance when he drafted a will and took advantage of his brother's weakened mental capabilities (due to substance abuse).
Trump just takes advantage of everyone he can. Such a wonderful human being.