US3 min(s) read
During a ceremony on the White House Ellipse on September 8 honoring emergency responders, President Donald Trump delivered remarks about his experience during the September 11 terror attacks.
He shared an account of being physically carried away from a building near Ground Zero due to safety concerns.
He recounted to the audience: "We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big strong guys, I'm not the smallest guy in the world, they grabbed me under the arm, said, 'Got to get out of here,' and they literally lifted me up.
"This is not easy to do. I'm big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, 'Fellas, I can run myself,' but they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It didn't come down."
He added that nearby One Liberty Plaza, then known as the U.S. Steel Building, began to creak as though it might collapse while he was present at the site.
Numerous news outlets, including New York Magazine, thoroughly reviewed his claims and found no factual record indicating he was present at the World Trade Center site on the day of the attacks.
Donald Trump made the claims while he was presenting Welles Crowther's wife with a posthumous honor. The ceremony was held to celebrate the bravery of Crowther, famously known as the man in the red bandana.
Now White House spokesman Davis Ingle has fired back, defending the president. The official statement dismissed the scrutiny from reporters and focused instead on the purpose of the event.
He said via CNN: "President Trump spent the morning paying tribute to the heroic first responders who laid down their lives in service to others in the September 11th attacks and honoring their incredible families.
The president was relaying his experience of a city reeling immediately after and in the days and weeks after the horrific attacks - and the fact that the failing legacy media is using this to try to attack him is a disgrace and yet another reason why Americans’ trust in the media is at an all-time low."
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Despite the claims being fact-checked and questioned by several sources, Trump responded on Truth Social, insisting his accounts were accurate, though he clarified he wasn't there "on the same day as the collapse" but "shortly thereafter, with a large group of Construction workers."
He said in the post: "Everything I said was exactly accurate and, to prove the point, I am attaching clips of me there with numerous of my people, including my then Head of Security, Matthew Calamari, who has confirmed that very sad trip to Lower Manhattan, many times, to many different Journalists, but it’s a story that just won’t die.
"The Fake News doesn’t want to listen, even when they know their story is false. That’s why their approval ratings are at an All Time LOW, but mine are VERY HIGH!"
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