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Donald Trump is facing new backlash after being accused of lying about how he personally responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The United States and the wider world are preparing to commemorate 25 years since 2,977 people lost their lives during the worst act of terrorism ever seen in the country.
Four planes carrying hundreds of passengers were hijacked before crashing into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania in an orchestrated attack carried out by the terrorist organization al-Qaeda 25 years ago.
With Trump expected at the Pentagon to deliver a public address on Friday, the president has come under criticism after apparently lying about what he did in the aftermath of the attacks that brought America to a standstill.
During an interview with Fox News, Trump recounted his memories of that fateful day: "I heard about it. I was watching a business show on television, like around 8:30 in the morning, you know what the times are, and Jack Welch from General Electric was a guest," Trump claimed.
"I saw the second plane hit, and you saw that come, and you're watching it, and it's because I watched the air patterns for years, and you, you know, you know where the planes are.
"They go up right up the Hudson River. This thing was coming right into the second building.
"So I watched that happen, and I said, ' Wow, we are now in a different time.' So I saw it, and I said, ‘The world has just changed.'"
However, his comments thereafter were quickly brought into question when he claimed that he had personally gone to the disaster area with a group of construction workers shortly afterwards.
"I went down. I was building a building in New York, and I had a lot of construction workers, and I went down there very shortly thereafter the following day you couldn't go down the same day, but like the following day very, very quickly afterwards, and we worked long and hard," Trump claimed.
Yet, many took to social media to refute those claims as false, with one X user saying: "He’s lying. It’s lies on top of lies on top of lies."
Another posted: "He is so full of ****!!!"
While a third added: "He lies because it doesn't matter... His base doesn't care if he does. They don't look into it or care. They would rather live the lie. Why tell the truth when you can make up your own stories.”
Trump has been accused of making baseless claims about his actions around 9/11 and lying before.
"Soon after, I went down to Ground Zero with men who worked for me to try to help in any little way that we could. We were not alone. So many others were scattered around trying to do the same. They were all trying to help," Trump said in 2019.
It isn’t just social media users who have called out Trump for lying, but a construction executive who had worked for Trump said he certainly wasn’t aware of him providing hundreds of workers to aid rescue efforts.
The battalion chief of the New York Fire Department at the time of the attacks, Richard Alles, during an interview with Politifact, claimed: "I was there for several months — I have no knowledge of his being down there.
“If Trump had sent a crew of 100 workers, 'there would be a record of it. Everybody worked under direct supervision of the police and fire department and the joint commander for emergency services.
“Is there a chance he was ever down there by himself and I didn’t know it? It’s possible, but I know of no one who ever witnessed him there," Alles added.
Following earlier claims, both the Washington Post and the Associated Press approached Trump for comment in 2016, but neither he nor his team ever responded.
