WASHINGTON
― President
Donald Trump on
Monday commemorated the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11
attacks, leading a moment of silence at the White House to mark
the moment the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade
Center in New York.
The president and first lady
Melania Trump stood on the White House’s South Lawn amid a crowd
that included Trump’s elder daughter, Ivanka, and his son-in-law
Jared Kushner.
Trump
spoke at a memorial ceremony at the Pentagon later Monday morning,
honoring the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks and their families.
“Today,
our entire nation grieves with you,” he said, reflecting on “the
horror and anguish of that dark day” and praising the country’s
perseverance and unity following the attacks.
His
measured remarks on Monday notwithstanding, Trump has a history of
making insensitive and false comments about the Sept. 11 tragedy.
The
2001 terrorist attacks were the subject of one of Trump’s most
egregious lies during his presidential campaign. In November 2015, he
claimed, without evidence, that “thousands
and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey had
celebrated the news of the attacks.
“I
watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched
in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people
were cheering as that building was coming down,” Trump said at a
campaign rally. “Thousands of people were cheering.”
The
following day, Trump reiterated his lie, claiming that the supposed
celebration “was well covered at the time.”
“There
were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where
you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World
Trade Center came down,” Trump said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The
lie, which
has been roundly debunked,
appeared to originate from an
article published a few days after the attacks,
reporting that law enforcement officials had investigated “a number
of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding
tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation
on the other side of the river.”
But
Trump, as he frequently does, exaggerated the allegation in the story
― an allegation that was never substantiated.
Following
the rally in which he first peddled the lie, Trump mocked
one of the journalists who wrote the original story,
veteran New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, after Kovaleski
himself affirmed that the story did not back up Trump’s lie.
“I
certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even
hundreds of people were celebrating,” Kovaleski said.
In
response, Trump performed a disgusting imitation of Kovaleski, who
has arthrogryposis, a congenital joint condition.
On
the actual day of the attacks, Trump, a New York real estate
mogul, tastelessly
bragged about
his downtown Manhattan building, 40 Wall Street.
Calling
in to a New York TV news broadcast, as the station aired footage of
the World Trade Center towers collapsing, Trump claimed that his
property would now become the tallest building in the area.
“40
Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown
Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was
the tallest — and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it
became known as the second-tallest,” he said. “And now it’s the
tallest.”
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
“@realDonaldTrump:
I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and
losers, on this special date, September 11th.”
Trump
interview on 9/11: "[My building] was the 2nd-tallest in
Manhattan... And now it’s the tallest." #NeverForget
That
claim also
turned out to be false.
Trump
has frequently referred
to the attacks on Twitter,
his favorite medium of communication.
@realDonaldTrump
I
predicted the 9/11 attack on America in my book "The America We
Deserve" and the collapse of Iraq in @TimeToGetTough.
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