WATCH: Top 14 Times Trump Was Awful or Inappropriate or Just Plain Lying About 9/11

Tommy ChristopherSep 11th, 2020, 7:45 am
 

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump is marking the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by traveling to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, PA, where hopefully things will go better than his past remembrances of the tragedy.

Last year, Trump started his commemoration of the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by solemnly venting about polls, but that dissonant episode pales in comparison to his very long history of curious — at best — remembrances of those tragic attacks.

Here are 13 more of those occasions, many of which may be new to you, in roughly chronological order.

Tallest Building … or not.

Trump got off to a quick start, bragging on 9/11/2001 that since the Twin Towers had been destroyed hours earlier, he now owned the tallest building in the area.

“Forty Wall Street actually was the second tallest building in downtown Manhattan,” Trump said, adding “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. And now it’s the tallest.”

As ghastly as that boast was, it was also — shockingly — not true.

“I’d fly into that!”

During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show on September 11, 2002, Trump marked the first anniversary of the attacks by joking with Howard Stern about replacing the World Trade Center with a statue of then-girlfriend Melania Knauss.

“Maybe we should build a television tower there,” Trump suggested during the interview.

“Believe me, a statue of your girlfriend would be perfect right there,” Stern quipped.

“Well, that would be an idea,” an amused Trump replied.

Stern and co-host Robin Quivers joked that no one would fly into a statue of Melania.

As the group laughed at that idea, a Stern intern added: “I’d like to fly into that!”

“Muslim Problem”

Trump’s hatred of Muslims was evident long before his presidential campaign, as in this March 31, 2011 interview with future disgraced Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. Asked if there is “a Muslim problem in the world,” Trump made a super-racist contrast.

“I don’t notice Swedish people knocking down the World Trade Center. There certainly is,” Trump told O’Reilly.

“Haters and Losers”

In 2013, Trump marked the anniversary by extending “best wishes” to all the “haters and losers.”

Imaginary Cheering Muslim Lie

During his presidential campaign, as part of a relentless campaign against Muslims, claimed to have seen “thousands and thousands” of people from “areas with large Arab populations” in New Jersey cheering when the Twin Towers were destroyed on 9/11, an utterly false claim.

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. Thousands of people were cheering.

“Do you know the power that gives me?”

Trump also has a habit of using the attacks of 9/11 as a way to brag about his own television ratings, as he did in a 2016 campaign speech in Iowa.

“‘Face the Nation’ put out a release last week that they had, their interview with Donald Trump, long interview, from Florida, that it was the highest-rated show they’ve had in 15 or 16 years, since the fall of the World Trade Center,” Trump told the crowd. “Highest-rated show!”

The press release did not, in fact, reference the attacks of 9/11.

Or when he told another crowd, in Myrtle Beach, the same factoid, and asked: “Do you know the power that gives me?”

Never Forget 7-Eleven

At a 2016 rally in Buffalo, Trump misstated the site of the attacks for a popular convenience store.

“I wrote this out, and it’s very close to my heart — because I was down there, and I watched our police and our firemen down on 7-Eleven, down at the World Trade Center, right after it came down, and I saw the greatest people I’ve ever seen in action,” Trump said.

“I Helped a Little Bit”

During the same rally in Buffalo, Trump also claimed, without evidence, to have helped clear the rubble at Ground Zero following the attacks.

“Everyone who helped clear the rubble — and I was there, and I watched, and I helped a little bit — but I want to tell you: Those people were amazing,” Trump said.

Fist Pump!

In 2018, Trump skipped the traditional moment of silence on the White House lawn to observe the anniversary in Shanksville, PA, and greeted supporters at the airport with a poignant double-fist-pump and lip-bite.

He also marked the anniversary that year by chirpily tweeting “17 years since September 11th!”

I’m Not a First Responder, But…

In July of this year, Trump modestly declared himself not a first responder, rejecting a title no one had given him.

“I was down there also,” Trump said during a bill-signing ceremony in the Rose Garden. “But I’m not considering myself a first responder. But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.”

“Tiny Period of Time with a Bullhorn”

Just a few weeks ago, in an interview with Bloomberg News, Trump bitterly complained about 9/11 as an obstacle to his own historic popularity with Republicans.

I am actually a very popular president, which people don’t like to say, you know. In fact, I guess the Republican poll came out, there’s one at 92 and one at 93 and one at 90, and they’re the highest numbers that have ever been, with the exception of a tiny period of time with a bullhorn.

But that period lasted for about a week.

RSVP Taliban

Finally, on a date that is currently unclear, Trump decided to invite the Taliban — which harbored the terrorists who carried out the attacks — to Camp David just days before the 18th anniversary of those attacks, only to cancel them at the last minute. On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that this was Trump’s idea.

We’ll leave it off here, but check back. The day is young.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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