Donald Trump has again inserted himself into the discussion around 9/11, claiming to have been pulled to safety by firefighters in the wake of America’s deadliest terror attack.
The US President told reporters he was inside the United States Steel Building at the time of the attack when he was ‘evacuated’.
‘And I’ll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big, strong guys — and 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,’ he said.
‘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. American steel.’
But the President has given conflicting stories about where he was on America’s darkest day.
In August, Trump told Fox News he watched the attacks unfold from his apartment in Midtown, which was four miles away from the towers.
In 2016, he told a campaign rally: ‘Many people jumped, and I witnessed it, I watched that. I have a view — a view in my apartment that was specifically aimed at the World Trade Center.
‘And I watched those people jump, and I watched the second plane hit. … I saw the second plane hit the building, and I said, ‘Wow that’s unbelievable.’
Trump appears to have been in his apartment during the attack, but called out ‘fake news’ for questioning his recent story about firefighters – while admitting he actually was not there on the day of the attacks.
He said: ‘The Failing New York Magazine wrote a story that I wasn’t down at the World Trade Center after the Tragedy of September 11th, because nobody saw me there. Well, I don’t think I would be the first thing on anyone’s mind but, I was there, obviously not on the same day as the collapse, but shortly thereafter, with a large group of Construction Workers.’
The President appeared in an interview with Fox on Sunday, during which Donald Trump boasted about his role in helping in the aftermath at Ground Zero.
Trump said: ‘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 quickly afterwards, and we worked long and hard, but it was just so terrible, so hopeless,’ he added.
In another interview, he said he sent 100 people from his company to help with the cleanup at Ground Zero.
Politifact reported in 2019 that New York Fire Department battalion chief Richard Alles said he wasn’t aware of Trump at Ground Zero or of him sending men.
‘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,’ he said.
‘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.’
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