Twenty-five years after the attacks, the different versions provided by the US president about that day and the period immediately following have been analyzed by American newspapers and fact-checkers, who found partial or no evidence to support his claims
Where was Donald Trump on September 11, 2001? 25 years after the attacks on the Twin Towers, reconstructing how the tycoon lived that day and those immediately following it is not easy, also due to the different versions provided over the years by the president himself. From having witnessed the attacks from Trump Tower to the help given at Ground Zero, from the "hundreds" of workers sent among the rubble to the firefighters who would have brought him to safety fearing the collapse of a skyscraper: stories that The Atlantic, PBS and several American fact-checkers have sifted through, finding in some cases partial confirmation and in others no proof.
The different versions
The latest additions to the story arrived on Tuesday, during a ceremony dedicated to the victims and rescuers. "I was building a big building in New York and I took the whole team down there immediately after what happened. Nobody had any hesitations, they all came with me," Trump said, later specifying that he did not arrive on site the same day as the attacks, but "shortly after." The president then recalled that he was near One Liberty Plaza, the former U.S. Steel Building, when it was feared that the skyscraper might collapse. "Two firefighters, two big, strong guys, took me under the arms and said: 'We have to get out of here'. They literally lifted me up. And it's not easy, I'm big - he said - They started running, taking me with them and I said: 'Guys, I can run on my own'". It is documented that there were fears about the stability of the building at the time, but PBS, PolitiFact and The Atlantic underline that there is no evidence that Trump was present during that episode or that he was taken away by firefighters. Less detailed versions of the same story had already been provided by the tycoon in 2016 and 2021.
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Presence documented on 13 September
Trump's presence near Ground Zero was documented on September 13, two days after the attacks. Archival PBS footage shows him in Lower Manhattan telling reporters he has over 100 men already engaged in the area and another 100-150 on the way. "It's just terrible. I've never seen anything like it," he said at the time. "We have a lot of men here right now. We have more than 100 and about 125 are coming. So we'll have a couple of hundred people here." However, no independent evidence has emerged to confirm that hundreds of Trump employees actually participated in clearing the rubble. Richard Alles, the New York fire chief involved in the operation at the time, said he had never heard of the presence of Trump or a contingent of his workers: "There would be a recording. I don't know anyone who has ever seen him there."
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The changing memories of the day of the attack
Memories of the day of the attacks have also changed over time. On September 11, Trump said on live television that he had followed the attack from his home in Trump Tower, about 6.5 kilometers from the Twin Towers: "I have a window that looks directly at the World Trade Center and I saw this huge explosion." In the following years he also claimed to have seen the second plane hit the towers and people jumping from the buildings, details he had not reported in the interview given that day. Also on September 11, he stated that, after the destruction of the World Trade Center, his 40 Wall Street skyscraper had become the tallest in Lower Manhattan: this was not true, because the record belonged to the nearby 70 Pine Street.
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So many controversial statements
The list of controversial statements has grown over the years. During the 2015 presidential campaign, Trump claimed to have seen "thousands and thousands" of people, referring to Muslim residents, celebrating in Jersey City as the World Trade Center collapsed: numerous fact-checks found no evidence to support the account. In 2019, he also relaunched a video claiming that it showed Muslim Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar dancing on the anniversary of 9/11, calling her "the new face of the Democratic Party": CBS News verified that the images had been filmed during a Congressional Black Caucus event that did not take place on 9/11. Trump also argued that he anticipated the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, recalling a quote from the al-Qaeda leader in his 2000 book "The America We Deserve," but at the time bin Laden was already known in the United States for al-Qaeda's role in the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
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The speech on the attack on the anniversary day
Yesterday Trump did not participate in the Ground Zero ceremony, where the administration was represented by Vice President JD Vance, but commemorated the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon, together with First Lady Melania Trump. "On days like September 11th we understand what a country is really made of. Right now we are discovering what we are made of," the president said, recalling the "wonderful souls torn from our world" 25 years ago: "We will never, ever forget this. This is why we fight today. We have no choice. There can only be victory." Although the memories of that day may seem confusing, the tycoon said that "that day we were all New Yorkers. All of us. We were all New Yorkers, but we were also all Americans. We were all a family".
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