This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. U.S. President Donald Trump has once again made baseless and dramatic claims about the events of that day. A CNN fact-check found that most of the stories Trump has told about 9/11 are fabricated and unsupported by any real evidence.
At an event at the White House on Tuesday, Trump claimed that he went to Ground Zero with his entire construction crew immediately after the attack. He said the nearby “U.S. Steel” building (One Liberty Plaza) was creaking as if about to collapse. Trump claimed that, fearing the building would fall on them, two large firefighters grabbed him by both arms, lifted him off the ground and ran him to safety. When the White House was asked for evidence supporting this claim, none was provided; instead, it said he was a private citizen at the time and that not all of his activities were documented.
A CNN investigation found that on the day of the attack, Trump was miles away from the scene, at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan. There is no record of him being carried out of any building at Ground Zero by firefighters. Trump has also claimed the building is still creaking and at risk of collapse, which is entirely false — the building reopened within two months of 9/11 and remains fully in use today.
No evidence was found either for Trump’s repeated claim that he sent hundreds of his own workers to help with rescue efforts at Ground Zero. Richard Alles, who was a New York Fire Department battalion chief at the time, said that if Trump had sent such a rescue team, there would be official records of it with the police and fire department.
Trump has made other baseless claims about 9/11 in the past as well. He has said that thousands of people in New Jersey — particularly in Arab and Muslim communities — celebrated on the day the Twin Towers fell, and that his own building in Manhattan, 40 Wall Street, became the tallest building in the area after the towers collapsed. A CNN investigation found both claims to be completely false: no evidence of any such celebration in New Jersey that day was found, and a building taller than Trump’s remained standing in the area. The report said Trump has repeatedly spread these baseless stories chiefly to gain political advantage.