President Donald Trump is firing back at media reports and political critics who accused him of lying about his experience near Ground Zero in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Trump addressed the controversy Tuesday night after recounting the story during a Tunnel to Towers Foundation event on the Ellipse outside the White House honoring 9/11 victims and first responders.
During his remarks, Trump said he took a construction crew downtown after the attacks and recalled being near the U.S. Steel Building, now known as One Liberty Plaza, when concerns mounted that the structure could collapse.
“I was building a big building in New York, and I took the whole crew down there right after this happened,” Trump said, elaborating on his past claims that he brought a construction crew down to Ground Zero in the aftermath.
“The United States Steel Building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down … 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.”
Trump joked that getting him away from the building was no easy task because “I’m big,” adding that the structure ultimately “didn’t come down.”
The story quickly drew attacks from Trump critics.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office accused Trump of lying about the episode, while Rachel Maddow described his account as “dubious.” New York Magazine published a story claiming the president told a “weird lie about where he was on 9/11.”
Trump responded later Tuesday with a lengthy Truth Social post aimed directly at the magazine.
“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,” the President posted on social media late on Tuesday evening.
“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.”
Trump was in Manhattan when the attacks unfolded and gave television interviews as the disaster was still developing. In the years since, he has repeatedly said he later traveled downtown with construction workers following the destruction of the Twin Towers.
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Trump also gave interviews near Ground Zero in the days immediately following the attacks and spoke at the time about the dangerous conditions surrounding the site.
His Tuesday remarks offered additional detail about the episode involving firefighters and the U.S. Steel Building, prompting another round of critical coverage.
Trump pushed back by pointing to old television footage and his former security chief, Matthew Calamari.
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He said Calamari had confirmed the trip “to many different journalists, but it’s a story that just won’t die.”
Trump also maintained that “everything I saw was exactly accurate.”
The president’s nearly 500-word response expanded beyond New York Magazine, taking aim at The New York Times over its reporting about Trump’s plans for the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
The Times reported that Trump initially planned to attend the annual Ground Zero remembrance ceremony in Manhattan and wanted to deliver remarks there, but changed his plans because the memorial does not allow politicians to give speeches.
Political speeches have been barred at the Ground Zero ceremony since 2012.
Trump denied that the speaking restriction had anything to do with his decision to attend the Pentagon ceremony instead.
“I have been to the New York solemn ceremony numerous times, and nobody speaks,” he wrote. “Certainly I would not want to violate that, even if I could.”
“Again, speeches are not made at the New York event and, even if they were, I never asked to speak. Fake News is getting worse and worse in the U.S.A.”
Trump demanded retractions from New York Magazine and The New York Times before posting a series of videos showing television coverage from the aftermath of the 2001 attacks.
The clips included footage of a younger Trump discussing the unstable conditions around Lower Manhattan as recovery crews worked near Ground Zero.
In one NBC News interview from 2001 that Trump reposted, he described repeated evacuations caused by fears that weakened buildings surrounding the site could come down.
“It’s very dangerous because every few minutes a whistle will go off, and everyone will just run because you have all the buildings around it that are in such a weakened state that people just don’t know,” Trump told NBC News in a 2001 interview he reposted.
Trump’s latest comments came as the country prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.
