Monday, August 17, 2020

Trump and 9/11

A. Trump uses the attack to brag about his building now being the tallest in Manhattan:


B. Trump FALSELY says that he helped in the clean-up effort after the attack. From USA Today (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/09/11/fact-check-did-trump-help-ground-zero-after-9-11-attacks/2289053001/)

Trump claim:

 "I was looking out of a window from a building at Midtown Manhattan directly at the World Trade Center when I saw a second plane at a tremendous speed go into the second tower. It was then that I realized the world was going to change. I was no longer going to be, and it could never, ever be that innocent place that I thought it was," Trump said.

"Soon after, I went down to Ground Zero with men who worked for me to try to help in any little way that we could," he continued. "We were not alone. So many others were scattered around trying to do the same. They were all trying to help."

The Truth:

"Trump has made several versions of this claim in the past but there is a lack of evidence that Trump helped or hired people to help on the days following the terrorist attack.

Richard Alles, who was the New York Fire Department battalion chief during the Sept. 11 attack, has repeatedly said that he does not remember Trump having a presence at ground zero.

During an interview with the New York Times, Alles said that despite spending several months at the ground zero site, he "never witnessed" Trump there.

"He was a private citizen at the time. I don’t know what kind of role he could have possibly played," Alles told the Times in July."


C. Trump LIED About Donating to 9/11 Charities

(From Politifact)

"We could not find a record of Trump donating to 9/11 charities after the attacks (though he did donate to the 9/11 Museum amid the 2016 campaign). Trump did pledge to make a $10,000 donation to the Twin Towers Fund as part of a drive led by Howard Stern, the New York Daily News reported. 

The office of the New York City comptroller looked into donors to the Twin Towers Fund and the New York City Public/Private Initiatives, Inc., within a year of the 9/11 attacks. (The probe was limited to a year because most donations came in the immediate months of 9/11, the office has said.)

The review showed Trump did not make a $10,000 donation to those funds, the New York Daily News reported." 

D. Trump Cashed in on the 9/11 Compensation Fund

From the New York Daily News:

"Donald Trump's tale about why he took $150,000 in 9/11 money is as tall as the Downtown skyscraper he says he used in recovery efforts, according to government records.

Though the billionaire [sic] presidential candidate has repeatedly suggested he got that money for helping others out after the attacks, documents obtained by the Daily News show that Trump's account was just a huge lie.

Records from the Empire State Development Corp., which administered the recovery program, show that Trump's company asked for those funds for "rent loss," "cleanup" and "repair" — not to recuperate money lost in helping people.

That government program was designed to help local businesses get back on their feet — not reimburse people for their charitable work.

If Trump's company had asked for money for that reason it would have been rejected, officials said.

"He's clearly wrong. I saw him say that and he's obviously wrong," said David Catalfamo, a senior adviser to then-Gov. George Pataki, who helped run the program."

E. Trump Falsely Claimed He Saw Thousands Cheering the Destruction of the WTC


"The most egregious and easily refutable lie Trump has told about 9/11 was when he claimed in late 2015 that he saw Muslim Americans celebrating the attack in the immediate aftermath: "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. So something’s going on. We’ve got to find out what it is." (Trump went on to mock the physical disability of a New York Times reporter who disagreed with his erroneous claims.)"

























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