Trump rages over ‘fake news’ questioning his 9/11 record in furious Truth Social rant
President Donald Trump has lashed out furiously at the media over reporting questioning his record on 9/11.
Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the president’s hometown and Washington, D.C., when al-Qaeda militants hijacked four passenger planes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon – another crash-landed in a Pennsylvania field – killing almost 3,000 people.
Rather than join his four presidential predecessors – Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden – to pay his respects at Ground Zero, Trump will be at the Pentagon in D.C. instead, reporting on which by New York Magazine and New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman has infuriated the commander-in-chief.
“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 began his latest Truth Social broadside 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.
“I discussed it today during my Remarks on the Ellipse, in Washington, D.C., for Tunnel to Towers. Everything I said was exactly accurate and, to prove the point, I am attaching clips of me there with numerous of my people, including my then Head of Security, Matthew Calamari, who has confirmed that very sad trip to Lower Manhattan, many times, to many different Journalists, but it’s a story that just won’t die.
“The Fake News doesn’t want to listen, even when they know their story is false. That’s why their approval ratings are at an All Time LOW, but mine are VERY HIGH!”
Having presented his version of events, the president turned his ire on Haberman, who recently co-wrote the best-selling book Regime Change about his administration, using a favorite insulting nickname.
“On another September 11th front, Maggot Hagerman continues to say that I did not go to the New York World Trade Center event, but the Pentagon instead, because they wouldn’t let me speak in New York.
“Maggot knows that this is a lie! I have been to the New York solemn ceremony numerous times, and nobody speaks. It is a stated fact that, ‘Politicians and public officials are not permitted to deliver speeches or remarks at the official September 11 anniversary remembrance ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York.’
“Certainly I would not want to violate that, even if I could. I speak enough, and it just so happens that the strong request was made for me to be at the Pentagon instead, with VP Vance handling our Administration’s representation in New York.”
His post then took a more personal turn: “Hagerman, unattractive both inside and out, fully knows that her story is made up. She knows less about me than the average reporter ‘on the beat.’
“I haven’t spoken to her in a long time, and certainly there was no ‘fact checking’ for her story – There never is! Let her reveal her sources, because they don’t exist.”
Trump signed off with a familiar diatribe against “Fake News” and demanded a retraction from the magazine and Haberman.
Responding, a spokesperson for The New York Times told The Independent: “We won’t be issuing a retraction. This is another all too common example of the president lashing out at coverage he doesn’t like and belittling journalists who report the facts.
“Readers can follow our coverage of the president’s 9/11 plans here, and the evolving – and often disputed – account of his actions on September 11 here.”
The Independent has also reached out to New York Magazine for comment.
He also included archive news footage from September 13, 2001 in which he told reporters – as the Big Apple’s most prominent property developer – that he was visiting his employees to “spur them on” after their ordeal, that he supported an swift military response against those responsible and agreed it would be a “good idea” if he made a donation to a charitable fund supporting the widows and bereaved children of responders.
As alluded to in his post, Trump delivered a speech at the Ellipse earlier Tuesday, in which he again told a story about firefighters hauling him away from a steel structure they feared would fall down on top of them in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.
Over the years, the president has repeatedly claimed to have been near the World Trade Center site in the wake of the attacks and boasted about having sent his construction crews to assist in recovery efforts. However, responders who were there say they never saw him on the ground.
Trump may be less keen to recall the phone interview he gave to local news channel WWOR-TV just hours after the Twin Towers came down, in which he mused that one of his skyscrapers had just become the tallest structure in Manhattan.
“Forty Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, the tallest, and then when they built the World Trade Center it became known as the second-tallest, and now it’s the tallest,” the future president told newscasters.
