Donald Trump skips the celebrations in New York and repeats a story that has already been debunked

During a ceremony at which he posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a man who died after saving several people on 11 September 2001, President Donald Trump revisited a disputed account of his own role in the rescue operations at Ground Zero. On Tuesday, Trump presented America’s highest civilian honour to the family of Welles Crowther, a 24-year-old stockbroker and volunteer firefighter who saved around 18 people before dying in the South Tower of the World Trade Centre. Crowther became known as “the man in the red bandana” because of the handkerchief he tied around his nose and mouth to protect himself from the smoke whilst helping people escape from the burning building. “The man in the red bandana has become more famous than me,” Trump said during his speech at the Ellipse, where a steel beam recovered from the World Trade Centre was on display. “I don’t like it.”

Before recounting Crowther’s heroic deeds, Trump said he had taken “a large group of people” who worked in his building to Ground Zero to help in the aftermath of the attacks, thereby repeating widely disputed claims about his role in the rescue operations. Trump did not specify how much time had passed since the attacks when the group went to Ground Zero. Richard Alles, a former battalion chief with the New York Fire Department, had said in 2019 that he had “no knowledge” of Trump’s presence at the scene and added that, if Trump had sent a team of a hundred workers, there would have been a record of it. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle did not respond to requests for further details or documents that might corroborate Trump’s account. Instead, he issued a statement defending the president and criticising “the declining mainstream media”.

On Tuesday evening, Trump wrote on Truth Social that everything he had said during the ceremony was “exactly correct”. He attacked the media for reporting that his account had been disputed and that first responders had not seen him at Ground Zero. “Well, I don’t think I’d have been the first person to spring to anyone’s mind, but I was there – obviously not on the day of the collapse, but shortly afterwards – with a large group of construction workers,” said Trump. Videos show Trump in a suit and tie in the neighbourhood around Ground Zero in the days following the attacks, but not at the disaster site itself. Trump War Room, the X account linked to Trump’s political activities, posted a video recorded on 13 September 2001 in which Trump claimed to have “about a hundred men working here” and to have “just been at Ground Zero”. The White House did not respond when asked to provide documents confirming the involvement of Trump’s workers in the rescue operations. On Tuesday, Trump also said that two firefighters had led him to safety when it appeared that the U.S. Steel Building – now One Liberty Plaza – might also collapse. The president did not specify when this incident took place, and the White House did not respond to a request to provide a date. “We thought it was collapsing on top of us,” said Trump. “And two firefighters, big, strong men, grabbed me under the arms.”

Trump had also recounted his version of the story regarding the evacuation by the fire brigade during the 2016 election campaign. At the time, he said it had happened a couple of days after the other buildings collapsed and that the building “wasn’t that far from us”, implying that he had not been inside it. Trump’s exaggerations and falsehoods about the terrorist attacks have sparked controversy for years. In 2015, during a rally, he falsely claimed that “thousands and thousands of people were celebrating as that building collapsed”. He said the celebrations had taken place in Jersey City, which he described as a city with “large Arab populations”. He persisted with his version even after being told that the police had stated that no such celebrations had ever taken place.

In 2016, Trump claimed to have “helped a little” with clearing the rubble after the attacks. This claim has not been confirmed by either the first responders or the news reports of the time. Tuesday’s ceremony was organised by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which supports the families of 11 September first responders and has taken the steel beam recovered from the World Trade Centre to symbolic locations across the country, including the Space Centre in Houston, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and Major League Baseball matches. First responders and the families of those who died whilst responding to the attacks entered Tuesday’s ceremony along a blue carpet, flanked by red, white and blue flowers and portraits of the firefighters, police officers and healthcare professionals who died during the rescue operations.

Several members of the government attended the ceremony, including the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick. On 11 September, Lutnick was chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, the company that lost 658 employees in the attacks, including his younger brother, Gary. Lutnick was taking his son to his first day at nursery when the terrorists struck. Trump is expected to mark the 25th anniversary of the 11 September attacks at the Pentagon on Friday, before flying to Ireland for a tournament at Trump International Golf Links Ireland. All living former U.S. presidents are expected to attend a memorial ceremony at Ground Zero in New York. The White House has said that Vice-President J. D. Vance will also attend. Trump did not respond when journalists asked him why he could not attend both the ceremony at the Pentagon and the one at Ground Zero. On Tuesday in Washington, Trump presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Crowther’s mother, Alison Crowther, and his sister, Paige Crowther Charbonneau. Alison Crowther spoke of how she sees young people continuing to draw inspiration from her son’s story as she tours schools to talk about his legacy. “Twenty years after 9/11, his life continues to remind us of something very simple,” she said. “In times when others need us, each of us has the capacity for courage, compassion and a spirit of service. That is the true meaning of the red bandana: to have courage, to find the good and to become the good.”