Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday made what appeared to be a new claim about his involvement in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Trump, whose fanciful “recollections” of what happened during and after 9/11 have been repeatedly called into question, told a story in an interview with conservative network Newsmax about the time “two big firemen” moved him to safety amid fears a nearby building was about to collapse.
“We were hearing creaks, I’ve never forgotten it, it was I think the United States Steel Building it was called at the time, and it’s 50 stories tall, and we heard creaks,” he said in the previously untold tale.
“I said, ‘That building is going to come down,’ and two big firemen grabbed me, and grabbed other people, and they just moved out of that area,” Trump continued. “Never came down but, I never heard a noise like that. And it was a scary situation. But the job they did was so incredible, the first responders.”
Watch the video here:
On Sept. 11, 2001, Trump falsely boasted in a TV interview that his 40 Wall Street building was now the tallest in downtown Manhattan.
“40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest — and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest,” he said. “And now it’s the tallest.”
Trump, who is spending this year’s 20th anniversary of the attacks commentating on a boxing match with his son Donald Trump Jr. for viewers who pay $49.99, has also repeatedly said he “spent a lot of time” with first responders at Ground Zero and sent a 100-person crew to assist in the cleanup. Both claims crumble under scrutiny.
In 2015, Trump baselessly claimed at a campaign rally that he’d seen “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the attacks.
“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down,” he said. “Thousands of people were cheering.”
Those statements have been debunked as lies.