President Donald Trump Monday morning signed a bill into law ensuring first responders to the 9/11 attacks and their families will have greatly-needed – and, thanks to GOP lawmakers who delayed the process – long awaited financial support. But his remarks to 9/11 first responders invited to witness the signing of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund in the White House’s Rose Garden has some outraged.
“I was down there [at Ground Zero] also, but I’m not considering myself a first responder, but I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you,” Trump claimed. His claim is false.
It’s not the first time Trump has told this lie.
“Everyone who helped clear the rubble — and I was there, and I watched, and I helped a little bit — but I want to tell you: Those people were amazing,” he said, as Mediaite reminded Monday. “Clearing the rubble. Trying to find additional lives. You didn’t know what was going to come down on all of us — and they handled it.”
Trump, as many on social media were quick to point out, called in to New Jersey radio station WWOR on the afternoon of the 9/11 terror attacks to claim – falsely – that he now owned the tallest building in downtown Manhattan. It was a lie.
Some responses to Trump’s lies: