Donald Trump recalled on Wednesday during a speech at the Pentagon that he personally saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terror attacks that claimed more than 2,600 lives in New York City on September 11, 2001.
He said he had been watching a financial news channel in his penthouse apartment at Trump Tower when news of the first crash broke, and then watched from a window as the second plane epxloded in a fireball as terrorists flew it into the South Tower.
‘I was sitting at home watching a major business television show early that morning. Jack Welch, the legendary head of General Electric, was about to be interviewed when all of a sudden they cut away,’ he said.
‘Nobody really knew what happened. There was great confusion,’ Trump added. ‘I was looking out of a window from a building in 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 saw the second plane hit the building and I said, “Wow that’s unbelievable”,’ he said.
The president has recalled that experience in the past, sometimes claiming to have seen doomed Americans leaping to their deaths as flames rose.
President Donald Trump told a Pentagon audience Wednesday during a 9/11 memorial service that he watched as terrorists flew a plane into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in 2001
Smoke rose from the burning twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 after terrorists crashed their hijacked commercial airliners into the New York City skyscrapers; Trump would have seen this from a distance of more than 4 miles away in his Trump Tower penthouse apartment
The deadly Pentagon crash site was visible for months after the 9/11 attacks in 2001; the terror attack caused extensive damage to the west face of the building
‘I have a window in my apartment that specifically was aimed at the World Trade Center, because of the beauty of the whole downtown Manhattan,’ he told an Ohio campaign crowd in 2015, ‘and I watched as people jumped, and I watched the second plane come in.’
‘Many people jumped, and I witnessed that. I watched that,’ he said then. Skeptical media fact-checkers have pointed out that he would have seen the horrible events play out from a distance of over four miles.
He and Melania Trump stood with hands over hearts on Wednesday morning before their Pentagon visit, leading White House staff in a moment of silence on the South Lawn to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the attacks.
Standing like stone pillars as a bugler played ‘Taps,’ the first couple devoted just a few minutes to the observance before heading to the Pentagon for the moreexpansive memorial to the Americans who died there.
At the U.S. military’s landmark headquarters, the Trumps laid a wreath while a U.S. Army officer read the names of the fallen and a sailor rang a bell for each life lost.
Remembrances of the deadly attacks are an annual skip in the nation’s heartbeat, focusing older Americans on the day the nation stood still in awestruck pain and sadness as thousands died in New York City; Arlington, Virginia; and Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
The commemoration of the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks began at ground zero with a moment of silence and tolling bells.
Eighteen years after the deadliest terror attack on American soil, the nation is still grappling with the aftermath.
The impact is visible from airport security checkpoints to Afghanistan, where a post-9/11 invasion has become America’s longest war.
We will never forget: Family members took to the podium to read out the names of their loved ones who perished in the 9/11 attacks and shared anecdotes and messages to their relatives
18 years later: Family members lifted photos of their loved ones along with the message ‘We Will Never Forget’
New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firefighters stand in silence outside Firehouse Engine 10 Ladder company 10 on the 18th anniversary of the September 11, 2001
Never forgotten: A woman pictured wiping away tears as she stands next to the north pool prior to Wednesday’s ceremony
In New York City family members of 9/11 victims gathered at the World Trade Center to silently hear the name of each victims solemnly read aloud. Some in the crowd proudly raised photos of their loved ones.
Others, still grieving, shared anecdotes about their loved ones.
‘Donald W. Robertson Jr. Donny, words cannot express how you are missed and loved. Your legacy lives on in your four beautiful children as well as our friends and family. We choose to remember how you lived, not how you left us. God bless you all and God Bless America,’ one woman said.
Former President George W. Bush, the commander-in-chief in 2001, is expected at a separate afternoon Pentagon wreath-laying.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, New Jersey Govenor Phil Murphy, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg paid their respects at the somber Manhattan ceremony.
For millennials who came of age later, the yearly pause focuses attention on a ‘Never Forget’ historical blip that they know only through videos, school assignments and – for some – painful family histories.
‘Terror attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America,’ Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said during a brief Pentagon speech.
‘These acts shatter steel. They cannot bend the steel of American resolve.’
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump observed a moment of silence at the White House on Wednesday to mark the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
Guests at the White House for the brief, solemn ceremony included staff and military aides, survivors of the 9/11 attacks and family members of those who lost their lives
The president and first lady placed a wreath and participated in a second moment of silence honoring 9/11 victims at the Pentagon
An American flag was draped over the Pentagon building at dawn on Wednesday; 184 people were killed there on September 11, 2001 when terrorists crashed an airliner into the building
The president claimed during this November 2015 campaign rally in Ohio that he watched doomed Americans leap form the World Trade Center towers – more than four miles away – as flames and heat rose
Flags at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue flew at half-staff on Wednesday, and military personnel assigned to the White House saluted.
Not a word was spoken.
The Trumps clasped hands as a bell chimed three times, once for each plane that a terrorist slammed into a World Trade Center tower in New York, and once for the aircraft another hijacked plowed into the Pentagon.
Vice President Mike Pence will speak Wednesday at a separate 9/11 memorial service near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where martyred passengers of a doomed airliner took control of their own plane back from armed Islamic militants and forced it down rather than risk hitting the White House or the U.S. Capitol.