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Donald Trump has again inserted himself into 9/11 claiming to have been pulled to safety by firefighters in the wake of the world’s deadliest terror attack.
The US President was making a speech near the White House where a massive, 21-foot, nearly 17,000-pound steel beam recovered from the South Tower was on display for the 25th anniversary of the Twin Towers.
‘The United States Steel Building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down. The truth is, it creaked a lot. It creaked. It still creaks, but it never came down,’ Trump told the crowd.
‘And I’ll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big, strong guys — and I’m not the smallest guy in the world — they grabbed me under the arm, said, ‘”Got to get out of here!’” And they literally lifted me up.
‘This is not easy to do. I’m big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, “Fellas, I can run myself,” but they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It didn’t come down. American steel.’
It is not the first time Donald Trump has put himself at the scene of the disaster that killed nearly 3,000 people.
The President appeared in an interview with Fox on Sunday, during which Donald Trump boasted about his role at helping in the aftermath at Ground Zero.
Trump said: ‘I went down. I was building a building in New York, and I had a lot of construction workers.
‘And I went down there very shortly thereafter, the following day. You couldn’t go down the same day, but like, the following day, very quickly afterwards, and we worked long and hard, but it was just so terrible, so hopeless,’ he added.
But a former New York Fire Department Deputy Chief Richard Alles, who spent months helping at the site, said he never saw Trump at Ground Zero.
After witnessing the horror from 40 Wall Street, he conducted an interview with the US news station WWOR-TV where he made the claim that the building he owned was now New York’a tallest.
He said: ‘I have a window that looks directly at the World Trade Center and I saw this huge explosion.
‘I was with a group of people and I really couldn’t believe it – and even worse than that, for years, I’ve looked right directly at the building. I see the Empire State Building in the foreground and the World Trade Centre in the background, and now I’m looking at absolutely nothing. It’s just gone. And it’s just hard to believe.’
Trump was asked by the hosts whether 40 Wall Street had sustained any damage amid the terror attack.
He responded: ‘Well it was an amazing phone call I made, 40 Wall Street actually was the second tallest building in downtown Manhattan and it was actually, before the World Trade Centre, was the tallest.
‘And then when they built the World Trade Centre, it became known as the second tallest. And now it’s the tallest.’
On the campaign trail in 2016 Trump told attendees at an event that a ‘screech’ sound had prompted the firefighters to get him out.
‘I was there when we actually thought the US Steel building was coming down and I’ll never forget that I was standing next to these two massive wonderful firemen and we heard a screech and everybody thought that the U.S. Steel building was coming down and it was not so far from us. And these two guys there were massive guys, two really big — because I’m a big guy and they grabbed me.
‘I must tell you honestly, I never knew I could run that fast,’ he told the crowd.
On Tuesday, President Trump posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Welles Crowther, the 24-year-old equities trader remembered as the “Man in the Red Bandana”.
He said: ‘After the plane hit the South Tower, a group of people on the 78th floor were trapped with broken bones, charred skin and eyes, and lungs filled with black smoke. Death was all about them; it was certain. They were sure they were going to die. Then suddenly, a rescuer appeared. They call him the ‘Man in the Red Bandana.’
Welles’s mother, Alison, and sister, Paige, accepted the Medal on his behalf: ‘This means the world to me, my daughters, Paige and Honor, and our entire family. This will be treasured for generations to come.’
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