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| Donald Trump speaks at 9/11 ceremony on Tuesday (AP) |
It should not be a surprise to many Americans that we have a pathological liar for president. Numerous mental-health experts have said as much in published analyses and statements to the press. Some journalists have taken to charitably reporting that Trump engages in "performance art." They even have been taken to task for normalizing Trump's rampant and knowing use of false information, as in this blunt statement:
Prominent physicist and climate expert Dr. Joseph Romm understandably slammed the press over it during a 2019 conference of mental health experts on The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump at Washington’s National Press Club: “…but to this day the media treats him as a president who happens to lie rather than a con man who happens to be president.”
No matter what you call it, Trump's penchant for prevarication sank to depressing depths on Tuesday at a ceremony to commemorate the attacks of September 11, 2001, which killed almost 3,000 people. The event was designed to remember those who died and honor those who tried to save lives. But Trump saw it as a chance to make 9/11 about himself, which is typical for a man who has been deemed a malignant narcissist by Dr. John Gartner, a clinical psychologist and former faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
How did the 9/11 ceremony unfold. The Daily Beast summed up the occasion with two words by calling Trump a "presidential fabulist." Under the headline "Trump tells jaw-dropping lie about being rescued on 9/11," Farrah Tomazin writes:
Speaking on stage near a display of structural steel that had fallen from the towers that day, Trump veered into a story about his own alleged presence at the scene of the attack a quarter-century ago.
“The United States Steel Building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down,” Trump began.
“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.”
As it turns out, this is not a new oratorical excursion for Trump. In fact, Tomazin points out, he has traveled this deceptive path numerous times before:
The comments appear to be an extension of a story Trump has told before, including during a head-scratching interview on Newsmax in 2021.
But it immediately sparked a backlash online, with some suggesting it sounded as though the president was claiming he had been pulled from the rubble as though he was one of the September 11 survivors.
“So many lies. It’s exhausting,” quipped artist Angu Walters.
“Our president is completely delusional,” said Huffpost senior White House correspondent S.V. Date.
“Don’t allow Trump to sully the 9/11 tragedy with his sick fantasies,” added Tara Setmayer, co-founder of the Seneca Project.
One of the most interesting takes comes from a former writer for Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine who has written a book about Trump's tendency to cheat at golf. Tomazin writes:
Golf writer and author Rick Reilly - who detailed Trump’s extensive golf cheating in his book Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump - claimed he had first-hand knowledge that the president was lying.
“I know this is BS because I was with him in his Trump Tower apt once. I was looking through his telescope. He said, “I watched the twin towers fall through that ... it’s solid gold.” Those were his exact words and not a single word about going down there to help," Reilly wrote on X.
Trump's activities on and around 9/11 have been well documented, so a relatively normal person might ask, "Why would this guy tarnish a solemn ceremony about one of the most traumatic events in U.S. history by telling stories that can be proven false?" My guess is that seeing a ceremony as "solemn" and an event as "traumatic" is something regular people do as a way to guide their behavior so that they can conduct themselves appropriately. But Trump doesn't seem to worry about appropriate conduct. How many times has he said something that no normal person would utter -- and certainly no previous president would say. Trump's behavior is guided by one principle -- that every occasion revolves around one person, Donald Trump. Some would say he has a "tin ear," that he can't recognize how his words sound to other people. My guess is that he doesn't care how rude, crude, or cruel his words might sound to others. But the world is noticing. Leaders of America's historic allies recently gathered in Germany and stated, in so many words, that they must begin to take care of their own defense because the U.S. no longer can be trusted. We have seen signs that Canada and Europe are considering a defense alliance that would bypass the U.S., largely because of the disrespect Trump has shown Europe and the threats and badgering he has directed at Canada. This is the mess an unbalanced leader has created for us, and it seems to be getting worse by the day.
So what is the truth about 9/11? It seems to be the rare American who does not already understand that Trump was telling brazen lies at Tuesday's ceremony, but Tomazin helps remind us of the facts:
Trump was in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan when hijacked planes struck on September 11, 2001.
The building is two and a half miles away from the World Trade Center or the U.S. Steel building he mentioned in his story. The former U.S. Steel Building is now One Liberty Plaza.
In several interviews that day, Trump also talked about the other building he owned in Manhattan—40 Wall Street–boasting that with the Twin Towers gone, his was now the tallest building in the city.
“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 tremendous speed go into the second tower,” he said in an interview after the attack.
In short, Trump's words at Tuesday's ceremony do not match his own words from 25 years ago. You or I, if we told such tall tales with a crowd gathered and cameras rolling, likely would fear being called out for our dishonesty. Once again that raises troubling questions about "The Leader or the Free World": Does he even recognize that he is lying? Does he care?
To top it off, just when you think the story can't get any murkier, it does -- as Tomazin writes, quoting Trump from the day of the attacks:
“Soon after, I went down to Ground Zero with men who worked for me to try to help in any little way that we could.”
But there is no public evidence to show Trump went to the steel building, or that he was rushed out by firefighters.
He has repeatedly claimed for years that he was at Ground Zero with a large crew of his workers helping with the recovery in the days after 9/11, but people on site those days have said they never saw him or a Trump-organized crew.
Trump's trademark anger and bluster already were present before his comments of Tuesday, and with two days until the actual 9/11 anniversary, there is plenty of time for him to get even more steamed. So much for solemnity, Tomazin writes:
The president’s comments came as the nation commemorates the anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Vice President JD Vance will attend the anniversary ceremony in New York, while Trump will speak at the Pentagon.
The New York Times reported last month that Trump decided to skip the official 25th-anniversary commemoration in New York City, in part because he wanted to deliver a speech, and event organizers informed his team that political remarks are not allowed.
However, he furiously rejected this and accused New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who co-authored the report, of being a “fake reporter” and “an unattractive person both inside and out.”
Is Trump likely to put on an unprecedented show of class as the 9/11 anniversary approaches on Friday? My advice? Don't count on it. He already is pushing back against critics who have the temerity to ask, "Why in the hell was our president lying his oversized ass off about 9/11?" We learn from The Hill that any such displays of doubt are apt to send Donnie racing off to his Truth Social keyboard. Under the headline "Trump slams New York Magazine for calling 9/11 remarks 'weird lie,'" Julia Manchester writes:
President Trump lashed out at New York Magazine for its coverage of his remarks on Tuesday, after he said two firefighters picked him up off the ground near the U.S. Steel Building in New York City in the aftermath of the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“The Failing New York Magazine wrote a story that I wasn’t down at the World Trade Center after the Tragedy of September 11th, because nobody saw me there,” Trump wrote late Tuesday in a lengthy post on Truth Social. “Well, I don’t think I would be the first thing on anyone’s mind but, I was there, obviously not on the same day as the collapse, but shortly thereafter, with a large group of Construction Workers.”
The president attached a clip of him speaking to reporters by Ground Zero after the attacks nearly 25 years ago.
“Everything I said was exactly accurate and, to prove the point, I am attaching clips of me there with numerous of my people, including my then Head of Security, Matthew Calamari, who has confirmed that very sad trip to Lower Manhattan, many times, to many different Journalists, but it’s a story that just won’t die,” he added in the post.
Trump’s comments come after the publication referred to his speech on Tuesday recalling his experience in the aftermath of the attacks as a “weird lie.” He made the comments during a Steel Across America event at the White House Ellipse, commemorating the attacks and honoring the victims.During the remarks, the president noted he was “down there right after this happened” but later clarified he was not at Ground Zero “on the same day as the collapse, but shortly thereafter.”
“Everything I said was exactly accurate,” he said.
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