Newsom accuses Trump of lying during his 9/11 attack response anecdote

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday accused President Trump of lying after he told an anecdote about his actions in the days surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.

Trump, during an event honoring 9/11 first responders at the White House, said he was carried away from One Liberty Plaza, formerly called the U.S. Steel Building, which started to creak after the attack. The president said two firefighters grabbed his arms and “they literally lifted me up.”

“They lifted me up and they started running with me,” he continued. “I said, ‘Fellas, I can run myself.’ But they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It didn’t come down.”

Newsom shared journalist Aaron Rupar’s post on social platform X that characterized Trump’s account as though “he was basically lifted out of the rubble on 9/11.” The California Democrat commented, “An absolutely disgusting thing to lie about.”

New York Magazine also referred to his speech as a “ weird lie ,” though Trump responded and accused the magazine of claiming he was not at Ground Zero.

He defended the accuracy of his speech, writing on Truth Social that he was “obviously not” there on Sept. 11, when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapsed, “but shortly thereafter, with a large group of Construction workers.”

The president, then a businessman inside Trump Tower on New York City’s Fifth Avenue, notably called in to WWOR-TV as the events of 9/11 unfolded and described his building as being the tallest in lower Manhattan after the towers fell.

But the earliest images of Trump near the area were filmed on Sept. 13, 2001, for two interviews that day . He said at the time that his company had more than 100 workers assisting with the recovery. But former New York Fire Department battalion chief Richard Alles told PolitiFact in 2019 that there would be a record of the president and the 100 or more workers at Ground Zero.

“Is there a chance he was ever down there by himself and I didn’t know it?” Alles told the fact-checker. “It’s possible, but I know of no one who ever witnessed him there.”

Former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik told Breitbart News in 2019 that Trump came to the area “numerous times” to “motivate and inspire the men and women down there that were working on the pile.”

Trump is slated to mark the 25th anniversary of the attacks with a speech at the Pentagon , one of the targets hijackers struck that day. The native New Yorker will not attend the commemoration in New York City, where the four surviving former presidents and Vice President Vance are scheduled to attend.