Now Outraged, Trump Boasted On 9/11 That His Building Was Tallest After Attack

Authored by huffpost.com and submitted by lobsterbash
image for Now Outraged, Trump Boasted On 9/11 That His Building Was Tallest After Attack

President Donald Trump is expressing outrage now about 9/11 through a controversial attempt to use the tragedy to slam Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), but his grief wasn’t quite so obvious right after the terrorist attacks. At the time, Trump gloated that his building at 40 Wall St. had become the tallest in New York City with the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

Not only was the statement appallingly insensitive, but it was also a lie, former Democratic political strategist and CNN political contributor Paul Begala told Chris Cuomo on Friday.

“This guy has no moral standing ever to try to use our greatest day of national pain for his political gain,” Begala said.

He was responding to a video Trump posted Friday on Twitter that juxtaposed comments by Omar, a Muslim, with footage of the 9/11 attacks. Trump tweeted: “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”

But Begala recalled Trump’s reaction the morning of the attack: It was all about himself.

“Before the bodies had been cleared or identified, before the wounded had been treated, [Trump] went on television ... and he said: ‘Well, my building at 40 Wall Street is now the tallest building in America,’” Begala recalled. “He bragged about it; it wasn’t true. And it was appallingly bad taste.” (Hear Begala’s comments at 3:12 in the video above.)

Trump said via phone to WWOR in New Jersey that “40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan. And it was actually before the World Trade Center ... the tallest. And then when they built the World Trade Center, it actually became known as the second tallest, and now it’s the tallest.”

Since the president is tweeting out 9/11 footage, here’s a clip of him *ON* 9/11 talking about how now he owned the tallest building in the area since the towers fell. pic.twitter.com/BM403PspDi — Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) April 12, 2019

Begala added that Trump also “spread a lie that Muslims” in New Jersey were “dancing and partying and celebrating” the terrorist attacks.

It’s “obscene for the president to try to take that pain and make political gain from it,” said Begala. “I had problems with some of the things that Congresswoman Omar has said .... It was outrageous, and she has apologized. President Trump needs to apologize for this.”

Check out the full discussion above.

Trump has a strange history with 9/11, including a false boast that he helped pay people to clear rubble at the site and search for survivors.

Maggie_A on April 13rd, 2019 at 17:04 UTC »

Feel free to post and share this...

Reminder that's coming from Donald Trump. This is Trump's 9/11 record. And it's on the record that....

1. On 9/11 itself Trump was on the phone with a TV station hours after the buildings collapsed bragging about how his building was now the tallest.

"40 Wall street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually before the World Trade Center the tallest, and and then when they built the World Trade Center it became known as the second-tallest, and now it’s the tallest"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ASRlzeLg0U

2. Trump promised to donate $10,000 to the 9/11 victims. (A paltry amount for a New Yorker who claimed to be a billionaire and one of the richest men in the country) But he never donated the money....though he took public credit for donating it.

"In the weeks after the brutal attacks, Trump pledged $10,000 to the Twin Towers Fund as part of an effort Howard Stern was pushing. A report said Trump promised the donation in late September 2001, and the Daily News obtained audio of Stern's Oct. 10, 2001, interview with Trump where both he and co-host Robin Quivers thanked him for that donation."

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/donald-trump-lied-donating-9-11-charities-article-1.2829908

NYC Official: No Evidence Trump Gave $10K to 9/11 Fund New York City’s comptroller has found no evidence that Donald Trump gave $10,000 to a fund for 9/11 victims after the terror attack, and concluded that the GOP nominee “may have lied” about making a donation.

“Contrary to Donald Trump’s claims, the Comptroller’s Office found no evidence of a donation by Mr. Trump in the year following the attacks,” according to an “Information Sheet on 9/11 Donation Review” provided to NBC News on Friday that summarizes the office’s findings.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nyc-official-no-evidence-trump-gave-10k-9-11-fund-n666631

3. Trump lied and claimed he had hundreds of his men working in the 9/11 rescue effort when he didn't have any.

Trump: I have hundreds of men inside working right now and we’re bringing down another 125 in a little while. And they’ve never done work like this before. And they’re hard-working people but they’ve never seen anything like it. And they’ve never done work like this before, it’s terrible.

Richard Alles, a retired deputy chief with the New York City Fire Department (FDNY), who now serves as director of 9/11 community affairs for the law firm Barasch McGarry Salzman and Penson, told us that in all the hours, days and months he spent at Ground Zero as an FDNY battalion chief starting 20 minutes after the buildings collapsed, he never witnessed a large group of workers hired by Trump at the site helping with search and rescue. “This is the first I’m hearing of it,” Alles told us by phone. “There would have been no need for that. Between police, fire and the construction crews, we had it all covered.”

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-searching-911-survivors/

4. Trump lied and claimed that he helped in the 9/11 clean-up personally.

“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,” Trump said. “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.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/09/11/trumps-long-history-of-lying-about-9-11-and-exploiting-it-for-personal-gain/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d56875ed2bf9

All Trump did was show up and get himself interviewed on TV at the site. He didn't get his hands dirty.

5. Trump lied repeatedly about 9/11 claiming to have seen thousands of Muslims cheering in New Jersey when the Towers fell....something that never happened.

“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down, and I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-bizarre-quotes-911-attacks-tallest-building-higher-ratings-muslims-cheering-george-w-a8530571.html

In an interview on ABC’s This Week days later, he told George Stephanopoulos, “It did happen. I saw it. It was on television, I saw it. George, it did happen. There were people who were cheering on the other side of New Jersey where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it.” He reiterated the point on NBC’s Meet the Press: “I saw it. So many people saw it. And, so, why would I take it back? I’m not going to take it back.”

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/09/trump-hasnt-retracted-claim-about-muslims-cheering-9-11.html

6. Trump lied and said he watched people jump from the windows on 9/11

"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 and I watched as people jumped. And I watched the second plane come in. Many people jumped and I witnessed it, I watched that."

Trump Tower is four miles from the site of the World Trade Center. He could not possibly have seen people jump from the buildings during the attacks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/09/11/trumps-long-history-of-lying-about-9-11-and-exploiting-it-for-personal-gain/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d56875ed2bf9

7. Trump lied and said he lost hundreds of friends in the 9/11 attack. But he can't name a single one. You lost someone in that attack, you remember their names.

“I lost hundreds of friends in 9/11.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-wont-name-any-of-the-hundreds-of-friends-he-says-died-on-911

8. Trump did make money off 9/11 though he lied repeatedly about the reason why he was given that money. The billionaire, one of the richest men in America, applied for and got a small business grant of $150,000. (15 times more than he was willing to pledge [but not pay] to the victims' fund.)

Trump lied and said the money was reimbursement for helping out after the attacks, it wasn't.

The Republican said several times during the presidential campaign trail that he was awarded the sum for helping others after terrorists took down the Twin Towers in Manhattan.

Mr Trump told TIME magazine in April that the money was “probably a reimbursement” for allowing people to stay in his skyscraper at 40 Wall Street for several months and to store items in the building. He did not specify who these people were.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/911-anniversary-donald-trump-lied-150000-small-businesses-skyscraper-clean-up-repair-costs-a7236766.html

Though the billionaire presidential candidate has repeatedly suggested he got that money for helping others out after the attacks, documents obtained by the Daily News show that Trump's account was just a huge lie.

Records from the Empire State Development Corp., which administered the recovery program, show that Trump's company asked for those funds for "rent loss," "cleanup" and "repair" — not to recuperate money lost in helping people.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/exclusive-trump-didn-post-9-11-funds-helping-people-article-1.2786879

9. Finally, in 2016, 15 years after 9/11 happened and in the middle of his presidential campaign, Trump finally does something for 9/11 (that isn't being a lying, greedy piece of shit). He has his Trump Foundation donate $100,000 to the 9/11 Museum Memorial days before the New York primary. But understand, that wasn't Trump's own money. He hadn't given a dime to his Foundation in years. So Trump donated $100,000 of other people's money to the 9/11 Museum.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/trump-charity-donations/

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/275748-trump-donates-100k-to-9-11-memorial

To date, Trump hasn't given a penny of his own money for the 9/11 victims. Donald Trump has been such a piece of shit over 9/11, it boggles the mind that any American who was alive then would support him.

Skiinz19 on April 13rd, 2019 at 14:54 UTC »

This was known before the election. People still voted for him.

lobsterbash on April 13rd, 2019 at 14:25 UTC »

He's an unbelievably terrible human being who takes his cues on how to appear outraged and caring from his propaganda machine. But here's a glimpse of Trump in his true form, before he had his current luxury:

“Before the bodies had been cleared or identified, before the wounded had been treated, [Trump] went on television ... and he said: ‘Well, my building at 40 Wall Street is now the tallest building in America,’” Begala recalled. “He bragged about it; it wasn’t true. And it was appallingly bad taste.”