WASHINGTON — At an event ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, President Donald Trump told a story Tuesday in which he said two firefighters picked him up off the ground near the U.S.Steel Building close to ground zero “right after” the terrorist attacks and whisked him away because they thought the building was going to collapse on them.“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,’” Trump said, without specifying exactly when the incident occurred.“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,” he added.Trump, who said in his remarks that he was “down there right after this happened,” later said on Truth Social that he was not at the World Trade Center “on the same day as the collapse, but shortly thereafter.”“Everything I said was exactly accurate,” he said of his remarks at the Ellipse outside the White House, sharing a TV news clip of him speaking after the attacks.Asked for more clarity about Trump’s timeline and actions following 9/11, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said he “was relaying his experience of a city reeling immediately after and in the days and weeks after the horrific attacks.”Trump has told the firefighter story at least once before, during a January 2016 campaign stop in New Hampshire.He has spoken many times about what he saw on Sept.11, 2001, and his actions in the immediate aftermath.
Here’s a look back at what he has said, much of which has not been independently verified.August 2026: Seeing the second plane hitIn an interview with Fox News host Trey Gowdy, which aired in part Sunday, Trump said he watched as the second plane hit the South Tower of the Wo...