Donald Trump’s nephew disputes President's claim firefighters pulled him from Ground Zero after 911
Donald Trump’s nephew has disputed his claims firefighters carried him away from a building that was ‘creaking’ and they feared would collapse in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Earlier this week, Trump spoke at an event honouring those who died in the horrific 2001 attacks and said two ‘big, strong’ firemen had helped him exit the building.
"The United States Steel building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down,” Trump said during Tuesday’s Tunnel to Towers Foundation's event.
"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 arms, said, 'Got to get out of here.'
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“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.”
He also told the crowd that he had sent a ‘lot’ of his workers down to help out following the attacks, in which 2,977 people died.
“For three months after Sept. 11, the flames raged in the rubble of Ground Zero. For nine months, rescue and recovery crews worked day and night on the site," he said.
“I want to just thank my people. I took a lot of my — I was building a big building in New York and I took the whole crew right down there after this happened and they had no hesitation. Everyone went down with me."
The White House has provided no evidence to support the claims, but spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump was 'relaying his experience of a city reeling immediately after and in the days and weeks after the horrific attacks'.
In a post on social media, Trump’s nephew 63-year-old Fred Trump III has disputed his uncle’s claims.
“I try not to comment personally about my uncle, but his claim that he brought a crew of workers to help at the site so offends me that I need to speak out,” he wrote in a lengthy post on X.
“He was not building a ‘big building’ at the time. The only crew he claimed to bring to the site would have been secretarial and accounting employees from Trump Tower. I knew many of them, and pretty sure they were not capable physically to help (if they could, I am sure they would try).”
He then turned his attention to Trump’s claim that he was removed from a ‘creaking’ building.
“Regarding the US Steel Building, ironically, the grandfather of a very close friend of mine was one of the original engineers - the building was built strong,” he continued.
“Second, the brother of a partner of mine was an engineer that was immediately called to perform an inspection. While people were originally concerned, it was eventually cleared for occupancy - not creaking and ready to fall. I hope this brings some truth to that story.”
After an article in the New York Magazine branded Trump’s recent claims a ‘weird lie’, the US President hit out in a post on his Truth Social platform.
"I was there, obviously not on the same day as the collapse, but shortly thereafter, with a large group of Construction Workers,” Trump posted, adding that ‘everything’ he said at the event on Tuesday had been ‘exactly accurate’.
Topics: US News, Donald Trump, Politics, New York
Claire Reid