The nearly 3,000 victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks on America left “a void that will never be filled,” former President Donald Donald Trump said on the 22nd anniversary of “those monstrous attacks.”
“No one who lived through the horror of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks can ever forget the agony and the anguish of that terrible day,” he said in a video message posted on Truth Social.
“The images of dark plumes of smoke billowing over Lower Manhattan, the Pentagon, and a field of Pennsylvania—such a beautiful field—are seared into our minds forever,” President Trump said, pausing to reflect on the tragedy amid his third run for the office.
The former president added solemnly: “We will never forget,” an oft-repeated phrase that he and others have used to refer to 9/11 when hijackers crashed passenger airliners at those three U.S. sites.
In fact, the then-future president used very similar wording when he gave a live interview to WWOR-TV after the attacks.
When a newscaster asked the New York business mogul what he thought people should do after such a devastating assault on the nation, he responded: “I guess the big thing that you will really have to do is never forget.”
As a businessman, the future president also noted that, for years, he had a view of the World Trade Center from his office window. But on Sept. 11, 2001, “I saw this huge explosion … and now I’m looking at absolutely nothing. It’s just gone,” he said during the TV interview.
He said he recognized the gravity of the situation, stating: “Maybe the world is going to be changing.”
During his latest remarks, President Trump said, “We remember the 2,977 precious souls who were savagely taken from us.”
“We will say a prayer for each of the beautiful families they left behind, whose pain is beyond comprehension; what they’ve gone through is not even believable,” he said.
In New York, 2,753 people died, including 343 firefighters.
At the Pentagon near Washington, 184 people died; 40 others were killed outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Those statistics are based on the official death toll, Encyclopedia Brittanica says, adding “the exact number of victims—particularly the number of those killed at the World Trade Center—is not definitively known.”
The former president also said the nation is paying tribute to the firefighters and law enforcement officers who responded to all three sites, as well as those who came from “all over the country” to help.
“They acted with supreme heroism and they went to the site of the most heinous crime … [and many] gave their lives in the line of duty,” he said.
“God bless the memory of all of those who perished in the 9/11 attacks. We will never, ever forget. We will never forget you. We love you. God bless their families and God bless America.”
On Sept. 11, commemorations were held at all three crash sites and at many other locations.
First Lady Jill Biden laid a wreath at the Pentagon 9/11 memorial site.
In Pennsylvania, bells tolled as people remembered the brave airline passengers who attacked the hijackers, foiling their plans but ending in a crash nevertheless.
“Flight 93’s intended target is not definitively known, but it is believed that the hijackers were targeting the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, or several nuclear power plants along the Eastern seaboard,” History.com said.
“The passengers who fought back are credited with averting more deaths on 9/11.”
In New York, clergy rang The Bell of Hope, a gift from the city of London.
The 650-pound bell was forged months after the attacks, which killed people from dozens of countries including 67 victims from the United Kingdom, The Independent newspaper reported.
“For those of us who lost people on that day, that day is still happening. Everybody else moves on. And you find a way to go forward, but that day is always happening for you,” Edward Edelman told The Associated Press as he arrived at ground zero, the former World Trade Center site, to honor his slain brother-in-law, Daniel McGinley.
Vice President Kamala Harris and other dignitaries attended a ceremony on the National Sept. 11 Memorial Plaza.
President Joe Biden participated in a commemoration at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska, as he headed back to Washington from a trip to India and Vietnam.
President Biden was facing backlash over that decision because this marked the first time that a sitting U.S. president failed to visit one of the crash sites on the 9/11 anniversary, Newsweek reported.
But the Associated Press described President Biden’s tribute in Alaska, about 4,200 miles away from Washington, as “a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the nation, however remote.”
From The Epoch Times
