At an event where he awarded the Medal of Freedom posthumously to a man who died saving multiple people on Sept. 11, 2001, President Donald Trump returned to a disputed account of his own role in Ground Zero recovery efforts.
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Trump gave the nation’s highest civilian honor on Tuesday to the family of Welles Crowther, a 24-year-old equities trader and volunteer firefighter who saved an estimated 18 people before dying in the World Trade Center’s South Tower. Crowther has become known as “the man in the red bandanna” because of the cloth he tied around his nose and mouth to protect against heavy smoke while helping people out of the burning building.
“The man in the red bandanna has become more famous than me,” Trump said during the speech on the Ellipse, where a steel beam recovered from the World Trade Center was on display. “I don’t like it.”
Before recounting Crowther’s heroic acts, Trump claimed that he took “a big group of people” working on his building to Ground Zero to help in the aftermath of the attacks, re-upping widely disputed claims that he played a role in the response. Trump did not specify how soon after the attacks they went to Ground Zero. Richard Alles, a retired New York City Fire Department battalion chief, told Politifact in 2019 that he had “no knowledge” of Trump being at the site and said that there would be a record if Trump had sent a crew of 100 workers.
There are videos of Trump in a suit in the neighborhood near Ground Zero days after the attacks, but not at the site of the disaster.
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Trump War Room, an X account for Trump’s political operation, posted a video recorded on Sept. 13, 2001, that showed Trump claiming that “has about 100 men working down here” and “was just down at Ground Zero.” The White House did not respond when asked for records that corroborate Trump had 100 workers involved in the recovery.
Trump on Tuesday also claimed that two firefighters carried him away when it appeared the U.S. Steel Building, now known as One Liberty Plaza, could also collapse. The president did not specify when, exactly, this incident occurred, and the White House did not respond to a request for the date.
“We thought it was coming down on top of us,” Trump said. “And two firemen, big strong guys. … They grabbed me under the arms.”
Trump told a version of the story about being evacuated by firefighters on the campaign trail in 2016. At the time, he said that it was a couple of days after the other buildings collapsed and said that the building was “not so far from us,” suggesting he was not inside the building.
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This is a developing story. It will be updated.
