Family members of 9/11 victims briefly paused at the 25th anniversary remembrance ceremony at ground zero to urge President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance to press Saudi Arabia over its alleged role in the attacks.
Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom Strada, was killed on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower while working for Cantor Fitzgerald, was reading the names of the 9/11 victims Friday when she veered into comments about Saudi Arabia.
“And my husband, Tom Strada, you are missed more with each year that passes. But how can it be 25 years and we still have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?” she said.
“Yes, we finally made it into a court and have proved that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fomented a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism around the globe and then sent its agents to support the radical Islamist hijackers so they could attack you and all of our loved ones,” she continued.
She took aim at previous administrations, saying that “administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families.
Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden all attended the ground zero ceremony along with Mr. Vance.
Ms. Strada accused the former presidents of withholding evidence and breaking promises.
“It has been one betrayal after another. President Trump can change that. Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that [if] they want to be friends with the USA; they cannot continue to deny all of this — all of the pain, all of the destruction we have all been suffering through,” she said.
Turning toward the direction of Mr. Vance, she urged him to take that message to Mr. Trump.
“Stand with the survivors. Stand with survivors. As my husband, Tom, would have said, that is always the right thing to do,” she said.
The nephew of Lisa Marie Terry, a vice president with Marsh & McLennan Cos., who was also killed at the World Trade Center, made a similar plea.
“For 25 years, the Deep State has hidden the truth about what happened 25 years ago. President Trump, you’re our last hope. Release the unredacted files that implicate Saudi Arabia, while what’s left of the victims’ families are still alive to see it,” he said during his turn to read victims’ names.
Ms. Strada leads a group of 9/11 victims’ families who have attempted to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the attacks, including launching a yearslong civil lawsuit accusing Saudi Arabia of supporting the al Qaeda terror group operatives that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
Attorneys for Saudi Arabia have denied the lawsuit’s merits or that they played any role in the Sept. 11 attacks. They have claimed in legal filings that the kingdom has helped the U.S. combat al Qaeda, its late founder Osama bin Laden and terrorism in general.
In August 2025, a New York federal judge rejected Saudi Arabia’s efforts to dismiss the plaintiffs’ lawsuit against the kingdom.
U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels wrote in a legal opinion that an imam and accountants employed by Saudi Arabia probably had links to their support of two al Qaeda members who came to the U.S. in early 2000 to study English and take flight lessons. That connection was enough, Judge Daniels ruled, to allow the 9/11 victims’ families’ claim to proceed to trial.
However, that trial has not yet taken place.
ABC News this month reported that recently revealed records bolster claims of Saudi complicity in 9/11. The records include an alleged video of a kingdom agent casing the U.S. Capitol, which investigators said they believed was the target of the airline that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and a sketch with calculations for flying a plane toward a ground target.
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