President Trump pushed back on reports that he didn’t attend the memorial service to mark the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because he wasn’t allowed to give a speech, saying he’s positive that organizers would have let him speak if he wanted to.
“It’s just not true. I didn’t demand to speak,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Sid Rosenberg on 77 WABC, a New York radio station, on Friday, the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
“I’m sure if I wanted to speak, they would have let me,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m 99% sure.”
Mr. Trump said he believes he would have been allowed to speak because he’s the president and he knows “the guys down there,” referring to the board that oversees the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, which sits on the site of the former World Trade Center.
The New York Times reported last month that Mr. Trump would not attend the ceremony because he told the organizers he would like to give remarks. Politicians have been barred from giving speeches at the ceremony since 2012.
Instead, Mr. Trump marked the 25th anniversary of the attacks with a speech at the Pentagon, where he told stories of heroism on that fateful day and said the 9/11 attacks underscore the need for the war in Iran.
The White House sent Vice President J.D. Vance to the New York City memorial service.
During his interview with Mr. Rosenberg, the president said he didn’t want to speak at ground zero.
“I speak enough; the last thing I want to do is speak,” he said. “I don’t need it for any reason.”
Mr. Trump last visited ground zero in 2024 when, as a presidential candidate, he stood alongside President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Some presidents have marked the Sept. 11 attacks by visiting all three sites — New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — on one day. The last to do it was President Biden in 2021 for the 20th anniversary. President Obama did it in 2011 for the 10th anniversary and President George W. Bush visited all three sites for the first and fifth anniversaries.
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