Trump says he reached 9/11 site after law allowed

President Donald Trump said he went to the September 11 attack site in New York “as soon as the Law allowed,” after giving a new account at a White House event of his actions after the 2001 attacks.

At Tuesday's event honoring emergency personnel killed on 9/11, Trump said two firefighters pulled him away from a site near an unstable building. “We thought it was coming down on top of us,” he said.

Trump also said he had seen the attacks from a New York window and had taken a work crew to the area afterward. In a Truth Social post later Tuesday, he wrote that he was “obviously not” there on the day of the collapse, but “shortly thereafter, with a large group of Construction Workers.”

CNN and The New York Times have reported that people present at Ground Zero disputed Trump's earlier account that he went there and sent 100 workers to help recovery efforts.

The remarks came before the 25th anniversary of the attacks, in which 2,977 people were killed. Trump is expected to pay respects Friday at the Pentagon in Washington rather than at Ground Zero in New York.

Trump and the White House denied reports that he chose the Pentagon because he was not allowed to speak at the New York memorial ceremony. Trump wrote last week that no one speaks at the ceremony because it is a “solemn ceremony.”

Vice President JD Vance and former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are expected at Ground Zero.

At Tuesday's event, Trump presented the highest US civilian honor to the family of Welles Crowther, a volunteer firefighter killed while helping people leave the World Trade Center's South Tower. Crowther became known as the “man in the red bandana” after survivors described a man wearing one over his nose and mouth while helping others escape.