An old news interview with President Donald Trump is resurfacing — and critics say it shows just how tone-deaf he was in the hours after 9/11. Instead of offering empathy, Trump seemed more interested in making a size comparison that no one cared about except for him at the time.
The comments came 24 years ago on the day of the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, when thousands were killed and the country was thrust into two decades of war in the Middle East. In a local TV interview, Trump boasted that 40 Wall Street had become the tallest building in downtown Manhattan — remarks many are now calling callous and self-serving.
On Friday, as Americans remembered the lives lost in the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Arlington Virginia and the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, instead of an intended target in the Capital, the resurfaced Trump audio is still stunning all these years later.
Trump, then a real estate developer, in an interview with local TV station WWOR just a few hours after the attack as the ruins of the Twin Towers were still smoking and smoldering nearby, seemed to brag about the size of his building when he was asked about a skyscraper he owned nearby.
“Donald, you have one of the landmark buildings down in the Financial District, 40 Wall Street,” Alan Marcus, a WWOR analyst, said. “Did you have any damage, or did you — what’s happened down there?”
“You know 40 Wall Street was the second tallest building in downtown Manhattan and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest,” he boasted. “And then when they built the world Trade Center it became known as the second tallest and now it’s the tallest,” he proclaimed.
“And I just spoke to my people, and they said it’s the most unbelievable sight; it’s probably seven or eight blocks away from the World Trade Center, and yet Wall Street is littered with two feet of stone and brick and mortar and steel,” he continued.
That interview came up again as Trump was running for President in 2015 and the fact-checking website Snopes put it this way: “Critics maintain that Trump’s referencing the relative height of 40 Wall Street in the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center towers’ fall was completely gratuitous and irrelevant to the discussion, the hallmark of an egoist with no compunctions about using tragedy as an opportunity for self-promotion.”
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“The morning of 9/11 showed Donald Trump in a nutshell. Even as a New Yorker, he couldn’t help but brag about how 40 Wall Street now was the ‘tallest’ building on the Manhattan skyline,” this Instagram poster observed.
Another social media user expressed shock, “Jesus Christ!! This is who is running our country!”
Over on Threads, users were just as shocked, even searching for an explanation, “Can you believe this man? No comment on the attack just bragging about his building. I am thinking he is missing the frontal lobe of his brain where we experience empathy.
“No heart & soul either. VOID of GOODNESS,” Threads user Sandi Melia stated.
And another said this: “How many reasons to need to understand this is one of the sickest creatures on the planet.”
But another Instagram user pointed how Trump looked sick at the Pentagon memorial Friday.
‘Some good news today. Dude looks like he had a stroke.”
As the 79-year-old Trump waited to make a speech at the service his face appeared droopy and he looked like he might fall asleep while sitting next to first lady Melania Trump.
“Trump out here looking like a fully depreciated man at the 9/11 ceremony today,” X user Covie posted.
Karly Kingsley posted on X, “All seriousness, it has mini stroke vibes.”
