WASHINGTON, D.C. (NewsNation) — At a 9/11 remembrance event at a military base in Alaska Monday, President Joe Biden claimed he was at ground zero the day after the attacks. He was immediately criticized, and the White House Tuesday offered NewsNation no evidence he was indeed there.
“Each of those precious lives stolen too soon when evil attacked, ground zero in New York. And I remember standing there the next day,” Biden said at the ceremony Monday.
Biden’s critics quickly pointed out online that on September 12, 2001, then-Senator Joe Biden was speaking on the Senate floor and therefore was not at ground zero.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton did not comment on Biden’s claim Tuesday but in response to inquiries sent NewsNation two stories about how he went to Ground Zero nine days later on Sept. 20, 2001, as part of a 38-member Senate delegation.
Biden, who at the time chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, traveled by train with the rest of the more than three dozen other lawmakers to tour the rubble and console families, according to news stories from the time.
Among his loudest critics was his predecessor and fellow 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump who accused Biden of lying in a post on Truth Social.
“A BIG LIE! CROOKED JOE JUST SAID HE WAS IN NYC ON SEPTEMBER 12, ONE DAY AFTER THE FALL OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER. THIS WAS IMMEDIATELY PROVEN TO BE NOT SO – A TOTAL LIE,” he wrote.
However, Trump has also, in the past, come under fire for what critics called misleading claims about 9/11. One of his most notable claims was that Muslims in New Jersey cheered when the World Trade Center towers fell.
“There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in 2015. He stood by his assertions despite criticism.
He was also criticized for claiming he had witnessed people jumping from the towers despite being four miles away at his Trump Tower residence.
Meanwhile, political analysts say the terror attacks were too important to use for political advantages.
“It’s not something to spin fabrications and tales about. This is a grave, serious matter and we are starting to forget,” Kara Frederick, a former U.S. Naval intelligence analyst and current director of the Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, said on “The Hill” on NewsNation.