Hours after they sparred at their first presidential debate collectively, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump shook one another’s fingers in a present of civility Wednesday morning at a floor zero ceremony commemorating the 9/11 assaults.
The 2 presidential nominees stood close to one another on the occasion in decrease Manhattan, with President Joe Biden and former New York Metropolis Mayor Mike Bloomberg standing between Harris and Trump. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s vice presidential nominee, and former New York Metropolis Mayor Rudy Giuliani additionally attended the ceremony.
Throughout the ceremony, a lady who misplaced her husband within the 2001 terrorist assaults criticized Biden for saying to reporters Tuesday that he can be “doing 9/11” on Wednesday as a part of his attendance on the day’s memorial occasions. The girl referred to as it “fairly a flippant comment” — one of many solely outright political statements heard through the ceremony.
White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated Biden and Harris have been attending as a result of “they wish to honor the two,977 lives that have been misplaced on that tragic day and help the households and likewise their family members who’re nonetheless, nonetheless feeling a horrible ache.”
Biden, Harris, Trump and Vance stayed on the service, which started at 8:30 a.m. ET, for over an hour earlier than departing.
As soon as Trump and Vance left floor zero, they stopped by Engine Firm 4, Ladder Firm 15 fireplace station in decrease Manhattan to satisfy and take pictures with firefighters, a few of whose members died responding to the 9/11 assaults. Trump and Vance have been joined by marketing campaign workers, the previous president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and far-right activist Laura Loomer, who was with the previous president on the debate Tuesday evening and has unfold conspiracy theories concerning the assaults.
Vance and former Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., additionally visited the places of work of economic providers agency Cantor Fitzgerald, now at 55 Water Road in decrease Manhattan, whose company headquarters have been based mostly out of the highest flooring of the World Commerce Middle’s North Tower on 9/11. The corporate stated that 658 of its workers died that day. Vance thanked the agency briefly remarks for its work to lift cash for the households of 9/11 victims.
Harris and Biden later traveled to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, house of the Flight 93 memorial, and took part in a wreath-laying ceremony on the web site. It’s believed that an assault on the U.S. Capitol was prevented on Sept. 11, 2001, because of the actions of the flight’s 40 passengers and crew who died when the airplane crashed right into a subject in Shanksville.
Trump can also be anticipated to go to the memorial web site.
Biden and Harris are scheduled to go to a different 9/11 occasion, on the Pentagon, at 5 p.m. ET.
Harris’ working mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is commemorating the 9/11 anniversary in his house state.
Presidential candidates historically chorus from campaigning on the anniversary of the deadliest terrorist assault in U.S. historical past, however they’ve crossed paths at 9/11 memorials in earlier election cycles.
In 2016, Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — then the Democratic presidential nominee — attended a fifteenth anniversary service, however she departed abruptly and appeared unsteady as she left. Her marketing campaign stated she felt “overheated,” including later that she had been identified with pneumonia.
Trump used the incident to query Clinton’s stamina and whether or not she was “robust” sufficient to be president.
Trump, as president, and Biden, the Democratic nominee, attended the 9/11 Memorial & Museum’s annual commemoration at floor zero in 2020, when Biden hung out consoling relations who misplaced family members within the assaults.
Trump and Biden that day additionally went to Shanksville, the place Biden laid a wreath on the memorial and met with relations and Trump delivered a speech vowing that “America will all the time stand up, stand tall and combat again.”
Harris went to the New York memorial service final 12 months, whereas Biden, who was touring again from Asia, marked the anniversary at an Air Power base in Alaska.
As he is scheduled to do that 12 months, Biden went to all three of the assault memorial websites in 2021 — the twentieth anniversary.
Trump, a New York native, didn’t attend the memorial in 2021, making stops as a substitute at a police station and a firehouse.
He marked the anniversary with a video assertion final 12 months. “Nobody who lived by means of the horror of the Sept. 11 terrorist assaults can ever overlook the agony and the anguish of that horrible day. It was a horrible day,” he stated within the video. “We’ll always remember.”