"Well, it was an amazing phone call. I mean, 40 Wall Street actually was the second tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually before the World Trade Center the tallest, and then when they built the World Trade Center it became known as the second tallest, and now it's the tallest." -- Malignant narcissist Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump interviewed hours after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. Trump had called in, unsolicited, to offer his commentary on WWOR-TV in New Jersey. The WWOR-TV reporter had asked for his reaction to to the towers' collapse and the effect on his 40 Wall Street building (which, contrary to Trump, was not the tallest after the WTC -- the 70 Pine Street building is 25 feet taller). "Now it's the tallest." No sense of the horror we all felt that day, or any empathy for the dead or the suffering. It was all about him and who had the tallest building.
The Washington Post also contrasts how Trump and Joe Biden reacted on that day and how it marked them for the next 19 years. Trump's actions are, of course, revealing:
Hundreds of miles to the north — and four miles from Ground Zero — Donald Trump was sitting in a tower bearing his name, watching CNBC and preparing to call a local TV station to offer his own commentary, including a lament that the stock market was forced to close. [snip]
On the day of the attack, Trump was watching CNBC as it prepared to interview former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, when the network cut away to a scene of the first tower on fire. One of his first reactions when the planes hit was to call a television show to offer commentary.
He later visited Ground Zero, and he cited the attacks to challenge immigration policies, religious tolerance and the need for the very global alliances that Biden has spent years embracing.
CNN's John Avlon does a reality check as well:Trump claimed that he saw the plane strike the second tower, and that from his window he observed the tragedy of people jumping from the buildings — claims that fact-checkers have questioned. Trump also later said he watched as thousands of Muslims cheered in Jersey City, N.J., when the building came down, an assertion that has been debunked.
An evil, hollow, deranged thing then, as now.
UPDATE: But wait, there's more --
The Trump administration has secretly siphoned nearly $4 million away from a program that tracks and treats FDNY firefighters and medics suffering from 9/11 related illnesses, the Daily News has learned.
The Treasury Department mysteriously started withholding parts of payments — nearly four years ago — meant to cover medical services for firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics treated by the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, documents obtained by The News reveal.
The payments were authorized and made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which oversees the program. But instead of sending the funds to the city, the Treasury started keeping some of the money.
(Photo: World Trade Center, 9/11/01; A. Keiser/AFP/Getty Images)
