Sen. Ted Cruz defended President Donald Trump’s disputed retelling of his experience during the September 11 attacks, telling CNN he trusts the president’s account and that the day was traumatic for everyone regardless of the details.
Cruz appeared on CNN’s “The Source” Tuesday night, where host Kaitlan Collins pressed him on Trump’s recent claim, made during a Tunnel to Towers remembrance event, that two firefighters physically carried him away from a building near One Liberty Plaza that they feared was about to collapse in the days following the attacks. Trump has said the firefighters lifted him under the arms and ran with him. He later insisted on Truth Social that his account, which also describes visiting the World Trade Center site with construction workers, was “accurate.”
“I mean, he’s kind of making it sound like he was pulled out of the rubble, though, with the firefighters,” Collins told Cruz. “Do you think that’s appropriate?”
“September 11th was 25 years ago, it was a horrific moment for our entire country, and you could doubt whatever you want about Donald Trump, but the man is a New Yorker, he loves New York, and I have every doubt that what he’s conveying there is what he experienced,” Cruz responded. “And that was a traumatic experience for all of us.”
When Collins pushed further, asking whether anyone should exaggerate their role on 9/11, Cruz pivoted to his own memories of the day, recalling that he lived less than a mile from the Pentagon in Washington at the time. He also described his wife Heidi Cruz’s evacuation from the White House and the loss of a close friend that day.
Trump’s account is the latest version of a story he has told repeatedly over the years about his activities in New York following the attacks, including previous claims that he sent hundreds of his own workers to help with recovery efforts at Ground Zero. Fact-checkers have repeatedly found no evidence supporting claims of a large Trump-organized workforce at the site, including from a former FDNY battalion chief who said he had no knowledge of Trump’s involvement in the recovery work.
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