The former mayor in New York City, Rudy Giuliani managed to create a political career in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and now he is attempting to use the national tragedy to propel Trump’s quest for the presidency. Giuliani has been on the campaign trail with Trump in an attempt to gain support from New Yorkers who overwhelmingly support Hillary Clinton. In many of his speeches for Trump, Giuliani has attempted to paint Clinton in a bad light by claiming that she did not care for the people of the state she represented in the Senate.
During one of his speeches Giuliani went on a slightly confusing ramble when he said,
“Don’t tell me, if you said that, that you remember Sept. 11, 2001. I remember Sept. 11, 2001. Yes, yes, you helped to get benefits for the people that were injured that day. But I heard her say one day she was there that day. I was there that day. I don’t remember seeing Hillary Clinton there.”
Giuliani said that Clinton lied about being in New York on September 11 during one of her debates, and so he responded by stating, “don’t tell me that you subscribe the notion that all of us who were with on September 11 and we’re lucky to be alive and have lost so many friends. I lost so many friends on September 11. I think about it every day. Don’t tell me you belong to our very, very tight group of “never forget.”
This statement has been shown to be rather false for a few reasons. First of all, Giuliani was attacking Clinton over her supposedly claiming to be in New York City on September 11. Clinton has always been upfront about the fact that she was in Washington D.C. at a Congress session during the attacks, but she rushed back to New York as soon as planes started flying again. No one has any proof of Clinton ever saying she was in New York on September 11, and she definitely did not say this in one of the presidential debates. The wider sentiment of Giuliani’s speech about Clinton not caring about the plight of New Yorkers after 9/11 is also easily disproved.
In a photo that has been frequently circulated after Giuliani’s speech, Clinton stands right next to Giuliani as the mayor and Senator of New York circle the devastated area. Afterwards, she spent a lot of time alongside other New York politicians to get funding for redevelopment and health care for survivors of the attacks. Either Giuliani’s memory is failing so much that he cannot remember walking next to Clinton for an entire day while dealing with the 9/11 tragedy, or he was attempting to purposefully mislead people.
In the past, Giuliani has similarly forgotten key 9/11 facts for political gain. He once publicly said that the United States had never suffered from a terrorist attack before Obama took office, completely forgetting the tragedy altogether. Despite Giuliani repeatedly attempting to gain voters by claiming that Democrats do not care about New York, he seems to be the one who does not care enough to accurately represent one of the city’s biggest and most recent tragedies. Instead, Giuliani seems determined to misrepresent the terrorist attack for political gain.