Many of Donald Trump’s vivid memories of 9/11 are lacking in evidence and don’t look into the investigation.

[ad_1]

Donald Trump is waiting to speak during a memorial at the Pentagon for the 9/11 terrorist attacks September 11, 2017 in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images

Over the years, Donald Trump has made many claims about his memories of 9/11.

Many others have made false or exaggerated claims about the attack, such as pretending to have survived.

A psychiatrist coined the term “9/11 sign” to refer to those who lied about the event to gain sympathy.

See more stories on the Insider business page.

Most people clearly remember where they once heard about the terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001.

Donald Trump is no different.

Over the years, the former president has extensively described his memories of the day, including him helping those who first responded and losing “hundreds” of friends to the attack.

Many of his claims are lacking in evidence and will not handle the investigation.

On Tuesday, Trump reiterated some of these claims to Newsmax and revealed some previously without countless details.

“I was there right after the event and I brought in a big staff of people. And I helped, a lot of other people helped. The first responders were very brave,” Trump told the outlet.

Trump also announced that “two large firefighters” brought him to safety after hearing creaks coming from a nearby building, which seemed like a new addition to the story.

“I said, ‘That building is going down,’ and two big firefighters grabbed me and took other people, and they just moved into that place. It never went down, but I never heard a noise like that. And it’s a scary situation, ”Trump told Newsmax.

Although he was seen at Ground Zero in the days after the attack, there is no evidence that he helped, according to Vice News.

On 9/11, Donald Trump said he watched the attacks appear in the window of his apartment in the Trump Tower.

On the day of the attack, he also claimed that 40 Wall Street, also known as the Trump building, became the tallest building in downtown Manhattan after 9/11, which is in fact incorrect.

Most notably, He said he saw Muslims celebrating on the streets of New Jersey, a statement that many fact-checkers doubted.

The story continues

“It defies basic logic,” Lauren Carroll of PolitiFact wrote in a “Pants on Fire” decision in 2015.

“In the case of 9/11, Trump’s line between memory and hyperbole appears to be blurred,” The Associated Press reported.

The fantasies of 9/11

Alicia Head pretended to be a 9/11 survivor. New York Daily News / Getty Images

Donald Trump wasn’t the only one to make false claims about their 9/11 experiences.

Psychiatrist Jean Kim, who worked in New York City in the years after the attack, wrote an article in The Washington Post in 2015 about the trend of people falsely saying they have lost relatives. on 9/11.

He said he began to be suspicious of the amount of people who told him they had lost a loved one to the attack and noticed inconsistency or outright lying in some stories.

He coined the term “9/11 sign,” which refers to people who have reported 9/11 deaths in their history in an attempt to gain either sympathy or material benefits.

There are also many cases of fantasies weaving detailed lies about being a 9/11 survivor, The Independent reported recently.

The most famous case was that of Alicia Esteve Head, a Spanish woman who produced a detailed story about a 9/11 survivor until The New York Times revealed the deception in 2007.

Head was living in Barcelona when the terrorist attack hit New York City and began calling the name Tania.

As Tania Head, she became involved with the World Trade Center Survivors ’Network, which later became its president.

Head claimed to be presiding at a Merrill Lynch meeting on the 78th floor of the South Tower on Sept. 11, when a plane crashed into the building.

He described his traumatic experiences in vivid detail, including watching his assistant being cut and crawling in the massacre before he was assisted to safety by a kind volunteer.

She also claims that her boyfriend Dave, whom she sometimes called her husband, died in the North Tower.

Dave, whose last name was withheld by The New York Times to protect his identity, is a real man who lost his life in the terrorist attack.

His family and friends said in the paper that they had never heard of Head and they were not aware of a relationship between them.

Steve Rannazzisi claimed he had a narrow escape from the South Tower on 9/11. Michael S. Schwartz / Getty Images

Similarly, actor and comedian Steve Rannazzisi claimed to have made a narrow escape from the 54th floor of the South Tower after the first plane crashed into the North Tower.

In 2015, Rannazzisi admitted it was a lie after The New York Times confronted him with evidence that had weakened his account.

“I was not at the Trade Center that day,” he said in a statement issued in the paper. “I don’t know why I said this. It’s unacceptable. I’m honest, I really apologize.”

“For years, more than anything,” Rannazzisi said, “I wish that, in silence, I could erase a story told by a less -than -old young man. I was even more embarrassed. How can I tell mine children to be honest when I’m not clean about it? “

According to psychiatrist Jean Kim, the wrong people like Head and Rannazzisi sometimes try to manipulate traumatic events for material or emotional gains.

“We shouldn’t feel just angry with these people (although it’s certainly enticing.)”, Kim wrote in The Washington Post.

“It’s usually lonely, lonely, empty people who take advantage of unprecedented capacity for charity.”

Read the original article on Business Insider

[ad_2]