Let us use this solemn occasion to remember that Donald Trump is the scum of the earth
What were your thoughts on the morning of September 11, 2001? If you’re Donald Trump, you were reveling in the glorious fact that, after the destruction of the World Trade Center, you once again owned (or more probably “owned”) the tallest building in downtown Manhattan:
The most telling example of Trump’s understanding of 9/11, of his total lack of empathy and of his pathological self-centeredness came the morning of the attack. While on the phone with Secaucus, New Jersey’s WWOR, Trump was asked whether his building at 40 Wall Street has sustained any damaged as a result of the attacks. He proceeded to brag about how now that the World Trade Center had fallen, he owned the tallest building in downtown Manhattan. “40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan,” Trump said. “Before the World Trade Center it was the tallest. Then when the built the World Trade Center it become known as the second-tallest, and now it’s the tallest.”
Even though his massive edifice continued to stand erect and undamaged in the financial district skyline, Trump applied for and received federal disaster aid money intended for small businesses damaged in the attack, and then refused to give it back after various people pointed out he was stealing money from actual victims:
Still, Trump’s decision to take in recovery funds left some with a bad taste in their mouths. The New York Daily News ran an exposé on the subject in 2006, and earlier this year Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes Ground Zero, wrote an open letter to Trump demanding he return the money.
Trump applied for and accepted the money, despite the fact that – as he acknowledged in an interview with a German news show immediately after the attacks – the property “wasn’t, fortunately, affected by what happened to the World Trade Center.”
Technically, 40 Wall Street LLC (if not its parent company, the Trump Organization) did meet the criteria for the funds: It had fewer than 500 employees, and was located south of 14th Street. And, as the agency that administered the funds said,eligibility wasn’t necessarily determined based on damage incurred; rather, the goal was “to keep businesses and jobs from deserting the city and moving to other States or overseas.”
“In grabbing that money with both fists, you took it out of the pockets of small business owners in New York who were truly hurting,” Nadler wrote to Trump in May. “Your exploitation of our bravest and most generous citizens shows us all we need to know about what lies within your heart.”
In response, Trump said, according to The New York Times, “For many months, I allowed people to stay in the building, use the building and store things in the building …. I was happy to do it and to this day I am still being thanked for the many people I helped. The value of what I did was far greater than the money talked about.”
Of course Trump also repeatedly uttered egregious slanders about watching Muslims in New Jersey cheering as the towers came down. Less well-known is this amazingly shameless lie about having personally helped clear the rubble while searching for survivors at the WTC site:
Here’s video of @realDonaldTrump claiming he helped look for survivors & clear rubble on 9/11. He didn't. He was lying. #NeverForget pic.twitter.com/gvc3MsbaJZ
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) September 11, 2018
This psychopath is president of the United States.