UPDATE(Thurs. Oct. 13,Secret Confessions (2025) Biyenan Episode 43 2016, 11 a.m. ET): Late Wednesday, in an interview with the Associated Press, Giuliani apologized for his comments, saying, "I made a mistake. I'm wrong and I apologize."
At a Donald Trump campaign rally in Florida on Wednesday afternoon, former New York mayor and current Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani blasted Hillary Clinton, claiming she had lied about being in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, in an apparent bid to paint her as untrustworthy and soft on terror.
Giuliani was in New York City on 9/11, as has been well documented; he was its mayor. Hillary Clinton was indeed elsewhere, which makes Giuliani technically correct.
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However, it doesn't appear, as Giuliani claims, Clinton has said she was in New York City the day of the attacks. In a recent interview with CNN, Clinton detailed her experience on Sept. 11, 2011. She talked about being in Washington, D.C., that day -- she was then New York's junior senator.
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That night, she joined other members of congress on the capitol steps to sing "God Bless America."
The next day, Sept. 12, 2001, Clinton flew with fellow New York Sen. Chuck Schumer to LaGuardia Airport via a FEMA plane and then into New York City by helicopter -- two days before President George W. Bush arrived to tour ground zero.
This portion is further detailed in a recent feature for Politico Magazinewhich picks up with Clinton talking about joining Giuliani at Ground Zero.
On the ground, wearing a surgical mask, the caustic air burned her lungs and eyes as she toured the disaster site with New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and governor George Pataki. She caught the last train out of Penn Station before it closed for the night.
That account is substantiated in photographs from Sept. 12.
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So, while Giuliani is technically correct that Clinton wasn't in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, his statement is also incredibly disingenuous.
There's no proof of Clinton having claimed to have been in New York City on Sept. 11. The closest thing to it is a 2004 story in which critics brought into question the account of Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, as to how close she was to the World Trade Center when the attacks occurred.
Clinton was interviewed that night, post-"God Bless America" in Washington, on CNN.
There was also no way for Clinton to get to New York immediately after the attacks.
The FAA shut down domestic flights, limiting airborne crafts to military and law enforcement personnel. Even the saga of Air Force One that day elaborated on how few planes were flying and the uncertainty surrounding those crafts as airspace was closed. (Not to mention that bridges and tunnels into lower Manhattan, in addition to subway trains, were shut down in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.)
Giuliani's implication in his dismissive mention of Clinton and her role in the first responders support bill is that she did nothing for New York after the attacks -- Giuliani uses his own role as mayor to provide contrast. "Don't tell me you belong to our very, very tight group of 'never forget,'" he continued. (The Guardian, in early September, ran down all the ways that Hillary Clinton was involved in the post-Sept. 11 efforts in New York.)
It's the sort of politicization of the tragedy that Giuliani has made his bread and butter. It was a tent-pole of his short-lived 2008 candidacy for the GOP nomination for president.
His rhetoric certainly doesn't take away from any of his own actions as mayor of New York after the terror attacks -- it simply enlarges the ever-growing scrap heap of illogical and unfounded attacks that have clogged the 2016 campaign in lieu of adult discourse.
