President Joe Biden in Alaska 9-11-23. (Credit: RNC Research)
As my colleague Bonchie reported, President Joe Biden said during a speech Monday in Alaska that he was in New York City the day following the 9/11 terrorist attacks—however, numerous records show that he was not. Biden:
"Ground Zero in New York — I remember standing there the next day and looking at the building. I felt like I was looking through the gates of Hell, it looked so devastating because the way you could — from where you could stand," Biden said during his speech at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska marking the devastating acts of terrorism 22 years ago.
Yet here's the president in a C-SPAN clip dated 9/12/2001 showing him delivering a speech on the Senate floor:
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What jumps out at me immediately in watching this speech is just how different he sounds today. Here, he sounds forceful, in command of the English language, and able to communicate without the constant assistance of a teleprompter or notes. A striking contrast to the man who can barely make it through a speech or press briefing these days.
What it also shows, however, is that Biden was standing on the floor of the Senate, not "looking through the gates of Hell" in lower Manhattan.
Other records also indicate that he was in fact in Washington, D.C., on the Day After, not the Big Apple:
However, according to C-SPAN coverage of U.S. Senate proceedings on September 12, 2001, Biden was in Washington, D.C. and gave a speech on the floor of the Senate. Records show the Senate met in the morning, and a classified briefing was held for all senators that afternoon at 2:00 p.m. ET.
Records also show Biden participated in a joint resolution vote condemning the terrorist attacks later that afternoon. Biden was the Democratic manager of the resolution.
According to a report by The New York Post, Biden also contradicted his own claim in his autobiography detailing his actions after the attacks. Biden said in the book that he "headed back to the Capitol" on September 12, and made no mention of visiting Ground Zero that day.
The report also noted a Gannett News Wire report from Sept. 12, 2001 stating, "Delaware Sen. Joe Biden spent Wednesday exactly where he wanted — in the U.S. Senate."
Biden's questionable claim comes on the day he is under fire for spending the anniversary of 9/11 in Vietnam and Alaska, not the site of the tragedy.
His administration, for some unfathomable reason, also thought it would be a great idea to mark the day by announcing a $6 billion deal with Iran, a nation that the United States has deemed a "state sponsor of terrorism."
Now I'm not going just flat-call Joe Biden a liar—perhaps he somehow found a way to get to New York City on 9/12. It wasn't on his beloved Amtrak, though, because service was suspended in the aftermath of the attacks. It wasn't by airliner, either, because almost all flights were grounded at the time.
Biden is a known serial plagiarist and fabulist, though, so unless he's got some really incredible explanation for what appears to be an outright falsehood, he's been caught yet again spreading misinformation.
As of this writing, the White House has not responded to queries from news organizations about his apparent fib.
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RELATED ARTICLE
Fact Check of WH Excuse for Biden Not Visiting NYC on 9/11 Makes Him Look so Much Worse
By Sister Toldjah | RedState.com
As RedState noted earlier, the Biden White House raised eyebrows Monday with a pretty incredible excuse for why Joe Biden was opting to spend September 11th in Alaska instead of New York City, the latter of which was the site of the 9/11/01 attacks on the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center and which is where presidents have typically commemorated the anniversary until now.
"The analogy that I was given," Fox News White House correspondent Doocy reported, "is that 22 years after Pearl Harbor, U.S. presidents were not still going to visit Hawaii."
Even if true, it was a pretty disrespectful answer to give, especially given the anger that family members of some of the 9/11 victims are feeling over Biden's decision to skip out on attending the memorial event in the first place.
The fact of the matter, though, is that U.S. presidents were in fact still visiting Hawaii decades after the Pearl Harbor attack.
Case in point, then-President George H.W. Bush was in Hawaii on the 50th anniversary in December 1991.
Here's a link to the speech he gave that day. Excerpts:
And so, look behind you at battleship row -- behind me, the gun turret still visible, and the flag flying proudly from a truly blessed shrine.
Look into your hearts and minds: You will see boys who this day became men and men who became heroes.
Look at the water here, clear and quiet, bidding us to sum up and remember. One day, in what now seems another lifetime, it wrapped its arms around the finest sons any nation could ever have, and it carried them to a better world.
May God bless them.
And may God bless America, the most wondrous land on Earth.
Here's then-President John F. Kennedy visiting in June 1963, nearly 22 years after the attack:
On a related note, 71 years after the Battle of Gettysburg, then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave a speech at the site. And four years later, in 1938, he was on hand to speak at the dedication of the Gettysburg memorial:
As another Twitter user observed, these "places don't stop being important" no matter who the president is.
But then again, as we've noted before, Biden's penchant for being absent when his presence would matter most to affected communities also applies to contemporary events, like the aftermath of the Maui fires, which he originally blew off with a "no comment" answer on the rising death toll ahead of going vacation, being one notable example.
Not to mention the pathetic excuses Biden himself has given for why he has still not visited the site of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment seven months after it happened.
I remember reading an article during the 2020 presidential primary campaign season that talked about how those closest to Joe Biden would chalk his flubs and gaffes up to just "Joe being Joe." Apparently, that same rule also applies to Biden when it comes to being there for the American people, except in the examples noted in this piece, it's just "Joe being AWOL."