By JIMMY THE SAINT
At a recent Trump rally in Alabama, the Republican’s leading presidential candidate recounted personal experiences on September 11, 2001. “I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down,” Donald Trump said, “And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering. So something’s going on. We’ve got to find out what it is.”
Trump, who not only has a real estate empire in New York City but also across the river in New Jersey and pretty much all throughout the United States, spent that September 11 in Jersey City; his location gave him a direct, unfiltered view of the Twin Towers as they burned and crumbled to the ground. Jersey City, as well as surrounding Hudson River municipalities such as Union City, Hoboken, Weehawken, and Edgewater, allotted hundreds of thousands of people the same bird’s-eye view as Trump. Accordingly, it’s not difficult to believe that a small percentage of those people (i.e. – a few thousand people, which would equal about 1% – 2%) were cheering. Behind “believing that it could be true”, let’s revisit history. Let’s look at facts.
History and facts tells us it is indeed true that a large number of people on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River were cheering that day. I’ll start with me as witness number one. I clearly remember news reports on September 11, 2001 and immediate days thereafter, chronicling cheering of large groups of people in Jersey City and the cities nearby. But why be a fool and just rely on the memories of The Donald and guy called Jimmy The Saint? How about the memories of thousands of others? Do a basic Internet search and you will find, literally, thousands of people who state that they recall watching, hearing and reading news reports about large groups of people cheering in New Jersey on September 11. Oh, that’s not enough? Well, how about reports from the mainstream media – the same mainstream media who is now denouncing Trump for making his Alabama rally comment.
The Washington Post, one of the most read newspapers in the country, for example, reported this on September 18, 2011: “Law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.” Again, a simple Internet search will reveal a plethora of news articles, within days of the attacks, which describe this factual phenomenon. Not enough?
How about the fact that law enforcement authorities were – factually – investigating reports of large numbers of cheering people in New Jersey? This includes the FBI and local law enforcement agencies. How do the naysayers rebut this? Were the law enforcement investigations based on nothing? Or were they based on reports of…get ready for this logic…reports of exactly what they were investigating: reports of large numbers of people cheering on the Jersey side of the Hudson River?
No matter how many facts you lay out, those with an agenda against Trump – basically all liberals, the mainstream media, political rivals, and jealous clowns – will claim that he is lying and that these real incidents didn’t occur. Let’s hear from a few.
Chris Christie, New Jersey’s governor and a fledgling GOP presidential candidate, rebuked Trump’s contention, uttering, “I do not remember that, and so it’s not something that was part of my recollection.” This comes from a guy who told a monstrous lie regarding 9/11 – on national television, during a Republican presidential debate in August – falsely stating that he was appointed New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney on September 10, 2001. Specifically, he fabricated, “I was appointed U.S. Attorney by President Bush on September 10th, 2001, and the world changed enormously the next day, and that happened in my state.” The truth is that Christie was not appointed U.S. Attorney the day before the September 11 attacks, but was appointed to that post months later.
Steve Fulop, Jersey City’s current mayor, tweeted that Trump “either has memory issues or willfully distorts the truth, either of which should be concerning for the Republican Party.” Although Fulop has an impressive resume, including studying at Oxford and degrees from both Columbia and NYU, he is a Democrat who many believe will be running in New Jersey’s next gubernatorial election. And his memory is no better than Trump’s nor, assuredly, the countless number of other people who remember the reports of the mobs of cheering persons on that horrific day.
Some people just want to distort the truth. But one of those people isn’t Donald Trump.
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