On Friday, at a ceremony commemorating 9/11 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump was caught on camera seeming to struggle through reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. The irony is that recently, Trump wound himself up into a rage after two Democratic meetings (which were separate from main national convention proceedings) recited the pledge without including the phrase “Under God.” At a subsequent White House press conference that Trump held on the occasion of announcing a list of potential new Supreme Court picks for his potential second term, Trump claimed that a Democratic victory would mean justices would be placed on the court who would remove the phrase “under god” entirely. There’s no evidence for that claim.
Check out Trump seeming to struggle through the pledge below:
Trump doesn't seem to know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance https://t.co/LTQqccPuXC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 11, 2020
On Friday, the first public statement from the president did not even concern 9/11. Instead, it was a tweet praising the financial services company JPMorgan Chase for their decision to bring staff members back to the office following some of the initial heights of the Coronavirus pandemic, which drove many companies to have their staff members work from home. Trump has consistently acted like piecing the economy back together in the wake of the virus’s arrival is merely a matter of political will. It’s not, and it never has been. It’s a matter of public health.
On 9/11, the president's first tweet of the day praises a bank for requiring employees to return to the office. https://t.co/lHMEXz2AFz
— Greg Miller (@gregpmiller) September 11, 2020
Trump has a history of belligerent behavior surrounding 9/11. In 2015, he claimed that “thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down,” and in a subsequent interview with George Stephanopoulos, Trump emphatically pointed out that the area where the alleged celebrations took place has a large “Arab” population. He also claimed to have seen the supposed demonstrations covered on television. His claim that “thousands and thousands” of presumed Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attack in the United States itself is a lie.
Trump, of course, has routinely peddled racism and lies. He has pushed for and subsequently successfully implemented a ban on travelers to the United States from certain Muslim-majority countries. He has pathologically obsessed over coverage of himself and his administration in the mainstream media, who he claims push “fake” stories. That is a lie. They do not.
