July 29, 2019 02:24 PM UTC

President Trump Says He Helped First Responders on 9/11

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• by: Colorado Pols

Because it happens so often, it is difficult to find the energy to maintain an appropriate level of concern or outrage whenever President Trump says something horrible. Today is one of those days where channeling an extra bit of dismay at Trump is more than appropriate.

As Chris Cillizza writes for CNN:

On Monday morning, in a speech to first responders and others impacted by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, President Trump took his fantastical memory of himself to new and not-at-all-appropriate heights.

“I was down there also, but I’m not considering myself a first responder,” Trump said. “But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.” …

…Let’s be clear about what Trump is doing here: He is associating himself — very closely — with the men and women who were the first to respond to planes being crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. People who continue to suffer health issues due to their jobs. [Pols emphasis]

(They were at the White House for Trump’s formal signing of an extension of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, which ensures first responders continue to get money from the government to deal with their issues.)

This is not the first time that Trump has claimed that he helped clear rubble from the site of the World Trade Center — there is absolutely no evidence to support any of this — but it is the first time he made the argument in the White House with actual first responders in the same room.

We’ll let Cillizza sum up Trump’s comments today:

“We should be appalled that the President of the United States is willing to say things like this — especially to a crowd who has given so much to the country in its darkest hours.”

Consider us appalled.