Trump Again Boasts He 'Spent A Lot Of Time' At Ground Zero With First Responders

President Donald Trump said on Monday that he spent a lot of time at Ground Zero in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, resurfacing an old claim he has touted repeatedly without evidence to back it up.

During a Rose Garden speech after signing a law to provide permanent financial aid to survivors and first responders who became ill after working at the site of the fallen Twin Towers, Trump told the audience he, too, was there.

Many of those affected were firefighters, police officers and other first responders, he said. And I was down there also. But I am not considering myself a first responder. But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.

Trump: \"I was down there [at Ground Zero] also. But I am not considering myself a first responder.\" https://t.co/Ax43BKl3yl pic.twitter.com/D7RAaZHb07

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Trump: "I was down there [at Ground Zero] also. But I am not considering myself a first responder." https://t.co/Ax43BKl3yl pic.twitter.com/D7RAaZHb07
CBS News (@CBSNews) July 29, 2019

Trumps statement a suggestion that he deserves some measure of credit for showing up at the site echoes previous remarks hes made about Sept. 11, including at an April 2016 campaign stop in Buffalo, New York, where he told his supporters that he assisted with recovery efforts.

Everyone who helped clear the rubble and I was there, and I watched, and I helped a little bit but I want to tell you: Those people were amazing, he said. Clearing the rubble. Trying to find additional lives. You didnt know what was going to come down on all of us and they handled it.

The vague implication that he was lending a hand, even placing himself in harms way, remains completely unsubstantiated .

He did, however, appear at Ground Zero.

According to an excerpt from local paper Newsday, Trump was interviewed from the scene, having been quoted in a story that ran on Sept. 14.

The workers are so worn out that they barely glance at the sight of Donald Trump, every hair in place and impeccably dressed in a black suit, pressed white shirt and red tie, walking into the plaza with his cellular phone to his ear.
No, no. The buildings gone, he says into the phone.

Trump also spoke to a German TV reporter on Sept. 13 and can be seen standing in Lower Manhattan. While he said in the interview that he had a lot of men helping out roughly 225 total PolitiFact was unable to corroborate that claim after researching it earlier this year.

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