On Friday, September 14, 2001, President George W. Bush, dressed in a windbreaker and casual slacks, climbed onto the pile at Ground Zero. With a bullhorn in hand and his other hand on retired firefighter Bob Beckwith’s shoulder, he addressed the hundreds of volunteers who had been relentlessly sifting through rubble and debris for survivors. “I can hear you,” he said. “The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

We were angry. We were hurt. We were grieving.

He made us feel seen, heard, and understood. It didn’t heal the gaping wound. Not even close. But by acknowledging us, he was fulfilling one of the most fundamental roles of a head of state: healer-in-chief. He gave us a glimmer of hope that we would somehow make it through and that we would exact revenge on the bastards who had shattered our buildings and our world.

He didn’t blame his predecessor. He didn’t make it about himself. He didn’t turn the moment into an attack on Democrats. He was speaking to all of America, not to a single faction that likes to wear red hats and demean people because of whom they love, the god they worship, or how they identify.

After leaving the pile, he moved on to the Javits Center, where he met with family members of roughly 200 missing police officers and firefighters. He didn’t address them all at once. He didn’t invite the press. He met with them one-on-one and listened to their stories about their loved ones.

We didn’t hear what he said to those families. We never saw it. We didn’t have to. What he did spoke for itself. It helped us heal because we knew the person leading us was comforting those who needed it most.

Perhaps this is where I should point out that George W. Bush was never my guy. He was just a nepo-baby frat boy who had the great good fortune of birth. His flannel-shirt brand of supply-side economics—where a tax cut is a sacrament rather than a subtraction, and revenue forgone at the top supposedly trickles down through the strata like grace through a cathedral, arriving at last upon the head of the wage earner, who is assured that his own bill will come due in some other administration—was bullshit. And don’t even get me started on the two generational wars he launched.

But that day, he was our president, standing alongside us, and we were in it together.

For one terrible day, politics receded. He spoke to us as one country.

E pluribus unum.

Which raises the question: what would the current occupant of the bedazzled Oval Office do, given an equally horrifying set of circumstances?

We don’t need to look any further than his behavior on 9/11 for the answer.

On that day, he gave a phone interview to WWOR-TV. In it, he said he believed 25,000 to 35,000 people were dead, then quickly moved on to the news that his building at 40 Wall Street was now the tallest in lower Manhattan. It was a callous, self-serving interview. Don’t believe me? Listen for yourself: https://youtu.be/PcKlPhFIE7w

On subsequent occasions, he has claimed he sent construction workers to help with the recovery effort. The problem is that investigators have never been able to corroborate it. Richard Alles, an FDNY battalion chief who supervised operations there, said a crew of 100 Trump workers would have been operating under official supervision and “there would be a record of it.” He knew of no such crew. Others deeply involved in the construction and recovery operation likewise said they knew of no Trump-organized workforce.

Trump publicly pledged money to 9/11 relief, but investigators have found no record that he made a charitable donation in the aftermath of the attacks. Fifteen years later, while running for president, his foundation donated $100,000 to the 9/11 Museum. Yes—the Donald J. Trump Foundation, the same foundation that was later forced to dissolve in New York.

His most recent claim is that two firefighters carried him to safety when a building was in danger of collapsing. It was such an obvious lie that every major news outlet in the country was calling bullshit practically as it left his mouth.

And that isn’t even his most memorable lie about 9/11.

No. There is no credible evidence for his claim that he watched “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in Jersey City cheering on television as the World Trade Center collapsed.

None of these lies is particularly shocking, considering who we’re dealing with.

Trump lies as easily as the rest of us breathe. But the lies all serve the same purpose: to promote himself in some way, to make himself feel a little better about being the damaged person he is.

But that is not what really bothers me.

What makes my blood pressure soar, my pupils dilate, and spittle fly from my mouth when I speak is the stolen valor.

2,977 people died in the attacks that day, 2,753 of them at the World Trade Center.

403 first responders died trying to save them: 343 FDNY firefighters, 37 Port Authority police officers, and 23 NYPD officers.

Roughly 91,000 people gave up their time, their health, and pieces of their peace of mind to work at Ground Zero.

Since then:

• More than 600 FDNY rescue and recovery workers have died of World Trade Center–related illnesses.
• More than 12,000 FDNY members have been certified with at least one 9/11-related physical or mental condition; nearly 5,000 have had some form of cancer.
• More than 9,000 people have died of 9/11-related causes.
• The September 11 Victim Compensation Fund has recorded 5,892 responders, area residents, and workers who died of cancers attributed to the toxic air.
• As of June 30, 2026, 145,275 responders and survivors were enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program. An estimated 400,000 people were exposed to toxins in and around lower Manhattan.

All of these people sacrificed because of 9/11. They didn’t do it for money or fame. They did it because something deep in their souls told them they had to.

Donald Trump, who could have given more and done more than almost anyone else in the country, gave nothing. Then he spent the next twenty-five years helping himself to their courage. It’s the only kind he’s ever had.

We shouldn’t forget his cowardice and his puddle-deep character tomorrow. Or ever.

But tomorrow isn’t about him. Tomorrow we remember those who died that day, those who gave their lives searching for survivors and then for their fellow citizens’ remains, and all those who gave up something of themselves because of that day—and are still giving it up, twenty-five years on.

A moment of silence is not enough. Sixty seconds is free, and these people gave everything. Go out of your way to be kind tomorrow. Do something for someone who can’t pay you back. That’s what they did. There is no better tribute.