Hours after they sparred at their first presidential debate together, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump shook each other's hands in a show of civility Wednesday morning at a ground zero ceremony commemorating the 9/11 attacks.
The two presidential nominees stood near each other at the event in lower Manhattan, with President Joe Biden and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg standing between Harris and Trump. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Trump's vice presidential nominee, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also attended the ceremony.
During the ceremony, a woman who lost her husband in the 2001 terrorist attacks criticized Biden for saying to reporters Tuesday that he would be “doing 9/11” on Wednesday as part of his attendance at the day's memorial events. The woman called it “quite a flippant remark” — one of the only outright political statements heard during the ceremony.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that Biden and Harris were attending the event because "they want to honor the 2,977 lives that were lost on that tragic day and support the families and also their loved ones who are still, still feeling a horrible pain."
Biden, Harris, Trump and Vance stayed at the service, which began at 8:30 a.m. ET, for more than an hour before departing.
Once Trump and Vance left ground zero, they stopped by Engine Company 4, Ladder Company 15 fire station in lower Manhattan to meet and take photos with firefighters, some of whose members died responding to the 9/11 attacks. Trump and Vance were joined by campaign staff, the former president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and far-right activist Laura Loomer, who was with the former president at the debate Tuesday night and has spread conspiracy theories about the attacks.
Vance and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., also visited the offices of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, now at 55 Water Street in lower Manhattan, whose corporate headquarters were based out of the top floors of the World Trade Center’s North Tower on 9/11. The company has said that 658 of its employees died that day. Vance thanked the firm in brief remarks for its work to raise money for the families of 9/11 victims.
Harris and Biden later traveled to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, home of the Flight 93 memorial, and participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the site. Trump visited the site about 90 minutes later. It is believed that an attack on the U.S. Capitol was prevented on Sept. 11, 2001, due to the actions of the flight's 40 passengers and crew who died when the plane crashed into a field in Shanksville.
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The president and vice president also visited Shanksville's volunteer fire department to meet with firefighters and the families and friends of Flight 93 victims, as did Trump later on Wednesday. Biden and Harris stood side by side with a woman and a firefighter to look at a large silver cross that was erected at the firehouse with the letters "WTC" inscribed at the bottom. Before walking inside to meet with families, Biden stopped, bowed his head and made the sign of the cross.
In the afternoon, a Trump campaign account posted a photo of Biden wearing a MAGA hat and smiling. The caption on X read: “Thanks for the support, Joe.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates quote tweeted the post, saying that at the Shanksville fire station, Biden "spoke about the country’s bipartisan unity after 9/11 and said we needed to get back to that. As a gesture, he gave a hat to a Trump supporter who then said that in the same spirit, POTUS should put on his Trump cap. He briefly wore it.”
Biden and Harris then headed to Virginia, where they participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon, and had a moment of reflection at the wall of names at the memorial there.
Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, commemorated the 9/11 anniversary in his home state.
Presidential candidates traditionally refrain from campaigning on the anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, but they have crossed paths at 9/11 memorials in previous election cycles.
In 2016, Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — then the Democratic presidential nominee — attended a 15th anniversary service, but she departed abruptly and appeared unsteady as she left. Her campaign said she felt "overheated," adding later that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia.
Trump used the incident to question Clinton's stamina and whether she was "tough" enough to be president.
Trump, as president, and Biden, the Democratic nominee, attended the 9/11 Memorial & Museum’s annual commemoration at ground zero in 2020, when Biden spent time consoling family members who lost loved ones in the attacks.
Trump and Biden that day also went to Shanksville, where Biden laid a wreath at the memorial and met with family members and Trump delivered a speech vowing that “America will always rise up, stand tall and fight back.”
Harris went to the New York memorial service last year, while Biden, who was traveling back from Asia, marked the anniversary at an Air Force base in Alaska.
Biden went to all three of the attack memorial sites in 2021 — the 20th anniversary.
Trump, a New York native, did not attend the memorial in 2021, making stops instead at a police station and a firehouse.
He marked the anniversary with a video statement last year. “No one who lived through the horror of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks can ever forget the agony and the anguish of that terrible day. It was a terrible day," he said in the video. “We will never forget.”
