As a firefighter, this one genuinely pisses me off.
Donald Trump claims that after 9/11, two firefighters grabbed him, lifted him under the arms, and carried him away from an unstable building near Ground Zero.
Twenty-five years later, neither firefighter has been identified. There is no photograph, official record, witness, or contemporary account supporting the story.
Could it have happened? Anything is possible. But when you insert yourself into one of the darkest days in American history and borrow the courage of firefighters to make yourself sound heroic, you had better bring more than “trust me.”
On September 11, 343 FDNY firefighters died doing their jobs. Thousands of responders and survivors have spent the years since battling cancer, respiratory disease, and other illnesses caused by what they breathed at Ground Zero. Those are the stories that deserve to be told.
A 9/11 memorial is not the place to make yourself the main character. It is not the place for an unverified rescue story that somehow ends with everyone admiring how big and important you are.
Honor the dead. Support the living. And keep your fucking ego out of it.
WTF.