Republican Officials Share 25th Anniversary Tributes Honoring September 11 Victims

You have turned 9/11 into some kind of a sideshow, blatantly posting photo event after photo event. You used the heartcrushing memories of that awful day to use for cheap campaigning. Shameful.

The connection being made in recent online posts—such as those by the Idaho GOP or other conservative commentators—revolves around the anniversary of the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, which occurred on September 10, 2025. [1, 2] Because Kirk was killed exactly one day before the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the two events have become deeply intertwined in conservative memorials and political rhetoric. [1, 2] The phrase "in politics there are no coincidences" is being used by commentators to highlight or spark discussions around several aspects of this timing: • The Shared Dates of Mourning: September 11, 2026, marks both the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and the one-year anniversary of the immediate aftermath of Kirk's assassination. Political groups and influencers are using the back-to-back dates to hold joint memorials, such as the unveiling of a dedicated sculpture in Times Square, framing both events as historic tragedies for the nation. [1, 2, 3, 4] • Ideological Comparisons: High-profile figures have publicly compared Kirk’s assassination to 9/11. The argument being made in these circles is that both acts were perpetrated by extremist ideologies using violence to silence opposition and intimidate Americans. [1] • Conspiracy Theories: The proximity of the dates has also fueled online conspiracy theories. While investigations confirmed that Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University by a lone individual named Tyler Robinson, the timing has led some internet factions to claim the date was intentionally chosen or part of a larger political plot, driving the "not a coincidence" narrative.��[1, 2, 3] In short, the Idaho GOP and other political pages are pointing out the consecutive dates to emphasize a somber period of remembrance, though it has simultaneously amplified political divisions and speculative theories online. [1, 2, 3]

Twenty-five years later, the memory of 9/11 remains a solemn reminder of the lives lost, the courage shown, and the resilience of a nation. Honoring those who were taken from us—and those who ran toward danger to save others—must always rise above politics. We will never forget.

The best way we can honor 9/11 is to be who we were on 9/12

The best way to honor 9-11 is to be who we were on 9-12! ❤️🤍💙

I would say something about using 9/11 for political points but you know I think it speaks for itself.

So now that the ceremonies are over....... how about telling your constituents how YOU feel about this??? CAN *YOU* IMAGINE SAYING THIS OUT LOUD? I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SAY NEXT …….HE WAS JUST KIDDING….. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN SAY THIS AS A JOKE??? President Donald Trump was widely lambasted on social media Tuesday after ranting about a revered hero of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and complaining about the man’s fame. “They were sure they were going to die. Then suddenly, a rescuer appeared. They call him the man in the red bandana. Have you heard that term? The man in the red bandana has become more famous than me. I don’t like it. Very unhappy, but he’s become much more famous than me,” Trump said during a Steel Across America event at the White House. Shocking photo shows Trump apparently asleep at 9/11 ceremony President Donald Trump closed his eyes and dipped his head during the Pentagon ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. A Reuters photograph taken Friday morning showed the president seated before an American flag. His eyes were shut, and his chin was lowered toward his chest. The observance had begun at 9 a.m., more than an hour before the photograph was taken, according to PBS NewsHour. "[A]s is always the case when he's sitting and not talking, Trump had a hard time staying awake during the 9/11 ceremony," journalist Aaron Rupar wrote on X on Friday morning. Rupar published the remark alongside a Getty Images photograph of Trump at the ceremony. Trump listened as the names of the 184 people killed at the Pentagon were read aloud at the start of the ceremony, ABC News reported. Trump skipped the Ground Zero ceremony in New York, his hometown, because the National September 11 Memorial and Museum has barred politicians from speaking there since 2012, CNN reported. He last attended the Ground Zero observance in 2024. https://www.rawstory.com/trump-eyes-close-911-ceremony/?u=c59cf510182426ff8312d0eb3d24ea6433822417929cd515ed2b77ddd8dfaf1e&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sep.11.2026_3.41pm_19816194 If Donald Trump is still breathing, he’s lying. It’s basically become an annual tradition for Trump to lie about 9/11, with his false claims of bravery and helping at Ground Zero to his obtuse boasts of having the tallest building left in Manhattan after the towers fell. But the lies he’s told this week, as Americans braced themselves for the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, are possibly his most egregious lies of all. Donald Trump's lies about 9/11 are centered on stolen valor and began on the day itself, when we were all experiencing a national tragedy and had no idea if we were going to be attacked again. He couldn’t keep from inserting himself into the narrative from the beginning; his narcissism just couldn’t allow for the idea that he wasn’t part of the conversation about the biggest event in American history. He saw blanket media coverage and used it as an opportunity to talk about himself, and has done so every year since. We cannot let him rewrite the history we all witnessed, which is still so visceral that many of us still can’t watch footage even a quarter of a century later. While we feel the gravitas of the day, Trump keeps using it to puff himself up. But he was nowhere near Ground Zero on 9/11, and we know this because he called into a local TV station, WOR (Channel 9), to claim he witnessed the second plane hitting the World Trade Center as he stood with a “group of people” in his office at Trump Tower. It’s an interesting snapshot of how he was manipulating the media, even back when he was just this gross, chauvinistic playboy hitting the Manhattan social scene with his wives, and the women he dated when he was between wives. However, some simple geography, math, and the Empire State Building blocking his view dispute his claims of witnessing the second plane hit. Anyway, lots of people called out the latest lie, despite Trump saying, “I’ll never forget how two big firefighters pulled me out…” Which never happened, but also sounds like a fantasy he’s had for years. There was plenty of pushback online, so then he went and did this. MAGA has yet to call him out for this despicable lie. The media is silent. He went to Dallas for his midterm convention and stood up and lied more, and then he lied on Thursday about the attendance breaking records when the joint was mostly empty. There isn’t anything Trump won’t lie about, and that’s what makes him so dangerous. From COVID to the Iran War to Gaza to whatever the latest awful thing he’s done, his lies have an unacceptable body count. He lied about why he’s vandalizing Washington. He lied about the 2024 election. And he’ll never stop lying about the Epstein Files. The question is, when will MAGA stop letting him lie to them? This latest outrage about what must be America's most solemn day must be the final straw. And the follow-up is, when will the media stop helping him lie to all of us? https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/maga-trump-lie/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sep.11.2026_3.41pm_19816194

Your remembrance ceremony was so much better than our demented President’s flagrant lies about being pulled from the rubble on that terrible day. Tragic that you and pretty much every sitting Republican in Congress remain too cowed by increasingly feckless Trumpian backlash to carry out your Constitutional obligation to serve as a buttress against his neofascist desires. Tragic for your party, that is.

Make 9/11 a day of remembrance of those who died on that day. Make 9/11 about the police and firefighters who sacrificed their lives. Make 9/11 about families who lost loved ones. Make 9/11 about healing for those first responders who are now sick with lung issues and the 400 who died from diseases related to air borne pollution. Anyone turning this day about hate and division: shame on you. Anyone turning this days to bash fellow Americans for political gain? You have no shame. You are NOT an example of America.

Before dawn this morning, in the rain, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Pentagon leadership watched a giant American flag unfurled down the side of the building. At the ceremony, a bell tolled as the names of the 184 people killed at the Pentagon and aboard Flight 77 were read aloud. Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser that morning in 2001, described getting word that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and thinking, “what a strange accident.” She said she still carries “deep personal remorse for the pain that you, the families of the fallen, still feel.” It was, for most of an hour, exactly the ceremony it should have been. Then Hegseth took the podium and said this: “Our warriors have fought an Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century, that cheered on 9/11, a regime that has sponsored terrorist attacks against Americans for decades, killing thousands, including our comrades in Iraq, in Afghanistan.” Iran cheered on 9/11 is a specific, falsifiable claim about a specific day in September 2001. The public record compiled by the government Hegseth serves points in the opposite direction. The 9/11 Commission, a bipartisan body created by Congress, devoted a section of its report to Iran’s relationship with al-Qaeda before the attacks. It found “strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.” That’s real, but it sits three sentences away from the Commission’s crucial limiting finding: “We have found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack.” The State Department’s own report for that year goes further. Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001 states plainly: “There is no evidence of Iranian sponsorship or foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks in the United States. President Khatami condemned the attacks and offered condolences to the American people.” Khatami repeated those condolences on camera two months later. Even Ayatollah Khamenei, in his first public remarks after the attacks, condemned the killing of civilians before his rhetoric hardened. By late September, he was refusing to join the American coalition and attacking Washington outright, a real and citable turn toward hostility. It is simply not the turn Hegseth described. Ordinary Iranians held candlelight vigils in Tehran for the American dead. One was attacked by Basij vigilantes and dispersed by police. None of this is obscure or hard to find. It is the U.S. government’s own bipartisan commission and the U.S. government’s own State Department, both on the public record for twenty-five years. The sitting Secretary of War stood at the Pentagon this morning and told a room full of 9/11 families the opposite of what his own government found. Whether that’s unfamiliarity with a well-documented record or a knowing rewrite of it isn’t really the question worth settling. The effect is the same either way: a current war being justified, at the ceremony built to honor the dead of an attack by a different enemy, with a claim their own government’s investigation didn’t support. Rice spoke earlier at the same event. She talked about her own memory, her own regret, the names of the fallen. She acknowledged failure. “Those of us in authority on that day did not see the nature of the danger in time to prevent the attack of 9/11,” she said. “We did what we knew to do, but by definition, it was not enough.” She never once mentioned Iran. That contrast, one speaker treating September 11 as history, the other conscripting it into the sales pitch for a different war. Twenty-five years on, we can still tell the difference between a commemoration and a talking point. #USPolitics #September11 #kakistocracy #PeteHegseth