President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were at New York City's Ground Zero on Wednesday to observe the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
In New York, Biden and Harris stood with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former President Donald Trump, who was accompanied by his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, C-SPAN reported.
Harris and Trump traveled to New York City after leaving Philadelphia on Tuesday night after their presidential debate.
After being in New York, Biden and Harris were to fly to Shanksville, where the passengers on United Flight 93 overcame the hijackers and the plane crashed in a field, preventing another target from being hit. Then they will head back to the Washington area to visit the Pentagon memorial.
Trump also plans to visit the Pennsylvania memorial.
"It was a very, very sad, horrible day," he told Fox News on Wednesday. "There's never been anything like it."
"We can only imagine the heartbreak and the pain that the 9/11 families and survivors have felt every day for the past 23 years, and we will always remember and honor those who were stolen from us way too soon," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.
"We will continue to do everything in our power to ensure that an attack like this never happens again," she said.
Biden issued a proclamation honoring those who died as a result of the attacks, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Americans who volunteered for military service afterward.
"We owe these patriots of the 9/11 generation a debt of gratitude that we can never fully repay," Biden said, citing deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other war zones, as well as the capture and killing of Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and his deputy.
U.S. congressional leaders on Tuesday posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to 13 of those service members who were killed in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Kabul's airport during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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