After passing the Senate and House of Represenatives, legislation ensuring permanent funding for the healthcare of first responders during the September 11 attacks went to the White House for President Donald Trump's signature.
While the passage of the bipartisan bill was a victory for American heroes, the signing ceremony highlighted an ongoing problem with Trump's claims about his actions during one of the most infamous days in American history.
It started with Trump's assertion that he went to Ground Zero shortly after the attacks.
Watch below:
This contradicts a statement from a Trump presidential rally in which he claimed to watch the attack and its aftermath from his apartment in Trump Tower—four miles away.
"I was down there also," Trump told the responders, "But I'm not considering myself a first responder, but I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you."
It's also well documented that Trump called into a news station to brag that Trump Tower became the tallest building in Manhattan with the fall of the World Trade Center.
Trump did visit the site on Semptember 13 to be interviewed by television stations, making vague claims at the time (and years after) that he had organized over 100 men to help search through the rubble.
It wasn't the only time Trump has made a questionable claim regarding 9/11.
He once claimed to have lost "hundreds of friends" in the attacks. If this is true, he didn't attend any of their funerals, as MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell, who called the claim an "evil lie," pointed out last year.
Trump also frequently repeated on the 2016 campaign trail that Muslims in New Jersey were celebrating the attacks. This was completely false.
Suddenly all of Trump's 9/11 lies are coming back to haunt him.
He concluded the signing ceremony with an extremely tactless joke.
What a day.
@IrnaEnglish/X
