“We will never, ever forget,” President Donald Trump said at the Pentagon on Friday. “That’s why we fight today. We don’t have a choice.”
He was marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, when al-Qaeda militants hijacked planes and killed nearly 3,000 people in three locations. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump listened as the names of the 184 people killed at the Pentagon were read aloud, a bell tolling between each. Trump recounted the stories of several victims and said the day had hardened American resolve.
Earlier, in a downpour at daybreak, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior military officials watched a giant American flag unfurled down the side of the building. It was the second year running that Trump spent the anniversary at the Pentagon; he last attended the ground zero ceremony in New York in 2024. Vice President JD Vance joined former presidents at the New York observance, and other administration officials went to Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Vance had planned to be in New York last year but flew to Salt Lake City to be with Charlie Kirk’s family after the activist was fatally shot.
Iran enters the speeches
Trump opened by recalling the unity that followed the attacks. “We were all New Yorkers that day. Every one of us,” he said. He and Hegseth then tied the anniversary to the war with Iran. Trump saluted service members “working right now to ensure the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror” will never have a nuclear weapon. Hegseth said the military had “laid waste to the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism.”
A widow’s challenge in New York
At the New York ceremony, Terry Strada, who lost her husband Tom on 9/11, called on Trump to “tell the Saudis to stop lying.” She said US presidents had chosen “to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families.” Her message to Vance: “It has been one betrayal after another. President Trump can still change that.”
Strada belongs to a group of victims’ relatives in a long-running lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. They allege that extremist religious leaders gained influence in the Saudi government and aided the hijackers. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. The Saudi government has long denied any involvement.
Could it have been stopped?
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, speaking at his department’s headquarters, said the agency created after the attacks has “prevented it from happening again.” He also noted that Osama bin Laden had fired “warning shots” before 9/11 and said the national security apparatus had “failures along the way.”
Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor on the day of the attacks, took part in the Pentagon commemoration. “I will always carry deep personal remorse for the pain that you, the families of the fallen, still feel,” she said, adding that those in authority did not see the danger in time to prevent it.
