Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump spent Sept. 11 at memorial services in New York and Pennsylvania, just one day after squaring off in their first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle.
Though media outlets and experts widely declared Harris the winner of Tuesday evening’s debate on ABC News, Trump claimed victory for himself during a rare appearance in the spin room following the debate. That night, the former president left the door open to a second debate and told reporters Wednesday in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, that he would take part in debates hosted by NBC News and Fox News.
Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon similarly said Tuesday night that the vice president welcomed the idea of a second debate with Trump.
Harris, who was accompanied by President Joe Biden, and Trump, who stood alongside his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), attended a memorial service at ground zero in New York.
Harris, similar to Tuesday night, extended a hand to Trump before the ceremony began, and the pair exchanged brief words, though what they said remains unknown.
Immediately following the ground zero ceremony, Biden and Harris departed for Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the crash site of United Flight 93, where they took part in a wreath-laying ceremony and visited with local firefighters.
According to reporters traveling with the vice president, Harris appeared “solemn and respectful” while interacting with the group of firefighters.
During the meeting with first responders, Biden created a public affairs distraction for Harris when he was caught on camera putting on a red “Trump” baseball cap, a day after Trump declared on the debate stage that Biden secretly hates his vice president.
A White House spokesman explained the president’s surprising act as a “bipartisan” gesture meant to show the country’s “unity” after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City 23 years ago.
Biden and Harris then returned to Washington, D.C., to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon.
Trump’s day started even earlier than his Democratic counterparts. He dialed into Fox News’s Fox & Friends for a phone interview Wednesday morning.
After the ground zero ceremony, Trump also traveled to Shanksville, though he was not present during Harris and Biden’s visit.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, both Democratic and Republican candidates have managed to put aside campaign feuds to pay respects to the nearly 3,000 people killed when two planes hijacked by Islamic terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center in 2001.
In 2020, Biden and Trump did not cross paths at the ground zero ceremony, but Biden briefly greeted former Vice President Mike Pence at the Shanksville memorial.
In 2016, Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both took part in the ground zero ceremony, but Clinton was whisked away after suffering a medical incident shortly after the event concluded. Clinton was later found to have pneumonia.
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Former President Barack Obama and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) did not attend memorials together in 2012. Instead, Romney campaigned in Nevada but refrained from attacking Obama directly that day.
And in 2008, Obama and the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) led a wreath-laying ceremony together at ground zero.
