Donald Trump Claims He 'Worked Long and Hard' With Construction Workers at Ground Zero After 9/11

Donald Trump is facing renewed scrutiny over his account of what he did at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks, after claiming in a new interview that he went to the site with construction workers and that they 'worked long and hard.'

The comments came during a sit‑down with Fox News host Trey Gowdy, in which Trump revisited his memories of the 11 September 2001 attacks and described how he first learned that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

Trump has repeatedly revisited his memories of 9/11, and some of his claims about his actions after the attacks have previously been disputed.

Donald Trump Recounts Watching Planes Hit the Towers

Trump told Gowdy he had been tuned in to a business programme that morning, around 8.30am, while General Electric boss Jack Welch was appearing on air. He said he heard initial chatter that a 'boiler' might have exploded at the World Trade Center, a theory he says he did not buy because the building's boilers were located in the basement.

He went on to say he wondered if a missile could be to blame, before watching the second jet line up for impact. 'I saw the second plane hit, and you saw that come, and you're watching it,' Trump said, adding that he had followed New York's air traffic patterns for years and knew the usual flight paths up the Hudson River. 'This thing was coming right into the 2nd building.'

Trump told Gowdy that, as he watched the second strike, he realised the attacks marked a rupture in American life. 'I watched that happen, and I said, 'Wow, we are now in a different time.' So I saw it, and I said. The world has just changed.' It was what he said next that lit up social media.

Ground Zero Claims Put Donald Trump Back Under Scrutiny

The controversy intensified when Trump described what he said he did shortly after the attacks. According to his account, he travelled to Ground Zero with a team of builders linked to a project he was running in New York.

'I went down. I, I was building a building in New York and I had a lot of construction workers, and I went down there very shortly thereafter the following day you couldn't go down the same day, but like the following day very, very quickly afterwards, and we worked long and hard,' he told Gowdy.

Trump's wording appeared to suggest that he and the construction workers he described had carried out work at the site, although the interview did not detail the nature or extent of that work. In earlier interviews given days after the attacks, Trump said he had more than 100 men at the site and that another 125 were coming.

Those assertions have been challenged before. Previous fact‑checking has found evidence that Trump was at least near the area after the attacks, but has found insufficient evidence to substantiate some of his claims about the size of the workforce he says he brought to Ground Zero. The available evidence does not independently establish what work, if any, he and his construction workers carried out there.

His latest account nevertheless portrays him as having participated directly in the recovery effort. Critics focused on his description of having 'worked long and hard,' questioning what work he and the construction workers actually performed at the site.

Social Media Users Call Donald Trump Story 'Lies on Top of Lies'

The new interview clips spread quickly on X, where Trump's Ground Zero language was met with derision from users who have spent years tracking his shifting 9/11 anecdotes. Some users on the platform accused Trump of exaggerating or lying about his role in the recovery effort.

'He's lying. It's lies on top of lies on top of lies,' one user wrote, in a post reacting directly to the Fox News segment. Another critic argued that the embellishments are almost the point, not a glitch. 'He lies because it doesn't matter... His base doesn't care if he does. They dont look into it or care... They would rather live the lie... Why tell the truth when you can make up your own stories?'

There is, underneath the insults, a serious question. It is one thing for Trump to hype property deals or poll numbers, quite another to embroider what he did during the deadliest terror attack on US soil. The dispute is particularly sensitive given the scale of the attacks and their lasting impact on victims, survivors and first responders.

The furore also dragged an older clip back into circulation. On the day of the attacks in 2001, Trump spoke by telephone with WWOR‑TV about his building at 40 Wall Street. '40 Wall Street actually was the second tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest,' he said then. 'And then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest. And now it's the tallest.'

Trump also said that 40 Wall Street had become the tallest building in downtown Manhattan after the World Trade Center towers collapsed. That was incorrect, 70 Pine Street was taller than 40 Wall Street and remained standing after the attacks.

The remarks later drew criticism because Trump discussed 40 Wall Street's height while responding to questions about the damage caused by the attacks. Two decades on, the same clip is now being paired with his latest 'worked long and hard' story as another example, according to opponents, of what they describe as his tendency to embellish his accounts of 9/11.

Some of Trump's supporters, by contrast, have dismissed criticism of his 9/11 recollections as politically motivated or overly focused on minor details. The latest comments are likely to renew scrutiny of his long‑running claims about his activities in New York after the attacks.