New York’s king of excess and hype

In the lead-up to the twenty-fifth remembrance of the bombing of the Twin Towers (and the Pentagon, plus the courageous efforts aboard Flight 93), Donald Trump has out-Goebbeled Goebbels. We, American citizens who lived through those days, know what happened. We remember.

You know what else remembers? Newspapers!

I’ve mentioned before that newspapers dot com is my go-to resource when I need unfiltered accounts of historical events. I will concede that news reporting—including reporting from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—can be biased, skewed, and otherwise inaccurate. But what was printed onto newsprint and now archived online remains.

Following is news reporting from September 11, 2001 through and including September 18, 2001. In other words, one full week. To ensure that my post is not biased, I did not limit my search to New York City. Donald Trump’s footprint extended beyond his then-residence. This is therefore as complete as I could make it. [Newspapers dot com does not have articles by New York Times or Washington Post. Sorry.]

So what exactly was The Donald doing from September 11 onwards? Was he caught in the rubble, rescued by two burly firefighters? Did he roll up his sleeves and help search and rescue teams? Did he serve hot meals at aid stations?

You know the answer: Of course not!

And here’s the proof.

September 9 and September 10, the runup to the terrorist attack.

With both Melania and Ivana (not Ivanka) at his side, The Donald attended the U.S. Open men’s final. They sat next to the CBS booth, where DJT could often be observed “telling John McEnroe what to say.” When The Donald realized the cameras were on him, he moved so that Ivana was on one side, Melania on the other. Great photo op! [\sarcasm]

Sometime between the U.S. Open and Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik’s 46th-birthday party, Trump (and Ivana?) were front and center at Marc Jacobs’ Fashion Week show.

Donald attended the celebration of Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik’s 46th-birthday. Party was held at the Dylan Hotel, with Chef Didier Virot providing the eats. Also present: Rudy Giuliani, Chuck Schumer, Ted Koppel.

Trump also agreed to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame at the September 29 Chicago Cubs baseball game. The reporter noted that when Trump tried to sing that evergreen the previous year, he was booed. This became a running theme.

September 10 and September 11, 2001.

Trump engaged in a public feud with OWP&P Architects in Chicago. That firm had worked with the Trump organization for two years, designing the proposed Chicago Sun-Times building exactly as DJT wished.

When the final draft was released on September 11 (possibly the 10th—reporting was the 11th), Trump declared, “This has nothing to do with what we’re doing. I don’t know who they are.”

Architect John Syvertsen’s rebuttal: “Donald Trump accuses us of a publicity stunt?”

Of course, the photographs published in the Chicago Tribune were OWP&P’s drawings. Those same drawings resurfaced in later newspaper articles about the advisability of building more skyscrapers post-9/11. In the post-9/11 articles, the captions identified them as Trump’s proposal for a 2000-foot building.

September 12 reporting of September 11 events.

Stephanie Murphy’s reporting provided the most damning accounts, contradicting everything Trump has tried to state as “fact” since 2001. When she spoke with him on the 11th, he was in his office. She was the source of the famous comment that Trump “was stranded in his office like hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who were advised by officials not to venture outside.”

She also interviewed Trump’s then-executive assistant, Norma Foerderer. Foerderer noted that they watched the World Trade Center buildings implode. “It was just so horrible.”

Murphy continued, “Looking toward the buildings that no longer shape his view, unable to leave his own tower, Trump said, ‘I did business with a lot of firms at the World Trade Center. Many of those folks are no longer with us.’”

The same day, Mike McCarty of The Grand Rapids Press compiled several news stories into a single jumbled “report”—without attribution. Stephanie Murphy became “a reporter.” McCarty quoted something Trump allegedly said to Cox News Service, as well as another interview with another unnamed reporter. McCarty didn’t bother to name syndicates or individuals who had done the real reporting.

I am highlighting McCarty’s apparent plagiarism because his compilation made it appear that Trump had said everything in that report at the same time. That was anything but the case.

Also reported on September 12, a New Yorker named Judy Bryngelson with a vacation home in Massachusetts wondered aloud to an unnamed Brainerd reporter if the Trump building going up next to the United Nations building could have protected it from the terrorists. She was apparently under the impression that Trump’s apartment building was completed. Anything but.

September 13 reporting of September 12 events.

This is the first mention of Donald Trump anywhere near the World Trade Center. A nameless Newsday reporter wrote:

“The workers are so worn out that they barely glance at the sight of Donald Trump, every hair in place and impeccably dressed in a black suit, pressed white shirt and red tie, walking into the plaza with his cellular phone to his ear.

“‘No, no. The building’s gone,’ he says into the phone.”

The Suffolk edition of Newsday carried the story on September 13. The New York and Nassau editions did not pick it up until September 14.

The same day, the Chicago Tribune began an almost-heated debate, with other national papers jumping in, regarding the sanity of building skyscrapers. This was the same newspaper that only two days before had reported about the brouhaha between Trump and OWP&P Architects.

From their September 13 paper: “The prospects of a supertall building at such a highly visible site alarms some people, especially after Tuesday’s devasting terrorist strikes.

“Trump’s Chicago tower ‘will be a target. It will stand so far above any of the other buildings in the area,’ said Pauline Saliga, a former Art Institute of Chicago architecture curator who edited a 1990 book on Chicago skyscrapers.”

Gannett quickly followed with an article that drew on the same facts as the Tribune. I counted at least ten papers that carried Gannett’s version.

In what had to be the worst timing imaginable, on September 13 Stormie Johanson of Olympia, Washington referred to Trump as a role model that that PNW city should look to for modern architecture. “We could always call Donald Trump and have him build a Taj here.” Oh, Stormie!

In even worse timing, Bernadette Morra of The Toronto Star gushed about her chance encounter with Chris Noth and Donald Trump and “a stunning Monica Lewinsky” at Marc Jacobs’ Fashion Week tent on Sunday. Really, Toronto Star? You couldn’t hold off a couple of days?

September 14 reporting of September 13 events.

The meat of 9/11 journalism appears from this date forward. None of it flatters Trump.

Thane Burkett of The Toronto Sun penned words that I found gripping twenty-five years later. Burkett clearly wasn’t a Trump fan.

“This is an American drama—perhaps the greatest played out on U.S. soil since the Civil War.

“And, amid the rubble of the twin World Trade Center towers and two jetliners that brought them down, it would be easy to see it as only an event—historic moments to be eaten up and talked about around the supper table years from now.

“That’s because at a distance, it almost seems palatable. Especially with sightings of Hollywood star Harrison Ford here, shaking hands with rescue workers, and New York’s king of excess and hype, Donald Trump, being brought in to view ground zero with his bodyguard at his side.

“‘America’s strong—somebody’s gonna pay,’ he vowed, brushing grey ash off his expensive blue suit.”

Burkett then narrated what he saw of regular Americans, not there for the cameras, working in the rubble, cheering when they found something, anything, that appeared salvageable. Completely unlike the wealthy gent in the expensive blue suit who couldn’t let it be touched by sacred ash.

Also on the 14th, Philadelphia Daily News reported on Donald Trump’s short visit to Ground Zero. “It’s impossible to tell what will happen next—a grim discovery or a bizarre appearance. At one point Donald Trump turned the corner, dressed in a blue suit and red tie, and waded into an aid station shaking hands and promising, ‘We’ll replace all this, don’t worry.’”

The juxtaposition of Trump’s empty promises with the picture painted by the remainder of the article—it’s almost too much, especially considering the stolen valor we are inundated with in 2026. Here’s another short excerpt from the Philadelphia Daily News report.

“Up close, what remains of the World Trade Center is at the same time terrifying and inspiring.

“The wreckage is massive.

“Two of the world’s tallest buildings have been reduced to smashed concrete, broken glass and twisted piles of iron girders. Everything is covered with nearly a foot of gray dust, giving the whole scene the eerie look of an early wintry morning.

“Dust is caked on the bark and the limbs of trees, power lines and bushes, and mixed with millions of pieces of paper.

“The streets are lined with automobiles, fire and rescue trucks, police cars and cabs, all of them crushed and burned and piled one atop another like toys flung across the room by an angry child.

“Surrounding it all is a thick gray smoke that moves like a fog as it shifts with the wind.”

And then there’s Donald Trump.

David Greising of the Chicago Tribune made no secret of his feelings toward Donald Trump in his September 14 piece. He argued FOR a rebuilding of the towers, if possible making the replacement the new ‘tallest building’ in the world.

“The new World Trade Center should also be the world’s tallest building.

“Such projects are usually proposed to feed someone’s ego. Just ask Donald Trump. This one would be built for a better purpose—to let terrorists know America will not be bowed.”

Thank you, Mr. Greising!

Canadians came through with another excellent bit of reporting, also on the 14th. It’s from The Ottawa Citizen. I’ll let their staff speak for themselves.

“New York media mogul Donald Trump made an appearance on West Street late yesterday after [September 13], giving high-fives to police officers and volunteers on their way to the World Trade Center site.

“‘I have a lot of men working down there,’ Mr. Trump told The Citizen after his brief stint near the front lines. ‘I want to make sure they’re OK.’

“Mr. Trump, who owns more than 20 buildings in Manhattan, said his employees were cleaning and digging out, but would not specify where they were working. He also would not say how many people on the clean-up patrol are on his payroll. The closest Trump property to the World Trade Center is the 72-floor 40 Wall Street.”

This is indeed the Donald Trump we’ve seen day after day after miserable day since 2015. Making great, sweeping claims—I have a lot of men working down there! My employees are cleaning and digging out!—but then once asked for specifics, radio silence.

September 15-September 18, 2001.

It’s crazy in retrospect how many people, similar to Mr. Stormie Johanson, believed Donald Trump could or would come to the rescue of his neighbors and fellow citizens. The Baltimore Sun quoted an accountant named Tom Goodkind as saying, “We need Donald Trump,” as Goodkind spoke about New Yorkers who were displaced from their homes.

Howard Stern and John Melendez praised Trump to high heavens for his $5000 “donation” to 9/11 relief. Let’s assume for two seconds that Trump really did have $1 billion in September 2001. (He claimed to have more than that.) $5000/$1 billion = 0.000005, or 0.0005%. Let’s say a person earns $100,000 annually. Trump’s $5000 is proportional to a $0.50 donation. Someone who earns $50,000? Trump’s $5000 donation is the equivalent of one single quarter dollar.

And on September 18, a poor patriotic soul in Sacramento, California said she was going to make her first ever stock purchase, to help the American economy. “We’re not all Donald Trump,” she said, ‘but there have been various calls to buy even just one share of stock and I’m willing to invest in the stock market.”

Did she really think Donald Trump purchased stocks when the stock market was falling? To help the country? She really thought that? Mmm-kay.

Perhaps the saddest of all the Trump-related news articles was one from September 17. I found at least three newspapers—The Atlanta Constitution, The Rutland Daily Herald, and The Atlanta Journal—that carried the story, entitled, Traders brace for return to action. By Matt Kempner.

“On one of the gold-festooned high rises that bears Donald Trump’s last name, maintenance man Carlos Figaro sprays and wipes a sign caked with dust.”

That pretty much sums up our president’s legacy. Someone else cleaning up a gold-festooned object bearing his name.

Postscript #1: If anyone is interested in the supporting details of the above, please let me know. I will be happy to provide you my footnotes and references for a nominal fee of $25.

Postscript #2: The news items about Donald Trump and not related to 9/11 vastly outnumbered the ones above. The man is indeed “king of excess and hype.” Not my description. Thane Burkett penned those words.

Because here’s what else was going on in The Donald’s life while the rest of the world was frantically trying to contact loved ones, while dentists in Phoenixville, PA were driving to New York to ID bodies, while firefighters and cops were sickened as they worked in the rubble.

The #1 news story about Donald Trump during this week? Jimmy Kimmel was hosting New York’s Friar Club roast of Hugh Hefner, which would take place on September 29. “Other celebrities expected to sit on the dais, but not skewer the 75-year-old Playboy Magazine founder, are Vincent Pastore, Marisa Tomei and Donald Trump.” The show was scheduled to air on Comedy Central on November 4. This appeared in at least ninety-three unique newspapers. A few printed the announcement more than once. One printed it twice in the same edition.

Coming in at #2, Brian Lowry’s TV column discussed the “Q factor” in the 2001 Emmy awards. He defined “Q score” thusly: “…how widely known someone is and how many of those familiar with that person or program identify him, her, or it among their favorites.”

Lowry continued, “As a result, a personality who is recognizable but not much liked (think Donald Trump) might have a lower Q score than someone less widely known who elicits a more positive reaction.”

This article was initially published in The Los Angeles Times on September 13. Over the next week, it appeared in at least ten more newspapers.

In third place, a paid advertisement by NGC Conference entitled, How To Apply for Government Loans. “Not Just for Poor People. There’s a myth going around that only poor people can take advantage of free money grants, subsidies and low-interest loans. But really, some of the most famous people that have taken advantage of them in the past are the super wealthy. People like Donald Trump, his father Fred Trump and Ross Perot, to name just a few.”

That showed up primarily in the Midwest. I counted five instances.

On September 15, The Sydney Morning Herald published a puff piece that sounds far more relevant now. It was a review of the autobiography of Frank Monte, PI, which had been withdrawn by Pan Macmillan Publishers following a lawsuit by Versace.

“Members of the public were denied Monte’s racy read of tales of supposed clients and friends Gianni Versace, Aristotle Onassis, the Rockefellers, Jack Nicholson and Donald Trump, to name a few.”

Maybe Pan Macmillan should rethink that decision?

Trump’s PR teams worked overtime during the week after 9/11. Not, as you might think, positioning him as someone who gave a damn about New York and what had happened that awful Tuesday morning.

His people put a positive spin on his renewed efforts to sell his holdings in the Empire State Building (September 15). Patricia Sheridan wrote a long tabloid-style article, Gambling on Atlantic City. “Donald Trump is the biggest individual player with five casinos bearing his family’s name.”

Despite 9/11, The Aniston Star went back to coverage of New York’s Fashion Week. “Ivana Trump attends the shows so often and is so old hat by now that she might well be in, say, row five. Ditto for her former husband Donald Trump.”

Also on September 16, Donald Trump personally announced plans to build a new casino in Atlantic City.

And ever the camera hog, Trump managed to get on-camera interviews for three soon-to-be-released DVDs about Paul Anka, Wayne Newton, and the city of New York, all announced 9/16-9/17/2001. No announcements of helping the city he called home.

The most apropos “social” statement about Donald Trump during this week came from an Oklahoman named Jim Priest. He wrote about the advisability of premarital counseling, and why he believed couples should seek such help. “It’s not enough to have a fairy tale wedding and a Donald Trump-like reception. Lasting marriages are built on a firmer foundation than that.”

Comment worth keeping

I am saving this Denise so that I have a piece of real history about DJT and 25 year old behavioral issues he is still noted for today. Thank you!!!

--Sylvia G, September 9, 2026.

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Image credits: Top photo--Shopify, public domain for platform users. Image of 9/11 destruction--Who goes HERE in a suit?! - Thanks to Andrea Booher for this gut-wrenching photograph. Andrea Booher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

No part of this post may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the “fair use” of quotations that are properly cited and credited, including identification of the translator if applicable. No part of this post may be included in any Large Language Model without proper licensing from the copyright holder, Denise Elaine Heap.