While the campaign for the 2024 presidential election is already launched, everything is obviously political. Returning from the G20 in India and a state visit to Vietnam, Joe Biden commemorated the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks from a military base in Anchorage, Alaska. But if the conservative media and certain elected officials have denounced this choice, it is not the first time in history that an American president has not visited one of the attack sites.
“I join you on this solemn day to renew our sacred promise: never forget, never forget, each of these precious lives stolen too soon, when evil struck,” said Joe Biden on the tarmac, in front of American military.
On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris represented the White House alongside New York Mayor Eric Adams and state Governor Kathy Hochul at Ground Zero, where the names of the 2,753 people who died in the towers twins were read one by one. “First Lady” Jill Biden was at a ceremony at the Pentagon while “Second Gentleman” Doug Emhoff visited the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.
DeSantis in New York
As for the Republican candidates, Ron DeSantis went to New York, as did entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, surprising 3rd in the polls, who had recently flirted with conspiracy on September 11. Donald Trump published a video paying tribute to the victims on Truth Social.
For Joe Biden, the logistics with the G20 were complex. Fox News gave voice to angry families of victims, believing that the attitude of the American president was “the opposite” of his promise to “never forget” the attack which traumatized America. Florida Representative Cory Mills accused Joe Biden of “snubbing” Americans again, after he took time before traveling to Hawaii after the Maui fires.
However, Joe Biden is not the first president not to go to one of the sites of the September 11 attacks. In 2005, George W. Bush participated in a ceremony at the White House, as did Obama in 2015, who then visited a military base in Maryland.