Never Forget, Trump Tells Pentagon
President Donald Trump told a Pentagon remembrance ceremony on Friday that the United States would “never, ever forget” the victims of the 11 September 2001 attacks, as the country marked their 25th anniversary with parallel rites in Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania.
Speaking from prepared remarks at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, Trump said a generation had passed since the hijackings but that time had not dimmed “the honour of that day our country came face-to-face with true evil.” He dwelt on those killed aboard American Airlines Flight 77 and inside the Pentagon, then tied the anniversary to present conflict without naming Iran. “Today we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago,” he said. “We will never, ever forget. That’s why we fight today.” He added that days such as 9/11 reveal “what a country is truly made of” and that Americans “have to be strong and we have to be smart.”
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who followed earlier speakers, was more explicit. A Princeton ROTC cadet on the day of the attacks, he framed the post-9/11 wars as “retribution,” imperfect but born of “a generation of sacrifice,” and said an “Islamist threat” still confronted the United States “abroad and at home.” He linked that fight to the current campaign against Iran, calling Tehran “the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism” and saying U.S. forces had “laid waste” to an “Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century.”
Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser in 2001, recalled thinking the first strike on the World Trade Center was “a strange accident” before the second aircraft made the assault plain. She described the scramble into a White House bunker and the difficulty of reaching then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the Pentagon was hit. “Behind every name that we recite, there is a story, a life that mattered, a future unfulfilled,” she said.
Trump attended with First Lady Melania Trump. Also at the Pentagon were Hegseth, Rice, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, and FBI Director Kash Patel. Caine, then a young Air Force officer, was among the pilots who later patrolled Washington’s airspace. Trump’s choice of the Pentagon over Ground Zero in New York has drawn notice; his words were expected to be parsed internationally.
In Manhattan, bells and silences marked the attack’s timeline: the Pentagon strike at 09:37 EDT, the fall of the South Tower at 09:59, and United Airlines Flight 93’s crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03. About 2,700 people died at the World Trade Center after hijackers flew two airliners into the Twin Towers. At the Pentagon, 184 were killed – 125 in the building and 59 on Flight 77. Passengers on Flight 93 fought the hijackers; the aircraft came down in a field. Its intended target was believed to be the Capitol or the White House.
Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden attended the New York ceremony with Vice-President JD Vance. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed as names were read. FDNY fireboats on the Hudson sprayed red, white and blue water. Terry Strada, whose husband was killed, used her turn at the podium to accuse Saudi Arabia of a role in the attacks, drawing applause. Riyadh has repeatedly denied involvement; a 2004 U.S. inquiry cleared the kingdom. Some families have pursued a civil case alleging support for al-Qaeda.
Among visitors, Belgian Gunter Engels said his former brother-in-law worked in the towers and was never found. New Yorker Rich Baktis, in high school on Long Island that morning, said the unity that followed was “the best part that came out of that terrible day.” Further events include a New York Philharmonic performance, a memorial Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral, a Yankees-Mets memorial game, and evening lanterns at the Flight 93 wall of names.
