Nation: 19th anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks.
SHANKSVILLE, PA. >> The two presidential contenders put their acrimonious political sparring on hold Friday to pay their respects to the Americans killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a pause in an extraordinarily polarizing race in which the candidates have offered drastically different visions on virtually every issue, including what it means to comfort a grieving nation.
President Donald Trump offered somber remarks in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, honoring those who died on Flight 93, the plane that was hijacked and headed for Washington but instead crashed into a field after passengers fought back. Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, traveled to New York City before visiting Shanksville to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the attacks, speaking with family members of the victims but not making a formal address.
“Our sacred task, our righteous duty and our solemn pledge is to carry forward the noble legacy of the brave souls who gave their lives for us 19 years ago,”
Trump said. At another point, he added, “The only thing that stood between the enemy and a deadly strike at the heart of American democracy was the courage and resolve of 40 men and women — the amazing passengers and crew of Flight 93.”
Biden and his wife, Jill, attended the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s commemoration ceremony in lower Manhattan, standing with Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York for much of the time. Then the Bidens traveled to Shanksville, where Biden laid a wreath of white flowers at the Flight 93 National Memorial and met family members of some of those who died. (Trump, during his morning visit there, also laid a wreath of white flowers in front of the wall of names, but he did not meet with any family members.)
“One of the marks of being an American is understanding there are some things that are bigger and more important than yourself,” Biden said in Pennsylvania. He marveled at those who “consciously know that what you’re about to do is likely to cost you your life.”
Earlier in the day, Biden, the former vice president, promised reporters that he would not “talk about anything other than 9/11.”
“We took all our advertising down,” Biden, clad in a black mask, said early Friday at the airport in Delaware. “It’s a solemn day.
That’s how we’re going to keep it.”
Trump avoided reporters shouting questions as he boarded Air Force One. On the plane, he followed directions when his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told him that an announcement would play on the PA system when it was time to observe a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., when the first plane struck the World Trade Center’s north tower. “God bless America,” Meadows said after the moment of silence had passed. “God bless America,” Trump echoed. He offered no further remarks.
The appearances marked a departure in tone from a week of intensifying hostilities between Biden and Trump, with Election Day less than two months away. The Democrat said Wednesday he held the president responsible for the scale of the coronavirus deaths., following new revelations from a forthcoming book by journalist Bob Woodward that Trump knowingly minimized the risks of the virus.
The president, for his part, kept up an onslaught of scathing and sometimes false claims about Biden over issues from trade to his approach to America’s suburbs.