When Meghan McCain Ripped President Trump Apart Over False Claims of Being a 9/11 First Responder

Former president Donald Trump made extravagant claims of assisting the 9/11 first responders at ground zero after the tragic terrorist attack. According to CNN, in 2019, during the official signing of an extension of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund at the White House, Trump said to the courageous men and women in attendance, “I was down there also, but I’m not considering myself a first responder...But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.” Panelists of the popular ABC daytime show The View condemned the lies, especially co-host, Meghan McCain, who slammed Trump for his insensitive remarks. 

As per Salon, McCain shared an anecdote to support her reason for backing the bill to renew benefits to first responders. “Over the Fourth of July, I was in bed with my husband, and an alert came up with Luis Alvarez, who was the 9/11 first responder who petitioned in front of Congress, and he died,” McCain recounted. “He had interviewed with Shep Smith on Fox News, where he was talking about how his son wasn’t going to have a father, and his son deserved to have a father. He was only 53 years old.”

“I know I talk about my dad a lot,” she continued, sharing her experience, “but being someone in their 30s that lost their father, I could not stop crying—and it’s not about me, but I think of his son almost every day now, and to sit there and act like our president has any kind of experience like the Alvarez family, like they just went through—by the way, if you see pictures of him, he was only 53 and he looked very sick, very ill.”

“The cancer that he had was very dangerous,” McCain stressed, “So if we could just have some respect for people who did the hardest jobs on one of the most horrific days in history.”As per the Civil Division, Department of Justice website, "The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) was created to provide compensation for any individual (or a personal representative of a deceased individual) who suffered physical harm or was killed as a result of the terrorist-related aircraft crashes of September 11, 2001, or the debris removal efforts that took place in the immediate aftermath of those crashes." 

On another occasion, during a visit to the Pentagon, Trump claimed, "Soon after, I went down to Ground Zero with men who worked for me to try to help in any little way that we could...We were not alone. So many others were scattered around trying to do the same. They were all trying to help." The Republican leader's claims were later debunked. According to USA Today, this prompted memes depicting Trump supporting the 9/11 responders, paying laborers, and aiding in victim identification went viral in 2020.

"I was there for several months—I do not know about his being down there," the New York Fire Department battalion chief during 9/11, Richard Alles, told PolitiFact. "There would be a record of it," Alles explained. "Everybody worked under the direct supervision of the police, fire department, and the joint commander for emergency services... Is there a chance he was ever down there by himself and I didn’t know it? It’s possible, but I know of no one who ever witnessed him there."