‘The images are seared into our minds forever’: Trump remembers the 2,977 ‘precious souls savagely taken from us’ on 9/11 – as Melania makes rare statement saying ‘never forget’

Donald Trump marked the 22nd anniversary of the September 11 attacks with a video on his Truth Social site, while Melania Trump made a rare statement vowing to “never forget.”

The former president, a native New Yorker, noted that the images of the deadliest terrorist attack in American history are “forever etched in our minds.”

In the two-minute video, Trump paid tribute to the victims of the attack and to the firefighters, police officers and other first responders who helped the injured that day.

“We remember the 2,977 precious souls who were brutally taken from us on that morning 22 years ago, leaving a void that can never be filled – no matter what happens, it can never be filled. “We will pray for each of the beautiful families they left behind, whose pain is incomprehensible,” he said.

Melania Trump paid a simpler tribute, posting a photo of the New York skyline with the hashtag #NeverForget and the American flag emjoi.

It was a rare public statement from the former first lady, who has kept a low profile in public as her husband runs for another term in the White House and fights multiple lawsuits.

Trump, who was spotted at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., this weekend, spent the anniversary publicly out of sight.

When he was president, he and Melania Trump held a memorial ceremony at the White House and visited each of the memorial sites — the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — during their years in the White House.

“God bless the memory of all those who died in the 911 attacks. We will never forget you, we will never forget you, we love you. God bless their families and God bless America,” Trump said in his video tribute.

Meanwhile, Ron and Casey DeSantis joined the families of the September 11 victims at the World Trade Center on Monday to mark the 22nd anniversary of the attacks.

Seven families invited Florida’s first couple to meet at one of the sites of the deadliest terrorist attack in American history. The couple walked around the memorial site, chatting with family members and taking photos with them before standing with them during the formal memorial ceremony.

DeSantis was the only Republican presidential candidate on site, but he and Casey DeSantis were at the World Trade Center at the same time as Vice President Kamala Harris, who was there to represent President Joe Biden, who is spending the birthday thousands of miles away from the city. the site of Ground Zero, in Alaska.

Later on Monday, first lady Jill Biden will lay a wreath at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will be in Shanksville.

Few Republican presidential candidates celebrate this solemn occasion. Vivek Ramaswamy will also attend a memorial service in New York. Mike Pence will attend one in Iowa.

Then-President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump participate in a ceremony at the Pentagon during the 18th anniversary of the September 11, 2019, attacks

Then-President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, opened the monument marking the site where Flight 93 crashed during the September 11 attacks in September 2018

“Twenty-two years ago, nineteen terrorists claimed 2,977 innocent lives in the deadliest attack on America in our history. We will never forget,” DeSantis wrote on X, formally known as Twitter.

Every year at Ground Zero, a ceremony honors the nearly 3,000 people killed on September 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia and in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Biden, meanwhile, will be on the ground in Alaska for less than two hours on Monday as he marks the anniversary from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

Traditionally, presidents spend September 11 at one of three sites where planes crash and kill 2,977 Americans, or host a ceremony at the White House.

But Biden will be at a military base 4,500 miles away from Ground Zero. The president stops there on his way back to the United States from his visits to India and Vietnam.

In New York City, relatives of the victims read the names of those killed in the attacks.

In Virginia, officials unfurled the American flag on the west side of the Pentagon – the same place where one of the hijacked planes struck.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey at the National September 11 Memorial during the ceremony commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the September 11 attacks

Officials watched an American flag unfurl on the west side of the Pentagon early Monday morning

American flags and flowers line the memorial pond at the National September 11 Memorial

American flags fly at half-staff around the Washington Monument on the National Mall to mark the 22nd anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks

A total of six moments of silence were observed – commemorating the moment each of the towers was struck and collapsed, as well as the times corresponding to the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of United Flight 93.

The first occurred after the bells tolled at 8:46 a.m., marking the start of the attacks — when hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 on floors 93 to 99 of the North Tower. All 92 on board were killed on impact.

At 9:03 a.m., a second moment of silence was held—to mark the moment hijackers deliberately crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into floors 77 through 85 of the South Tower—leaving no doubt in the minds of New Yorkers at the time that the attacks were planned and malicious in nature.

The next was at 9:37 a.m., when another group of terrorists deliberately crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, just outside the nation’s capital.

A fourth moment of silence took place at 9:59 a.m. to mark the moment the South Tower, the second affected train, collapsed, with another four minutes later – to mark the moment passengers on United 93 heroically stormed the cockpit in a attempt to recapture the plane from their attackers.

In response, the hijackers crashed the plane in an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, likely saving many lives, as many theorized that the plane’s target was the White House or the Capitol.

The final moment of silent mourning came at 10:28 a.m. — the time the North Tower collapsed, leaving the 40-acre site of the World Trade Center in ruins and the collective American consciousness in tatters.