Echoing televised remarks he made at ground zero days after Sept. 11, 2001, former President Donald Trump looked back Tuesday night on a "day like no other" and marveled at the "absolutely incredible" bravery of first responders.
"The job they did was so incredible, the first responders," Trump said in an exclusive interview on Newsmax's "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
"The bravery, running into that building, pretty much knowing it was coming down. They're running into the World Trade Center, and they know.
"And the second building, they knew it was going to come down, because the first one had come down, the level of bravery was absolutely incredible.
"What incredible people," he said.
Trump told host Rob Schmitt he remembers the events of 9/11 unfolding.
"I was watching financial news and they said, 'something strange has happened at the World Trade Center,'" Trump recalled.
The real estate mogul said the first responders' bravery inspired him to go to ground zero with some of his people amid search-and-rescue efforts.
He said the situation was still dangerous for the workers when he visited, noting the instability of the surrounding buildings.
"We heard creaks," Trump recalled. "I said, 'that building is going to come down.' And two big firemen grabbed me, grabbed other people. It never came down, but I never heard a noise like that. It was a scary situation."
Schmitt asked the former president how architects of the terrorist attacks, such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, remain alive and imprisoned nearly 20 years after the attacks, in which 2,977 people were killed and more than 6,000 others injured.
"I got to see our military legal system up close and personal, and it's more bureaucratic, I think, than our legal system, which is very bureaucratic," he said.
"Our military legal system is a nightmare and it's been a nightmare," Trump continued.
"The military system is not appropriate, not good. Slow. Lethargic. Not good."
Trump added that the living terrorists are "smiling" amid recent legal decisions and chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces that handed Afghanistan back to the Taliban on Aug. 31.
"You have some very bad people, and they're smiling," Trump said. "They're all very happy with some decisions that were recently coming down. They're very happy."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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