President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remembered Sept. 11 at the Pentagon, while Vice President Vance joined past presidents and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) at Ground Zero on Friday morning, as America pauses to honor the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks. While the memorial in New York included no politics,...
Page A2From§Eachthe early bird edition — 11 September 2026
Trump "99% certain" he could've given a 9/11 speech the venue does not allow
As it ran on the front
Let's be reasonable here. The president said Friday he is "99 percent certain" he could have spoken at the 9/11 ceremony in New York City if he wanted to. That is not a wild number. That is a man doing arithmetic, and I respect a man who does arithmetic. He told reporters he didn't demand to speak at the New York City ceremony — I checked, that's what he said, in those words, and I have no reason to think otherwise.
Now, the timing. The New York Times reported on August 27 that the president had originally intended to mark the anniversary at Ground Zero, but that the memorial's organizers do not allow speeches there, so he changed his plans. That's fifteen days before Friday's remarks. Fifteen days is plenty of time for a person to forget the reason he changed his plans in the first place, or — and I want to be fair to everyone in this scenario — fifteen days is plenty of time for a person to remember it perfectly and say something else anyway.…
…(cont) Because here's the thing about "99 percent certain": it's a number you reach for when the actual number is zero. The memorial doesn't allow speeches. Not "didn't allow him." Doesn't allow anyone. That's not a scheduling conflict, that's a rule, and a 99 percent certainty measured against a hard rule isn't 99 percent of anything. It's a guy telling you he's almost sure he could dunk on a hoop that was taken down in August.
So the president spoke at the Pentagon instead, alongside the defense secretary and the former secretary of state, twenty-five years after the attacks — a real ceremony, real content, nobody's disputing that part. Meanwhile the vice president went to Ground Zero and stood with past presidents and the mayor, at the memorial that included no politics, because that's the deal you make when the organizers don't hand you a podium.
I want to defend the 99 percent. I really do. It's a confident number, it sounds like due diligence, it sounds like a man who checked. But he didn't check — his own administration checked, in August, and got an answer, and the answer was that there would be no speech, by anyone, full stop. So when he says he's 99 percent certain he could have spoken if he wanted to, what he's actually certain of is that fifteen days is long enough that nobody would go back and read the memo.
That's not spin holding up. That's spin describing the exact shape of the thing it's supposed to be hiding.
“They tell you "99 percent" like it's a poll number, but the actual number was zero — the memorial doesn't do speeches, doesn't do them for anybody, and his own people knew that back in August. This is a guy telling you he could've hit the game-winner if they'd let him play, except he wasn't even on the roster. Fifteen days is not a coincidence, that's how long it takes a decision to get repackaged as a boast.”
“Look, "99 percent certain" is basically a fact — that's a man who did the math. He told them himself he never demanded to speak, so what's the story. The venue just doesn't allow speeches, sure, but that's — wait, that's not a "he could've if he wanted to" situation, that's a "nobody could" situation. Did I say that? Forget I said that.”
The receipts
President Trump said Friday he’s "99 percent" sure he could have given a speech at the New York City 9/11 ceremony if he wanted to, while pushing back on reports that said he didn’t attend because he wouldn’t be able to give a speech. “It’s just not true. I didn’t demand to speak,”
President Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at a 9/11 memorial ceremony at the Pentagon 25 years after the Sept. 11, 2001.
· Trump Plans to Mark 9/11 at the Pentagon, Not Ground Zero from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.