President Donald Trump paid sober tribute to victims of crashed Flight 93 in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
"This field is now a monument to American defiance," Trump said in remarks near where the aircraft went down 17 years ago. "This memorial is now a message to the world: America will never, ever submit to tyranny."
It was a message of defiance in the face of terrorism, delivered by a New Yorker president who has at times struggled to adopt the role of consoler in chief.
The President began the day on a combative streak, tweeting angrily CNNabout the Russia investigation from the White House as mourners were gathering in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon and in the Pennsylvania field where Flight 93crashed 17 years ago.When he arrived in Pennsylvania with the first lady, Trump flashed a celebratory smile and pumped his fists as he greeted supporters on the tarmac in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
By the time he'd made his way to Shanksville, where family members of victims had gathered to remember their loved ones, the President had assumed a solemn demeanor and pinned a remembrance ribbon on his right lapel.
He watched from stage as a bell tolled and the names of the victims were read aloud by their survivors.
When he stood to speak, Trump stuck tightly to the script, hailing the passengers of the San Francisco-bound flight as courageous and patriotic Americans. The 40-odd passengers and crew attempted to take back control of the plane from the hijackers when they learned of the ongoing terror attacks at the World Trade Center in New York and at the Pentagon.
When the plane crashed in Shanksville, all were killed. Later, investigators determined the terrorists planned to fly the aircraft into either the US Capitol or the White House.
"They boarded the plane as strangers, and they entered eternity linked together forever as true heroes," Trump said.
The aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks still weighs on Trump's presidency, nearly two decades after the planes stuck their targets. Like his two predecessors, he has wrestled with a strategy for the US war in Afghanistan. And he continues to battle global terrorism.
Trump said Tuesday his administration is "facing down the menace of radical Islamic terrorism," using a controversial phrase that he's insisted is necessary to accurately define the enemy.
But he also offered a vision of the country not defined by the 17-year-old attacks.
"America's future is not written by our enemies. America's future is written by our heroes," he said. "Brave patriots will rise up in America's hours of need and they, too, will fight back."
(CNN )
(CNN )
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