“He created a fictitious event featuring himself, who did nothing, as the hero of 9/11.”

While Republicans express “offense” at plans for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to attend September 11 remembrances this week due to his Muslim faith, President Donald Trump provoked outrage on Tuesday when he told what seems to be a fabricated story about his heroism following the terrorist attack.

Before a crowd that included over 100 first responders, Trump described being at ground zero with a construction crew he said he’d deployed to help with the aftermath of the attack. He described walking beneath the US Steel building, now known as One Liberty Plaza, which was believed to be at risk of collapsing.

“The United States Steel Building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down. The truth is, it creaked a lot. It creaked. It still creaks, but it never came down,” Trump recalled. “And I’ll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big, strong guys—and I’m not the smallest guy in the world—they grabbed me under the arm, said, ‘Got to get out of here!’ And they literally lifted me up.”

“This is not easy to do. I’m big,” Trump continued. “They lifted me up, and they started running with me. I said, ‘Fellas, I can run myself,’ but they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It didn’t come down.”