Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden are set to visit the World Trade Center site in New York City on Sept. 11 to memorialize the 2001 terrorist attacks, while former President Donald J. Trump is considering doing so too.
Ms. Harris will travel to New York City after the presidential debate, scheduled for Sept. 10 in Philadelphia, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday.
Mr. Biden, who last year observed the anniversary of the attacks on a military base in Alaska as he returned from a diplomatic trip in Asia, also plans to visit ground zero, Ms. Jean-Pierre said.
Mr. Trump, who built much of his political brand in the divisive aftermath of the attacks and on anger within the Republican Party about the Middle East wars that followed, is also considering visiting ground zero, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
The annual ceremony at the site has been a somber scene that has drawn mourners and its fair share of politicians who have held office or are running for it. The vice president visited ground zero last year alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul, Democrat of New York, several former mayors and Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida, who was running for his party’s nomination for the presidency at the time.
Hillary Clinton, who was the junior senator from New York when the 2001 attacks occurred, attended the memorial ceremony in 2016, when she was running for president. She fell ill as she was leaving, and was later treated for pneumonia. Mr. Trump also went to the ceremony that year, attending as he ran for office for the first time.
Mr. Trump, the only native New Yorker of the group, did not make a return visit to the site in 2021, the 20th anniversary of the attacks. Mr. Biden visited all three attack sites that year, and Ms. Harris spoke at the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pa.
The anniversary that year came less than eight months after Mr. Trump’s term in the White House ended, following an attack by a mob of his supporters on the U.S. Capitol to try to thwart certification of Mr. Biden’s victory. Mr. Trump spent part of that anniversary in New York, visiting fire and police stations, before returning to his adopted home state of Florida for a paid event providing color commentary for a boxing match between Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort.
Mr. Trump has a long history of making questionable and provocative statements about what he saw on the day of the attacks.
This year, the anniversary of the attacks will come just hours after a presidential debate between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, who have yet to meet in person but whose campaigns are tussling ahead of what is forecast to be a close election.
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