Overview
- Reporting Friday indicates President Donald Trump will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks at the Pentagon and deliver remarks while Vice President J.D. Vance will represent the administration at the Ground Zero ceremony in Manhattan.
- Memorial officials have barred politicians from giving speeches at the Ground Zero event since 2012 to keep the ceremony nonpartisan and focused on victims and families, and that policy was cited as a key reason the president sought an alternate venue.
- White House travel and security plans influenced the choice of site because the president is scheduled to attend a midterm convention in Texas and then travel to his Doonbeg, Ireland golf course, making departure from Joint Base Andrews simpler than leaving from the New York area.
- A White House spokeswoman issued a general remembrance statement that did not confirm the president’s schedule, and reporting of the plan is based on multiple unnamed insiders cited by The New York Times and republished across outlets.
- The move fits recent patterns of how Trump has marked 9/11—he attended Ground Zero in 2024, skipped the 20th anniversary, and has previously spoken at Pentagon events—and it shifts the visible White House role in New York to the vice president while several former presidents are expected to attend the Manhattan ceremony.