The 911 Memorial in New York City is a stately monument to the events and the victims of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers 25 years ago. It is run by a charitable non-profit and while some victim’s families have criticized ticket prices the overwhelming opinion is the Memorial and the accompanying museum are entirely appropriate. Alas, a certain formr New Yorker seems to believe it needs HIS personal touch. New Yorkers, who never liked him are already saying hell no.
Still, according to the Associated Press Trumpty has been looking into the federal government taking over the memorial. AND of course its exhibits:
The White House confirmed the administration has had “preliminary exploratory discussions” about the idea, but declined to elaborate. The office noted the Republican pledged during his campaign last year to make the site a national monument, protected and maintained by the federal government.
I take a bit of hope from the words “preliminary exploratory discussions” above. I HOPE it turns into typical Trumpian ‘in a couple of weeks’ or ‘soon.’ As we know that’s Trump-Speak for he’ll get to it and then getting distracted by something else and whatever he said would happen just fades away. Alas, THIS is a pretty big thing and even if Trump knows the odds are against him getting his way on this he needs distractions. This would be a ‘bigly’ one.
In New York they aren’t just sitting back. Opposition is already underway, helped by some thorny issues Team Trump would have to overcome The AP sums up things nicely:
But officials at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum say the federal government, under current laws, can’t unilaterally take over the site, which is located on land owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The U.S. government shouldering costs and management of the site also “makes no sense,” given Trump’s efforts to dramatically pare back the federal bureaucracy, said Beth Hillman, the organization’s president and CEO.
I shudder at the thought of Trump somehow being able to turn this into a National Monument under his control. First of course the renaming – The TRUMP 911 Memorial. And the exhibits in the museum? There’d be one about how it never would have happened had he been President back then. Of course. And an exhibit of Trump in a Superman costume (with a T instead of an S) with an assault weapon wading into throngs of Muslims and mowing them down after the towers came down. I’m about to puke so I’ll stop with this line of thought but you know I’m right.
I THINK this will wind up being a fail for Trump. Alas, there’s another pretty much ignored Memorial he already has control over a mile from the White House. If all of a sudden it got the level of attention it should have always had it would be for the wrong reasons. For those who don’t know in my eclectic career I worked in both funeral and cemetery service. I was Cemetery Manager for The Town of Herndon (Virginia) next to Dulles airport. I buried two of the Pentagon victims in my cemetery and designed their headstones. I also got to know the families and both widows confided to me that with Rudy G hyping New York it felt like the country didn’t care about them.
Having served in the Pentagon while on active duty and knowing about the renovation I know had that plane struck any other side than the one it hit (the one that had just been rebuilt from the inside which only had a relative handful of people back in their offices) more people would have died there than in NYC. However there is a small, stately Memorial on the grounds of the Pentagon. I shudder to think what Hegseth will come up with to Trumpify IT to suck up to his orange painted boss. Well, that’s another article for another time but you read it first here on PZ. It’s coming. In the meantime we’ll have to wait and see if Trump is successful in taking over the Memorial in New York.
He’d better don’t! I was THERE, working on the edge of NYC when this happened. We could see the smoke. It took down the main telephone switch, so they were routing calls up and back down through our area. It was impossible to make a call. I finally got through to my parents three DAYS later!!! This SOB is clueless. He doesn’t understand what it was like. Please let something take him down before he does this!!!
He continues to explore our moral apathy, our collective lack of honor and respect for past sacrifices, and our tolerance for evil. Unfortunately, despite the horrors on every level, he has been given a national pass. Expect more of the same. Sooner or later, HE was really the one who killed Ben Ladin, and will put a statue of himself at the memorial to remind everyone. Amerika…well…
at least we put a new spin on what a dictatorship looks like and how it came about. WE’RE NUMBER ONE!!!!
It’s all about him. He would also have us believe that it was he who crossed the Potomac in a rowboat that fateful day some 250 years ago. I can’t remember if that was just before or after the airports were secured.