Today, Americans pay their respects to the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in the midst of the campaign for the US president, so at the commemoration in New York, at the site of the collapse of the World Trade Center, President Joseph Biden and both candidates for the head of state, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
The AP reports that Biden and Trump shook hands, and that a handshake also occurred between Trump and Kamala Harris, possibly as a result of mediation.
On September 11, 2001, hijacked passenger planes crashed into the "twin towers" of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, while a fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The World Trade Center collapsed, the Pentagon was seriously damaged. In total, almost 3.000 people died.
The commemoration every four years falls at the time of the most intense presidential campaign, reminds AP and indicates that today in New York, the candidate of the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris, and the candidate of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, met face to face again just a few hours after their first TV debate, held the previous evening. .
Trump and his vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, arrived at the commemoration around eight o'clock in the morning and took pictures with some of the citizens.
Haris came about half an hour later, and part of those gathered at the ceremony then chanted "Kamala!".
Biden and Trump shook hands, and the former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, apparently arranged for Harris and Trump to shake hands.
The rivals in the presidential election then stood at a short distance from each other, with Biden and Bloomberg between them.
As every year, the ceremony began with the ringing of bells and the reading of the names of the victims.
The political situation in the country was not the main topic of the family members of those who died on September 11, 2001. Among them was Cathy Naughton, who came to pay her respects to her cousin Michael Roberts, one of the hundreds of firefighters who died that day.
Twenty-three years later, "the wounds are still fresh," she said, adding: "We want to make sure that people always remember, that names are always read and never forgotten. Time passes, every year, and nothing happens to us easier," she added.
Regardless of the presidential campaign, the organizers of the commemorative ceremonies tried to keep the focus on the victims.
For years, politicians have been mere observers at commemorations at the World Trade Center, and the microphones belong to relatives who read aloud the names of the victims.
"If the politicians care about what's going on here, great. Come. But if they're just coming for political points, that bugs me," said Corinne Bishop, who lost her cousin John McDowell Jr. on 11/XNUMX.
Biden, for whom this is the last commemoration of September 11 in the presidential term, together with Harris, will also attend commemorations in Pennsylvania and the Pentagon, the places where the passenger plane crashed after Al Qaeda terrorists took control of them.
Trump is also attending a memorial service near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The plane that crashed in the fields of Pennsylvania was later found to have also been headed for Washington.
2.977 people died in the attacks, and thousands of grieving relatives and survivors remained.
The catastrophic attacks changed American foreign policy, domestic security practices, and the mentality of many Americans who, until then, did not think they could be the target of foreign extremist attacks.
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