The Washington Post says "disputed account", Newsom says "lying", New York Magazine says "weird lie"

What he said. At a White House event honouring 9/11 first responders on 8 September, President Trump described being picked up off the ground by two firefighters in Manhattan after the attacks. All three reports we hold carry the remark; none disputes that he said it.

What it gets called.

Two places, one anecdote. The Hill's report on Newsom has Trump saying he was carried away from One Liberty Plaza. The Hill's report on the magazine has the firefighters near the U.S. Steel Building. Nothing we hold reconciles the two names.

One name that is not the president's. Only The Washington Post names Welles Crowther, given the Medal of Freedom posthumously, who it reports saved an estimated 18 people before dying in the World Trade Center. The other two reports carry no figure and name nobody who died.

Not settled. Whether the account is true. One report calls it disputed, two put the word lie in someone else's mouth, and none weighs the evidence either way. Nor is it settled whether the two place names describe one building or two. We hold no second report of the medal.

What this is about. One anecdote the president tells about himself, and the three different ways three reports handle the doubt around it.

How it got here. Hijacked aircraft destroyed the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on 11 September 2001. Donald Trump was a New York property developer at the time; he was first elected president in 2016 and returned to office after the 2024 election. Presidents mark the anniversary every year, and honouring the firefighters and police of that day is a fixed part of it. On 8 September 2026, three days before the twenty-fifth anniversary, the White House held an event for 9/11 first responders. There Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the highest civilian honour in the United States, given at the president's discretion — posthumously to Welles Crowther, who The Washington Post reports saved an estimated 18 people before dying in the World Trade Center. At the same event he described two firefighters picking him up off the ground in Manhattan after the attacks. The Post's headline calls it an account he repeats, which is the only sign we hold that he has told it before.

The two buildings. One report puts the anecdote at One Liberty Plaza, the other near the U.S. Steel Building. On the public record those are one address: the tower at 165 Broadway, across the street from the World Trade Center site, was built for the United States Steel Corporation and is still widely called by that name. No report we hold says so.

Who else is in it. Gavin Newsom is the Democratic governor of California; the accusation of lying is his, reported by The Hill. New York Magazine is an American news and politics magazine, and its coverage of the remarks is what Trump attacked.

What is at stake. No policy turns on it. What turns on it is whether a sitting president's account of his own conduct on a day central to American public memory is written down as fact, as claim, or as a lie — and, if as a lie, in whose voice. Where it stands: nobody we hold has produced evidence either way.