Saturday in Birmingham, AL, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said “I watched in Jersey City, NJ, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.”
Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Trump doubled down and said, “It did happen. I saw it. It was on television. I saw it. There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as those buildings came down. And that tells you something. It was well covered at the time. I know they don’t like to talk about it. It was well covered at the time. There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press, journalist Tom Brokaw said, “You cannot underestimate the impact of social media in spreading a lot of not just the outrageous positions but flat out lies. When Donald Trump says he saw in Jersey City thousands of people cheering the World Trade Center coming down, completely wrong. It did not happen. He didn’t see it. But who’s there to challenge him on that?”