Philip Kirschner, a 9-11 first responder who is struggling with his health in the aftermath of his service, spoke to Breitbart News about how Donald Trump helped him during a time of need.
Kirschner, although struggling to survive after having heart problems and kidney cancer among other health issues, doesn’t regret helping people on 9-11 and wants people to know, “We would do it again, but we’re not discardable.”
In 2011, Kirschner was hospitalized in Florida and needed to get to the Cleveland Clinic.
“I was given a dual channel AICD, which has been deployed several times and has saved my life,” Kirschner recalls. He believes Trump is the reason he was able to get transported from Florida to Cleveland.
“I called my roommate, who I told to call my uncle, who knew him basically at the time,” he explained to Breitbart News, saying the hospital in Florida was unable to transport him, but he received a flight from Trump to get his healthcare needs met. “One of the charities, Angel Flight, did get a call to try to facilitate my move, so I know a couple of people were working to get me moved to Cleveland where I had a chance of survival.”
“He did a couple, quite a number, of Angel Flights with groups,” Kirschner recalls of Trump. “I want people to learn that he’s a humanitarian, that he reaches out, he donates.”
“He gives to medical charities. He gives to a lot of huge causes,” Kirschner added.
Kirschner’s uncle, who worked in the electrical contracting business, told him Trump was a “shrewd negotiator.”
Describing himself as a lifelong Democrat until September 11, 2001, Kirschner, who is a dual national and Jewish, originally supported Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) but now believes Trump is the right candidate for America in the general election.
Kirschner explained, adding that his fiancée lost her job and was forced to train her replacement, who was a foreign worker on an H1B visa:
This nation is in such dire straits right now. I am a student of history and when you change the language and when you dumb it down and you change the moral and ethical code of a nation, things like Nazi Germany could happen. That’s my concern. At the same time, you have a deindustrialization of the country with a move toward a global swing rather than national and I think we need a national candidate. I see Hillary with her causal relationships … I see her relationship with the Muslim Sisterhood as counter productive to American values.
“I met with Ted Cruz at the Iowa Growth and Opportunity and Party,” Kirschner told Breitbart News, saying he asked him, “Can you come on board and support the James Zadroga Reauthorization Act?”
Kirschner said he believes the legislation provides five years of healthcare and compensation to 9-11 survivors who are on fixed incomes.
“He said to me that I’m not sure I can sign on to it, but what I will tell you is this, for your own sake, you should go to Israel, since you’re Jewish. They have national healthcare there,” Kirschner recalled of Cruz’s response. “I was taken back by that,” Kirschner added, saying he felt it was disingenuous.