Clinton, Trump to visit Ground Zero for 9/11, official says

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will visit Ground Zero on Sunday to commemorate the 15th Anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Michael Frazier, spokesman for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, said in an email Saturday night that Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is expected to attend the annual memorial service at the footprint of the fallen Twin Towers.

The announcement comes a day after Clinton’s aides said the Democratic presidential candidate planned to attend the ceremony in lower Manhattan.

Both campaigns have said they would suspend television ads on the anniversary, upholding a practice observed by previous presidential candidates to avoid slinging campaign attacks on the day when thousands of lives were lost.

For the two New York candidates, the nation’s response to the terrorist attacks and the reconstruction efforts in lower Manhattan have been central talking points on the campaign trail, with each recounting their personal experiences walking amid the rubble of the crumbled World Trade Center in the days after the attack.

Clinton, who was a freshman senator from New York when the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001, notified officials at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum on Thursday that she planned on attending the morning’s events, according to The Associated Press.

The former secretary of state often touts her work in the U.S. Senate, where she pushed for funding to aid first responders. She notes how she worked alongside Republican leaders, including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, to rally federal resources for recovery efforts.

“I was a senator from New York. There was a Republican president, a Republican governor, and a Republican mayor,” Clinton said at a June campaign event. “We did not attack each other. We worked with each other to protect our country and to rebuild our city.”

Trump’s campaign did not respond to emails seeking further details on his plans.

Trump, a real estate mogul, often recounts seeing smoke billowing out of the Twin Towers from his office in Trump Tower on the day of the attacks.

When Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas attacked Trump for representing “New York values” during the GOP primary, Trump shot back on a debate stage in January that the values of New Yorkers were on display in the wake of the attacks.

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“When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York,” Trump said.

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.