Donald Trump Insists He Saw Muslims Celebrating On 9/11, Refuses To Back Down On Disputed Claims

Donald Trump saw Muslims celebrating after the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center fell on September 11, 2001. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it, despite mounting evidence that no such thing ever happened, News Max is reporting.

Speaking Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump stood by claims he made last week, on ABC’s Last Week With George Stephanopoulos, that he saw “thousands” of Muslims celebrating after the September 11, 2011, terrorist attacks.

“I saw it on television. I saw clips. And so did many other people. And many people saw it in person. I’ve had hundreds of phone calls to the Trump Organization saying, ‘We saw it. It was dancing in the streets.'”

Specifically, Trump said, he saw Muslims celebrating in New Jersey communities with large Muslim populations, according to CNN.

“I’ve heard Jersey City. I’ve heard Paterson… You have a huge Muslim population between Paterson and different places and Jersey City — an unbelievable, large population.”

Trump also claims that he saw Muslims celebrating September 11 “all over the world.”

ABC News reporter Chuck Todd refuted Trump’s claim, citing a lack of evidence. But Trump insisted he saw what he saw, and he refused to recant.

“I saw it. So many people saw it… So, why would I take it back? I’m not going to take it back.”

The problem for Trump is that his claim that he saw Muslims celebrating after September 11 is not backed up by evidence, according to the New York Times. Although there were “some cheers of support” in some Middle Eastern countries on September 11, they were small-scale and did not take place in New Jersey. Also, Paterson, New Jersey officials have consistently denied that any celebrations took place that day.

Similarly, NPR reported last week that the agency dug through its news archives and found no reports of Muslims celebrating the September 11 terrorist attacks.

As it turns out, however, several news agencies (including Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC) did, in fact, show footage of Muslims celebrating after September 11, according to Mediaite.

However, those celebrations took place in Palestine, not New Jersey.

In a November 22 Atlanta Journal-Constitution post, writer Jim Galloway speculates that Trump may have heard secondhand reports of an event that took place at the Twin Towers on September 11, and then conflated that video in his mind with “thousands of Muslims celebrating.”

“Here’s the thing. As the towers came down, some people indeed saw a group of five — not thousands, but five — Middle Eastern men clowning around and photographing themselves in front of the burning towers from the New Jersey waterfront. They weren’t Arabs, and they weren’t Muslims. They were Israeli and Jewish – young men making a***s of themselves, as some young men are wont to do. Perhaps not recognizing the import of what they were seeing. How do I know this? I tracked one of their friends down to [Israel] hometown, two months after the attack.”

Infowars writer Carmine Sabla, however, insists — like Trump — she witnessed Muslims celebrating firsthand after September 11.

“I drove with family members though Patterson, N.J. that morning, after the planes hit. It’s not the kind of thing you forget.We witnessed people in traditional Muslim garb dancing, jumping, shouting and celebrating like their team had won the Super Bowl, just as Trump said.”

The question of whether or not Muslims in the U.S. celebrated after September 11 is unlikely to be conclusively settled in the absence of convincing video footage — footage which, as of this writing, has not surfaced.

Did you, like Donald Trump, witness Muslims celebrating after September 11? Share your experiences in the comments below.

[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]