Tag: Snopes News

Claim:

A video clip authentically showed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sharing a smile and a laugh as victims’ names were being read during a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Rating:

Context

While the brief clip of Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez is authentic, it omits crucial context. Additional footage shared by CNN shows Mamdani was listening to the names of 9/11 victims before Ocasio-Cortez approached him. According to the footage and several eyewitness reports, the two briefly greeted each other before refocusing on the ceremony.

In September 2026, a rumor spread that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both progressive Democrats, exchanged a smile and a laugh as victims’ names were read during a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The claim circulated across social media platforms, including on Facebook, Reddit and X:

Several news outlets also relayed the claim, including right-leaning tabloid The New York Post, conservative news channel Fox News and Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post.

Meanwhile, numerous Snopes readers searched our website and emailed us seeking to confirm the veracity of the rumor.

The brief clip is authentic. As such, we’ve rated this claim true — with the caveat that it omits crucial context.

A review of the 9/11 ceremony livestream on the The Associated Press YouTube channel showed the moment where Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani briefly interactied and smiled. Ocasio-Cortez also appeared to laugh. 

However, additional footage shared by CNN shows Mamdani was listening to the names of 9/11 victims before Ocasio-Cortez approached him. According to the footage and several eyewitness reports, the two briefly greeted each other before refocusing on the ceremony.

We reached out to Mamdani’s and Ocasio-Cortez’s offices seeking comment and will update this story if we receive responses. We also reached out to eyewitnesses who described the exchange as a greeting.

The AP livestream lasted a total of four hours and 16 minutes. Halfway through the video, the cameras showed a man seemingly sobbing by the parapet of one of the memorial waterfall pools. The names of the 9/11 victims are inscribed on the pools’ parapets, where mourners customarily place flowers in remembrance. 

As the man cried, the cameras faded away from the shot focusing on him and focused on Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez interacting and smiling (at the 02:08:00 mark):

The exchange occurred as speakers read some of the 9/11 victims’ names in alphabetical order. 

Eyewitnesses and footage confirm brief greeting

In response to the social media outrage over Ocasio-Cortez’s and Mamdani’s interaction, people at the ceremony said the two were only greeting each other. One of those eyewitnesses was Michael Ragusa, head of security for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican and supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump. (Giuliani was mayor at the time of the 9/11 attacks.) 

Ragusa said in an X post that he was “standing next to them the whole time” and Ocasio-Cortez was greeting Mamdani before they quickly turned their attention back to the ceremony (archived): 

Ragusa added in his post that other politicians from both parties were also laughing and joking behind him, though he declined to identify them in an email exchange with Snopes.

In addition, former New York Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou, a Democrat, characterized the interaction as a greeting in an X post, adding that both Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez stayed for the entire ceremony and focused on it (archived):

Lastly, CNN reviewed and shared isolated and unaltered footage of the pair, before and after the exchange. It appeared to confirm reports that the two greeted each other before refocusing on the reading of the names. We contacted the CNN reporter whose byline appeared on the story to ask for the video’s source and will update this story if we hear back.

For further reading, Snopes has covered several claims regarding 9/11, Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez, including the claim that some families of 9/11 victims wanted Mamdani not to attend the 25th anniversary ceremony.

Claim:

U.S. President Donald Trump drafted written instructions in case he dies in office, requesting a simple funeral and calling for: “No gold. No extravagance. No expensive casket. Military honors only.”

Rating:

In early September 2026, people shared a rumor online that U.S. President Donald Trump drafted written instructions for a simple funeral in case he dies in office, saying he wants no gold, extravagance or expensive casket, with military honors only.

Snopes received reader mail about this matter, with one person asking whether the words in the posts were truly Trump’s.

A Facebook search for the rumor located numerous users posting the claim as a copied-and-pasted message, for example in a Sept. 8 post (archived) beginning as follows:

🚨TRUMP SAID😭 | America, if I die 😭…. Today I want you to sit down before reading this, because what I’m about to share may bring tears to your eyes and make you see Trump’s heart in a completely different way.

Purportedly, Trump has written detailed instructions about what should happen if he DIES while serving as President. And when you read what he reportedly requested, you may realize why so many people see this as a deeply humble message. He never wanted everything to be about glory. He wanted to SERVE.

Here’s what the reported instructions say:

“If I die in office: Keep funeral SIMPLE. No gold. No extravagance. No expensive casket. Military honors only — I served America, let the military honor me as they honor their own. Take ALL the money people would spend on flowers and donate it to VETERAN CHARITIES. Every dollar. And before you close my casket, read these words to America: ‘I tried. I’m sorry if it wasn’t enough. God bless America.’”

In sum, while it’s possible Trump’s administration has drafted private, internal plans in the case of his death, further research determined the specific text appearing with this rumor is false and appeared to have been written with an artificial-intelligence tool.

Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo did not find any news media outlets reporting about Trump penning detailed funeral instructions. If such a story truly happened, outlets worldwide would have covered the matter.

The same searches located the posts’ text as far back as a popular Instagram post (archived) from May 2026 and a webpage from March 2026.

We did not yet confirm the specific post or website where the rumor originated, or whether the claim started on an account describing its output as humor, parody or satire.

The Pangram AI detection tool displayed a 100% match for AI after scanning the post’s text. Snopes does not depend on AI detection tools for absolute reliability, instead considering the tools’ information as one of several data points toward reaching a conclusion. For Pangram, we bear in mind the platform’s strong performance in third-party and internal evaluations, and its critics, as well.

For further reading, we previously reported about a rumor claiming Trump said his funeral will draw a much bigger crowd than Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral.

Claim:

In 1998, Donald Trump said he would run as a Republican in a presidential campaign because they are the “dumbest group of voters.”

Rating:

In August and September 2026, a claim recirculated online that U.S. President Donald Trump told People magazine that Republicans are “the dumbest group of voters in the country.”

“If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican,” the purported 1998 Trump quote begins. “They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”

The claim previously spread on social media platforms like Reddit, Threads and X in the summer of 2024. We also found the quote shared on Imgur in 2023 and on TikTok in 2020.

We found no evidence that Trump ever said the quote in question.

We previously wrote about the quote in 2015 and 2020. People magazine previously confirmed to FactCheck.org that it had no record of having published any such interview or exchange with Trump:

People looked into this exhaustively when it first surfaced back in Oct. [2015]. We combed through every Trump story in our archive. We couldn’t find anything remotely like this quote — and no interview at all in 1998.

Our research in People’s archives, which are no longer available on its website, found that in 1998 the magazine covered Trump mostly for his relationships with his first and second wives, Ivana Trump and Marla Maples. While there is evidence Trump was interested in politics during the late ’90s, nothing we found proved he ever said anything about “dumb Republicans” to any reputable publication.

For further reading, we examined a rumor that Trump criticized the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City because he wasn’t allowed to speak at its 25th-anniversary remembrance of the 9/11 attacks.

Sources

Claim:

U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “We’re not going to prosecute the predators in the Epstein files and we’re not going to release their names to the public.”

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In late August and early September 2026, rumors circulated that U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche once stated during a news conference that there were no plans for prosecutions or a public release of predators named in the files of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender and financier. 

Users across social media platforms and Reddit posted about the alleged quote, claiming the AG made the statement during a news conference discussing the DOJ’s investigation of Epstein and his associates. 

According to the rumor, Blanche purportedly said, “We’re not going to prosecute the predators in the Epstein files and we’re not going to release their names to the public.”

The rumor circulated online previously but gained renewed popularity after Blanche was confirmed as attorney general in August. 

⛔️The Pedo Protector‼️

⛔️ “We will not prosecute the abusers named in the Epstein files or reveal their names to the public.”

— Todd Blanche, US Attorney General‼️ pic.twitter.com/gDZZdu2YxQ

— Dr.Sam Youssef Ph.D.,Ph.D.,DPT. (@drhossamsamy65) September 7, 2026

The quote is incorrectly attributed to Blanche. 

It wasn’t spoken in the video clip circulating with the alleged statement, and there is no evidence he ever publicly said the words in question. Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo returned no relevant results from credible media outlets about such a quote, which would have been widely reported. 

The clip accompanying the quote is from a Jan. 30, 2026, news conference in which Blanche announced the final release of files related to the DOJ’s investigation into Epstein. 

Snopes reached out to Blanche for further comment on this claim and will update this article if we hear back. 

It’s unclear whether the falsely attributed quote was intentionally misleading or a botched attempt to summarize Blanche’s comments. A full viewing of the news conference and reading of its transcript showed no statement matching that shared in the claim. 

At the 21:07 mark of the video, viewable on C-SPAN, Blanche responded to a reporter’s question about whether the men in the Epstein files accused of abusing women would be prosecuted and have their names made public. 

Blanche responded:

If we had information, we meaning the Department of Justice, about men who abused women, we would prosecute them.

[…]

There is this built-in assumption that somehow there is a hidden tranche of information of men that we know about that we’re covering up or that we’re choosing not to prosecute. That is not the case. I do not know whether there are men out there who abused these women. If we learn about information and evidence that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will. But I do not think that the public, or you all [reporters], are going to uncover men within the Epstein files that abused women, unfortunately.

Whether what he said is true or false is open to speculation. Still, it’s evident that Blanche did not directly state, “We’re not going to prosecute the predators in the Epstein files and we’re not going to release their names to the public.” 

Users sharing the alleged quote appeared to be attempting to twist Blanche’s intended meaning into a declarative statement that he never actually made. 

Further, Blanche began the Jan. 30 news conference with a statement about the variety of sex criminals he said the DOJ had prosecuted in the last year. 

Every single day of the year, the Department of Justice investigates and prosecutes those who abuse and traffic young women and children. Just last year, the FBI located over 2,700 victims of child exploitation. The Department of Justice found and terminated 3.8 million dark web pedophile accounts. In August, we charged 11 defendants for extensive sex trafficking of illegal immigrants and underaged women. Last month we charged five men who were engaged in a sadistic sex extortion network of young men abusing women. Over the past several months last summer and into the fall, we executed Operation Restore Justice, rescuing 205 child victims and arresting 293 offenders.

Blanche added that he wanted to point these numbers out specifically because of accusations that the DOJ “does not take child exploitation or sex trafficking seriously.”

Blanche echoed similar sentiments in an interview with ABC News published on Feb. 1, 2026, in which he said, “We have nothing to hide. We never did, and our doors are open if they want to come and review any of the materials that we produced.”

Claim:

Sen. Marsha Blackburn said she would bring back school segregation if elected governor of Tennessee.

Rating:

In early September 2026, as Repulican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn campaigned for governor of Tennessee, many people online claimed she announced a plan to bring segregation back to schools in the state if elected. 

For example, a Facebook post stated:

BREAKING: Marsha Blackburn has announced that if she wins her bid for governor she will bring segregation back to Tennessee schools with the pilot program being in Chattanooga. “The supreme court will side with President Trump and I on this. The way we see it kids feel more comfortable with other kids that look like them.”

(Facebook user, Chattanooga Enquirer)

Snopes readers emailed us to ask whether the claim was true. 

The claim originated from an account that was satirical in nature. Blackburn did not say she would bring back school segregation in Tennessee. As such, this claim is labeled satire.

The post came from the Chattanooga Enquirer, a Facebook page that describes itself as a “Satire/Parody” media company. The introduction to the page states: “The one stop shop for Chattanooga’s fake but maybe real news.” 

We searched for the purported quote featured in the post on Google, DuckDuckGo (archived), and Bing, and found no evidence of Blackburn ever making this announcement. 

Blackburn has long been an opponent of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and critical race theory in schools. On her Senate website, Blackburn calls CRT “a radical school of thought used by the political left to assign racial significance to objectively neutral concepts like history and mathematics.” She adds, “This dangerous agenda insists that America is a racist country and teaches that all individuals are either oppressors or victims.”

As Snopes previously reported, CRT looks to the law for answers as to why racial inequality persists even as American founding documents and aspirational ideals vaunt equality, and after the Civil Rights Movement brought about landmark legislation aimed at ending racism de jure.

According to data from the 2023-2024 school year collected by Stanford University, Tennessee is ranked sixth among the most racially segregated public schools in the country.

For further reading, Snopes previously reported on the false claim that Blackburn flashed a “white power gesture” during a Senate hearing. 

Sources

Deng, Rae. “Why SAVE America Act Could Change How You Vote If It Passes US Senate.” Snopes, 19 Mar. 2026, https://www.snopes.com//tracker/senate-vote-save-america-act/.

Evon, Dan. “Has President Trump Ever Voted by Mail?” Snopes, 21 May 2020, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-ever-voted-by-mail/.

Izzo, Jack. “There’s Still No Evidence of Systematic Voter Fraud in the 2020 Election.” Snopes, 27 June 2024, https://www.snopes.com//collections/no-systematic-voter-fraud-2020/.

Kasprak, Alex. “Were 10M Mail-In Ballots ‘Lost’ During California’s 2022 Midterms?” Snopes, 20 Jan. 2023, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/pilf-california-mail-in-ballots-2022/.

Lee, Jessica. “Do Mail-In Ballots Increase Risk of Voter Fraud?” Snopes, 26 May 2020, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/mail-in-ballot-voter-fraud/.

“Trump Casts Florida Mail Ballot as He Pushes Congress to Severely Limit That Voting Option.” AP News, 24 Mar. 2026, https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-vote-by-mail-bd52fd205f4484237d5b77d2e7319350.

Claim:

In September 2026, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney offered Americans $6,000 to vote against Republicans.

Rating:

A rumor that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney offered Americans $6,000 to vote against Republicans spread online in September 2026.

Users shared the rumor on multiple social media platforms. For example, a Facebook user wrote (archived) on Sept. 10: “Calling it an effort to ‘restore sanity,’ on Thursday Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney offered every adult American $6000 to vote against Republicans in the midterms.”

The story spread shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump promised $5,000 to every American adult if Republicans win majority control of the Senate and House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. Some users seemed to interpret the rumor that Carney made a similar offer as true. Snopes readers contacted us to investigate its legitimacy.

To investigate the rumor’s legitimacy, we first used search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Bing. If Carney had truly offered Americans $6,000 to vote against Republicans, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or The Globe and Mail, would have widely reported on it, and those search inquiries would have uncovered such evidence.

That was not the case. We did not find any credible reporting that the Canadian prime minister offered Americans money to vote against Republicans.

We identified the rumor’s original source: The Borowitz Report, a satirical outlet that produces content that parodies political news. Andy Borowitz first shared the rumor on Sept. 10, 2026. While Borowitz’s post was satire, some subsequent posts by other accounts sharing the claim were not labeled as such.

Borowitz’s About page reads:

I’ve been writing satirical news since I was eighteen. This represents either commitment to a genre or arrested development.

The New Yorker featured The Borowitz Report as a column for 25 years; Borowitz announced in 2023 that the magazine dropped his column for financial reasons.

Snopes has debunked numerous other claims stemming from The Borowitz Report. For example, in August 2026, we debunked a claim that Iran’s government announced that it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz only if Trump admitted he lost the 2020 election.

Jimmy Kimmel announced on Sept. 9, 2026, that his show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would not air his interview with U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico on television, citing the Federal Communications Commission’s threats against the talk-show host’s network, ABC, under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. 

Social media users circulated Kimmel’s accusations; some claimed Trump or the FCC tried to “block” the interview from airing. In response, readers searched our website to determine whether the FCC actually threatened Kimmel or blocked him from airing the interview with Talarico, a Democratic Texas state representative. 

Here’s what Kimmel said about the situation (see 9:33 in the video below): 

I interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015. And at that time, when he was the one sitting next to me, he seemed to have no problem with the idea of talk-show hosts interviewing candidates. In fact, he was very eager to come back for another interview, which he did just before he became the nominee in 2016. 

But for some reason, and I can’t seem to figure out what that reason is, something has changed. 

Now that he is president, his FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates, our local stations based on simple traditional editorial decisions, guest bookings it would seem they don’t like.

And so out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense, my interview tomorrow with James Talarico will not air on television. It will be posted on YouTube instead. 

A closer look at Kimmel’s words indicates he didn’t actually say whether the alleged threat issued by the FCC specifically related to his Sept. 10 interview with Talarico. Kimmel said the FCC threatened him and ABC based on “simple traditional editorial decisions” and “guest bookings.” That could be a reference to past disputes between ABC and the Trump administration or changing guidelines from the FCC. 

The White House said Brendan Carr, chairman of the FCC, has not threatened Kimmel “regarding interviewing James Talarico, or any other candidate.” 

ABC’s disputes with Trump administration

Kimmel’s accusation that the Trump administration has threatened him and his network could reference any or all of the many disputes he and his network have with the Trump administration.

In fact, Trump has repeatedly called for Kimmel’s firing and for the FCC to strip ABC of its licenses in response to various broadcasts he hasn’t liked. 

In September 2025, ABC temporarily pulled Kimmel off air after comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The decision came after Carr suggested he might take action against Disney, ABC’s parent company, if it didn’t pull Kimmel’s show. 

The president also called on ABC to fire Kimmel in April 2026 after the talk-show host made a joke about first lady Melania Trump. Shortly after, the FCC ordered ABC to seek early broadcast license renewals, an unprecedented move that can signal “significant concerns with the value” of the station’s operations, Carr said.

ABC and Disney sued the FCC in August 2026 for allegedly violating its free-speech rights, arguing (Page 3) that the Trump administration has “waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts.”

FCC policy changes

It’s also possible ABC may have pulled Talarico’s interview from network television because of FCC guidance on giving equal time to political candidates on broadcast television under the Trump administration.

Some forms of broadcast media are exempt from this rule, including “bona fide,” or legitimate, newscasts and news interviews. But in January 2026, the FCC issued guidance stating that late-night talk shows don’t have a blanket exemption from the equal-time rule.

The FCC’s guidance said that, in 2006, the agency determined the interview portion of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” qualified for as a “bona fide news interview” and thus would be exempt from the equal-time rule. Networks have relied on this ruling to mean that all late-night talk shows are exempt.

“This is not the case,” the FCC said on Page 4 of the notice. “The FCC has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late night or daytime television talk show program on air presently would qualify for the bona fide news exemption.”

The FCC’s guidance has had real effects. In February 2026, for example, talk-show host Stephen Colbert claimed CBS blocked an interview with Talarico on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” from airing on broadcast television because the network’s lawyers said in “no uncertain terms” that the interview could violate the FCC’s guidance. 

(CBS reportedly disputed Colbert’s account and said its lawyers provided only “legal guidance,” not a direct prohibition.) 

The bottom line 

There’s no evidence the FCC directly threatened Kimmel, and a closer read of Kimmel’s comments indicated that Kimmel never accused the FCC of specifically blocking his interview with Talarico from airing on television. 

However, that doesn’t mean the FCC hasn’t threatened Kimmel and ABC in other ways. The FCC and ABC are embroiled in several disputes, and ABC has alleged that the FCC is engaging in retaliatory measures because the Trump administration doesn’t like the network’s content. 

Following the 25th-anniversary commemoration of the Sept. 11 attacks, news media outlets reported U.S. President Donald Trump planned to fly to Ireland for the weekend to take in the Irish Open at Trump International Golf Club in Doonbeg.

Snopes received a reader’s email asking, “Is it true that in Ireland in flight path for Shannon airport is a F*** Trump message in someone’s yard?” The reader attached an image of the alleged sign — apparently captured from a high-angle position, similar to that of a drone — showing a grassy field, with the “U” in the first word marked with an asterisk.

A reverse image search found users sharing the same image on Bluesky, Facebook, Threads and TikTok (archived), some also claiming the sign appeared along the flight path into Shannon Airport in County Clare.

(@electra75 via Threads)

Snopes could not independently verify the sign’s authenticity as of this writing, but did note a report about the image from CorkBeo, a publication primarily covering matters involving Ireland’s County Cork. We reached out to the White House to request comment about the subject matter and will update this article if we receive further information.

The CorkBeo article cited as its source a video that Irish personality Ray Foley posted on Sept. 9, interviewing a woman who said she asked her husband to help prepare the sign for Trump’s trip.

Foley’s post says the woman, not identified by name, sent a message and the image to him, saying she prepared a “warm welcome” on the flight path into Shannon Airport “for the guest this weekend” — referencing Trump. “We’ve already had a few black helicopter flybys,” the message apparently read.

Speaking about her husband, whom she identified as Paul, the woman reportedly said the following:

I’ve been troubling him for a long time to do this because we knew he [Trump] was gonna be comin’ and I just said, “Come on, come on, keep needlin’, and keep putting the idea in his head,” so, I think he just gave up and said, “Come on, we’ll do it.”

We contacted a Foley representative with Today FM’s owner, Bauer Media Audio Ireland, to ask for contact information pertaining to the people who created the supposed sign and will add more details if we receive a response.

BBC reported Air Force One, with Trump onboard, would fly into Dublin Airport on Sept. 12, and into Shannon Airport later the same day. CorkBeo’s article featured news of a second protest sign that appeared in Dublin, reading “No Kings,” as well as mentioning Gaza, Iran and ICE. Reuters published a photo confirming the Dublin sign’s authenticity.

For further reading, we previously investigated a rumor claiming an Irish priest said, “We pray for Donald Trump, the Lord will take him.”

Sources

Claim:

On Sept. 8, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a speech that he helped save victims of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Rating:

A rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump claimed in a speech he had saved victims of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic is spreading online. 

According to social media posts sharing the claim, Trump said he “saved more people than anybody,” told the ship’s captain to “turn left,” and that “nobody knows icebergs better than [him].” This is despite the fact, of course, that Trump was born in 1946, meaning he was not alive in 1912 when the ship famously sank. 

Some readers contacted us to ask whether Trump really said this.

We found that Trump made no such assertion, and the rumor is false.

To investigate the rumor’s legitimacy, we first used search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo. If Trump truly had mentioned assisting rescuers on the Titanic in a speech, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have widely reported on it, and those search inquiries would have uncovered such evidence. 

That was not the case. We did not find any credible reporting suggesting that Trump had mentioned the Titanic during a recent speech.

Snopes traced the claim as far back as an X post made on the afternoon of Sept. 8, but could not definitively confirm that post as the rumor’s origin. However, it neatly aligned with a speech Trump gave earlier that day at a tribute event for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, in which he repeated a long-standing claim that he participated in relief efforts. A transcript of that speech included no mention of the Titanic.

Given the timing of those remarks, we concluded that Trump’s words about 9/11 in that speech served as inspiration for the fictitious rumor, which we suspect was intended as satirical. However, the earliest account we found that shared the claim did not indicate that in its post. Snopes contacted the X user to confirm our suspicions, but had not heard back by publication. 

For further reading, we also investigated whether there was any evidence two firefighters helped Trump escape a building in danger of collapsing after 9/11, as he claimed in the same Sept. 8 speech.