Politics

How would Trump have responded to 9/11? Let’s hope we never have to find out

Published

1 year ago

November 12, 2024

How would Trump have responded to 9/11? Let’s hope we never have to find out

The “tribute of light” had a test run last Saturday night. Since 2002, the dress rehearsal has been an annual tradition in New York City, coming a few days before the 9/11 anniversary — when enormous 7,000-watt xenon light bulbs are projected 4 miles into the sky near the site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood. It’s always a striking image, capable of giving even the most jaded New Yorkers pause — briefly bringing them back to that time of horror, rage and bewilderment.

I’ll always remember the first 9/11 anniversary — when the tribute of light premiered — because so much of what had happened over that year was unprecedented, terrifying and, in hindsight, completely irrational.

Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attack. The Taliban quickly fell in Afghanistanbut the beginning of a 19-year-long war — which they would win — had only just begun. There were anthrax attacks in newsrooms and congressional offices. There were FBI roundups of innocent Muslims. Congress passed the Patriot Act, hyper-charging the surveillance state. The disastrous Iraq War would begin seven months later.

America’s military misadventure in Iraq was such a fiasco that it’s oft-cited as a major factor in Donald Trump’s hijacking of the Republican Party.

America’s military misadventure in Iraq was such a fiasco, in fact, that it’s oft-cited as a major factor in Donald Trump’s hijacking of the Republican Party, which is now more a personality cult than a political organization with coherent politics.

When Trump announced his presidential run in 2015, there were plenty of reasons to be concerned. He was overtly racist. He encouraged violence among his followers. He promised a “Muslim ban.” The thought of what he might do in a national crisis, like 9/11, was terrifying to some of us. But to many others who still wouldn’t vote for him, Trump was all talk, he was a clown, his rhetoric was a sideshow and a distraction to the real issues — like tax cuts or something.

Thankfully, we never had to find out how Trump would have led a frightened, angry country flailing around after a murderous assault on the homeland. We did, however, get a good look at what he’d do as the leader of the free world during a once-in-a-century global crisis — which was to deny the crisis was happening, then lie to the public about the severity of the crisis, then put his nepo baby son-in-law and his cronies in charge of handling the crisis. It didn’t go well, by any metric.

Before that crisis had ended, he tried to steal an election that he decisively lost and directly incited a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol. He literally broke the revered American tradition of peaceful transfer of power. Thanks to the cowardice and opportunism of Mitch McConnell, he avoided conviction at his second impeachment, leaving him still eligible to serve in elected office, and nearly four years later — here we are.

Unlike in September 2001, there are smartphones, social media and podcasts with legions of followers readily available to amplify the loudest fearmongering, disinformation-spreading morons. And Trump is not only their hero; he’s their audience.

At Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Trump rattled off a host of fake, inflammatory internet-created stories — the kind spread by those very same highly influential internet morons.

Imagine Trump in his “I am your retribution” second administration. The one in which he’s promised to jail political opponents, journalists, judges and prosecutors. The one in which he’s promised to violently uproot and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The one in which — thanks to state-level Republican efforts and a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court — he’s got very few remaining guardrails to keep him from executing his authoritarian impulses with impunity.

Imagine Trump in his “I am your retribution” second administration.

There probably wouldn’t be any former generals to talk him out of impulsive bombing campaigns or invoking the Insurrection Act. Even Jared and Ivanka wouldn’t be there to try to talk him out of slaughtering protestors. But he very likely would have supplement-shilling podcasters giving him his intelligence reports, printed straight off of 4chan.

If something like 9/11 happened under a second Trump administration, you wouldn’t need to let your imagination run wild. The aspirational “dictator for a day” has already told us what he plans to do — and the past nine years have made the anti-anti-Trumpers who told us to “take Trump seriously but not literally” look even more inexcusably pliant than they did in 2015.

I don’t think anyone can really argue America handled 9/11 “well,” but if an attack on that scale were to happen again, Trump is probably the worst person imaginable to have all the power in the world.

Anthony L. Fisher

Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and writer for BLN Daily. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.

Politics

Trump plays Texas hold ’em with Senate endorsement

Published

57 minutes ago

March 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

As the MAGA faithful gather for another day of CPAC in Grapevine, Texas, they are openly celebrating what they believe is tantamount to a major midterms victory: keeping President Donald Trump from endorsing John Cornyn ahead of May’s GOP Senate primary runoff.

MAGA world is taking a victory lap — and fresh comfort — in the receipts: A lack of significant spending and polling so far by not only Cornyn’s campaign, but also the NRSC and One Nation, the Senate Leadership Fund-aligned nonprofit. It amounts to a pattern the MAGA cohort reads as Washington making peace with a matchup between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, their anointed candidate, and Texas Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.

“The grassroots stood in the breach and said a resounding ‘NO’ to Cornyn,” Steve Bannon, who has framed Paxton’s bid for the nomination as a battle for MAGA’s soul, told Blue Light News. “Polling and spending indicates that the Republican DC establishment reluctantly concurs. This could be the victory that empowers MAGA through the midterms.”

Paxton, though, hasn’t rested his case. He traveled to Mar-a-Lago last Friday for a Palm Beach County GOP dinner, and was spotted speaking to Trump himself, according to three sources familiar.

Trump and Paxton were on the patio, one source added, with another saying the two discussed the runoff. “It was a positive meeting,” said yet another person. A Paxton spokesperson declined to comment on the meeting.

It’s the latest sign of a fierce and feverish effort to keep Trump from endorsing Cornyn.

Even when all signs pointed to a Cornyn endorsement following the longtime senator’s showing in the primary, MAGA faithful kept pressing for Paxton. Now they’re optimistic their guy can come out on top — and they’re still taking shots at Cornyn every chance they get.

“The Cornyn endorsement looks dead, but it’s Trump, so it’s never certain,” a person close to the White House said. “Cornyn sealed his fate by carrying Mitch [McConnell]’s water on that ridiculous gun grabbing bill. No one thought he would be dumb enough to run for reelection after that but here we are.”

Now, Trump may not give an endorsement at all. Or if he does, he may endorse Paxton after the SAVE Act debate in the Senate is over, three sources tell Blue Light News.

“Nothing is dead,” said a source familiar with the president’s thinking. “It’s all just stasis at the moment.”

“It’s looking like he may not endorse at all,” another White House official said. “But it doesn’t seem like he has made up his mind.”

But the endorsement equation in Texas amid the SAVE Act saga is still very much vexing Trump, according to five Republicans in and around the White House. The president, who will not be in attendance at this year’s CPAC, is “being patient” and “trying to exact” a policy win, another person said.

“Trump isn’t going to endorse against Cornyn while the Save America Act is still being debated,” one White House ally said. “So for now I think he stays out, but if Thune files cloture and Paxton continues to lead in every poll then I could see him endorsing Paxton. No question Paxton wins if Trump stays out though.”

Every Republican who spoke to Blue Light News cautioned that Trump could change his mind at any moment. It’s still early for the runoff, they said, with Election Day still nearly two months away. But the deadline for a candidate to drop off the ballot passed last week.

One person familiar told Blue Light News that the Senate Leadership Fund and NRSC aren’t spending in order to conserve resources. “Not cause they are throwing in the towel,” this person said.

The campaign will be spending soon, a Cornyn spokesperson said. “Ken Paxton said he needed $20M to win this primary and he’s barely raised a quarter of that,” said Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiak. “His professional failures and indefensible personal conduct make GOP donors and Texas primary voters deeply uncomfortable.” He added: “We have a plan to win this race and we are executing it. Ken Paxton is busy whining and hiding.”

Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s top campaign hands who works as a senior adviser for the pro-Cornyn super PAC Texans for a Conservative Majority, said the runoff boils down to a resource equation. “The question remains the same,” LaCivita said. “Does the GOP want to spend $150-200 million holding what should be a safe seat and giving up other opportunities to gain advantage?”

Joanna Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the NRSC, said it’s “been very clear that the fight to protect President Trump’s Senate Majority should not be fought in Texas, and John Cornyn is the only candidate who ensures that does not happen.”

When it comes to money, Republicans are planning for MAGA Inc. to be “responsible for resources needed in a general election if it’s Ken Paxton,” according to two GOP operatives briefed on strategy (one cautioned that “planning is probably more hoping.”). A MAGA Inc. spokesperson declined to comment.

On the sidelines of CPAC, where bedazzled and sequined conservatives gathered for the base’s annual pep rally, the overwhelming feeling was that most Texas GOP primary voters had already made up their minds — and a Trump endorsement in either direction wouldn’t make much of a difference. Some attendees said they viewed Trump’s silence as a nudge toward Paxton.

“Texans — we’re done,” said Gregorio Heise, a Paxton supporter and Republican running for Congress in Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s Dallas district. “It’s already showing, even in the polling. Cornyn doesn’t do what Texans want, and [Paxton] does.”

On Friday night at CPAC, attendees will hear from Paxton, who’s headlining the conference’s Ronald Reagan dinner. Cornyn isn’t planning to attend.

“It’s an opportunity to be able to, you know, share your vision and basically sell yourself to the crowd, to the Texas crowd,” CPAC host and organizer Mercedes Schlapp told Blue Light News. “So Ken Paxton agreed to come, and he has a very high CPAC rating. And you know, we’ve invited Cornyn, and so we are still open. The invitation is still open for John Cornyn to come.”

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