Trump and Biden will both visit Pennsylvania site on anniversary of 9/11

President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are both expected to commemorate the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in Shanksville, Pa., where one of the hijacked planes crashed nearly 19 years ago.

The president and first lady Melania Trump will visit the Flight 93 National Memorial, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere confirmed. President Trump last visited the site in 2018.

Biden is also planning to visit the memorial in Shanksville on Sept. 11. He will be joined by his wife, Jill Biden, the campaign announced. A spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for additional details, and it is unclear if the Trumps and Bidens will be there at the same time.

The National Park Service typically hosts a 90-minute ceremony, but this year it will be abbreviated to 20 minutes. Capacity will also be limited due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Vice President Pence and second lady Karen Pence will be in New York City on Sept. 11 to participate in memorial ceremonies honoring the victims of the attacks. It marks the first time either Trump or Pence will be in Manhattan for 9/11 since 2016.

Trump and Biden have been engaged in an increasingly brutal campaign, with Trump attacking Biden as mentally and physically weak and the former vice president repeatedly criticizing the president as unfit to lead the country amid the coronavirus pandemic and unrest over racial injustice.

Trump spoke at the Pentagon on 9/11 last year days after he canceled a planned meeting at Camp David, where he had hoped to host officials from the Taliban for Afghanistan peace negotiations. The proposed meeting drew widespread backlash even among some Republicans, who viewed the timing as inappropriate given the Taliban’s role in the terrorist attacks.

The president, a native New Yorker, has in the past sparked controversy with his remarks about Sept. 11. 

He has at times overstated his involvement in the recovery efforts, and in a phone interview with a New York television station on the day of the attacks, Trump said that the collapse of the towers made a building he owned the tallest in lower Manhattan.

Trump last year signed legislation extending the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund in a Rose Garden ceremony where he was joined by first responders and families of those who died from illnesses caused by their proximity to the attacks.

Updated at 7:28 p.m.