By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - Presidential nominees Kamala Harris and Donald Trump had a rare display of unity Wednesday when they shook hands at Ground Zero as Americans commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
The political rivals exchanged remarks as they extended their hands across President Joe Biden, who was also on site at the 9/11 Memorial. The site honors the nearly 3,000 people who died in New York City when a pair of hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center on a Tuesday morning 23 years ago.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared to facilitate the pleasantry between Harris and Trump, hours after a contentious debate in which the presidential nominees repeatedly launched broadsides at one another.
A ceremonial bell tolled for each victim who died at the site as names were read aloud. Moments of silence were observed at the time each of the four hijacked planes struck sites in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. None of the politicians addressed the crowd, which included the family members of the deceased.
The attacks began when a passenger plane slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8.46 a.m. Just 17 minutes later, another plane struck the South Tower.
The massive 110-story skyscrapers, burning and badly damaged by the strikes, would collapse within minutes of one another, sending a thick cloud of toxic dust and ash ripping through the streets of Manhattan as people desperately ran in terror.
Amid the devastation, another plane struck the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. at 9.37 a.m. A national panic not seen since Pearl Harbor, some 60 years prior, had rapidly set in.
Minutes after the Defense Department was struck, authorities closed all US airspace, but United Airlines Flight 93 had already been overrun.
Passengers and crew were rushing to the cockpit in an effort to wrest control of the plane from the four hijackers. About five minutes later, the plane would jackknife into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone onboard.
The plane was about 20 minutes from Washington, D.C., where authorities believe the hijackers sought to strike either the White House or the US Capitol.
It would take time, but Americans would eventually find out that 19 al-Qaeda terrorists were responsible for hijacking the planes in a plot orchestrated by the terror group’s longtime leader, Osama bin Laden.
Following the Manhattan ceremony, Harris and Biden departed New York to attend two additional memorial events in Shanksville and at the Pentagon. Trump is also expected to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial.