Biden, Harris and Trump visit Sept. 11 sites to honor victims

By Andrea Shalal and Nandita Bose

NEW YORK (Reuters) -President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris stood alongside former President Donald Trump and his 2024 running mate, JD Vance, on Wednesday to observe the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the New York City site where hijacked planes crashed and killed nearly 3,000 people.

No remarks were scheduled at the ceremony at the ground zero site where planes brought down the World Trade Center's twin towers. Relatives began reading the names of those who died.

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee and Trump, her Republican rival, appeared together the morning after their contentious debate in Philadelphia with just eight weeks left before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Harris and Trump shook hands and spoke just before lining up for the commemoration.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also attended, standing between Biden and Trump.

After New York, Biden and Harris planned to fly to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where passengers on United Flight 93 overcame the hijackers and the plane crashed in a field, preventing another target from being hit. Then they will head back to the Washington area to visit a memorial at the Pentagon, which was also hit in the attacks.

"On this day 23 years ago, terrorists believed they could break our will and bring us to our knees. They were wrong. They will always be wrong. In the darkest of hours, we found light. And in the face of fear, we came together - to defend our country, and to help one another," Biden said in an early morning statement.

Trump, who also plans to visit the Pennsylvania memorial, told Fox News on Wednesday: "It was very, very sad, horrible day. There's never been anything like it."

Biden earlier issued a proclamation honoring those who died as a result of the attacks, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Americans who volunteered for military service afterwards.

"We owe these patriots of the 9/11 Generation a debt of gratitude that we can never fully repay," Biden said, citing deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq and other war zones, as well as the capture and killing of Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and his deputy.

U.S. congressional leaders on Tuesday posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to 13 of those service members who were killed in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Kabul's airport during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Helen Coster; Editing by Michael Perry, Angus MacSwan and Jonathan Oatis)