Biden, Harris and Trump to visit Sept. 11 sites as US pays tribute to victims

By Andrea Shalal

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday will observe the 23th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. with visits to each of the three sites where hijacked planes crashed in 2001 and killed nearly 3,000 people.

Biden and Harris will first visit the New York City site where planes brought down the World Trade Center's twin towers.

Harris, now the Democratic nominee for president, was due to travel to New York after debating her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening with just eight weeks left before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

No remarks are scheduled at the site, where relatives will read the names of those who died.

Trump said he will also attend the New York City ceremony along with his running mate JD Vance.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will also attend, a source familiar with the plans said.

Biden and Harris will then 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 the Pentagon memorial.

"We can only imagine the heartbreak and the pain that the 9/11 families and survivors have felt every day for the past 23 years and we will always remember and honor those who were stolen from us way too soon," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.

"We will continue to do everything in our power to ensure that an attack like this never happens again," she said.

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 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 and Angus MacSwan)