Opinion: Michael Bloomberg Shows Trump the Value of Good Manners at 9/11 Service

A row of white stickers on the gray granite marked where each of the arriving VIPs was supposed to stand in an enclosed area at the 9/11 memorial plaza in New York City.

“BLOOMBERG” read the black lettering on the one for former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made the memorial possible and who stepped out to greet them as they arrived on Wednesday morning.

Bloomberg has unfailingly good manners, and he stepped out to greet the first arrival. He led Donald Trump—former president and now the Republican nominee once again—over to his sticker, which sat to the left of his own.

“TRUMP.”

Bloomberg did the same with the next arrival, leading him to the sticker to the right of his own.

“POTUS,” read the one for President Biden.

Bloomberg also escorted the next person to the sticker to the right of that one.

“VPOTUS,” read the one for Kamala Harris, current vice-president and current Democratic candidate for president.

Bloomberg did not forget the man whose sticker was to the left of Trump’s.

“VANCE” was occupied by U.S. Sen. JD Vance, the current Republican candidate for vice-president.

Behind them was a second row of white stickers, these marked “USSS” for U.S. Secret Service agents.

There they all stood, America’s choices for who will lead us into the immediate future—where another attack always remains a possibility.

Bloomberg again showed the value of manners when he quietly said something to Trump, and then to Harris. The two candidates to become the next POTUS had met for the first time in a debate the night prior—during which there was no mention of terrorism. Trump had grumbled afterwards that the encounter had been “rigged,” but at Bloomberg’s bidding, he now held out his hand to Harris.

“You did a good job,” Trump appeared to say.

“Thank you, thank you,” Harris replied.

There came just a moment of the unity that followed the attack on the World Trade Center exactly 23 years before.

But then a woman standing among the 9/11 family members outside the VIP pen began to shout as if to a savior.

“Donald! Donald! Donald! We love you, Donald! Woo! Donald, we need you! We won! We won!”

A man joined in, “We love you, Donald!”

Trump has told a host of lies about 9/11 over the years, saying he was able to watch from his apartment four miles away as people jumped from the burning towers and had seen TV news footage of hundreds of Muslims in New Jersey cheering the attack, images that were later proven not to exist.

He also said he had lost “hundreds of friends,” but was not seen at any of the funerals, not even those the FDNY asked the public to attend because their surviving members were thinly spread between so many services. He insisted he had spent “a lot of time” at Ground Zero, when he in fact appeared only briefly at the perimeter for an interview with German television two days after the towers fell. He did not return until April of 2016, when he toured the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. He had not attended any of the annual observances prior to this one, in an election year.

But no matter how many more lies he has told, no matter how badly Harris had beaten him in the debate, there are still many who support him—even among the families of the 2,977 innocents who were murdered at The World Trade Center that day.

That fact remained as the shouting ceased and the solemn reading of the names commenced. A white gloved firefighter rang a ceremonial silver ball five times to mark the moments of silence, for when each of the two planes struck and when each tower fell.

At the end of the observance, somebody with the memorial knelt and scraped off each of the stickers. Trump headed crosstown. He had been invited to the quarters of FDNY Engine 4, Ladder 15, which lost 16 members that day—showing America the very best in us.

The official death count does not include the babies of the 10 pregnant women who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Their names are each inscribed with an additional four words at the memorial pools. Among them is Helen Crossin Kittle, a 34 year-old computer specialist on the 103rd floor of the North Tower. She was five months pregnant.

“Helen Crossin Kittle and her unborn child,” the inscription reads.

The 10 unborn children would now be 23 years old. One way we can honor the lives they will never have is by extending moments of unity—like the one we witnessed for far too brief a time on Wednesday beside the footprint of the North Tower, where Kittle died.

Bloomberg—who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2020, but was not even nominated because he is just smart and qualified and decent and politically courageous—showed us one thing we need in order to do that: simple manners.

Read more at The Daily Beast.