FACT CHECK: Actually Muslims Did Celebrate 9-11, According To NY Times

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Donald Trump

Ben Carson and Donald Trump are under fire for comments that they saw Muslims celebrating 9-11.

The Washington Post’s fact checker claimed it never happened to which Donald Trump replied thusly:

The New York Times quotation is far more damning. Here it is, with our emphasis.

Within hours of the terror attacks, F.B.I. agents hurriedly intercepted telephone calls in which suspected associates of Al Qaeda in the United States were overheard celebrating the attacks. In the following days, agents swept in and arrested them. (New York Times, October 28, 2001, Section 1B; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 2).

The Washington Post–the very same paper denying that anyone was celebrating the attacks–reported on September 16, 2011 that Palestinian authorities and the media were working together to stop people from seeing Palestinians celebrating the terrorist attacks. Here’s the relevant quote:

Palestinian officials have told local representatives of foreign news agencies and television stations on several occasions that their employees’ safety could be jeopardized if videotapes showing Palestinians celebrating the attacks were aired.

The New York Times reported that some graduate student in Brazil claimed that CNN had recycled old footage but wound up concluding, yes, Palestinians celebrated the attacks on September 11th. There’s a wonderful blog chronicling all the anti-American material coming out of the Middle East after 9-11. (Hint: It’s a really bad idea to bring people in who hate us.)

Residents of New Jersey have also come out of the wood work to defend Donald Trump’s characterization of American Muslims celebrating 9-11 but the Star Ledger — the paper of New Jersey–says that there’s nothing to the rumors.

Who’s to say? We don’t know.

We do know, though, that there’s a long history of American Muslims hating America.

It’s so bad that even CNN noticed it after the Ft. Hood jihad attack.

 

So was it possible that Donald Trump saw it on television and thought he had seen it in real life? A plausibility.