Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced before departing for New York City to mark the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that his campaign would pull down its advertising in honor of the “solemn” occasion.
Biden and his wife Jill Biden were scheduled Friday to take part in Sept. 11 remembrance ceremonies in lower Manhattan and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The former vice president told reporters as he was boarding his plane in Delaware for the flight to New York that no press conferences were planned and that he had no plans to make any news regarding his campaign to oust President Trump out of respect for those who died in the terrorist attacks.
“I’m not going to talk about anything other than 9/11,” Biden told reporters. “We took all of our advertising down. It’s a solemn day, and that’s how we’re going to keep it.”
At Biden’s first stop, at the site of the twin towers destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, Biden chatted briefly with Vice President Mike Pence, with the two political rivals greeting each other by bumping elbows. Both were members of Congress (Biden a senator, Pence served in the House) the day jihadis hijacked four passenger airliners and struck the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.
The fourth plane was headed toward Washington when passengers charged the cockpit and forced it down in rural Pennsylvania. Trump and Biden are headed there today but are not expected to cross paths.
