How Many People Celebrated in New Jersey on 9/11?

An expanded, revised version of this article is now available in the new book: The Media Versus the Apprentice: The Devil Mr. Trump.

MEDIA MEME: 

Donald Trump falsely claimed that during the terrorist attacks of September 11, he saw thousands of Muslims cheering in New Jersey. He grossly lied, because nobody cheered in New Jersey.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

Trump said that during the terrorist attacks of September 11, he saw thousands of people cheering in New Jersey. Although politicians and the media vigorously replied that nobody cheered in New Jersey, many sources confirm that at least hundreds of people did celebrate. The sources include police officers, police captains, FBI agents, 911 operators, radio hosts (WABC-Radio, WPLJ, WXRK, etc.), people who called radio stations, television news reports (WCBS-TV, MTV News, etc.), newspapers (The New York Post, The Washington Post, The Bergen Record, Ha’aretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Globe and Mail, etc.), the Commissioner of the New York Police Department, the Mayor of New York City, a former Mayor of Jersey City, and many residents of New Jersey.

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For weeks, people denied and debated Donald Trump’s claims that many people in New Jersey cheered on September 11, 2001.

Many articles have been written—and rewritten—about this. Here is a systematic accounting of the evidence.

Long before Trump’s infamous claim, the story that people in New Jersey cheered on 9/11 was described as an “urban myth.” I wanted to check whether this is true, partly because I’m a professor of history and I’ve published books on historical myths. I usually find that apparent myths are indeed myths.

One might like to think that nobody in the United States celebrated when thousands of people were murdered at the Twin Towers. However, such wishful thinking has to be set aside when collecting evidence.

On November 21, 2015, at a campaign rally, Trump emphatically said: “I watched, when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.” Soon, on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said: “I’ve heard Jersey City. I’ve heard Paterson. It was 14 years ago. But I saw it on television. I saw clips. And so did many other people. And many people saw it in person. I’ve had hundreds of phone-calls to the Trump Organization saying ‘we saw it, it was dancing in the streets’…”

It’s well known that in several countries in the Middle East, countless many people celebrated the disaster of 9/11. Many people celebrated in Cairo, Egypt. Many Jordanian and Palestinian refugees in Amman celebrated in the streets in joy. Many Lebanese citizens and Palestinian refugees celebrated in Beirut: they said they were “happy,” “ecstatic,” and they danced and cheered in the streets. They also celebrated in the southern port city of Sidon. Many Palestinians celebrated joyfully too in Gaza, Arab East Jerusalem and in Nablus in the West Bank—waving Palestinian flags, distributing candy, honking their car horns, and chanting “God is Great.” Iraqi state television hailed the attacks.

Did anyone in New Jersey celebrate?

Many people strongly denied Trump’s claims. The mayor of Jersey City, Steven Fulop, wrote: “No one in Jersey City cheered on September 11.” (However, Fulop was not the mayor of Jersey City in 2001; he became mayor in 2013.)

The Washington Post contacted Jerry Speziale, the police commissioner of Paterson. Speziale replied that Trump’s claims are “totally false.” He said: “That never happened. There were no flags burning, no one was dancing.” (However, Speziale was not in Paterson in 2001; he was Chief of the Sheriff’s Office in nearby Bergen County.)

In September 2001, the New Jersey Attorney General was John Farmer Jr., and he worked on the crisis. In 2015, he categorically denied Trump’s claims: “No dancing, no celebrating, had occurred.”

Presidential candidate Jeb Bush denied it too: “There wasn’t any cheering. That would have been on television. That would have been recorded. This is just wrong.” The Arab Times also complained: “There is not one scrap of evidence suggesting Arabs were celebrating 9-11 in New Jersey.” CNN news anchor, Carol Costello complained: “No one can remember that. No one.”

Additionally, readers posted tens of thousands of comments and insults on this topic. Surprisingly, evidence substantiates some of Trump’s claims. Some people celebrated—but how many?

In 2001 Jersey City had a population of 240,000 people, including roughly 48,000 Arabs or of Arab descent. At least six of the Arab terrorists that hijacked airplanes on Sept. 11 lived in apartments in Paterson, New Jersey. At least four other hijacker-terrorists also lived in New Jersey or visited. Friends of the hijackers also lived in an apartment at 6 Tonnelle Avenue, in Jersey City. It’s in the same neighborhood where “the blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman lived and preached, who was convicted of plotting the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In the 1990s, at least five other residents of Jersey City were convicted of plotting to destroy buildings such as the United Nations building and the FBI Federal Plaza in New York.

On September 11, 2001, as airplanes struck the Twin Towers, a host in WABC-Radio, Curtis Sliwa received several calls from people who witnessed celebrations in Paterson. In an MTV documentary (first aired on November 17, 2001), Sliwa stated: “Calls started coming in from people troubled, in the fact that they had just ridden down Main Street in South Paterson, and hours before had seen what appeared to be a large group of people celebrating, cheering, when they had actually heard that the World Trade Center had struck, and more importantly, continuing to cheer when they heard that the World Trade Center, both towers, had imploded.”

One caller, Andrew, complained: “Did you guys know that they were dancing in the streets of Paterson, they were all dancing in the streets; my brother worked there, he was driving home, and saw people dancing in the streets.”

The MTV documentary also included a video clip of a press conference, in which the mayor of Paterson, Marty Barnes, said: “There has been no jubilee on the streets, there has not been anybody out in the neighborhoods having fun or thinking that this was a great or glorious idea.”

Yet the MTV documentary featured a third witness. On September 11, on Main Street, Paterson, Emily Acevedo saw “a lot of people, and they were just chanting and raving, and I noticed that they were holding things, they were holding like rocks and sticks, and they were saying ‘Burn America,’ and you know, all these things about America.” Acevedo showed the damage they caused to metal railings, concrete steps, and a trashcan. She said that the culprits were kids: “But they had so much hate, and they were doing that. It was just so sad. It was so sad.” Professor Irfan Khawaja researched the incident and found other people who also witnessed it. According to Khawaja, the kids were “Arab, some Turkish, some possibly Hispanic.”

Likewise, the radio station WPLJ reported that some people in an Arabic section of Paterson, New Jersey, were celebrating the attacks. It was on the program of Scott Shannon and Todd Pettengill.

Also on September 11, the Wall Street Journal noted that “Palestinians aren’t the only ones celebrating.” They quoted InstaPundit.com reporting that “a domestic far-right group” had posted this celebratory message on its webpage: “Hallelu-Yahweh! May the WAR be started! DEATH to His enemies, may the World Trade Center BURN TO THE GROUND!” This was written by August B. Kries, an Aryan nationalist, former KKK leader, and dropout from a high school in Newark, New Jersey (apparently living in Pennsylvania in 2001).

Likewise, the Pittsburgh coordinator of the anti-Semitic World Church of the Creator, emailed supporters about the “WONDERFUL NEWS” of the collapsing Twin Towers.

On September 12, at a train station in Texas, the FBI arrested two Muslim Indian men that had “box cutters and thousands of dollars in cash,” and who had lived at the building at 6 Tonnelle Avenue in Jersey City.

That day, a New Jersey firefighter called The Howard Stern Show on WXRK, and complained: “I just heard you say about the Palestinians celebrating over there, from this bombing. They’re doing it right in Paterson, the Palestinians in Paterson. They’re uh, after yesterday’s bombing they’re out in the streets, the police are out there handling problems, the riots, because they’re out here celebrating the bombing of the Trade Center, so it’s right here in our own country. […] we’re on a high alert here…”

Another caller to Stern’s radio show also complained “the Arabs over here in Paterson on Crooks Ave. are celebrating after what happened yesterday. The Clifton Police, the Paterson Police are on high alert because they were out there, last night celebrating, I’m over [nearby] in Hackensack and they’re doing it.”

Another caller, Tammy, likewise said: “my husband does work in Paterson, and down in South Paterson they were rioting, he’s a Verizon employee, and they actually had to send home Verizon employees, because the riots were getting out of hand. They were out in the streets, and just like, you know, and doing basically the same thing they were doing over in Afghanistan…”

Also on September 12, the newspaper of northern New Jersey, The Bergen Record, reported that Police Chief John Schmidig, of Bergen County, New Jersey, stated that: “Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down.” New Jersey state troopers, FBI agents, and prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office handled the case. The report reiterated that they were “celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion.”

Also on Sept. 12, The Record also quoted Newsday: “As these villains realized that Americans by the thousands were dying, there must have been joyful hugs all around. As they saw the flames and the debris, as bodies fell from upper stories of the flaming 110-story towers, they probably gave one another high-fives.”

On September 13, The New York Post also reported: “Three men who celebrated as the Twin Towers crumbled are facing deportation.” The newspaper stated that these “illegal immigrants from the Middle East” were arrested because witnesses saw them “cheering” and “jumping up and down” in Liberty State Park, New Jersey.

Also on Sept. 13, Al-Bawaba News reported that at a jail in El Reno, Oklahoma, an unauthorized immigrant from Egypt “cheered after he heard the news about the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.” It said that he “cheered, clapped and hurrahed,” so he was put in lockdown.

On Sept. 15, the FBI arrested several Muslim men who lived in the building on 6 Tonnelle Avenue.

On September 17, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that the FBI arrested five Israelis that worked for a moving company in New Jersey, because they were caught videotaping the collapse of the Twin Towers while “shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery.” Apparently these five men included the three mentioned in The New York Post. On October 26, The Jerusalem Post too reported that these Israelis were smiling as they photographed themselves with the collapsed towers in the background.

On December 17, The Globe and Mail reported that “five of the Israelis came to the FBI’s attention after they were seen by New Jersey residents on Sept. 11 making fun of the World Trade Center ruins and going to extreme lengths to photograph themselves in front of the wreckage. The FBI seized and developed their photos, one of which shows Sivan Kurzberg flicking a cigarette lighter in front of the smouldering ruins in an apparently celebratory gesture.”

Next, on September 14, 2001, an op-ed in The New York Post reported: “Here in New York, it was easy to get angry listening to Egyptians, Palestinians and the Arabs of nearby Paterson, N.J., celebrate as they received word of the murderous attack in New York and Washington.”

That columnist, Fred Siegel “first heard about the celebrations (and the nationalities of the perpetrators) on the radio, though he couldn’t remember which station. In addition to those news reports, he said, he believes that some Muslims did celebrate because he heard it from two sources: an acquaintance from Clifton, New Jersey, and an Arab-American professor with whom he corresponded.” The Clifton resident saw “people riding around in cars honking, shouting with joy.”

On September 16, 2001, WCBS-TV in New York reported: “Just a couple of blocks away from that Jersey City apartment the F.B.I. raided yesterday and where they had evidence removed, there’s another apartment building, one that investigators told me, quote: “is swarming with suspects” — suspects who I’m told were ‘cheering on the roof’ when they saw the planes slam into the Trade Center. Police were called to the building by other neighbors and found eight men celebrating.” The reporter, Pablo Guzmán, noted that the police and FBI agents who first arrived “didn’t realize the scope of what happened,” until additional investigators found an architectural model of the World Trade Center on the roof, plus sets of binoculars.

In 2015, Pablo Guzmán recalled: “Far from thousands. Still, it disturbed folks. And Muslims in Jersey City were also talking to police. Angry at cheering.”

On September 17, 2001, The Associated Press reported “rumors of rooftop celebrations of the attack by Muslims” in Jersey City, saying that they were “unfounded.” That night, David Letterman interviewed CBS news anchorman Dan Rather and asked him: “Are they celebrating—?” Dan Rather immediately replied “Oh absolutely, they’re celebrating. There’s one report, uh, this has not been confirmed but there’s several eye reports, and it was a cell, one of these cells, across the Hudson river, and they got on the— this is a report, I emphasize I don’t know this for a fact, but there’s several witnesses who say this happened. They got on a roof of the building, to look across, they knew what was gonna happen, they were waiting for it to happen, and when it happened, they celebrated, they jumped for joy to see this happen”

The next day, The Washington Post reported: “law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.” This article is now famous because Trump quoted it as evidence for his claims.

Backtracking, The Washington Post now states: “The reporters who wrote the story do not recall whether the allegations were ever confirmed.” However, the reporters had interviewed eyewitnesses in Jersey City. As noted by Professor Khawaja: “In an email to me on Dec. 16, 2003, [Serge] Kovaleski indicated that his information had come from the Jersey City Police Department, and that he had confirmed the JCPD’s information via interviews of eyewitnesses of the celebration.” Oddly, Khawaja now regrets having used the word “confirmed.”

Similarly, Emily Acevedo recently tried to un-confirm what she saw in 2001. MTV News interviewed her in 2015, and she said: “What I saw that night is not anything any different than would have happened on any other summer night.” The MTV interviewer points out that in 2001 Acevedo had said that the kids were saying “Burn America.” Acevedo answers that she doesn’t remember that and that “probably” they did not say it.

This is ridiculous and Orwellian: trying to change the past by filming a new news video, with the same person, at the same place, fourteen years later.

MTV News titled their new report: “Trump Is Wrong About People “Cheering” 9/11 In New Jersey – Here’s The Evidence.” This too is ridiculous, because the video includes Curtis Sliwa in 2001 emphatically reporting people “cheering” on 9/11.

But Sliwa too has now modified his early claims. In 2001 he said that “a large group of people” in Paterson celebrated when the Twin Towers were struck, and cheered again when they collapsed. In 2015, Sliwa now says instead that it was just “a small group of unruly teenagers.”

Sliwa recalls: “They said they saw teens banging sticks on the railing of the Paterson Library, cheering as they stared” at the smoke from the destruction. Sliwa now seems to describe the same one event that Acevedo witnessed. However, the events cannot be the same: persons who called Sliwa’s radio shows described cheering and dancing during the morning, when the Twin Towers fell. But Acevedo reported teenagers “chanting and raving” with “so much hate”—on the night of Sept. 11.

However, others in 2015 do recall celebrations.

For example, Jim Burkett was an FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge in Boston during 9/11. He says that during 9/11 and afterward the FBI office received many phone calls reporting celebrations: “we had stacks and stacks of reports of phone calls, on just, Middle Easterners celebrating.” WKRG News reports that back then the so-called “happy Muslim” calls did not seem important enough for the FBI to investigate them. Bear in mind that celebrating is not a crime.

CNN interviewed Bernard Kerik, who was the Commissioner of the New York Police Department in September 2001. Kerik recalled: “We had a number of reports of people celebrating. I remember Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. There were some in Queens. There were some in Jersey, uh, Paterson, New Jersey, uh, I think Jersey City. I was receiving intelligence briefings…” And speaking to One America News Network, former Commissioner Kerik added: “when you take the domestic stuff that was going on, tied into the international coverage, you know, there were tens of thousands of people around the world celebrating and some of them were in New York and New Jersey.”

Also in 2015, CNN interviewed former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani. He recalled: “We did have some celebrating, that is true. We had pockets of celebration, um, some in Queens, some in Brooklyn.” The reporter asked “How many people?” Giuliani replied: “Ten, twelve, thirty, forty.” Giuliani denied that those were rumors, and he gave an example in which a Muslim family was celebrating in the store they owned and were therefore beaten up by youths in an adjacent housing project. He reiterated: “We did have some reports of people celebrating that day, while the towers were coming down.”

A former police officer in Jersey City, Walter Zalisko, informed The Washington Post that on September 11, 2001 he heard on the radio dispatch that officers had found Middle Easterners “clapping and laughing” on rooftops, even in one case knocking down a cardboard version of the Twin Towers. “It was at most a hundred people doing this,” he said.

Also in 2015, NJ Advance Media reported: “there’s a building in Tonnelle Boulevard in Jersey City, and a police captain says he cleared the building, cleared the roof of the building, removing twenty to thirty, twenty to forty, men, women and children,” and that “there’s absolutely no possibility that it was anything but a celebration.” The retired police captain is Peter Gallagher, who was a sergeant back then. He recalls that “Some men were dancing, some held kids on their shoulders.” Meanwhile, “The women were shouting in Arabic and keening in the high-pitched wail of Arabic fashion.” Officer Gallagher recalls that the group consisted of six to ten men, a larger number of women, and some children. Neighbors and The Star-Ledger newspaper reported that a few days later the FBI took several residents of the building into custody.

Officer Gallagher recalls that other police officers also encountered similar celebrations. “The celebrations happened,” he said, especially on rooftops. The New Jersey Police Department issued an order to request that the Muslims who celebrated should abstain from doing so, for their own safety.

NJ Advance Media reports that there was another location of cheering, which was “on the street, not far from a mosque called Al-Salam” (on Tonnelle Ave. and JFK Blvd). Two witnesses described the celebration. Tonnelle Avenue resident, Ron Knight, “had to shoulder his way through the crowd,” of 15 to 20 people on John F. Kennedy Boulevard, on the morning of September 11. Knight recalls that some of the individuals yelled “Allahu Akbar,” and “When I saw they were happy, I was pissed.” Another witness, Carlos Ferran, also reports the gathering on the sidewalk. Ferran recalls that “Some of them had their hands in the air,” and that “They were happy.”

In addition, three police officers reported that on September 11, “callers flooded the 911 system with accounts of jubilant Muslims on a rooftop at a third location.” Reportedly, “lots of calls came into the radio room of the Jersey City Police Department, saying that there were people celebrating on the roof of the building, a very distinctive five story building on [2801] John F. Kennedy Boulevard.”

One of the officers was Arthur Teeter, who worked in the radio room at the police headquarters. Teeter stated that the calls were not second-hand accounts. Instead, callers reported actually seeing the people celebrating on the roof.

Retired police captain Joe Ascolese recalls hearing a police radio call about the building on 2801. He recalls: “I don’t remember the exact words, but it was to the effect of a large amount of people on the roof, and they were celebrating,” and the call asked officers to check it out. A resident of the building itself, Mrs. Robert Evans, recalls that three residents told her about the people cheering on the roof, which angered her.

Officer Teeter also recalls that the 2801 building was one of several buildings about which callers reported rooftop celebrations: “There were enough calls that it was disturbing. That’s the only word I can use.”

NJ Advance Media reports that, “Three additional officers, who remain on the Jersey City force said that they witnessed small groups of Muslim celebrants on Sept. 11, but they would not speak for attribution, citing a department policy that prohibits media interviews.” One is a high-ranking officer who said: “I saw it with my own eyes.”

NJ Advance Media adds: “Eleven other officers claimed to have been witnesses to celebrations in postings on Facebook.”

Matthew H. Rudd, an attorney in New Jersey, informed The Washington Post that three days after the attacks, as he left the courthouse in Paterson midday, “half a dozen cars full of young Arabic-looking men drove by blaring Arabic music and cheering loudly. I do not have any recordings or photos, but I can tell you that it was a very disturbing and unsettling sight.”

Next, Joseph Rakowski was Mayor of Jersey City in 1992, a Democrat. In 2015, he too recalls that some people in Jersey City celebrated the destruction of the World Trade Center. Rakowski said that: “he too remembers images of people at Liberty State Park on the waterfront in Jersey City cheering as the towers fell. The callous behavior also occurred at a Downtown housing development that was shown on television at the time.”

Other people claim that they personally witnessed people celebrating on September 11, in New Jersey.

For example, the article in NJ.COM/NEWS that reports the findings of NJ Advance Media generated more than 1,700 comments by readers, in just five days. I counted at least nineteen readers who wrote that they saw celebrations. Nine of them claim that they saw it on television. For example: “I remembered that ABC was showing on the news a relatively decent size group of people celebrating on the street and, some Muslim women making some foolish noises of celebration in Paterson. It was shocking to me to see that…” We might choose to disregard some reports, but the evidence is abundant, both solid and merely apparent.

Likewise, the radio station New Jersey 101.5 started collecting comments about the reported celebrations of September 11. For example, Lisa-Ann Andrioli Moyer writes: “I most definitely saw them. They were on the news, in Paterson, New Jersey, dancing and cheering. There were large groups of people in the streets. It was horrifying to see and you don’t forget that.” Thomas J. Penicaro too wrote: “I worked for PSEG [electric power company] in Clifton on the Paterson border and I witnessed it firsthand. They were celebrating in the street cheering and stomping on the flag.” Patrick Kiernan wrote: “They were celebrating all around the area of the mosque on Getty Ave. in Paterson. You can’t tell me they weren’t because I lived there when it happened and I observed the clashes in the city at the time.”

Plus, I counted thirty-seven Facebook users who posted comments on the Facebook page of radio station NJ 101.5 stating that they saw celebrations in New Jersey. I strongly doubt some of these postings. Still, nine claim that the events happened in Paterson, and four specify Jersey City. Most of them claim to recall news reports. Thirteen of them claim to have seen such celebrations in person. For example, Denice Wojtowicz wrote: “I saw celebrating in western/central NJ. Small groups of 10-20 at local Dunkin Donuts, and at least 2 convenience stores.” And she added, “I have relatives in NJ closer to NYC and saw small groups celebrating also.”

Knowing nearly none of the information above, many people imagine that no such events happened. They imagine that all witnesses must be delusional. Some argue as if anything not available in videos did not happen. Others argue as if anything not documented in available police reports did not happen either. Others argue that any individual report is merely anecdotal and “unconfirmed.”

From a historical perspective, such attitudes are unjustified. In fact, most events in human history are not documented by news or police reports. And countless many real events only generate individual accounts.

Many readers deny that anyone celebrated in New Jersey. Someone says: “It happened, I saw it. I was there, people celebrated.” But a skeptic replies: “No, that did not happen, you are delusional.” This reply is disrespectful and unwarranted if the skeptic wasn’t at that same place back then or lacks contradictory accounts by others who were there, etc.

The evidence I’ve reviewed refers to roughly 20 locations in New Jersey where celebrations were seen, including at least three rooftops. I estimate that these particular celebrations involved roughly 250 participants. These celebrations included cheering, yelling, and even dancing. The witnesses I’ve summarized consist of more than 80 individuals who reported seeing people celebrating or cheering during September 11 or soon thereafter. These witnesses include 21 police officers. The NYPD Commissioner confirms that celebrations did transpire in parts of New Jersey. In no way is my accounting complete or conclusive. Additional New Jersey residents also say they saw people celebrating. Some specify that their statements should not be construed as support for Trump’s politics.

So, the current mayor of Jersey City was wrong: some people in New Jersey did cheer on 9/11. The current Paterson police Commissioner was wrong: some people were dancing on 9/11. Likewise, Attorney General John Farmer Jr. was wrong to claim: “No dancing, no celebrating, had occurred.” Presidential candidate Jeb Bush too was wrong: “There wasn’t any cheering.” The Arab Times was wrong: “There is not one scrap of evidence suggesting Arabs were celebrating 9-11 in New Jersey.” CNN news anchor, Carol Costello was utterly wrong: “No one can remember that. No one.”

In contrast, Donald Trump was right—in qualitative ways.

Trump was right that some people cheered and celebrated in Jersey City. He was right that it happened on September 11, while the World Trade Center collapsed. He was right that it happened in Paterson too. He was right that some were dancing. He was right that there were television reports. He was right that many people saw it in person. He was right that many people in New Jersey do remember it.

Most reporters have not acknowledged that he was right about those points, while critics were wrong. Instead, commentators narrowed their critiques on one quantitative claim: that Trump originally said that “thousands and thousands” cheered.

Trump had spoken spontaneously, without a script. Many people say that his words were a vicious lie. Instead I think that he misremembered and exaggerated.

If Trump really meant that he saw thousands cheering in one street in New Jersey, then he too is wrong. There might exist a video of some people cheering, I don’t know. But too many residents of New Jersey have discussed their experiences in 9/11 and I have not found even one who claims that thousands celebrated in any one place.

In interviews, he did not repeat that he actually saw thousands all at once. He just said he saw people cheering on television and read about it. He says he doesn’t know how many people. At a rally in Ohio, on November 23, 2105, he said he saw people “in fairly large numbers…” On December 14, in Las Vegas, he explained: “You know, when I said thousands of people are dancing in the street, and then I found reports all over the place, they said: ‘Oh well, but he did say thousands!’ Who knows how many? A lot of people.”

Nobody knows how many people celebrated the tragedy of September 11.

We all make mistakes and exaggerations when remembering past events. You choose which is worst: saying that something happened in awfully large numbers, or saying that it never happened at all.

 

An expanded, revised version of this article is now available in the new book: The Media Versus the Apprentice: The Devil Mr. Trump.

 

Alberto A. Martinez is a professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.

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