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Trump and the First Lady Participate in the 9/11 Observance Ceremony at the Pentagon, Sep. 11, 2026

September 11, 2026 · The White House · 1:32:02

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump participated in the observance ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks at the Pentagon on September 11, 2026, carried in full on the White House channel. The ceremony included the reading of the names of the 184 people killed at the Pentagon, each followed by a bell.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth spoke before the President: “we never forget at this very hour a quarter century ago, Islamic terrorists murdered 184 Americans right here at the Pentagon… All told, Islamist terrorists murdered nearly 3,000 of our fellow Americans that day, 25 years ago.” He credited the attacks with inspiring a generation to step forward — “Here I am, Lord. Send me” — and tied the commemoration to the current fight, saying of Iran that “the United States has killed their leaders, destroyed their air force, and their navy rests at the bottom of the sea… We are ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”

The President’s remarks walked the morning of the attack through the people aboard American Airlines Flight 77 — “three 11-year-old students heading on a cross-country field trip, a father and a mother with their two young daughters,” a flight attendant who had just learned she was expecting — and the people at work in the building, before stating the toll as he gave it: “2,977 beautiful souls were ripped from our world.” He opened: “25 times we have gathered at this hallowed place and at ground zero in New York and a lonely field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania… time has not dimmed the honor of that day when our country came face to face with true evil.”

Why it matters

The 25th anniversary is the set-piece commemoration of the second term’s defense calendar: the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of War at the Pentagon, with the Secretary’s remarks explicitly binding the memory of 9/11 to the administration’s ongoing war with Iran — the frame through which this administration presents that war at home.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump and the First Lady Participate in the 9/11 Observance Ceremony” (official upload, embedded above; the upload’s description places the ceremony at Arlington, VA). All figures and characterizations as stated by Secretary Hegseth and the President at the ceremony.