On Monday, President Joe Biden will mark the 22nd anniversary of the September 11th attacks in Alaska instead of the traditional New York City, Virginia or Pennsylvania events.
The president will be returning from his overseas trip to India for the G20 summit and his first visit to Vietnam since taking office. He is set to speak in front of 1,000 first responders and their families at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska, the White House said.
What You Need To Know
- On Monday, President Joe Biden will mark the 22nd anniversary of the September 11th attacks in Alaska instead of the traditional New York City, Virginia or Pennsylvania events
- The president will be returning from his overseas trip to India for the G20 summit and his first visit to Vietnam since taking office
- He will speak in front of 1,000 first responders and their families at an Anchorage, Alaska, military base, the White House said
- Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to New York to visit the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan
- First Lady Jill Biden will visit the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial to lay a wreath and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will visit Shanksville, Pennsylvania for a ceremony honoring the victims of Flight 93
Vice President Kamala Harris will instead be dispatched to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan to honor the lives lost in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield will join the vice president in New York.
Elsewhere, First Lady Jill Biden will visit the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, to lay a wreath. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will also be in attendance.
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will visit Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for a ceremony honoring the victims of United Airlines Flight 93, the only one of the four planes that day that did not reach its intended target after passengers attempted to overpower the hijackers.
And Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough will take part in a 9/11 National Day of Service event at a VA cemetery in Baltimore.
In his first year as president, Biden visited all three memorial locations in New York, Shanksville and Arlington on the 20th anniversary of the attacks. In 2022, he marked the occasion at the Pentagon.
“Twenty-one years, and still we kept our promise: never forget. We’ll keep the memory of all those precious lives stolen from us: 2,977 — at Ground Zero in New York; in Shanksville… in Pennsylvania; 184 of them here at the Pentagon,” Biden said last year. “It’s good to remember. These memories help us heal, but they can also open up the hurt and take us back to that moment when the grief was so raw.”
Biden’s visit to Alaska will not be the first time that a president has not attended annual observances at any of the three sites.
In 2015, President Barack Obama participated in a moment of silence on the White House lawn before going to Fort Meade in Maryland to recognize the military’s work protecting the country.
In 2005, President George W. Bush marked the anniversary on the White House lawn.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
