President Joe Biden is receiving criticism for commemorating the 9/11 attacks in Alaska rather than New York or any other memorial site.
Biden, who traveled back from Vietnam on Monday after attending the G20 summit in New Delhi, India, will deliver remarks on the 22nd anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage.
It will be the first time that a sitting president will not commemorate the tragedy at one of the attack sites at New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania, or from the White House.
Instead, first lady Jill Biden will lay a wreath at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon, which was struck by American Airlines Flight 77, on Monday. Vice President Kamala Harris will be at the ceremony on the National September 11 Memorial and Museum plaza at ground zero in New York. Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, will attend an event at Flight 93 National Memorial in Stoystown to commemorate those who died in plane crash in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back against hijackers.
Despite the anniversary events coinciding with the president's overseas commitments, Biden has been criticized for commenting about the attacks from the other side of the country. Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for comment.
"Yes, Biden was in India this weekend for the G20 conference. But he couldn't arrange his schedule to make it back for a 9/11 ceremony, instead doing a flyby on the remotest part of US soil?" wrote Andrea Peyser, columnist for the New York Post. "It may have been 22 years, but New Yorkers remember."
Leonard Greene, opinion writer for the New York Daily News, added: "Biden will attend a 9/11 commemoration ceremony with military families on a patch of soil that seems about as far away from New York City as one can get—Anchorage, Alaska.
"The president will be returning from a previously planned state visit to Vietnam on Sunday, which means he won't attend the solemn event in Lower Manhattan for the second straight year."
Biden visited all three 9/11 memorial sites in 2021 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the attacks. Last year, he gave remarks from the Pentagon to pay respects to the nearly 3,000 people who died in the attacks.
In post on X, formerly Twitter, Florida GOP Representative Corey Mills noted that Biden's "inability" to make it to New York, Virginia or Pennsylvania will make him the only president since the 9/11 attacks who did not go to a memorial site, or at least the White House, to "acknowledge the horrible incident" on September 11, 2001.
"Instead, Biden is having Vice President Harris, and her husband, going. He also has his wife, Jill Biden, going to lay the wreaths. I don't think Joe Biden has the mental competency to do it himself, but it's again, one more snub to the American people," Mills wrote.
Military veterans have also hit out at Biden for once again not being in New York for the 9/11 anniversary.
Victor Marx, a Marine Corps veteran, told the Washington Examiner that Biden not visiting New York City sends the wrong message.
"By not visiting the sites, President Biden will miss an opportunity to demonstrate his dedication to upholding the values and principles that define our nation, and it may leave some questioning his understanding of the significance of this solemn day in American history," Marx said.
As noted by independent journalist Aaron Rupar, Biden is "damned if he does and damned if he doesn't" regarding where he would be on September 11 this year.
"Biden is still in Asia as part of his G20 trip and will be on his way back tomorrow, so Fox attacks him for not being able to attend 9/11 events," Rupar posted on X while sharing a screengrab of Fox News' coverage of Biden. "But if he skipped the G20 they'd attack him for that. I guess he should've cloned himself."
This is not the first time that a sitting president will not attend an event at any of the three 9/11 memorial sites to commemorate the September 11 attacks. In 2015, President Barack Obama took part in a moment of silence on the White House lawn before visiting the military base in Fort Meade in Maryland.
President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time of the attacks, marked the fourth anniversary on the White House lawn in 2005.
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Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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