On 9/11 anniversary, GOP Sen. Wendy Rogers boosts old Trump claim that bombs took down the towers

Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) on the opening day of the 2022 legislative session. Photo by Gage Skidmore (modified) | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

Flagstaff Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers shared a post on the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks amplifying debunked conspiracy theories around the national tragedy. 

Rogers, known for her far-right affiliations and amplification of white nationalists along with election fraud conspiracy theories, reposted a user on X, formerly Twitter, spreading debunked claims of bombs in the building as well as an antisemitic conspiracy theory around the attacks. 

The post, by a user who has promoted a number of conspiracy theories, including ones with anti-vaccine messaging, shared part of a video clip of former President Donald Trump being interviewed by a New York television station on Sept. 11, 2001, discussing the attacks just hours after the twin towers at the World Trade Center collapsed. 

In the clip, Trump says he believed that the attackers had bombs “go off simultaneously” along with the planes. 

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Conspiracy theorists have clung onto the early frantic reports of that day to claim that the two aircraft could not have brought down the twin towers without assistance. That theory has been thoroughly debunked. 

“I think there was just a plane with more than just fuel,” Trump says in the video, citing the steel in the towers as being “rock solid.” 

The claim that the steel could not have melted as a result of the jet fuel and explosion from the aircraft hitting the World Trade Center towers has also been repeatedly discredited. 

The post also appears to allude to an antisemitic conspiracy theory around Larry Silverstein, the building’s new owner at the time. Silverstein had acquired the World Trade Center complex less than two months before the terrorist attack, thrusting him into the sights of conspiracists who focused on the “Jewish owners” of the buildings who they claimed stood to gain from its destruction. 

Many of the theories revolve around Silverstein having foreknowledge of the attack and using it to obtain millions of dollars in insurance money, incorporating a common antisemitic trope about Jewish people being greedy. Silverstein was instrumental in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center after 9/11. 

The post Rogers amplified also spreads the false claim that Donald Rumsfield, who was secretary of defense at the time, had revealed that $2.3 trillion had been lost from the Pentagon’s budget a day prior to the 9/11 attack on America’s military headquarters. 

That figure had been mentioned a year prior, and while Rumsfeld did remark about the missing money in a speech on the day before, it was not the first time it had ever been mentioned. 

Auditors released a report in early 2000 about financial statements for the fiscal year 1999 by the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense stating that $2.3 trillion “was not supported by adequate audit trails or sufficient evidence to determine their validity.” 

Many users in the replies to the post shared other conspiracy theories around the attack. 

This is the second year in a row where a member of the Arizona Senate Republican caucus has amplified conspiracy theories around the 9/11 attack on the anniversary. 

Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson, who has also appeared on an antisemitic talk show alongside Rogers, shared a fake transcript from United Flight 93 and liked multiple posts on social media alluding to the events of the day being a “false flag” and an “inside job.” 

Rogers did not respond to a request for comment. Senate President Warren Petersen and Arizona GOP Chairwoman Gina Swoboda did not respond to a request for comment about Rogers’ post. 

More than a decade ago, the Arizona Senate was home to a different GOP senator who spread 9/11 conspiracy theories. Sen. Karen Johnson, from Mesa, asked for a reinvestigation into the attacks on a speech on the Senate floor and gave each of her colleagues a DVD featuring a short film promoting 9/11 conspiracies.