Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to attend a ceremony honoring the victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attack on Wednesday, the 23rd anniversary.
Each year, a ceremony is held in New York City to pay tribute to the more than 3,000 people killed during the attack. Harris is expected to attend alongside President Joe Biden.
The event is nonpolitical, and politicians attending typically avoid the political back-and-forth on the attack’s anniversary. This year, it comes amid her tight presidential campaign against former President Donald Trump.
It is customary for politicians to pay tribute to the victims each year, and Harris has been no exception, previously releasing statements about the attack.
Robert Y. Shapiro, a professor of political science at Columbia University, told Newsweek that both Harris and Trump should avoid making their messages commemorating the attacks political.
“This is going to be the day after their debate. They should just pay their respects to the victims and move on to the campaign the next day. Any showboating would not be received well as I see it,” Shapiro said.
James Forest, the director of Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, explained how Harris should craft her message on the anniversary.
“I think it would be in Harris’ best interest to emphasize that the current administration’s national security and counterterrorism strategies have been effective to date and that a large part of this is due to our trusted and mutually beneficial partnerships with key allies around the world,” Forest told Newsweek.
“Undermining and fracturing those partnerships will significantly reduce our ability to confront the global threat of terrorism that the 9/11 attacks represent,” he said.
Newsweek reached out to the Harris campaign for comment via email.
Vice President Kamala Harris attends the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony in New York City on September 11, 2023. Harris has spoken about the 9/11 terror attack over the years.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Kamala Harris’ Sept. 11 Statement in 2023
Harris paid tribute to 9/11 victims in 2023 in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“We will never forget the 2,977 lives lost twenty-two years ago today at Ground Zero, Shanksville, and the Pentagon. We remain indebted to the heroic first responders, and our hearts are with the family members and friends who lost loved ones,” the vice president wrote.
She also attended the memorial ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City.
Kamala Harris Compared Sept. 11 to January 6
During a speech on January 6, 2022, marking the second anniversary of the riot at the U.S. Capitol by a group of Trump supporters, Harris drew a comparison between the January 6 and the September 11 attacks.
“Certain dates echo throughout history, including dates that instantly remind all who have lived through them—where they were and what they were doing when our democracy came under assault. Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars but a place in our collective memory. December 7, 1941. September 11, 2001. And January 6, 2021,” she said.
The speech sparked criticism from those who believed the Capitol riot was not comparable to 9/11.
Kamala Harris’ 2021 Shanksville, Pennsylvania Speech
In 2021, Harris delivered remarks at the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where a plane headed for Washington, D.C., crashed after passengers took control from the al-Qaeda hijackers. All 40 passengers, as well as the hijackers, died.
“So many in our nation—too many in our nation—have deeply felt the passage of time these last 20 years. Every birthday your loved one missed. Every holiday. Every time her favorite team won or his favorite song came on the radio. Every time you’ve tucked in your children or dropped them off at college. You have felt every day, every week, and every year that has passed these 20 years,” Harris said. “So, please know your nation sees you, and we stand with you, and we support you.”
She praised the 40 passengers of the plane, who she said were fighting for “their lives and ours.”
“In a matter of minutes, in the most dire of circumstances, the 40 responded as one. They fought for their own lives and to save the lives of countless others at our nation’s capital,” she said.
During the speech, she touched on the “unity” she saw in the days following the attack.
“We were reminded also that unity is imperative in America. It is essential to our shared prosperity, to our national security, and to our standing in the world. And by unity, I don’t mean uniformity. We had differences of opinion in 2001, as we do in 2021. And I believe that in America, our diversity is our strength,” she said.
Harris also noted that Americans saw how the attacks were used “to sow division in our nation as Sikh and Muslim Americans were targeted because of how they looked or how they worshipped.”
Kamala Harris’ Speech in Virginia in 2020
In 2020, Harris spoke in Fairfax, Virginia, on the 19th anniversary of the attacks. She said she was at a gym at the time of the attack and that everyone “stopped, got off their equipment, and we all stood around in utter disbelief.”
“Out of that tragedy, and as we tried to reconcile and understand what was happening, without any reflection, we as Americans, as our first reaction, without pause, was to hug and hold each other,” she said. “Perfect strangers, understanding at our core, without reflection, without thinking about it, that we’re all in this together.”
Harris said Americans “by our very nature of we stand together” during times of tragedy and that the victims “will never be defined by the story of those who stole them away.”
“They will be defined by their humanity. By their story. By their laughter that still echoes in the homes and hearts of those who loved them. What our attackers failed to understand is that the darkness they hoped would envelop us on 9/11 instead summoned our most radiant and defined human instincts. The instincts to care for one another, to transcend our divisions,” she said.
Kamala Harris’ 2019 Statement
Harris also released a statement commemorating the anniversary in 2019.
“We will always remember the lives we lost on 9/11, the first responders who ran towards danger to save others, and those who gave their lives to keep our nation safe. Even amidst one of our darkest moments, our country came together to show the world we won’t be shaken by fear,” she wrote.
