Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 Americans, a new video collaboration between The Daily Wire and filmmaker Ami Horowitz reveals that a disturbing number of New Yorkers not only reject the official narrative but openly defend the terrorist attacks as justified.
Horowitz took to Manhattan’s East Village ahead of the anniversary to ask residents about 9/11. The responses ranged from simple misinformation to full-throated endorsement of the violence that brought down the Twin Towers.
One person incorrectly insisted the attacks occurred on September 10. Others offered conspiracy theories: a man claimed George W. Bush was “heavily implicated” in organizing the attacks, while another said the way the towers collapsed was “too weird” to have been caused by planes. “I think Israel, America behind it all,” another person volunteered, referencing what they described as centuries of alleged atrocities.
But the most striking pauses came when Horowitz pushed past the theories and asked directly about accountability.
When he asked one person whether they would call September 11 a terrorist attack, the man rejected the term. “I think it was like an act of war,” he said. “I would say it was an act of violence,” he added before declining to describe the attackers as terrorists. When Horowitz asked whether the hijackers might instead be considered “freedom fighters,” the individual did not push back.
Another person said violence could be justified “if there’s no other solution.”
Several interviews took an even darker turn. When Horowitz asked whether Americans “deserved” the attacks as a consequence of U.S. foreign policy, multiple people said yes.
“If you’re being totally honest—we deserved it?” Horowitz asked one man. “I would say that, yeah,” the man replied. “To be completely honest, yeah.”
Another person was more emphatic. “The amount of atrocities the U.S. has committed, had, or has directly contributed to—yeah, we deserve it. Yeah, we deserve it.”
Horowitz also asked whether another 9/11 would disturb the person’s sleep. Given the context, the response suggested it would not.
One interviewee went further, expressing hope that mass violence could trigger political change in the United States. “If that’s what needs to happen for things to change, then yeah,” the person said.
The interviews also captured revolutionary sentiment. When Horowitz noted that revolutions are generally violent, one person responded, “Right, of course.” Another invoked the French Revolution and its guillotines, asking, “Why the f— can’t we do what the French did and, like, cut their head off?”
Horowitz said that among the people he interviewed, roughly “two-thirds agreed that we deserved 9/11.”
A Broader Debate Resurfaces
The video arrives as the American Left’s relationship with the memory of 9/11 faces renewed scrutiny, particularly in the Michigan Senate race.
Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed has been pressed on his continued association with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who previously claimed “America deserved 9/11” before retracting the remark. El-Sayed, who has appeared with Piker during his campaign, has repeatedly declined to cut ties with the streamer.
CBS News reported that El-Sayed had previously deleted social media posts comparing the 9/11 aftermath to the COVID-19 pandemic, including a 2021 post contrasting the nearly 3,000 deaths on 9/11 to those from the subsequent wars. El-Sayed has said he “unequivocally condemns” the attacks.
At the Islamic Society of North America’s annual convention in Detroit this month, El-Sayed appeared alongside The Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur and Muslim cleric Zaid Shakir—both of whom have publicly questioned aspects of the official 9/11 account. Uygur has said he no longer believes the government’s story, and Shakir has called for examining “weaknesses” and “inconsistencies” in it. El-Sayed did not engage those theories onstage, instead focusing his remarks on opposing anti-Muslim sentiment.
‘A Far More Disturbing Anniversary Message’
For most Americans, September 11 remains a defining moment of shared loss and resilience. But Horowitz’s interviews suggest that, 25 years later, a segment of the public views the attacks not as a national tragedy but as a point scored in a political grievance.
As the filmmaker put it, that may be “a far more disturbing anniversary message than any conspiracy theory.”
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-deserved-it-new-york-leftists-defend-9-11-rhf-popup