Former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on Friday with a post on X honoring the ordinary Americans who rushed to help strangers in the days and years after the towers fell, writing that the instinct to help “in the aftermath of catastrophe” remains one of the day’s most important lessons a quarter-century later.
Clinton, who represented New York in the U.S. Senate at the time of the attacks, published the remembrance at 10:06 a.m. on Friday, September 11, 2026, accompanied by a longer written statement reflecting on the 2,977 lives lost and the “unimaginable loss” carried by survivors and victims’ families in the years since.
The Full Post
Clinton’s post read in full:
“Something worth remembering 25 years after 9/11: in the aftermath of catastrophe, people look around, they see what is needed, and they help.”
Attached to the post was a longer statement, which read in its entirety: “In the days following 9/11, people were everywhere, doing whatever they could. First responders were searching through the rubble at Ground Zero. Medical workers were treating people. Volunteers were bringing food and water. Construction workers were clearing debris. Americans everywhere were helping strangers. People who had every reason to be frightened kept showing up for one another. That is something worth remembering 25 years later: in the aftermath of catastrophe, people look around, they see what is needed, and they help. If you survived 9/11, or lost someone you love that day, you know that the tragedy didn’t end when the towers fell. It didn’t end when the debris was cleared, or when the cameras left Lower Manhattan, the Pentagon, and a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. For many, the consequences have continued for 25 years. You have carried memories that most people can only imagine. You have lived with illnesses and injuries. You have lost people you love and feel their absence on birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and all the ordinary moments of a life that went on without them. Some have spent years making sure that your loved ones are remembered. Others have spent years making sure that those who became sick after 9/11 receive the care they need. And a third of Americans today weren’t alive or were too young to remember 9/11. You know that day through stories from your parents and grandparents, from photographs and videos. That gives all of us a special responsibility. To listen to those who were there, remember the people we lost, and carry forward the courage and resilience our communities showed in the face of unimaginable loss. That is how, as a nation, we will never forget. — HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON”
Honoring Those Who “Kept Showing Up”
The statement centers on the volunteers, first responders and ordinary civilians who converged on Ground Zero, the Pentagon and Lower Manhattan in the hours and days after the attacks. Clinton singled out several groups by name — first responders digging through the rubble, medical workers treating the wounded, volunteers distributing food and water, and construction workers clearing debris — describing them collectively as Americans who, despite having “every reason to be frightened,” continued showing up for one another.
A Tragedy That Did Not End With the Towers
Much of Clinton’s statement is devoted to the argument that the consequences of the attacks extended far beyond the day itself. She wrote that the tragedy “didn’t end when the towers fell” or “when the debris was cleared,” pointing instead to a quarter-century of aftermath carried by survivors and victims’ families — including lasting illnesses and injuries, and the ongoing absence of loved ones felt “on birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and all the ordinary moments of a life that went on without them.”
Clinton also noted a generational shift in how the country now relates to the attacks, observing that a third of Americans alive today were either not yet born or too young to remember September 11, 2001, and now know the day only through the accounts of parents and grandparents and through photographs and video. She framed that shift as creating what she called “a special responsibility” for all Americans to listen to survivors, remember those lost and carry forward the resilience shown in the attacks’ aftermath.
A Week of Reflection From Clinton
Friday’s post capped a week in which Clinton engaged repeatedly and publicly with the anniversary. On Thursday, she appeared in an interview with NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell at the VOICES 25th Anniversary Symposium, an event dedicated to reflecting on the attacks, where she warned that the current administration is not doing enough to counter resurgent terrorist threats a quarter-century later. “I worry a lot that we’ve let down our guard on counterterrorism, and I don’t say this to scare anybody or to exaggerate, but I think we are not paying enough attention to resurgent terrorist actions,” Clinton said. She added that “the threat did not go away — it receded — but it is still there, and there are still many thousands of extremists in the world who wish us a great deal of ill.”
An Op-Ed on 9/11’s Unfinished Story
Clinton also published an essay in The Atlantic this week titled “What the Aftermath of 9/11 Taught Me,” in which she wrote about a different dimension of the attacks’ legacy: newly released city records on air quality in Lower Manhattan following the collapse. Clinton wrote that twenty-five years after 9/11, much has already been documented about the day and its aftermath — the lives lost, the heroism of first responders, and the resilience of the city — but that she wanted to focus on a part of the story still coming into focus, as New York City makes roughly 170,000 pages of documents related to post-attack air quality available for the first time.
Recalling Ground Zero as New York’s Senator
At a separate 25th anniversary memorial event held at Borough of Manhattan Community College, Clinton offered a firsthand account of the day, describing her return to New York from Washington in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. “We landed at LaGuardia, took a helicopter and asked the pilots to circle over Ground Zero,” Clinton said, adding, “I saw it from that helicopter window.” She recounted seeing people below “desperately, desperately digging for survivors” before landing on the West Side and meeting with then-Governor George Pataki and then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and described making her way toward the site itself, which she said looked like “a black curtain on this great stage that was filled with all of the debris.” She also recalled a specific image from the wreckage: “I remember seeing a firefighter break through, a foot, an arm, an ax.”
Clinton’s advocacy for 9/11 survivors extended well beyond the attacks themselves. As New York’s senator, she was among the lawmakers who pushed for years to establish the federal program that became the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which funds medical care for first responders and others who developed long-term illnesses tied to toxic exposure at the World Trade Center site; the legislation was ultimately signed into law after she left the Senate to become Secretary of State.
Part of a Broader National Commemoration
Clinton’s statement was one of several released Friday by current and former political leaders as the country marked the 25th anniversary of the attacks. Vice President JD Vance and former Presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with several former first ladies, gathered at Ground Zero in New York City for a ceremony honoring the 2,753 people killed in the World Trade Center attack, sitting together as the names of the dead were read aloud. They were joined by other political figures including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, former New York Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Governor Kathy Hochul. President Donald Trump marked the anniversary separately at the Pentagon, where 184 people were killed in the 2001 attack.
Former President Bill Clinton also released his own written statement Friday, echoing several of the same themes his wife raised. “We can’t erase the nightmare that so many have lived through and are still living with today, but we can support the people who have given and lost so much by treating one another with respect, in person and online, and recognizing that what we have in common is far more important than what divides us,” he wrote, adding that as the attacks “move further from lived experience into history,” the anniversary should be an occasion “to come together and keep alive the memories of all who were lost.”
A Consistent Message Across the Years
Friday’s statement continues a pattern in Clinton’s public remarks on prior anniversaries of the attacks, in which she has repeatedly framed 9/11 as a call to national unity and vigilance against extremism. During a 2022 appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” marking the 21st anniversary, Clinton told anchor Dana Bash that the day “serves as a sobering reminder” that the country must “deal with extremism of any kind, especially when it uses violence to try to achieve political and ideological goals,” and reflected on how lawmakers from both parties had set aside partisanship to rally behind the country in the attacks’ immediate aftermath.