‘We Deserved It’: New York Leftists Defend 9/11

As Americans prepare to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, a new Daily Wire collaboration with filmmaker Ami Horowitz found a disturbing number of individuals in New York expressing sympathy for or justifying the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.  

Horowitz traveled to Manhattan’s East Village, where he asked people about 9/11 and what they thought about the terrorist attacks. The responses were startling.

One person incorrectly insisted the attacks occurred on September 10. Others spouted conspiracy theories, including one person who claimed George W. Bush was “heavily implicated” in orchestrating 9/11. Another said the way the World Trade Center towers collapsed was “too weird” to have been caused by planes. “I think Israel, America behind it all,” another person said, adding an apparent reference to hundreds of years of alleged atrocities. But the interviews went far beyond conspiracy theories.

Horowitz asked one interviewee whether he would describe September 11 as a terrorist attack. “I think it was like an act of war,” the person responded. “I would say it was an act of violence.” When Horowitz pressed him on whether he considered the attacks terrorism, the man rejected the description. Horowitz then asked whether the perpetrators could instead be considered “freedom fighters.”

“Yeah,” the man answered.

Another interviewee said violence could be justified when there was no other solution.

“I would say it’s good to act on violence if there’s no other solution,” the person said.

When Horowitz asked whether Americans deserved the attack as a consequence of American foreign policy, multiple interviewees answered yes.

“If you’re being totally honest,” Horowitz asked one person, “we deserved it?”

“I would say that, yeah,” the person responded. “To be completely honest, yeah.”

Another interviewee was even more direct.

“The amount of atrocities the U.S. has committed, had, or has directly contributed to. Yeah, we deserve it. Yeah, we deserve it,” the person said.

Asked whether another 9/11 would cause the person to lose sleep, the response was blunt.

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

Another interviewee described a future attack as potentially necessary to force political change.

“If that’s what needs to happen for things to change, then yeah,” the person said.

The conversation then moved from terrorism to revolution. One interviewee said they hoped a revolution would come to the United States and acknowledged that revolutions are generally violent.

“Right, of course,” the person said when Horowitz suggested that force was often involved in revolution.

Another person invoked the French Revolution and its bloody history.

“Why the f*ck can’t we do what the French did and, like, cut their head off?” the person asked.

Horowitz responded by asking whether America should have a similar uprising.

“Exactly,” the interviewee answered.

Horowitz recounted that, among the people he interviewed, “two-thirds agreed that we deserved 9/11.”

The interviews come as a broader debate over the political Left’s views on September 11 has resurfaced ahead of the anniversary. Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has faced renewed scrutiny over his association with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who previously said that “America deserved 9/11” before later walking back the remark.

El-Sayed has repeatedly declined to sever ties with Piker, including after appearing with him during his Senate campaign. The candidate has also faced scrutiny over deleted social media posts discussing 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

CBS News reported in August on deleted posts in which El-Sayed compared the response to the September 11 attacks with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a 2021 post, he contrasted the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11 with deaths resulting from the wars that followed. El-Sayed has said he unequivocally condemns the attacks.

The controversy followed El-Sayed to the Islamic Society of North America’s annual convention in Detroit this month, where he appeared alongside The Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur and Muslim cleric Zaid Shakir.

Both Uygur and Shakir have publicly questioned aspects of the official account of 9/11. Uygur wrote earlier this year that he no longer believed the official 9/11 story, while Shakir has called for an examination of what he described as weaknesses and inconsistencies in the government’s account. El-Sayed did not discuss those conspiracy theories during his appearance and instead focused his remarks on opposition to anti-Muslim sentiment.

For most Americans, September 11 remains one of the clearest examples of national tragedy and shared memory in modern American history. But Horowitz’s interviews reveal that, 25 years later, many people view the attacks through a radically different lens. That is a far more disturbing anniversary message than any conspiracy theory.

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