9/11 families appeal directly to Trump as Obama's JASTA veto echoes at 25th anniversary ceremony

At the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, families of the nearly 3,000 victims stood at Ground Zero and called on President Trump to release unredacted files they believe implicate Saudi Arabia, while singling out former President Obama for blocking their path to justice a decade ago.

Terry Strada, whose husband Tom was killed in the attacks, took the stage at the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum in lower Manhattan on a cloudy Thursday morning and delivered an accusation aimed squarely at the former presidents seated in front of her. Vice President JD Vance, former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton, along with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, all attended the ceremony. Strada did not spare any of them.

She told the crowd at the memorial:

"Administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families. They withheld evidence. They vetoed JASTA. They broke promises, both public and private. It has been one betrayal after another."

The reference to JASTA, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, a federal law that allows 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia over its alleged role in the attacks, landed hardest on Obama. He vetoed the bill in 2016. Congress overrode that veto, but the families have never forgotten that Obama tried to stop them.

Strada then turned her appeal to Trump, saying he "can still change that." She urged the president to tell Saudi leaders that "if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction that we have all been suffering through."

Families say every administration blocked their fight for answers

Away from the stage, family members told Fox News Digital that the frustration runs far deeper than one veto. Dennis McGinley, whose older brother Danny worked on the 89th floor of the South Tower, described a quarter-century of obstruction.

"Administration after administration has not done anything for us. In fact, they've blocked, blocked us every step of the way of getting justice."

McGinley recalled calling his brother after the first plane hit. Danny told him it was a passenger jet and described seeing people jumping from the neighboring tower. Danny was told to remain in place. McGinley never spoke to his brother again.

Twenty-five years later, he framed the moment in blunt terms:

"President Trump has a unique, historic opportunity here to be a hero, be our champion, finally close the books on this American nightmare, which is now becoming an American embarrassment. It's got to start."

Obama's return to the political stage has drawn renewed attention in recent months. He has rejoined the fundraising circuit alongside Democratic leaders, but at Ground Zero, his legacy carried a different weight, one measured in vetoed legislation and years of withheld evidence, at least in the eyes of the families seated a few rows away from him.

A federal judge let the Saudi case move forward in 2025

The families' legal fight has gained ground. In August 2025, U.S. District Judge George Daniels allowed claims against Saudi Arabia to proceed in a long-running civil case, finding that the families had presented enough evidence to move toward trial. The ruling did not determine that Saudi Arabia was responsible for the attacks, but it kept the courthouse door open after years of procedural maneuvering.

The case draws on connections documented by the 9/11 Commission. The commission found that Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, helped two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, obtain an apartment in San Diego. Fahad al-Thumairy, an accredited Saudi diplomat who served as imam at the King Fahd Mosque in California, had numerous contacts with al-Bayoumi. The commission, however, did not conclude that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials supported the plot, and it said investigators found no evidence that another Saudi national, Osama Bassnan, gave money to the hijackers.

Families point to additional FBI and British intelligence material as grounds for pushing further. They want the remaining files released without redactions, a demand that no president has fully met.

White House spokesperson Olivia Wales told Fox News Digital that Trump has already acted on transparency:

"President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history, which is why he authorized the declassification and release of hundreds of pages of documents related to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The President will always pay tribute to the American heroes we lost in the tragic September 11 attacks, their beautiful family members, and to the acts of heroism that defined that fateful day when the unbreakable spirit of the American people prevailed."

Trump has not publicly said whether he supports releasing the additional unredacted files the families are demanding. In 2022, he said, "Nobody has gotten to the bottom of 9/11." That same year, he hosted a Saudi-backed LIV Golf tournament at his New Jersey club, drawing protests from some 9/11 families.

Passananti has returned to Ground Zero every year but one

The personal toll was visible throughout the crowd. A family member identified only by the last name Passananti, affiliated with the group 9/11 Justice, has attended the ceremony every year but one since the attacks. His father, Horace Robert Passananti, worked on the 100th floor of the North Tower. Passananti was 32 when the planes hit. He called his father after hearing the news and never heard from him again.

"We've really been on our own, the families, trying to obtain evidence. We've gotten really no help from our government. We feel like they've put Saudi Arabia ahead of the 9/11 families, and we're hoping that will change."

He described the experience of still fighting for accountability a quarter-century later as surreal: "It feels really like a twilight zone and unbelievable that we have to fight for justice for the worst terrorist attack that ever happened on our soil. It doesn't feel real. It's unexplainable."

Jen Nilsen, whose husband died in the attacks, said the passage of time has not dulled the grief. "It doesn't change at the 25th year. The pain is still there." She returns to the memorial because, she said, "this is where he is."

McGinley put it more sharply: "It is like the wound never healed, and every year we get salt poured back into that wound."

Mamdani attended despite a petition demanding he stay away

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani also drew criticism at the ceremony. Mourners objected to his decision to attend despite a petition and public outcry demanding he remain at city hall. The backlash fits a pattern for Mamdani, who has faced repeated public confrontations during his time in office. Earlier this year, Rudy Giuliani publicly told Mamdani to skip the Ground Zero ceremony.

That was not the mayor's only rough reception. Mamdani was booed off stage in under a minute at an NYPD event on Staten Island, and a Gold Star family blocked him from speaking at a fallen soldier's funeral in Queens. His presence at the 9/11 memorial stirred the same kind of anger from families who view his attendance as unwelcome.

The ceremony also drew former Governor Andrew Cuomo, former First Ladies Dr. Jill Biden and Laura Bush, Michael Bloomberg, New York first gentleman William Hochul Jr., and New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill.

An unnamed speaker addressed Vance directly from the stage: "Please carry that message back. Stand with the families. Stand with the survivors."

Nilsen's message was aimed at a generation that did not live through that September morning: "Never forget. Even though years go on, you never forget. You never get over it. The hurt is always there. The pain is always here."

Twenty-five years on, the families are still waiting. They have outlasted vetoes, redactions, and the silence of four administrations. What they are asking for now is straightforward: release the files, and let the evidence speak for itself.