The mainstream media spent years lecturing America about misinformation.
Now they got caught spreading it about September 11.
And Donald Trump destroyed Maggie Haberman and Kaitlan Collins on the same day that he proved he was at Ground Zero.
Collins Gets the Warm-Up, Haberman Gets the Main Event
Kaitlan Collins led off Tuesday's punishment.
Trump went to Truth Social and called her "very dumb and unhappy" – running panels built entirely on "fiction and lies" for a network "suffering terribly in the TV Ratings" that should probably stop employing anchors who make things up.
Collins has made a career out of aggressive confrontations with Trump – and Trump has been handing her losses every time.
Maggie Haberman got it worse.
Trump called her "unattractive both inside and out" – using his nickname "Maggot Hagerman" – and then methodically destroyed her reporting piece by piece.
Haberman's claim was that Trump skipped the official World Trade Center ceremony in New York because he wanted to speak there and wasn't allowed.
Trump called it a lie.
A stated policy prohibits politicians from delivering speeches at the Ground Zero anniversary – nobody speaks, not Trump, not anyone.
Trump Releases the Receipts on 9/11
Trump attended the official New York ceremony numerous times over the years.
He wasn't avoiding it – he was specifically requested to attend the Pentagon ceremony instead, while Vice President JD Vance represented the administration in New York.
That's not a snub.
That's the President of the United States splitting coverage between two sacred memorial sites.
New York Magazine also questioned whether Trump was even at Ground Zero after the attacks.
Trump destroyed that too.
He attached video footage showing him at the World Trade Center site – along with confirmation from his former head of security, Matthew Calamari, who verified the visit to multiple journalists over the years.
Trump was there September 13, 2001, two days after the towers fell, and told NBC News that day he had construction workers on site helping with recovery.
"The Fake News doesn't want to listen, even when they know their story is false," Trump wrote.
https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2097492687964328003?s=20
He's right.
Haberman's book Regime Change about the Trump administration came out earlier this year.
She went on The Daily Show to promote it and bragged that Kaitlan Collins was the "only person" aggressively challenging Trump.
Shortly after, Trump dropped a Truth Social post that made both of them look like they were operating from the same playbook.
The Mainstream Media's 9/11 Problem
The media has a 25-year history of getting Trump's 9/11 story wrong.
Fact-checkers have tried for decades to cast doubt on his presence at Ground Zero – despite video evidence, witness accounts, and documented news interviews from September 2001.
Biden falsely claimed he was at Ground Zero on September 12, 2001 – the White House produced no evidence he was there, because he was on the Senate floor that day.
The media spent about 48 hours on that story and moved on.
When Trump defends his own verified 9/11 record – with video, with witnesses, with a named former security chief – it's suddenly a "furious rant."
That's not journalism.
https://twitter.com/KortneyGlavin90/status/2097074603546005721?s=20
That's a political operation with a byline.
Haberman didn't fact-check her story before publishing it.
Trump said so directly: "There never is!"
The New York Times responded to Trump's demand for a retraction by calling it "another all too common example of the president lashing out at coverage he doesn't like."
Translation: they're not retracting anything, and they're not apologizing.
That tells you everything about where the mainstream media's credibility actually stands – and why Trump's approval ratings keep climbing while CNN's keep sinking.
Sources:
- Fox News Staff, "Trump Calls Out Biden on 9/11 Claim," Fox News, 2023.
- Staff Report, "Maggie Haberman Hits WH Press Corps," Mediaite, 2026.
- Staff Report, "Trump Attacks Collins, Calls Her Very Dumb and Unhappy," MEAWW, September 9, 2026.
