Three New Yorkers with ties to the 9/11 attacks said Tuesday that Hillary Clinton worked to secure federal aid for first responders, victims — and as much as $20 billion in federal assistance to rebuild the city — while she served the Empire State in the Senate.
"I'm proud of every day that I served my city and my country," Joe Sweeney, who worked for the New York City Police Department for 21 years, told delegates at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. "But I'm especially proud that I served on our worst day."
Sweeney was one of the first responders to the attack that killed 2,606 people at the World Trade Center and the immediate area.
"We had a job to do and we did our best," he said. "At the time, the EPA assured us that the air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe. That information was dead wrong.
"Thousands of my friends and brothers and sisters in blue were exposed to harmful toxins that have caused lifelong health problems."
He said Clinton had worked to get legislation signed with 48 hours after 9/11 that provided quicker and easier access to health benefits for first responders.
She also pushed for congressional hearings and investigations that led the EPA to eventually admit that the air was not safe at Ground Zero, Sweeney said.
"Ten years later, Hillary was still our toughest champion, making sure we still got our health benefits," he said.
Lauren Manning, who was a partner at the Cantor Fitzgerald bond-trading firm in the World Trade Center, talked of how she was "catastrophically burned over 82 percent of my body" in the attack.
"My chances of survival, next to zero. I battled for months to live and for years to recover.
"Hillary Clinton stood with me through that fight and in the darkest of days," Manning later said. "In the hardest of times, the people who show up in your life are the ones that mean everything.
"Hillary showed up."
New York Rep. Joseph Crowley told the delegates that he lost one of two cousins, both firefighters, when the Twin Towers fell.
"My cousin, Battalion Chief John Moran, was listed among the missing — but deep down, I knew he wasn't coming home," he said. "Neither were the other 342 missing firefighters.
"The weight of the loss was heavy, but there by my side was Hillary Clinton. She understood the pain my family, our city, our nation was under."
Clinton, he said, secured $20 billion in federal aid "to get New York going again."
Crowley then slammed Trump for collecting $150,000 of the aid, despite claiming that none of his properties was affected by the attacks.
"Where was Donald Trump in the days and months and the years after 9/11? He didn't stand at the pile. He didn't lobby Congress for help. He didn't fight for the first responders. Nope.
"He cashed in," Crowley said, as the crowd booed. "Donald Trump sought a payday for his empire.
"It was one of our nation's darkest days — but to Trump, it was just another chance to make a quick buck."
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