Trump won’t name any of the ‘hundreds of friends’ he says he lost in 9/11 attacks

It could be argued that Donald Trump has repeated difficulty in naming his friends to back up his statements.

Mr Trump has failed to name any of his so-called Muslim friends, and now he has failed to name a single person out of the “hundreds of friends” he said he lost during the 9/11 attacks. The "millions of dollars" he gave to 9/11 victims also matches no public record.

Days after the Republican candidate blamed George W Bush for the deadly attacks that brought down the Twin Towers, his campaign has ignored frequent attempts from The Daily Beast to get him to name anyone he lost that day.

The publication reported that since 2,983 people died on 11 September 2001, Mr Trump must have personally known at least one in 10 of the victims.

A Port Authority police officer told the publication that he and his team had not seen Mr Trump at any of the funerals for the FDNY, which lost 343 members, even at the funerals at St Patrick’s Cathedral, just a block away from the Trump Tower.

The New York Daily News reported in 2006 that Mr Trump actually accepted a $150,000 grant for losses at his nearby building at 40 Wall Street - the grant was part of a program to help small businesses recover after the atracks.

The Smoking Gun reported that Mr Trump did not make any donations to assist victims during the four years after the attacks.

His spokeswoman Hope Hicks told The Daily Mail that Mr Trump donated close to half a million dollars “to organizations as a result of the 9/11 tragedy including the American Red Cross and the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Fund”. He also gave $102 million to the state, which The Daily Beast speculates could be the land he donated to New York after abandoning plans to build a golf course.

The publication also said he did not help pay for a memorial, or pay the ticket price to enter the 9/11 museum, or attend any of the anniversary observances.

The Republican has promised to release his tax returns, which would list any charitable donations - and any resulting tax deductions - to the public.

Despite his notable absence, Mr Trump has repeatedly used the Twin Towers to rally voters, accusing New York-based Muslims of jeering and applauding as they watched the towers fall.

Mr Trump has upped the ante against his rivals over the past week, calling both Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz “liars” - he also said he was “seriously considering” suing Mr Cruz over his mailers to voters which bullied people into attending the Iowa caucus.

If Mr Trump is lying about his “friends”, it takes away much of the support he raised in a recent debate where he called out Marco Rubio’s jibe about "liberal New York values".

“The people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death... And it was with us for months, the smell, the air,” he said at the debate on 14 January.

“And we rebuilt Downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers.

“And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made,” he said.