On the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11, a day long reserved for grief and remembrance, President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth stood at the Pentagon and recast the ceremony as a platform for an ongoing and deeply unpopular war with Iran. By weaving the current military campaign into the moral fabric of the 2001 attacks, the administration sought historical legitimacy for a conflict that polls suggest most Americans do not support. Even as officials spoke, families of the original victims gathered in New York to demand a reckoning of a different kind — accountability from Saudi A