“Donald Trump is on the line.”
It was the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, at WWOR’s station in Secaucus, N.J., and Rolland Smith, the lead anchor for the news outlet’s coverage of the day, was apologizing for the channel’s technical difficulties. The crushing pictures and videos of airplanes hurtling into the World Trade Center were seemingly on a loop for hours. That’s when Brenda Blackmon, the co-anchor of the coverage, interjected to let her colleague know that Trump, the real estate mogul with well-documented ties to Lower Manhattan, was on the phone.
When the planes hit the towers, Alan Marcus got a call from Will Wright, the news director at WWOR. Upon arrival, Marcus, who acted as a spokesman, lobbyist and consultant for Trump throughout the ’90s and also did on-air analyst work for WWOR, said Wright asked him whether he could get a celebrity on the line for them to interview. Befuddled by the request during the tragedy, Marcus asked him to clarify.