The Donald: first responder

"Everyone who helped clear the rubble -- and I was there, and I watched, and I helped a little bit -- but I want to tell you: Those people were amazing," Trump said. "Clearing the rubble. Trying to find additional lives. You didn't know what was going to come down on all of us -- and they handled it."

That modifier "a little bit" does a lot of work: Did he mean he picked up a few chunks of concrete? Sent staff to assist? It's not clear.

Particularly coming in the middle of an exposition of the courage of first responders, Trump's statement that he "helped a little bit" is an interesting one. The implication is clear: Trump was helping to clear the rubble, worried that damaged buildings surrounding the site were going to topple over "on all of us." In a normal context, Trump would seem to be asking the listener to offer him some of the credit he's giving to those that were on the scene. In the context of a presidential campaign? That becomes more fraught.

Donald Trump unquestionably went to Ground Zero after the attacks. New York Newsday reported on an appearance the previous day in its Sept. 14 paper.

The workers are so worn out that they barely glance at the sight of Donald Trump, every hair in place and impeccably dressed in a black suit, pressed white shirt and red tie, walking into the plaza with his cellular phone to his ear.

"No, no. The building's gone," he says into the phone.