Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., deleted a tweet remembering victims of 9/11 that had been up for much of the day Sunday after conservatives slammed her for using a death toll that included the terrorists.
While Jayapal removed the post that her account put up on Sunday, an identical one posted a year earlier still remained as of Monday morning. Fox News reached out to her office for comment, but they did not immediately respond in time for publication.
“Today we remember the 2,996 people who were killed on 9/11 and all those who lost their lives while serving our country in the forever wars that followed,” both tweets from the Congressional Progressive Caucus chair said. Each one included an image of the twin towers with the phrase “Never Forget.”
There were 2,977 victims who were killed in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The 2,996 number Jayapal tweeted adds the 19 terrorists who died. It is unclear where Jayapal got her count from or why she uses the 2,996 number.
A Google search of “How many people died on 9/11?” shows a result of 2,996, with the first website in the search results being a Wikipedia page with a visible preview making the distinction between the number of victims and the number of total deaths including the perpetrators.
Conservatives were quick to comment on Jayapal’s Sunday tweet, users including KTTH radio host Jason Rantz observing that it was not her first.
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Meghan McCain incredulously asked if Jayapal’s post was a “joke” in a tweet of her own that she later deleted.
A Sunday Facebook post from Jayapal’s official account notably used the number 2,977 instead of 2,996. That post was still up Monday morning.
All the posts referenced “forever wars,” but did not specify which wars those are. The wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq had been over before her 2021 tweet.