West Wing Reads President Trump, First Lady Lead 9-11 Memorial Service at White House

President Trump, First Lady Lead 9-11 Memorial Service at White House  “President Donald Trump participated in somber memorial services on the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with first lady Melania Trump at his side,” Debra J. Saunders reports for the Las Vegas Journal-Review. The White House flag flew at half-staff, while families of victims joined the First Couple on the South Lawn, facing the National Mall. “Trump led a moment of silence that began at 8:46 a.m., the moment the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.” After the ceremony, President Trump traveled to the Pentagon to give remarks. Click here to see the moving photo. “By important measurements life is getting better in the United States, especially for those at the bottom of the income ladder,” James Freeman writes in The Wall Street Journal. “The great news of the day arrives in a report from the Census Bureau: . . . ‘In 2018, for the first time in 11 years, the official poverty rate was significantly lower than 2007.’” “Many Americans may not know it, but our hemisphere is experiencing one of the largest humanitarian crises it has ever seen. The failed Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela has ended in the way so many corrupt socialist regimes have: in bankruptcy, lies and suffering,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar writes for Fox News. “The Trump administration has made it a top priority to aid the people of Venezuela and support governments across the region.” “It’s National Historically Black Colleges and Universities [HBCU] Week, and President Trump is marking the occasion like no president in history,” including with yesterday’s speech at the annual HBCU Conference, Paris Dennard writes in The Daily Caller. “Unfortunately, President Trump will never get the credit he deserves for all he has done for HBCUs,” from giving HBCU representatives a foot inside the White House to relieving more than $300 million of past hurricane debt for four schools. “The third quarter report of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Small Business Index shows ‘employers are experiencing high levels of confidence about the state of their local economies and their financial future’ during President Donald Trump's tenure,” Cameron Cawthorne reports for The Washington Free Beacon. The index also suggests that “over two-thirds of U.S. small business owners are optimistic about the local and national business environment, as well as about their own companies' future.”