Terry Strada, who lost her husband in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001, said at Friday’s 25th anniversary observance at Ground Zero that Saudi Arabia has yet to be held accountable for its alleged role in the terrorist attacks.
Strada also accused the U.S. government of shielding Saudi Arabia, arguing that successive administrations have let down families of the victims for a quarter-century.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fomented a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism around the globe, and then sent its agents to support the radical Islamist hijackers so they could attack you and all of our loved ones,” said Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United.
“But for 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” she added.
Terry Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United, addresses attendees during a memorial marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
Her remarks also directly addressed Vice President JD Vance, the highest-ranking Trump administration official present at the Lower Manhattan ceremony.
President Donald Trump delivered remarks separately at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
“It has been one betrayal after another. President Trump can still change that. Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this,” Strada said. “Vice President Vance, thank you for being here today. Please carry that message back. Stand with the families. Stand with the survivors. Stand with Americans.”
Strada’s husband, Tom Strada, was working on the 104th floor of the North Tower when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building, she told WPTV in an interview marking the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Tom Strada, 41, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. Just days before the attacks, he and Terry had returned home from the hospital with their third child. After the plane hit the tower, he called his wife and told her he was making his way toward the stairwell.
During her speech, Terry Strada urged Vice President JD Vance to take her message of pursuing accountability for Saudi Arabia to President Donald Trump. Vance was in the audience at the Ground Zero memorial on Sept. 11, 2026. (Hiroko Masuike – Pool/Getty Images)
Since her husband’s death, along with the deaths of nearly 3,000 others at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard the hijacked planes, Strada has become a leading advocate for accountability and transparency surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks.
Strada is among thousands of Sept. 11 family members and survivors who sued Saudi Arabia, alleging the kingdom provided material support to the al Qaeda hijackers. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied the allegations.
During her remarks Friday, Strada reminded the crowd that a federal judge ruled last August there was “reasonable evidence” that two Saudi government employees supported two future al-Qaeda hijackers who came to the United States in early 2000 and took flight lessons.
The judge, George B. Daniels, allowed the lawsuit to go forward, denying Saudi Arabia’s attempt to dismiss it.
Terry Strada poses near her husband’s name on the memorial on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center at the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum on Sept. 11, 2026, in New York City. (Adam Gray – Pool/Getty Images)
For more than a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, victims’ families were barred from pursuing a lawsuit against a foreign government because of sovereign immunity protections.
That changed in September 2016, when Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), allowing Americans to sue foreign governments accused of providing material support for terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
In her speech, Strada criticized President Barack Obama for vetoing JASTA.
At the time, he argued the legislation went too far by threatening “to strip all foreign governments of immunity from judicial process in the United States based solely upon allegations by private litigants.”
Congress overrode his veto days later, making JASTA law and paving the way for the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia to be filed in March 2017. The case remains pending in federal court.