Politics
Tom Llamas Reports Live From New York That New York Is Still There
By Mor Michael, . BSN Network. Satire.
NEW YORK, NY: Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and reshaped American foreign policy, domestic surveillance, airport queues, and the entire concept of taking your shoes off in public, NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas traveled to New York City to stand near where it happened and say so.
Llamas delivered his report from lower Manhattan, where, he confirmed, the date had arrived. The skyline was visible. The grief was present. The camera was pointed at him.
"Tonight, America remembers," Llamas said, from a city that had not forgotten, to a network that had purchased airtime to ensure that it continued not to.
The 25th anniversary of 9/11 brought the full weight of American commemorative infrastructure to bear: the blue lights, the reading of names, the moment of silence held at 8:46 a.m., and then, later, an hour of television coverage explaining what a moment of silence is and whether viewers had used it correctly.
Llamas, who was not in New York on September 11, 2001, because he was nineteen years old and attending college in Miami, was in New York on September 11, 2026, because NBC sent him there. He wore a dark suit. He spoke carefully. At no point did he suggest that the attacks had not occurred or that lower Manhattan was somewhere else.
Sources close to the production described the segment as "essential."
For the record, and because the coverage did not always leave room for it: 2,977 people died. The World Trade Center fell. The Pentagon was struck. A fourth plane went down in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, because the passengers decided they were not going to let it go anywhere else. That last part is still the most American sentence in the historical record and NBC did not spend nearly enough time on it, choosing instead to let Llamas stand in front of a reflection pool and describe his own standing.
Politicians also participated. Multiple members of Congress issued statements confirming that September 11 was a tragedy and that they had not changed their position on this. Several noted that America is strong. One called it "a day that will live in memory," a formulation so inert it requires a government permit to deploy.
President Trump, marking the anniversary, described the attacks as "the worst thing" and said he had known many of the people who worked in those buildings, which is almost certainly true and would have been more moving if he had not also said it in 2001, 2011, 2016, 2021, and at least twice during unrelated press conferences about tariffs.
The families of victims attended the memorial at One World Trade Center. They read the names. They wept. They did this without a camera pointed at them from fifteen feet away, which is the only dignified part of the entire morning and the part that received the least airtime.
Llamas wrapped his report at approximately 7:23 p.m. Eastern. He thanked his producers. The network returned to commercial. A pharmaceutical ad ran for a medication whose side effects include, in rare cases, death.
Twenty-five years. The country is still here. So is the coverage.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/america-remembers-25th-anniversary-of-september-11-269749829834