DeSantis meets with 9/11 families who bashed Trump for Saudi-funded golf tournament

Presidential hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis met with the families of 9/11 victims at Memorial Day barbeque Saturday as the relatives bashed his GOP competitor ex-President Donald Trump for hosting a Saudi-funded golf tournament the same weekend.

DeSantis hosted about 500 veterans, Gold Star families and relatives who lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks at the Florida Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee.

He also met privately with eight 9/11 families to listen to their stories and hear their concerns, according to one relative of a victim.

“It was just so remarkable and gracious that the governor of Florida invited us to his home,” Brett Eagleson, 37, told The Post. “He gave us over an hour of his time and listened to every one of our stories.”

Eagleson was just 15 years old when his dad was killed while working in the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

As president of the organization 9/11 Justice, he has spent the past seven years fighting for more information about Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in the attacks.

On Saturday, he slammed Trump for hosting a LIV golf tournament, which is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund on Memorial Day weekend.

“I just want to juxtapose that against what a former president is doing on this very weekend at a golf course and one of his own golf courses, lining the pockets from a country who stands accused in a trial as we speak… of aiding and abetting and sponsoring the 9/11 terror attacks,” he said of DeSantis’ actions versus Trump’s.

Earlier this month, a 9/11 family advocacy group penned a letter to the former president and condemned the three-day tournament as “an insult to the memory of those killed in the attacks.”

“Your decision to maintain an ongoing business partnership with the Saudi government has been deeply hurtful to the 9/11 community,” wrote Terry Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United whose husband was killed in the World Trade Center.

The sporting event was hosted at Trump National golf course in Northern Virginia — 29 miles from the Pentagon, where 184 of nearly 3,000 victims were murdered.

Trump said last week that he “fully understand[s] and love[s]” the 9/11 families.

“But it’s tremendous economic development, tremendous number of jobs, just for an event like this — it’s a big event,” he told reporters at his golf course.

Many whose loved ones died in the terror attacks were appalled by the comments.

“He’s choosing profits, and he’s choosing his own interests over the interests of one of America’s most victimized groups, and that is the 9/11 community,” Eagleson told The Post in response to Trump’s remarks.

He added that he and other 9/11 families met with Trump in the White House in 2019 and the then-president pledged to support them but instead, Eagleson said, he made it more difficult for them to get answers.

Many relatives want to see Saudi Arabia’s government held responsible for the deaths of the 2,977 people killed.

DeSantis said the Sept.11 attacks inspired him to join the Navy in remarks he made at Memorial Day BBQ.

“We’ve got a lot of great people here today, we are going to meet with some of the families from 9/11,” he told the crowd at the event. “I’ll tell you that is one of the reasons I joined the military after that.”

Eagleson said DeSantis listened to every person who spoke about losing a person they loved on 9/11 in what he described as a “very moving meeting” with “a lot of tears.”

“This is such a hard fight and we’ve been [doing it for] 22 years and the family members are tired, they’re frustrated,” he said. “We’ve had to fight our own government for transparency all this time.”