Harris and Trump attend the same 9/11 ceremony hours after their first debate

Hours after sparring during their first joint presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump shook hands as a sign of courtesy at the 9/11 Ground Zero remembrance ceremony on Wednesday morning.

The two presidential candidates stood close together at the event in Lower Manhattan, with President Joe Biden and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg standing between Harris and Trump. Senator JD Vance (Republican of Ohio), Trump's vice presidential candidate, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also attended the ceremony.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden and Harris were present because they “want to remember the 2,977 lives lost on that tragic day and to stand with the families and loved ones who still, still feel terrible pain.”

The service began at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Harris, Biden and Trump will then travel to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the Flight 93 memorial is located. It is unclear whether they will be there at the same time.

Biden and Harris will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony in Shanksville, according to the White House, before heading to another 9/11 event at the Pentagon at 5 p.m. ET.

Harris' running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, is expected to mark the anniversary of September 11 in his home state.

Traditionally, presidential candidates do not campaign on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in US history. In previous election cycles, however, their paths have crossed at the September 11 memorials.

In 2016, Trump and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — then the Democratic presidential nominee — attended a 15th anniversary service, but Clinton left the service abruptly and appeared unsteady as she left. Her campaign team said she felt “overheated,” later adding that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia.

Trump used the incident to question Clinton's stamina and ask whether she was “tough” enough to be president.

Trump as president and Biden, the Democratic nominee, attended the 9/11 Memorial & Museum's annual commemoration ceremony at Ground Zero in 2020, where Biden took time to comfort family members who lost loved ones in the attacks.

Trump and Biden also traveled to Shanksville that day, where Biden laid a wreath at the memorial and met with family members. Trump gave a speech vowing, “America will always rise, stand tall and fight back.”

Harris attended the commemoration in New York last year, while Biden, returning from Asia, marked the anniversary at an air force base in Alaska.

As planned for this year, Biden visited all three memorial sites of the attacks in 2021 – on the 20th anniversary.

Trump, a New York native, did not attend the 2021 memorial service, but instead stopped at a police station and a fire station.

Last year, he marked the anniversary with a video message. “No one who lived through the horror of the terrorist attacks of September 11 can ever forget the anguish and fear of that terrible day. It was a terrible day,” he said in the video. “We will never forget it.”