Photo

Donald J. Trump paid his first-ever visit to the September 11 Memorial Museum on Saturday, a gesture on a rainy day that was unmistakably aimed at Senator Ted Cruz with the New York primary a little more than a week away.

Mr. Trump’s foundation also made a contribution of $100,000 to the museum, a spokesman for the nonprofit organization, Michael Frazier, confirmed. It was the first Trump-associated donation to the museum, which took years to complete and was steered mostly by the former mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, who secured donations for years and serves as its chairman.

The tour was led by the museum president, Joe Daniels, and lasted just under 30 minutes. Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, left their black Suburban around 12:20 p.m. and entered the service entrance on West Street. Mr. Trump did not stop to look at the outdoor memorial, which was coated in rain, where the names of the victims are engraved.

Mr. Trump has pointed to the city’s resilience after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center as an example of New York at its best. Mr. Cruz has tried to portray Mr. Trump as too liberal for the Republican Party, and said before the Iowa caucuses that the real estate developer represents “New York values.”

Mr. Cruz is fighting to keep Mr. Trump, who is leading in statewide polling, below 50 percent of the vote in the April 19 primary. Mr. Trump and his aides have sought to remind voters of the “New York values” remark, and they have had plenty of help in doing so from the city’s tabloids.

Reporters who were invited late on Friday to join Mr. Trump for the museum visit, which was not on his schedule, were kept in a media van as he entered the museum. An aide said he would speak with reporters afterward, but Mr. Trump then decided against it. His aides sent out a photo of the Trumps inside the museum about 90 minutes later, along with a statement saying that the rebuilding of ground zero was “what ‘New York values’ are really about.”

The donation check was from Mr. Trump’s foundation, not from him personally. He had been approached over the years by people trying to raise money for the museum, but he never did, until Saturday.

People inside the museum posted on Twitter about the surprise of finding Mr. Trump and his entourage there. Some said they were aggravated that he was there, while others simply posted photos, including one dimly lit shot of Mr. Trump in front of a wall of photos of some of the victims.

https://www.twitter.com/WhatCaySay/status/718838717075562496

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the mayor at the time of the attacks and a friend of Mr. Trump, said that it was wise of him to cancel the discussion with reporters outside the museum.

“That was classy, that he decided not to do it,” Mr. Giuliani said in a phone interview. He said that Mr. Trump might be criticized no matter what he did, but that he had no issues with a candidate making their first visit to the museum during a political season.

“I think if you’re running in New York, you should go to show respect,” Mr. Giuliani said, pointing out that the museum is a haunting experience for some people. “I could also see why up until now you might not do it.”

But others were troubled that Mr. Trump brought media in the first place.

“Of the tens of millions of people from all over the world who have come to the place where so many people died, and where so many heroes sacrificed their lives to save others, Mr. Trump may be the only one to bring along the press to chronicle his first visit,” said Debra Burlingame, who lost her brother, Charles, the pilot of the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon. “I leave it to the public to judge his timing and motives.”