we re back. we ve been speaking with former white house chief of staff to president george w. bush andy car. i have a question about flight 93, where president bush will be. i spoke to condoleezza rice last night. she said authority had been granted to the vice president, she was there with him that day to take down a passenger jet and it was unclear at the moment whether that s what had happened. it was not very long after president bush spoke to vice president cheney and authorized or at least confirmed the authorization for our fighter jet pilots to shoot down the commercial jet liners that you learned flight 93 had crashed in shanksville. there were several of us on air force one that wondered was that one of our planes that did it? and we got an answer pretty
washington, d.c., used the air phones on board the plane, 13 calls in all. people calling their friends and loved ones. they quickly realized their flight was part of a larger attack. the passengers, many of them strangers because so many of those folks had been flying alone, in this moment of intense, immediate, unspeakable danger, they took a vote. they took a vote and decided to take back control of that plane. todd beamer with that declaration and innovation, really let s roll. within minutes that plane came crashing down in these pastoral hills outside of shanksville. what was once scorched earth here now has come to this. friends, family members pay tribute to that final act of courage. could not be a more stark way
about here from sort of the personal to the policy, if you will, and let me start there, because we heard from former president george w. bush not too long ago at that site in shanksville, pennsylvania. we should note that president biden is still there now. he is taking a moment away from the eyes of the media to pay respects, to pay tribute to the lives lost in that field in pennsylvania that day. we heard from former president bush this condemnation, secretary panetta, of not just international violent extremism, but he described what he said were children of the same foul spirit, domestic extremists here at home. in conversations with people in your field, in the defense community and intel community, increasingly, it seems, that is where the focus is as the capabilities of terror groups like isis-k, like al qaeda in afghanistan, have withered, at least over the last 20 years. i think this country has to
joining us. people think about 9/11 as this singular event. but for weeks, months, really years, the ground behind us, it was burning, metal, rock. it was a devastated site. how did you go back day in and day out for such a long period of time and putting your life at risk? well, one, thank you for having me. this is a rough day and not just for me, but for america. nobody owns 9/11. we re all shareholders. you see that in shanksville, you see that at the pentagon and you see it across the country. and i never went home from when i went to ground zero until i was injured, and then i went to the hospital. my injury at ground zero, it pales in comparison, and while
or are there still more things happening there? well, the official ceremony, ali, has concluded. and just to give you a little bit of perspective from where i am, we are one side of the pentagon. where the plane hit was the other side, the western end. it was a piece of the building that had been going through renovations at the time, so a lot of the offices there were closed, which upon reflection it has people going, thank god for that, because you could have twice as many people in the building had that not been the case. already, you had more than 100 people in the building who lost their lives, not to mention the people on the plane. the ceremony on that side is over. however, president biden is making stops at all three of these locations, these important locations today, where you are at ground zero he just was. shanksville, pennsylvania, where he is now. then tonight, later on this afternoon, we expect to see both president biden and vice president harris here for a wreath-la