September 11, 2026 • 36 mins
Hour 2 of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show continues the program’s extensive focus on the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, featuring a deep-dive conversation with former White House national security official Steve Yates, who was serving in the George W. Bush administration on the day of the attacks. Yates provides a firsthand account of being inside the White House complex as the events unfolded, describing the transition from confusion after the first plane struck the World Trade Center to the immediate realization that America was under a coordinated terrorist attack when the second plane hit. He recounts the emergency evacuation of White House personnel, the heightened security response, and witnessing the chaos in Washington, D.C., as smoke rose from the Pentagon and fears grew that additional attacks were imminent.
A major theme throughout Hour 2 is the historical significance of 9/11 and the lasting impact it had on American national security, foreign policy, and global affairs. Clay, Buck, and Yates discuss the possibility that the White House or U.S. Capitol were intended targets of the hijacked planes and reflect on how the heroic actions of the passengers aboard Flight 93 may have prevented an even greater national catastrophe. The conversation emphasizes the symbolic importance of Washington’s government institutions and explores how the successful defense of those targets became one of the defining stories of the day.
The hosts also examine the broader consequences of the Global War on Terror, questioning whether the United States ultimately achieved victory after two decades of military operations, intelligence efforts, and counterterrorism campaigns. Yates argues that one of the central challenges following 9/11 was accurately defining and confronting the ideological threat that motivated the attacks. The discussion evaluates the Bush administration’s response, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the long-term strategic shifts that occurred after the attacks redirected America’s focus away from emerging geopolitical concerns such as China. The segment serves as a detailed reflection on U.S. national security policy, counterterrorism strategy, and the lessons learned over the past quarter century.
The program also explores an important historical question: whether the attacks of September 11 were inevitable. Yates contends that the threat posed by radical Islamist terrorism was growing and likely would have manifested in another major attack even if the hijackings had somehow been prevented. Clay and Buck debate how different American history might have been had the attacks been stopped, while considering whether the country was adequately prepared to confront the dangers developing overseas at the time.
Throughout the hour, the hosts return to the human side of the tragedy by sharing personal stories and reflections on the victims. They play excerpts from President Donald Trump’s remarks honoring those lost on September 11 and highlighting the sacrifices of Americans impacted by the attacks. Special attention is devoted to stories of families who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center and to the courage displayed by passengers and crew aboard Flight 93. Buck encourages listeners to revisit the recorded messages left by victims for their families, emphasizing the emotional and historical importance of preserving these firsthand accounts for future generations.
The hosts also discuss public memory and historical education, responding to listener feedback from younger Americans who were born after 9/11. Buck expresses concern that many younger people are increasingly detached from the historical reality of the attacks and argues that organizations dedicated to preserving 9/11 history play an important role in ensuring future generations understand what occurred and why it mattered. Clay and Buck contrast the atmosphere of America in the months before September 2001 with the dramatic changes that followed, recalling high-profile news stories that dominated headlines before the attacks and illustrating how suddenly the nation’s priorities shifted.
A significant portion of the hour focuses on recommended books and historical resources about terrorism and 9/11. The hosts praise “The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright and “Ghost Wars” by Steve Coll as essential reading for understanding the rise of al-Qaeda, the events leading to September 11, and the global counterterrorism fight that followed. They also discuss the importance of reading in general, arguing that strong reading habits are increasingly valuable in an era dominated by technology and artificial intelligence.
Make sure you never miss a second of the show by subscribing to the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton show podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Second hour, Clay and Buck kicks off now. We have
the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks today. And we're
spending a lot of time on the show, of course,
in memoriam for those lost and talking about what this
did to change history, change the world as well. Our
friend Steve Yates joins us. He is a former senior
(00:22):
White House national security official in the Bush White House.
In fact, he is, and also, of course, the host
of Nation States with Yates, the podcast you should all
be subscribing to for your national security updates and analysis. Steve,
you were in the White House on 9-11. I wanted
to do something here. Cut 28, guys, is the first
(00:43):
report of a plane hitting the building from NBC. Just
to set the scene, Steve, we're going to play this,
and then I want you to take us into the
opening moments of you in the White House playing working
on the national security staff, and finding out on September 11, 2001,
what's going on. Play 28, guys.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We have a breaking news story to tell you about. Apparently,
a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center
here in New York City. It happened just a few
moments ago, apparently. We have very little information available at
this point in time. But on the phone, we do
have Jennifer Oberstein, who apparently witnessed this event.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Jennifer, can you hear me? Hello?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Hi, Jennifer.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Hi, Katie.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Can you please tell me what you saw and give
me any information about what's going on there?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yes, I have to tell you.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's quite terrifying.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Stephen, one of the first reports there on broadcast news
about a plane hitting the buildings. You are in the
White House. It is September 11, 2001. Take us through
what you remember, what it was like.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Well, Buck, I went into work roughly around 6 a.m.
It was an extremely clear, crisp, kind of borderline beautiful morning.
I went in, had my intel briefing. I was preparing
Vice President Cheney to go up to Capitol Hill to
receive the Prime Minister of Australia, who was going to
give an address to a joint session of Congress. There
(02:08):
was a Hong Kong official who was going to come
into town and meet with the Vice President.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I'd gone over to the West Wing to talk through.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Some of those movements.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
And what I needed to do as a staffer to
try to support.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
And when I came back across West Executive Avenue into
our national security suite in the executive office building, an
army officer stopped me right at the doorway. This is
before we had sort of news alerts via social media
and things like that.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
He says, sir, you have to see what's on TV.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
And I turned and probably was watching Fox or CNN.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I don't even remember which network. And immediately we were thinking,
how does someone hit?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
What happened? Was this a small craft, a large craft?
And we're just immediately thinking of how horrifically challenging it
would be to try to rescue people from that high up.
And as we're sort of trying to mull through, is
this a first responder emergency? Is this a Homeland Security problem?
Somewhere in that conversation, the second plane hit, and it
(03:08):
was just an instantaneous bell that rang where you knew
This was not one-off. This was not accidental. That can't
happen by accident. It was larger scale. Before too long,
very significant alarms were going off across the White House.
Some extremely well-armed men were coming up out of the
(03:29):
bowels of the broader White House complex. I'd seen a
lot of security before. I had never seen these guys.
And they were just pouring out, and they basically were
just saying one word, evacuate. And if you couldn't understand
the English language in one word, they'd give you evacuate
again and use a little body English to move.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
You along your way.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And that was sort of the beginning of recognizing that
even though I had a pin to be within arm's
length of the president, I had a past that I
could go anywhere in the White House. There's a very
short list of people who are truly essential for continuity
of government. And I call those the people that go
in the no-fry zone down at the Emergency Operation Center.
(04:10):
And the rest of us that live in the fry zone,
you get to walk home. And that's basically what I
did that day. I walked a good chunk of the
way through northwest D.C., went the rest of the way home,
spent the rest of that day watching the news with America.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
My daughter was almost three years old, was sort of
processing what was happening in television with her.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Did you see the Pentagon smoke, Stephen? Did you see?
I assume you saw the Pentagon smoke as you were
walking through northwest.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah, well, so there's a few thousand people that work
in the executive office building. People think of the West Wing,
which is actually smaller than people think it might be.
And then the executive office building is where way more
staff are than people probably think work in the White House.
And there were a few thousand sitting ducks that evacuated
the building as if it was a fire drill before
(04:56):
people realized the cell signal didn't work.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
It was overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
And there are two things that happened while these thousands
were standing in 17th Street in D.C. right next to
the White House. One was the smoke coming up out
of the Pentagon. And we had colleagues who were working
there who had husbands or friends that were in that
and they were worried. And then there was this bang
that went off around the State Department that we thought
was an explosion.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
It turned out not to be an explosion. This is
an example of the chaos of what that was. But, yeah,
we went out into the street at some point, realized
you've got to get the rest of the way out
of here. And yes, we did see the smoke up there.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
And we were told by the Situation Room and by
our staff that we're inside.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Get out. Washington, D.C.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Is the target. And we fear that the White House
is a target.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
We were talking about that.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Thank you for sharing that experience with us, Steve. We
were talking about the situation in Pennsylvania. And as much
of a national gut punch as the World Trade Centers were,
and as devastating as the Pentagon attack was, hitting the U.S.
(06:10):
Capitol Dome or the White House with a commercial jetliner,
I actually think would have been maybe the most catastrophic
cultural thing that could have been done there. And I
think it's important to remember that that but for the
bravery of those on the Shanksville where ended up being
in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I mean, the Capitol Dome or the
(06:33):
White House basically could have been obliterated by one of
these planes.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well, there there's a lot of lore that I don't
know that we'll ever get to the bottom of. But
I sort of tend to believe that the flight that
hit the Pentagon probably initially intended to hit the Capitol
and circled around and ended up hitting the Pentagon. And
I believe the flight that was in Pennsylvania probably was
meant to come and try to hit the Capitol after
(06:59):
the other one didn't. And there's no way to go
back and be able to verify these kinds of things.
But if you just think in a very sick way logistically,
the Capitol is the highest, most visible point. That would
have been the much more natural target. Hitting the Pentagon
is kind of a hard thing to do. Hitting the
White House is even harder. And so I felt violated
(07:23):
in a way because I sort of think of the
White House especially, but the Capitol too.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
These are sacred spaces.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
And to be forced to evacuate out from your sworn
duty to uphold and defend the Constitution, to try to
do whatever you could, it felt like a deep violation.
Certainly if they had been hit, it would have been
an event like no other, basically, since the British burned
the White House way back when.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So, Stephen, you were in that White House for also
the response to all of this, not just in the
immediate hours. I mean, the military invasions, interventions, occupations of
Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as I think people forget
a lot of my former outfits, contingency operations in other
(08:11):
places all over the world going after very bad guys,
which have since been written about and talked about pretty extensively.
A question for you, which is going to be too
broad to have any perfect answer for, but you are
the man, I think, to ask it. Did we win
the GWAT, the Global War on Terror? This started that war.
Did we win that war?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Well, first, I think you alluded to this a little
bit earlier. There was quite a debate about what to
even call it. And I don't like GWAT because the
T is a euphemism.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
For what the real problem was.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
And that was, in a way, I think, baked into
the concrete at the outset of you're not going to
win if you can't clearly name the enemy or the
threat or the problem. The problem was a radical form
of a particular religion. And there really wasn't any escaping
that reality. And the more we tried to paper over it,
(09:11):
the less accurate our policy and actions were going to be.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
I felt it then. I was young and it wasn't
my primary brief.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I was sort of handling the rest of the world
and all of the adjustments to it while the core
team was hitting face first into the Middle East challenges,
which enveloped a lot of the rest of the administration.
But people can forget, most of 2001 was focused on
readjusting to the China challenge, treating it as a strategic
(09:41):
threat rather than some form of cooperation. And that ended
with 9-11. So we had major strategic rebalancing after that.
I do think it's really important to remember the good
that happened. President Bush, I think, was at his best
trying to hold a lot of people together and doing
(10:02):
some things right in the immediate aftermath.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
But the big.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Wrong piece, I think, was failing to accurately tell the
truth with what the threat was. And then the biggest,
biggest mistake afterwards, I think, is the Pottery Barn analogy
of If you break it, you own it. It became
talked about from the State Department, but more broadly, and
I just fundamentally disagree with that. I think we paid
(10:26):
dearly for that mistake. If the United States has to
go and break things, that's too bad. It's because we're
the only ones left to do it. We don't own it,
and you'd better take care of your neighborhood so that
we don't have to come in and break things.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
That's how I think.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
I think the America would be better off if we
had operated that way instead of massaging what the nature
of the threat is and pretending like we had an
obligation to build those who hit us.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Alternative history is difficult. But you were there.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Buck and I were talking about just how everything seemed
to be going great in America right before 9-11. Budgets balanced.
We're on path to potentially pay off the entire national debt.
We haven't spent trillions of dollars going into war in
the Middle East yet. I know I'm asking you to
project an alternative version of history. If 9-11 doesn't happen,
(11:19):
do you think, based on your experience, that the terrorists
of the Middle East were so committed to a gigantic
strike in the United States that we were sort of
sleepwalking and at some point we would have gotten hit?
Or do you think if we stop 9-11, it's possible
that the world goes in a completely different direction. How
would you assess 9-11 happened? Was 9-11 inevitable in your
(11:43):
mind to have a strike like that be successful given
our sleepwalking? Or do you think if we had happened
to stop this one, the world may have spun in
a completely different place and we never have a 9-11
like event?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, Clay, I think it's a super important question. I
am 100% on the side that this was coming. One
of the very, very deep lessons from this is that there.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Is evil in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
And we as parents deal with the challenge of how
do we protect our children from the evil and how
do we prepare them for the evil?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
But we don't get a vote on whether the evil
is in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I think this was brewing and something was going to
happen at some point.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Unless we were dealing with it.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And I think part of the proof of that is
we are still in 2026 dealing with a violent theocracy
that has to be.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Contained, if not defeated, coming out of Iran.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
And while we can debate what's the difference between Sunni
and Shia, and I know Buck spent a good part
of his life trying to deal with things like that,
what is not disseparable from all of this is the
inherent evil that animates a billion people being primarily at
risk of this violent ideology.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And that's going to hit at some point. And U.S.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Got hit in the most profound way on 25 years ago.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
And thankfully, we haven't been hit similarly since. But this
was going to happen, whether it was in 2001 or later,
in my estimation.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Stephen Yates, thank you, sir, as always, for being here
with us. I want you to go check out Nation
States with Yates. And we appreciate your service to the country, too, Stephen.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Pleasure.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Take care, guys.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
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Speaker 5 (14:54):
You just heard Stevie Yates telling what I thought was
a really compelling story about what it was like to
be in the White House that day.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I was mentioning to Buck off air.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
This is also what it was like at the White
House Correspondents Dinner when there was a shooting.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And they immediately rushed.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
He was talking about how you find out if you
really matter very much or not, how significant is your
role in a time of danger. When the White House
Correspondents Dinner shooting happened, they rushed in security. Everybody, the president,
vice president, secretary of war, everybody that was significant immediately
was ushered out. And the rest of us were all
just left behind. And even in that context of 9-11,
(15:32):
there is a core that is so important that they
must be protected at all costs. And everybody else, even
those working in the West Wing, were immediately kicked out.
I thought that was a super interesting story from him.
We have not played cut two, Buck. Let's play cut
two here if we can. This is Trump telling the
story of just one of those who lost a loved
(15:56):
one on that day.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Listen.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
For anyone who lived it, no words can do justice
to the anguish of that day. After the first plane
hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, Patrick
Danae left a message to comfort his beautiful wife, Mary,
letting her know he was safe inside his office on
South Tower's 90th floor. Mary was eight months pregnant and
(16:20):
playing with their two young daughters when she heard Patrick's voice.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
She loved him so much.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
She called back.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
Turned on the TV, the line.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Rang, and then it went completely dead. Very unusual, she felt.
Speaker 6 (16:34):
Mary fell to her knees as she watched United Flight
175 explode by her husband's office.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
She saw it right by the office.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
You know exactly where the office was.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Right by the office.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Um.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Yeah, I read a book that was just an oral
history of 9-11, probably in the last couple of years.
I talked about it on the program. I do think
it's important sometimes to familiarize yourself with history that otherwise
you might forget. Was it The Looming Tower that is
so incredibly well-written, one of the best nonfiction works of
(17:13):
the 21st century, single book? I think it's sometimes we
go back in time. I'm reading about World War II,
the Civil War, whatever it might be, And we neglect
to remember exactly what the impact was of things we
lived through. And I think this is one good example.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I found myself, Clay, as I was scrolling through remembrances
about 9-11, the collection of voice messages that people left.
It will bring tears to your eyes, but you should
listen to it. If you come across it, they're online,
(17:49):
you should listen to it. It's deeply sad, but it's
also powerful in a way that reminds people of what
is most dear to them, even in their most frightened moments.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
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Speaker 6 (18:54):
This morning, we also remember how America responded to that wickedness.
On days like 9-11, we learn.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
What a country.
Speaker 6 (19:03):
is truly made of.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
We're learning right now what we're made of.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
We have to be strong and we have to be smart.
And Americans are made of a goodness spirit that can
transcend any earthly force. And that's what we're doing better
than anyone else has ever been able to do it
because we are sustained by a supreme strength, far more
powerful than steel alone. aboard flight 93 in the skies
(19:29):
over Pennsylvania, a brave flight attendant, boiled water to fight back.
A loving father from New Jersey, Todd Beamer, asked a
telephone operator in Illinois to join him in the Lord's Prayer.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
And then he said his last words, let roll. Today,
as we remember the many lives lost on 9-11, we
also give thanks for the countless lives saved by the
immortal heroes of Flight 93.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
A very deserved eulogy there for those on 93 and
particularly those who fought back. And yes, they weren't able
to regain control of the plane because the terrorists just
decided to bury the nose down and kill everybody on board.
But they certainly saved. I don't think anyone believes that
(20:26):
that plane would have been shot down in time before
it found another target, most likely the Capitol building, maybe
the White House. So be Beamer in your life. Be
that guy. The poise, the courage, the strength that people showed.
(20:46):
And that's what I said in a lot of those
recordings that are out there. And I know at the
9-11 Museum, which I have been to the memorial. I
haven't toured inside the museum. I need to do that.
Carrie and I have talked about it. I'm told that
it's done very well. And a part of it is
the voice messages that people play. who, who knew that
(21:08):
they were probably never going to see those loved ones again.
And it's, it's powerful, uh, powerful stuff and something that
we should think about today. Uh, producer Allie's telling me
that it is phenomenal. Very well done. She's been there,
but you should bring tissues. Uh, but there are lessons
about life and mortality and what really matters that come
(21:30):
across in all of those calls. Um, so, uh, All right,
let's do some talkbacks here, Clay. Eric in upstate New
York on WGY. This is Talkback A. Play it.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Hey, Clay and Buck.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Happy Friday.
Speaker 7 (21:45):
And my heart goes out to anybody who was affected
by September the 11th, 2001. I was born a week
after that day, and I cannot imagine growing.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Up without knowing.
Speaker 7 (21:56):
or learning about it at such a young age. And
the fact that so many kids don't learn about it
nowadays goes to show how separated we are from learning
about our American history. It was only 25 years ago.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Clay, I would just note that I think that people
are certainly all taught about it. And look, they're a
partner and a sponsor and just a longtime ally of
this program. But part of what Tunnel to Towers Foundation
does is just make sure that people remember the real
history of 9-11 and what happened i worry clay and
(22:29):
this is what i took from that mom donnie tweet
uh that people are being taught this as though it
was a natural disaster you know it's like we came
together after a big earthquake and we saw the best
of us okay yeah we came together and we saw
a lot of the best of us in bravery but
we were attacked by an enemy of who sought the
(22:50):
annihilation of our civilization and had that enemy had access.
And we know this from their own writings. We know
this from Al Qaeda leadership, from detainee reporting. If they
had had the ability to park a nuclear device in
downtown Manhattan and kill a million people, they would have
done it.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
And this is where I was just texting with you. Interestingly,
the headlines on newspaper, September 11th, 2001, I'm like the
last person who still reads print newspapers, but they're going
viral today. It was about Andrea Yates, a mom in
Houston who killed five of her kids, and whether she
(23:30):
could be held legally insane or not. In many ways,
a lot of stories are cyclical. I remember Buck in
that era. You remember, we've talked about her a few
times on the program, just because it was a huge story.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Chandra Levy. In the D.C. area, she vanished.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
The whole summer of 2001, while Al Qaeda was preparing
to attack the United States, basically the country was asleep
at the wheel. And we were really obsessed with things
like murder mysteries, what happened with Chandra Levy. It was
the number one story in Washington, D.C. She was an intern.
(24:14):
It was coming on the heels of the Clinton intern story.
Gary Kahn did. Everything associated with that was an obsession
in D.C. I left to go off to law school.
And on that 9-11 day, it was like all the
frivolity stopped. But on that day itself, the number one
lead story was a mom who killed five of her kids.
(24:37):
And what was going to happen? Wall Street Journal, USA Today.
That's what the obsession of the country was.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
If you go back, and I just did. And one
of the tools that obviously we use here and just
to be, to always tell you guys that I'll be
doing this all the time. Cause I, Clay doesn't do
the show with a laptop in front of him. I do.
So if you ever see me looking down on the stream,
it's because I'm doing research on the fly as we go.
So is our team, by the way. But that's how
we're able to bring you facts and recall so quickly.
(25:03):
But I just did a quick, what were the biggest,
and this is where AI is so helpful, right? What
are the biggest news stories, Clay, for the month of
August 2001, just to set the scene? Oh, this is good.
The biggest news stories were California Representative Gary Condit denying
knowledge of missing federal intern Chandra Levy. To be clear,
(25:25):
he didn't do anything. Correct. It was not him.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
She was murdered, and they found her body like 15
years later or something in Rock Creek Park in D.C.
I think it was an illegal, by the way, who
raped and murdered her. He had nothing to do with it.
That was the D.C. obsession of August 2001.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
And I will say, because I remember at that time,
there was a sense people were really giving Gary Condit
the long stink eye on this one. He had nothing
to do with it. So it is a reminder that
there are those times when the public perception about who
is guilty can be way off, and they were way
(26:06):
off on that one. He had nothing to do with it,
and that was proven. Anwar Drilling. Remember when Anwar Drilling
was such a big thing?
Speaker 5 (26:12):
Oh, yeah, I've heard that a long time. I remember
that obsession back in the day. Anwar Drilling was a top,
top story, and... the death of R & B singer
Aaliyah in a plane crash, those were, for the month
of August, the biggest news stories in America, according to
AI research on coverage across all the networks. So just
(26:36):
give everybody a sense of, oh, and an interest rate cut, okay?
Give everybody a sense of where things were going to 9-11.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
It's not like... we were gearing up for war and
they got, you know, you can say what you will
Pearl Harbor. The world was already, you know, the European theater,
the Soviets, the Germans. I mean, the war was at war,
the world. Sorry. I can't say the words. The world
was at war before we got pulled into it. So
(27:05):
while it was a shock to us at some level,
and I know people say, Oh, FDR knew it was
coming and there's all that. Put that aside.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Clay.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
The idea that we were brought into this was not,
Out of nowhere. And that's why I was asking.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
Yeah, that's why I was asking Steve, because I do
think one of the great paths of history and I
didn't ask you, do you think we would let's pretend
that somehow 9-11 hadn't. happened right somehow yeah uh they
had caught the guys with the box cutters going through
on that day or there had been a plane malfunction
(27:37):
and uh and those flights hadn't been able to take
off that day you know any number of things could
have occurred or obviously we could have caught them um
do you think if we had been fortunate enough to
avoid 9-11 steve said he thinks that they still would
have hit in a catastrophic way because we were basically
sleepwalking and not aware of the threat that was building
(27:58):
against this? Or do you think that we would have
gone in a completely different direction and it might not
have happened? I am as certain you can be of
a thing you can never prove that Steve is correct
on that and that we were– because remember, I went
into the CIA CTC and saw, which is the counterterrorism
center there, which was– it was the– Basically, the Bin
(28:22):
Laden Center, just so everyone understands. The origins of CTC
and the CIA was a unit that was tracking Bin
Laden in the years before 9-11. I remember finding out
from the superintendent of my building that the World Trade
Centers were bombed in 93.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Which people also don't really remember. By the way, you
mentioned that book. It is an excellent book, The Looming Tower. uh,
it's still worth it for anyone who has not read it. I, I,
I mean, I read it a long time ago. It
was one of those, if you're going to work in
national security, if you're going to go to the CIA
or the FBI, you got to read that book. I mean,
it's just, it's phenomenally well, it's a very, uh, Lawrence, right. Lawrence, right.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Uh, very good.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
It is a good one to put on the list. Um,
I read also, and I can't remember, um, It was
an oral history of everybody from 9-11's perspective. Blooming Tower
is a big nonfiction work that is incredible. I mean,
and by the way, it takes you into al-Qaeda and
their planning of the attack and all of the details
surrounding it.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I would also put, if anyone hasn't read it, Steve Cole, C-O-L-L,
Steve Cole, Ghost Wars, which is about the rise of
al-Qaeda and about Afghanistan pre, leading up to the assassination
of Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was the head of the
Northern Alliance, by an al-Qaeda team posing as journalists in
Afghanistan the day before the 9-11 attack. So they knew
(29:53):
exactly what they were doing with that one. Ghost Wars
is a fantastic book for the period if you're looking
for something to read. Cole's written a whole bunch of books. But, Clay,
I think that we were– I brought up CTC because
it really was the bin Laden unit, essentially. And that's
why I wanted to work there in the CIA. I
(30:15):
didn't show up to the CIA saying I want to
work on Ukrainian grain harvest analysis. I mean, there are
people doing all kinds of stuff in national security. Wanted
to track and find al-Qaeda senior leadership. That was what
I told my interviewers. That was what I wanted to do. And, Clay,
there were so many of these plots. So many of
these plots under discussion. Some went operational. Some were thwarted.
(30:39):
So many more than people realize. So, I mean, I
can say to you with, in my mind, certainty, if
they had somehow just aborted, let's say, the mission on 9-11...
we would have gotten hit with a catastrophic attack. And
maybe it could have even theoretically been worse. Om Shinrikyo,
which I write about in Manufacturing Delusion, which was a
cult based out of Japan, they did a sarin gas
(31:02):
attack in the Tokyo subways. If they had known a
little bit more about what they were doing in the
dispersal system, they could have killed thousands of people. There
are some estimates 50,000 to 100,000 people they could have
killed in those attacks. So things could have theoretically even
had a higher body count than what we saw. which
is obviously astonishing and horrible. But we were not willing
(31:26):
to take the threat of jihad. We thought it was
a foreign, you know, we'll send our badasses to go,
you know, kick some ass over there when we have to.
We'll send some special operations team. We'll send SEAL Team 6.
We'll send Delta, and we'll do some snatch and grab
of some bad guy somewhere once in a while, and
that will kind of trim the grass. That wasn't going
to work. not with how advanced and how deeply enmeshed
(31:51):
al-Qaeda was, not just in Afghanistan, but in many countries
all over the world.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
One, the looming tower is great. The only plane in
the sky and oral history of 9-11 is a propulsive,
difficult to put down narrative arc told through the voices
of the people who experienced 9-11 that day. I read
that a few years ago as well. Those are two
(32:18):
books that if you've got kids, I'm sure they're audio books.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Unfortunately, kids don't want to read. What do we see?
Speaker 5 (32:25):
The kid reading scores hit 25-year lows this week, I
think is what I saw, Buck.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Nobody will read anymore. If you want your kid.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
To have an advantage in an AI age, have them
read books because I think you have to be able
to read deeply in order to make the connections necessary
in an AI age to even know what's real and false.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
And it's troubling how many kids can't do that. Reading
books is doing pushups for your brain. That's a great,
it's just true. It's doing pushups for your brain, everybody.
So you want it. You want to always be having
a book that you are reading.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Let me talk to you about preborn doctors told Alba
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she didn't understand what was going on, and nothing added up.
She had been told pregnancy wasn't possible, the baby wasn't planned,
and now, sure enough, she was pregnant. She was confused, overwhelmed,
(33:22):
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(33:42):
Alba chose life. Today, her baby girl, Laura, is healthy
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dial pound 250 from your cell phone. Say the keyword baby.
This is about saving little babies. What a beautiful... They
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(34:48):
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Speaker 3 (34:57):
Laugh. Learn.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Hang with the guys. Right there when you need them most.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Clay and Buck, just preset them on the iHeart app.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Welcome back in.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
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Speaker 1 (35:39):
Perfect10Mortgage. com.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
We're going to be joined by David Rutherford here coming
up in just a sec at the top of the
next hour.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
GWAT combat veteran. The Navy SEAL fought in the GWAT,
so we want to talk to him about some of
that stuff.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Just so everyone can know, we will also try to
have some fun in the final hour of the week.
Crazy revelation about who exactly the guy was who kept
Lindsay Clancy from getting off for murdering her three kids.
But they also had a football game in Australia that
began with a land acknowledgment event. You're going to want
(36:20):
to hear some of this. If you haven't seen the video,
you will be entertained by it. And the Democrat Party
has hit a new record low in lack of approval
among male voters, just 16%. We will talk about all
that and more, and we'll continue to discuss the 25th
anniversary of 9-11, 14 hours up, 15th hour coming to
(36:41):
all of you in your moments, Buck.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Try to keep people entertained. It's going to be a
fantastic third hour of the show. Going to keep on
doing what we do here. Send us your talk back.
More coming.
Second hour, Clay and Buck kicks off now. We have
the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks today. And we're
spending a lot of time on the show, of course,
in memoriam for those lost and talking about what this
did to change history, change the world as well. Our
friend Steve Yates joins us. He is a former senior
(00:22):
White House national security official in the Bush White House.
In fact, he is, and also, of course, the host
of Nation States with Yates, the podcast you should all
be subscribing to for your national security updates and analysis. Steve,
you were in the White House on 9-11. I wanted
to do something here. Cut 28, guys, is the first
(00:43):
report of a plane hitting the building from NBC. Just
to set the scene, Steve, we're going to play this,
and then I want you to take us into the
opening moments of you in the White House playing working
on the national security staff, and finding out on September 11, 2001,
what's going on. Play 28, guys.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We have a breaking news story to tell you about. Apparently,
a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center
here in New York City. It happened just a few
moments ago, apparently. We have very little information available at
this point in time. But on the phone, we do
have Jennifer Oberstein, who apparently witnessed this event.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Jennifer, can you hear me? Hello?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Hi, Jennifer.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Hi, Katie.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Can you please tell me what you saw and give
me any information about what's going on there?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yes, I have to tell you.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's quite terrifying.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Stephen, one of the first reports there on broadcast news
about a plane hitting the buildings. You are in the
White House. It is September 11, 2001. Take us through
what you remember, what it was like.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Well, Buck, I went into work roughly around 6 a.m.
It was an extremely clear, crisp, kind of borderline beautiful morning.
I went in, had my intel briefing. I was preparing
Vice President Cheney to go up to Capitol Hill to
receive the Prime Minister of Australia, who was going to
give an address to a joint session of Congress. There
(02:08):
was a Hong Kong official who was going to come
into town and meet with the Vice President.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I'd gone over to the West Wing to talk through.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Some of those movements.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
And what I needed to do as a staffer to
try to support.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
And when I came back across West Executive Avenue into
our national security suite in the executive office building, an
army officer stopped me right at the doorway. This is
before we had sort of news alerts via social media
and things like that.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
He says, sir, you have to see what's on TV.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
And I turned and probably was watching Fox or CNN.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I don't even remember which network. And immediately we were thinking,
how does someone hit?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
What happened? Was this a small craft, a large craft?
And we're just immediately thinking of how horrifically challenging it
would be to try to rescue people from that high up.
And as we're sort of trying to mull through, is
this a first responder emergency? Is this a Homeland Security problem?
Somewhere in that conversation, the second plane hit, and it
(03:08):
was just an instantaneous bell that rang where you knew
This was not one-off. This was not accidental. That can't
happen by accident. It was larger scale. Before too long,
very significant alarms were going off across the White House.
Some extremely well-armed men were coming up out of the
(03:29):
bowels of the broader White House complex. I'd seen a
lot of security before. I had never seen these guys.
And they were just pouring out, and they basically were
just saying one word, evacuate. And if you couldn't understand
the English language in one word, they'd give you evacuate
again and use a little body English to move.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
You along your way.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And that was sort of the beginning of recognizing that
even though I had a pin to be within arm's
length of the president, I had a past that I
could go anywhere in the White House. There's a very
short list of people who are truly essential for continuity
of government. And I call those the people that go
in the no-fry zone down at the Emergency Operation Center.
(04:10):
And the rest of us that live in the fry zone,
you get to walk home. And that's basically what I
did that day. I walked a good chunk of the
way through northwest D.C., went the rest of the way home,
spent the rest of that day watching the news with America.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
My daughter was almost three years old, was sort of
processing what was happening in television with her.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Did you see the Pentagon smoke, Stephen? Did you see?
I assume you saw the Pentagon smoke as you were
walking through northwest.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah, well, so there's a few thousand people that work
in the executive office building. People think of the West Wing,
which is actually smaller than people think it might be.
And then the executive office building is where way more
staff are than people probably think work in the White House.
And there were a few thousand sitting ducks that evacuated
the building as if it was a fire drill before
(04:56):
people realized the cell signal didn't work.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
It was overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
And there are two things that happened while these thousands
were standing in 17th Street in D.C. right next to
the White House. One was the smoke coming up out
of the Pentagon. And we had colleagues who were working
there who had husbands or friends that were in that
and they were worried. And then there was this bang
that went off around the State Department that we thought
was an explosion.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
It turned out not to be an explosion. This is
an example of the chaos of what that was. But, yeah,
we went out into the street at some point, realized
you've got to get the rest of the way out
of here. And yes, we did see the smoke up there.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
And we were told by the Situation Room and by
our staff that we're inside.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Get out. Washington, D.C.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Is the target. And we fear that the White House
is a target.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
We were talking about that.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Thank you for sharing that experience with us, Steve. We
were talking about the situation in Pennsylvania. And as much
of a national gut punch as the World Trade Centers were,
and as devastating as the Pentagon attack was, hitting the U.S.
(06:10):
Capitol Dome or the White House with a commercial jetliner,
I actually think would have been maybe the most catastrophic
cultural thing that could have been done there. And I
think it's important to remember that that but for the
bravery of those on the Shanksville where ended up being
in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I mean, the Capitol Dome or the
(06:33):
White House basically could have been obliterated by one of
these planes.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well, there there's a lot of lore that I don't
know that we'll ever get to the bottom of. But
I sort of tend to believe that the flight that
hit the Pentagon probably initially intended to hit the Capitol
and circled around and ended up hitting the Pentagon. And
I believe the flight that was in Pennsylvania probably was
meant to come and try to hit the Capitol after
(06:59):
the other one didn't. And there's no way to go
back and be able to verify these kinds of things.
But if you just think in a very sick way logistically,
the Capitol is the highest, most visible point. That would
have been the much more natural target. Hitting the Pentagon
is kind of a hard thing to do. Hitting the
White House is even harder. And so I felt violated
(07:23):
in a way because I sort of think of the
White House especially, but the Capitol too.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
These are sacred spaces.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
And to be forced to evacuate out from your sworn
duty to uphold and defend the Constitution, to try to
do whatever you could, it felt like a deep violation.
Certainly if they had been hit, it would have been
an event like no other, basically, since the British burned
the White House way back when.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So, Stephen, you were in that White House for also
the response to all of this, not just in the
immediate hours. I mean, the military invasions, interventions, occupations of
Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as I think people forget
a lot of my former outfits, contingency operations in other
(08:11):
places all over the world going after very bad guys,
which have since been written about and talked about pretty extensively.
A question for you, which is going to be too
broad to have any perfect answer for, but you are
the man, I think, to ask it. Did we win
the GWAT, the Global War on Terror? This started that war.
Did we win that war?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Well, first, I think you alluded to this a little
bit earlier. There was quite a debate about what to
even call it. And I don't like GWAT because the
T is a euphemism.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
For what the real problem was.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
And that was, in a way, I think, baked into
the concrete at the outset of you're not going to
win if you can't clearly name the enemy or the
threat or the problem. The problem was a radical form
of a particular religion. And there really wasn't any escaping
that reality. And the more we tried to paper over it,
(09:11):
the less accurate our policy and actions were going to be.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
I felt it then. I was young and it wasn't
my primary brief.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I was sort of handling the rest of the world
and all of the adjustments to it while the core
team was hitting face first into the Middle East challenges,
which enveloped a lot of the rest of the administration.
But people can forget, most of 2001 was focused on
readjusting to the China challenge, treating it as a strategic
(09:41):
threat rather than some form of cooperation. And that ended
with 9-11. So we had major strategic rebalancing after that.
I do think it's really important to remember the good
that happened. President Bush, I think, was at his best
trying to hold a lot of people together and doing
(10:02):
some things right in the immediate aftermath.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
But the big.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Wrong piece, I think, was failing to accurately tell the
truth with what the threat was. And then the biggest,
biggest mistake afterwards, I think, is the Pottery Barn analogy
of If you break it, you own it. It became
talked about from the State Department, but more broadly, and
I just fundamentally disagree with that. I think we paid
(10:26):
dearly for that mistake. If the United States has to
go and break things, that's too bad. It's because we're
the only ones left to do it. We don't own it,
and you'd better take care of your neighborhood so that
we don't have to come in and break things.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
That's how I think.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
I think the America would be better off if we
had operated that way instead of massaging what the nature
of the threat is and pretending like we had an
obligation to build those who hit us.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Alternative history is difficult. But you were there.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Buck and I were talking about just how everything seemed
to be going great in America right before 9-11. Budgets balanced.
We're on path to potentially pay off the entire national debt.
We haven't spent trillions of dollars going into war in
the Middle East yet. I know I'm asking you to
project an alternative version of history. If 9-11 doesn't happen,
(11:19):
do you think, based on your experience, that the terrorists
of the Middle East were so committed to a gigantic
strike in the United States that we were sort of
sleepwalking and at some point we would have gotten hit?
Or do you think if we stop 9-11, it's possible
that the world goes in a completely different direction. How
would you assess 9-11 happened? Was 9-11 inevitable in your
(11:43):
mind to have a strike like that be successful given
our sleepwalking? Or do you think if we had happened
to stop this one, the world may have spun in
a completely different place and we never have a 9-11
like event?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, Clay, I think it's a super important question. I
am 100% on the side that this was coming. One
of the very, very deep lessons from this is that there.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Is evil in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
And we as parents deal with the challenge of how
do we protect our children from the evil and how
do we prepare them for the evil?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
But we don't get a vote on whether the evil
is in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I think this was brewing and something was going to
happen at some point.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Unless we were dealing with it.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And I think part of the proof of that is
we are still in 2026 dealing with a violent theocracy
that has to be.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Contained, if not defeated, coming out of Iran.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
And while we can debate what's the difference between Sunni
and Shia, and I know Buck spent a good part
of his life trying to deal with things like that,
what is not disseparable from all of this is the
inherent evil that animates a billion people being primarily at
risk of this violent ideology.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And that's going to hit at some point. And U.S.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Got hit in the most profound way on 25 years ago.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
And thankfully, we haven't been hit similarly since. But this
was going to happen, whether it was in 2001 or later,
in my estimation.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Stephen Yates, thank you, sir, as always, for being here
with us. I want you to go check out Nation
States with Yates. And we appreciate your service to the country, too, Stephen.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Pleasure.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Take care, guys.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
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(13:54):
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Welcome back in, Clay and Buck.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
You just heard Stevie Yates telling what I thought was
a really compelling story about what it was like to
be in the White House that day.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I was mentioning to Buck off air.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
This is also what it was like at the White
House Correspondents Dinner when there was a shooting.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And they immediately rushed.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
He was talking about how you find out if you
really matter very much or not, how significant is your
role in a time of danger. When the White House
Correspondents Dinner shooting happened, they rushed in security. Everybody, the president,
vice president, secretary of war, everybody that was significant immediately
was ushered out. And the rest of us were all
just left behind. And even in that context of 9-11,
(15:32):
there is a core that is so important that they
must be protected at all costs. And everybody else, even
those working in the West Wing, were immediately kicked out.
I thought that was a super interesting story from him.
We have not played cut two, Buck. Let's play cut
two here if we can. This is Trump telling the
story of just one of those who lost a loved
(15:56):
one on that day.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Listen.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
For anyone who lived it, no words can do justice
to the anguish of that day. After the first plane
hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, Patrick
Danae left a message to comfort his beautiful wife, Mary,
letting her know he was safe inside his office on
South Tower's 90th floor. Mary was eight months pregnant and
(16:20):
playing with their two young daughters when she heard Patrick's voice.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
She loved him so much.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
She called back.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
Turned on the TV, the line.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Rang, and then it went completely dead. Very unusual, she felt.
Speaker 6 (16:34):
Mary fell to her knees as she watched United Flight
175 explode by her husband's office.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
She saw it right by the office.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
You know exactly where the office was.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Right by the office.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Um.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Yeah, I read a book that was just an oral
history of 9-11, probably in the last couple of years.
I talked about it on the program. I do think
it's important sometimes to familiarize yourself with history that otherwise
you might forget. Was it The Looming Tower that is
so incredibly well-written, one of the best nonfiction works of
(17:13):
the 21st century, single book? I think it's sometimes we
go back in time. I'm reading about World War II,
the Civil War, whatever it might be, And we neglect
to remember exactly what the impact was of things we
lived through. And I think this is one good example.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I found myself, Clay, as I was scrolling through remembrances
about 9-11, the collection of voice messages that people left.
It will bring tears to your eyes, but you should
listen to it. If you come across it, they're online,
(17:49):
you should listen to it. It's deeply sad, but it's
also powerful in a way that reminds people of what
is most dear to them, even in their most frightened moments.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
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Speaker 6 (18:54):
This morning, we also remember how America responded to that wickedness.
On days like 9-11, we learn.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
What a country.
Speaker 6 (19:03):
is truly made of.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
We're learning right now what we're made of.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
We have to be strong and we have to be smart.
And Americans are made of a goodness spirit that can
transcend any earthly force. And that's what we're doing better
than anyone else has ever been able to do it
because we are sustained by a supreme strength, far more
powerful than steel alone. aboard flight 93 in the skies
(19:29):
over Pennsylvania, a brave flight attendant, boiled water to fight back.
A loving father from New Jersey, Todd Beamer, asked a
telephone operator in Illinois to join him in the Lord's Prayer.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
And then he said his last words, let roll. Today,
as we remember the many lives lost on 9-11, we
also give thanks for the countless lives saved by the
immortal heroes of Flight 93.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
A very deserved eulogy there for those on 93 and
particularly those who fought back. And yes, they weren't able
to regain control of the plane because the terrorists just
decided to bury the nose down and kill everybody on board.
But they certainly saved. I don't think anyone believes that
(20:26):
that plane would have been shot down in time before
it found another target, most likely the Capitol building, maybe
the White House. So be Beamer in your life. Be
that guy. The poise, the courage, the strength that people showed.
(20:46):
And that's what I said in a lot of those
recordings that are out there. And I know at the
9-11 Museum, which I have been to the memorial. I
haven't toured inside the museum. I need to do that.
Carrie and I have talked about it. I'm told that
it's done very well. And a part of it is
the voice messages that people play. who, who knew that
(21:08):
they were probably never going to see those loved ones again.
And it's, it's powerful, uh, powerful stuff and something that
we should think about today. Uh, producer Allie's telling me
that it is phenomenal. Very well done. She's been there,
but you should bring tissues. Uh, but there are lessons
about life and mortality and what really matters that come
(21:30):
across in all of those calls. Um, so, uh, All right,
let's do some talkbacks here, Clay. Eric in upstate New
York on WGY. This is Talkback A. Play it.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Hey, Clay and Buck.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Happy Friday.
Speaker 7 (21:45):
And my heart goes out to anybody who was affected
by September the 11th, 2001. I was born a week
after that day, and I cannot imagine growing.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Up without knowing.
Speaker 7 (21:56):
or learning about it at such a young age. And
the fact that so many kids don't learn about it
nowadays goes to show how separated we are from learning
about our American history. It was only 25 years ago.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Clay, I would just note that I think that people
are certainly all taught about it. And look, they're a
partner and a sponsor and just a longtime ally of
this program. But part of what Tunnel to Towers Foundation
does is just make sure that people remember the real
history of 9-11 and what happened i worry clay and
(22:29):
this is what i took from that mom donnie tweet
uh that people are being taught this as though it
was a natural disaster you know it's like we came
together after a big earthquake and we saw the best
of us okay yeah we came together and we saw
a lot of the best of us in bravery but
we were attacked by an enemy of who sought the
(22:50):
annihilation of our civilization and had that enemy had access.
And we know this from their own writings. We know
this from Al Qaeda leadership, from detainee reporting. If they
had had the ability to park a nuclear device in
downtown Manhattan and kill a million people, they would have
done it.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
And this is where I was just texting with you. Interestingly,
the headlines on newspaper, September 11th, 2001, I'm like the
last person who still reads print newspapers, but they're going
viral today. It was about Andrea Yates, a mom in
Houston who killed five of her kids, and whether she
(23:30):
could be held legally insane or not. In many ways,
a lot of stories are cyclical. I remember Buck in
that era. You remember, we've talked about her a few
times on the program, just because it was a huge story.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Chandra Levy. In the D.C. area, she vanished.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
The whole summer of 2001, while Al Qaeda was preparing
to attack the United States, basically the country was asleep
at the wheel. And we were really obsessed with things
like murder mysteries, what happened with Chandra Levy. It was
the number one story in Washington, D.C. She was an intern.
(24:14):
It was coming on the heels of the Clinton intern story.
Gary Kahn did. Everything associated with that was an obsession
in D.C. I left to go off to law school.
And on that 9-11 day, it was like all the
frivolity stopped. But on that day itself, the number one
lead story was a mom who killed five of her kids.
(24:37):
And what was going to happen? Wall Street Journal, USA Today.
That's what the obsession of the country was.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
If you go back, and I just did. And one
of the tools that obviously we use here and just
to be, to always tell you guys that I'll be
doing this all the time. Cause I, Clay doesn't do
the show with a laptop in front of him. I do.
So if you ever see me looking down on the stream,
it's because I'm doing research on the fly as we go.
So is our team, by the way. But that's how
we're able to bring you facts and recall so quickly.
(25:03):
But I just did a quick, what were the biggest,
and this is where AI is so helpful, right? What
are the biggest news stories, Clay, for the month of
August 2001, just to set the scene? Oh, this is good.
The biggest news stories were California Representative Gary Condit denying
knowledge of missing federal intern Chandra Levy. To be clear,
(25:25):
he didn't do anything. Correct. It was not him.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
She was murdered, and they found her body like 15
years later or something in Rock Creek Park in D.C.
I think it was an illegal, by the way, who
raped and murdered her. He had nothing to do with it.
That was the D.C. obsession of August 2001.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
And I will say, because I remember at that time,
there was a sense people were really giving Gary Condit
the long stink eye on this one. He had nothing
to do with it. So it is a reminder that
there are those times when the public perception about who
is guilty can be way off, and they were way
(26:06):
off on that one. He had nothing to do with it,
and that was proven. Anwar Drilling. Remember when Anwar Drilling
was such a big thing?
Speaker 5 (26:12):
Oh, yeah, I've heard that a long time. I remember
that obsession back in the day. Anwar Drilling was a top,
top story, and... the death of R & B singer
Aaliyah in a plane crash, those were, for the month
of August, the biggest news stories in America, according to
AI research on coverage across all the networks. So just
(26:36):
give everybody a sense of, oh, and an interest rate cut, okay?
Give everybody a sense of where things were going to 9-11.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
It's not like... we were gearing up for war and
they got, you know, you can say what you will
Pearl Harbor. The world was already, you know, the European theater,
the Soviets, the Germans. I mean, the war was at war,
the world. Sorry. I can't say the words. The world
was at war before we got pulled into it. So
(27:05):
while it was a shock to us at some level,
and I know people say, Oh, FDR knew it was
coming and there's all that. Put that aside.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Clay.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
The idea that we were brought into this was not,
Out of nowhere. And that's why I was asking.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
Yeah, that's why I was asking Steve, because I do
think one of the great paths of history and I
didn't ask you, do you think we would let's pretend
that somehow 9-11 hadn't. happened right somehow yeah uh they
had caught the guys with the box cutters going through
on that day or there had been a plane malfunction
(27:37):
and uh and those flights hadn't been able to take
off that day you know any number of things could
have occurred or obviously we could have caught them um
do you think if we had been fortunate enough to
avoid 9-11 steve said he thinks that they still would
have hit in a catastrophic way because we were basically
sleepwalking and not aware of the threat that was building
(27:58):
against this? Or do you think that we would have
gone in a completely different direction and it might not
have happened? I am as certain you can be of
a thing you can never prove that Steve is correct
on that and that we were– because remember, I went
into the CIA CTC and saw, which is the counterterrorism
center there, which was– it was the– Basically, the Bin
(28:22):
Laden Center, just so everyone understands. The origins of CTC
and the CIA was a unit that was tracking Bin
Laden in the years before 9-11. I remember finding out
from the superintendent of my building that the World Trade
Centers were bombed in 93.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Which people also don't really remember. By the way, you
mentioned that book. It is an excellent book, The Looming Tower. uh,
it's still worth it for anyone who has not read it. I, I,
I mean, I read it a long time ago. It
was one of those, if you're going to work in
national security, if you're going to go to the CIA
or the FBI, you got to read that book. I mean,
it's just, it's phenomenally well, it's a very, uh, Lawrence, right. Lawrence, right.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Uh, very good.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
It is a good one to put on the list. Um,
I read also, and I can't remember, um, It was
an oral history of everybody from 9-11's perspective. Blooming Tower
is a big nonfiction work that is incredible. I mean,
and by the way, it takes you into al-Qaeda and
their planning of the attack and all of the details
surrounding it.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I would also put, if anyone hasn't read it, Steve Cole, C-O-L-L,
Steve Cole, Ghost Wars, which is about the rise of
al-Qaeda and about Afghanistan pre, leading up to the assassination
of Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was the head of the
Northern Alliance, by an al-Qaeda team posing as journalists in
Afghanistan the day before the 9-11 attack. So they knew
(29:53):
exactly what they were doing with that one. Ghost Wars
is a fantastic book for the period if you're looking
for something to read. Cole's written a whole bunch of books. But, Clay,
I think that we were– I brought up CTC because
it really was the bin Laden unit, essentially. And that's
why I wanted to work there in the CIA. I
(30:15):
didn't show up to the CIA saying I want to
work on Ukrainian grain harvest analysis. I mean, there are
people doing all kinds of stuff in national security. Wanted
to track and find al-Qaeda senior leadership. That was what
I told my interviewers. That was what I wanted to do. And, Clay,
there were so many of these plots. So many of
these plots under discussion. Some went operational. Some were thwarted.
(30:39):
So many more than people realize. So, I mean, I
can say to you with, in my mind, certainty, if
they had somehow just aborted, let's say, the mission on 9-11...
we would have gotten hit with a catastrophic attack. And
maybe it could have even theoretically been worse. Om Shinrikyo,
which I write about in Manufacturing Delusion, which was a
cult based out of Japan, they did a sarin gas
(31:02):
attack in the Tokyo subways. If they had known a
little bit more about what they were doing in the
dispersal system, they could have killed thousands of people. There
are some estimates 50,000 to 100,000 people they could have
killed in those attacks. So things could have theoretically even
had a higher body count than what we saw. which
is obviously astonishing and horrible. But we were not willing
(31:26):
to take the threat of jihad. We thought it was
a foreign, you know, we'll send our badasses to go,
you know, kick some ass over there when we have to.
We'll send some special operations team. We'll send SEAL Team 6.
We'll send Delta, and we'll do some snatch and grab
of some bad guy somewhere once in a while, and
that will kind of trim the grass. That wasn't going
to work. not with how advanced and how deeply enmeshed
(31:51):
al-Qaeda was, not just in Afghanistan, but in many countries
all over the world.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
One, the looming tower is great. The only plane in
the sky and oral history of 9-11 is a propulsive,
difficult to put down narrative arc told through the voices
of the people who experienced 9-11 that day. I read
that a few years ago as well. Those are two
(32:18):
books that if you've got kids, I'm sure they're audio books.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Unfortunately, kids don't want to read. What do we see?
Speaker 5 (32:25):
The kid reading scores hit 25-year lows this week, I
think is what I saw, Buck.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Nobody will read anymore. If you want your kid.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
To have an advantage in an AI age, have them
read books because I think you have to be able
to read deeply in order to make the connections necessary
in an AI age to even know what's real and false.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
And it's troubling how many kids can't do that. Reading
books is doing pushups for your brain. That's a great,
it's just true. It's doing pushups for your brain, everybody.
So you want it. You want to always be having
a book that you are reading.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
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She had been told pregnancy wasn't possible, the baby wasn't planned,
and now, sure enough, she was pregnant. She was confused, overwhelmed,
(33:22):
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(33:42):
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(34:27):
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Speaker 3 (34:57):
Laugh. Learn.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Hang with the guys. Right there when you need them most.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Clay and Buck, just preset them on the iHeart app.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Welcome back in.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
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Perfect10Mortgage. com.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
We're going to be joined by David Rutherford here coming
up in just a sec at the top of the
next hour.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
GWAT combat veteran. The Navy SEAL fought in the GWAT,
so we want to talk to him about some of
that stuff.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Just so everyone can know, we will also try to
have some fun in the final hour of the week.
Crazy revelation about who exactly the guy was who kept
Lindsay Clancy from getting off for murdering her three kids.
But they also had a football game in Australia that
began with a land acknowledgment event. You're going to want
(36:20):
to hear some of this. If you haven't seen the video,
you will be entertained by it. And the Democrat Party
has hit a new record low in lack of approval
among male voters, just 16%. We will talk about all
that and more, and we'll continue to discuss the 25th
anniversary of 9-11, 14 hours up, 15th hour coming to
(36:41):
all of you in your moments, Buck.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Try to keep people entertained. It's going to be a
fantastic third hour of the show. Going to keep on
doing what we do here. Send us your talk back.
More coming.
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