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The Lead with Jake Tapper

U.S. Marks 25 Years Since The September 11 Attacks; Supreme Court Considers Trump Mail-In Ballot Rule; New Lethal Boat Strike Puts U.S. Strategy Shift Into Question; Texts Reveal FBI Director Kash Patel Wanted Aides To Strongly Push Back On Online Trolls; 9/11 Widow Calls Out Government For Protecting Saudi Arabia. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired September 11, 2026 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: All right. Thanks very much to my panel. It was real privilege to reflect on 25 years after 9/11 with all of you. Thanks to you at home for watching as well. You can watch much more of The Arena tomorrow. The Arena Saturday airs at noon and again at 4:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. I'd love to have you join us. You can also stream catch up whenever you want in the CNN app. The Lead with Jake Tapper starts right now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. The Lead tonight, a nation remembering 25 years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Americans today gathered at solemn ceremonies at Ground Zero in New York, at the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, speaking about the loved ones they lost that day, what they remember and what some were too young to recall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would be proud of the family we built and become.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 25 years later, we still tell your stories like it was yesterday.

KIERSTEN HAUB, DAUGTHER OF FIREFIGTHER MICHAEL H. HAUB: I was only 16 months old when you were taken from us. I may not remember you, but I've spent my entire life getting to know you.

DANIELLA DE LA PENA, DAUGTHER OF 9/11 VICTIM EMY DE LA PENA: And my mother, Emmy De La Pena. I was only 11 months old when you were taken from me. I miss you and I love you so much. I am so happy that I am your twin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Also at Ground Zero, the beginning of a new tradition today, a moment of silence to honor the thousands who have died from diseases linked to exposure toxic ash and rubble at Ground Zero.

The Ground Zero memorial ceremony is not typically a moment for politics or speeches, but after a quarter century, some families are still demanding accountability from federal leaders. And one widow, one familiar to viewers of this show, took a moment to speak out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRY STRADA, WIDOW OF 9/11 VICTIM TOM STRADA: My husband, Tom Strada. You are missed more with each year that passes. But how can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder. For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Terry Strada will join us here in a bit to share more of her message. And the message from 9/11 families in the crowd today at Ground Zero is every living former president along with the vice president, J.D. Vance. President Trump, a native New Yorker, decided to instead deliver remarks at the Pentagon. He was joined by the first lady and the Secretary of defense, Pete Hagseth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: September 11th reminded us of the terrible power of hate. The 25 years since have shown us the even greater power of the American spirit to endure and prevail and to win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: One of the most iconic images from that horrible day is the moment that President George W. Bush was reading to a second grade class in Sarasota, Florida, when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, leaned over to whisper, America is under attack. Here with me now is Natalia Wilcox. She was one of the students in that classroom then. And Natalia, you've gone on to become a teacher yourself. It's been 25 years since that moment. What do you remember the most about what happened that day and the

rest of that day?

NATALIA WILCOX, STUDENT IN CLASS WITH PRESIDENT BUSH ON 9/11: Well, I remember the most. We all were reading to him and were going through our lesson like normal as kids. We were just so excited to be in the same place with the President of the United States. Our parents had told us all week long, like, hey, you guys are going to be. It's going to be a really big thing. And I don't think at, in second grade we had took that all in just at that moment, but just being in the room and the reporters sitting in the back with all the clicking and everything with the cameras, it was just a surreal moment to be in that classroom.

TAPPER: You and your classmates were so young on that day, I guess seven or eight. When did you start to understand the scale of what you witnessed that day?

WILCOX: Well, I want to say that day as a kid, we did kind of share a moment with Ms. Daniels because Ms. Daniels began to weep and cry and were too young to really understand the images that they had shown us on the screen at that time in the classroom next to ours.

[17:05:04]

But because of the heaviness of her heart in that moment, it's almost like it swept across our entire classroom. And for a moment, everybody was grieving together, like, just feeling that slumberness together. And then it didn't actually hit us until were older. We were like, oh, my gosh. And here we are, excited, full of life, like, really thinking, like, this is our moment, this is our time. We're going to read to the president. And on the other side of the world, you have tragedy happening at the exact same time. We could have never imagined that or prepared our mind to intake that that was what was really happening.

TAPPER: Do you think what happened that day is part of the reasons. Reason why you decided to become a teacher?

WILCOX: I would like to say yes and no. I always kind of had that little bossy squeak in me, so I always knew that I was going to either be a teacher or something to that nature. But Ms. Daniels, that love that she created in that classroom was like a mother's love, like never before. It was almost like I'm receiving love from my mom. So that atmosphere is something that I always wanted to be able to create for kids to come.

You know what I mean? I wanted to be able for them to come to school and feel like, hey, my teacher loves me, how my mom loves me. And that's something that you will never forget.

TAPPER: Natalia Wilcox, thank you so much.

I've been thinking a lot about the 25 years since the horrific 9/11 terrorist attacks, as I'm sure all of you have been. The almost 3,000 souls taken from us that day by the evil terrorists of Al Qaeda and the brave first responders who ran up the stairs right into danger. And the way that the nation came together in so many ways, it was an awful and sobering time.

In light of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's release of previously undisclosed documents revealing that the government lied to the American people and those first responders about the air quality at Ground Zero. I've also been thinking a lot about the decisions our leaders made after 9/11 and before.

Decisions I think that in 75 years, should we still be around this planet may be as much or even more of a focus to historians than the actual 9/11 attacks. Before 9/11, a bipartisan commission headed by then New Hampshire Republican Senator Warren Rudman and then a former Senator Gary Hart, a Colorado Democrat, warned that a foreign terrorist threat could be imminent. And that meant, quote, Americans will likely die in American soil, possibly in large numbers, unquote. The Commission called for a new strategy, a new focus on the foreign terrorist threat.

But as Gary Hart told me on September 12, 2001, quote, frankly, the White House shut it down. Plus, of course we know that on August 6, 2001 before 9/11, President George W. Bush received a presidential daily briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." warning signs dismissed.

Then came the fallout from 9/11 that cost many more lives. Two formal wars and several other smaller ones launched by American leaders with the explicit endorsement of the U.S. Congress after 9/11. In response, the first war in Afghanistan. Perhaps more understandable and justifiable given that's where the Taliban government gave Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden shelter. But beyond the task of pursuing and killing Bin Laden and the Taliban government that refused to turn Al Qaeda over after the 9/11 attacks, beyond that are the decisions that led to a 20-year war in Afghanistan. A 20-year war that cost the lives of 2,350 American service members, not to mention all of those who came home with post-traumatic stress and other serious wounds.

A war that killed between 46 and 47,000 Afghan civilians, and a war that ended with the Taliban government quite easily regaining control. To say nothing of those Americans who to this day continue to struggle because of that war. A war that frankly our leaders, not our service members, but our leaders, lost.

Then of course, there is the war in Iraq. One justified from the falsehood that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

[17:10:06]

Iraq was a conflict that has cost the lives of 4,492 American service members, not to mention all those who came home with post-traumatic stress and other grievous injuries, not to mention the estimated 200,000 Iraqi civilians who were killed. According to data from Brown University, the post-9/11 wars also cost the lives of 8,189 U.S. contractors as well as 1,572 journalists and humanitarian workers.

Then, of course, as I mentioned, the decisions by leaders to be dishonest with 9/11 first responders and new Yorkers and the American people about the air quality at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attack.

One of those hero first responders who's been fighting for health benefits for decades, John Feal, he was on the show earlier this week and he talked about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN FEAL, 9/11 FIRST RESPONDER: We knew were sick. We knew they were lying when they said they didn't have any proof that were sick. And we walked the halls of Congress in the early 2000s when Congress said were making it up. What bothers me though, Jake, is roughly 10,000 people have died since 9/11 from their illnesses. If the city would have came clean and said, you know what, maybe the air isn't as safe as we thought it was. Let's put some safeguards in there. Let's not send those kids back to school, those people to their apartments in open Wall Street. And maybe instead of 10,000 that have died, maybe it would have only been 4,000.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: His numbers are right. According to data from the World Trade Center Health Program, all in all, more than 9,400 people have died from 9/11 related illnesses, including at least 69 forms of cancer, airway and digestive disorders, musculoskeletal disorders and mental health conditions.

So, if you add up the total number of American lives that were lost because of decisions made by our leaders after 9/11, that number amounts to at least, at least 16,242 people. 16,000, A number that dwarfs the nearly 3,000 innocent souls taken from us on 9/11. Among those who died later, reportedly from 9/11 related illnesses, Bob Beckwith. That's the man you see in this iconic image standing there next to President George W. Bush with the bullhorn at Ground Zero three days after 9/11. Beckwith's family says he was a retired firefighter when the planes hit the towers.

They tried to stop him from going to help, but he went anyway. It's the sort of courage that brought Americans together in those dark times. And perhaps it was that sort of courage that led President Bush to say that the terrorists attack us because they hate our freedoms. They hate our freedoms.

That might be right in some ways, wrong in others. One of our foremost freedoms in this country, our privileges as an American, is to question authority and to do so publicly if we want. And that's why it's the duty of not only journalists, but every American, as long as we have this First Amendment in this country, to question those in authority, be they Democrats or Republicans or independents. Because our leaders sometimes, some might say, often make bad decisions.

Living as Americans with liberty and freedom may be the best way to honor the lives of those souls taken because they were American. That's why their lives were lost. Exercising our rights might be the best way to honor those innocent lives lost instead of, for example, making decisions that cost even more innocent lives.

God bless all of those innocent souls and those who love them. Never forget 9/11. Never forget and never forget the decisions made before and after 9/11.

Let's talk about this with Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts. He's a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who enlisted just a few months before the 9/11 attack. He served four tours in Iraq and attained the rank of captain.

Congressman, because you served in Iraq, you're one of the many Americans impacted by these enormous U.S. government decisions after 9/11. What is it like to think back to that time? Did you have any idea how many more Americans we would ultimately lose after the attacks?

REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): No, Jake. I mean, absolutely no idea. And I made the decision to sign up to serve about three months before 9/11 when I graduated from college. Many of my friends at the time thought I was crazy. It was nuts. Why would you take a Harvard degree and go into the military service?

And yet just at 9/11, of course there were just after. There were lines out the doors of recruiting stations across America. So many people came together and wanted to serve the country, including many of my friends.

[17:15:03]

And yet we squandered that amazing commitment to service, that unity, that opportunity by wasting it on wars.

And so, as you've chronicled, the extraordinary number of Americans who lost their lives thanks to decisions just after 9/11, on top of the even larger number of Iraqis and Afghans and other innocent people around the globe who've lost their lives because of those decisions, we also missed a tremendous opportunity. There's so much good we could have done for the world instead. And now that unity, that commitment to service is not here anymore.

TAPPER: What lessons do you think the U.S. government learned or didn't learn from the post-9/11 mistakes? The post-9/11 bad decisions?

MOULTON: You know, on a difficult day in Iraq, there was a corporal in my infantry platoon who looked up at me and he said, you know, sir, you ought to run for Congress someday so that this stuff doesn't happen again. He used a Marine term for stuff. But the point is that we do need to question authority. We do need to be willing to challenge the status quo. We do need to say, maybe this isn't the right course. We didn't do that enough before 9/11. We certainly didn't do enough of it afterwards.

And it's those on the ground like that corporal of Marines, like the first responders, the firefighters, the medics, the police officers, it's those on the ground who suffer the consequences, not the decision makers in Congress.

And I think we got to do a much better job of making sure our leadership is in touch with those on the ground, because in the same way that corporal felt like he wasn't being heard, weren't being listened to by people in Congress making these decisions about the war that were totally out of touch with our experience on the ground. Well, I think there are a lot of Americans who feel exactly that way today about our government.

TAPPER: Yes.

MOULTON: So there were important lessons, but I don't think we've learned them well enough.

TAPPER: Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, thanks, and as always, thank you for your service, sir.

MOULTON: Good to see you, Jake.

TAPPER: Still ahead, the new messages from FBI Director Kash Patel revealing that he directed FBI staffers to find social media posts that mocked him. And he told those staffers to push back against these anonymous trolls online.

But first, 53 days out from the midterms, will the U.S. Supreme Court let the Trump administration dictate who can vote by mail? I'll talk to a congressman who calls proposed changes an attack on voting itself.

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[17:21:46]

TAPPER: Breaking news in our Law and Justice Lead, we're standing by for a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court as the court reconsiders President Trump's order to restrict voting by mail, as we're now just 53 days until the midterm elections. The rule from President Trump. The proposal would give the U.S. Postal Service, which he runs, an unprecedented role in elections, requiring states to upload their voter rolls to an online portal, and if the data does not perfectly match, the ballot will not be delivered.

A whistleblower report recently went further, saying that if a single envelope doesn't match up, the Postal Service would throw out the entire batch. This report comes as a group of six Republican secretaries of state ask the court to prevent the new rule from taking effect this year, saying that the late implementation of the rule could disrupt the midterm significantly.

Let's discuss this with Democratic Congressman Greg Stanton of Arizona. Congressman, how do you think the justices will rule on this, given that the election is fewer than two months away?

REP. GREG STANTON (D-AZ): Well, it should be a fairly easy case because the United States Constitution is clear. The president has no role in elections the United States of America. It is states and localities that run elections and have done so throughout the entirety of our country. So, it is illegal and unconstitutional what Trump is trying to do, to kind of take over elections by running mail-in voting.

TAPPER: So the vast majority of Arizonans vote by mail. It's one of the reasons why it takes you guys so long to count the ballots after the election. If the U.S. Supreme Court does let this rule go through, what kind of impact would that have on Arizona?

STANTON: Well, it would have a massive impact. You are exactly right. 85 percent Of Arizonans choose to vote by mail. It is by far overwhelmingly popular with both Republicans and Democrats. And if, in fact, this executive order is found to be legal, our secretary of state has said he is not going to provide this private voter information to the federal government.

By the way, the portal that you mentioned is not even operational at this point. We are 27 days from when early ballots are supposed to go out in elections here in Arizona. The portal that's supposed to receive this information is not ready. I honor the Republican secretaries of state who wrote the amicus brief asking for this to be delayed. I wish Republicans in Congress would have the same backbone to stand up to this president when he continues to do illegal things.

So, politically, this is really crazy for the president to do because in Arizona, more Republicans participate in early ballots than Democrats. But the reality is that every voter in Arizona has to show proof of identification to become a registered voter. So it's really unclear what the president is trying to accomplish other than to assert control over elections in Arizona and around the country.

TAPPER: Democratic Congressman Greg Stanton of Arizona. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

STANTON: Thank you so much.

TAPPER: Coming up next, the Trump administration's latest boat strikes this week in the Caribbean, killing three people, continuing to raise questions about what they're doing, whether or not it's legal, and calling into question what they said with a recent shift in strategy.

[17:25:10]

Did anything really change?

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TAPPER: We're back with the latest in our continuing series, Dead in the Water, in which we track the U.S. campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, looking exactly at who the strikes have killed, whether or not these strikes are even legal.

New boat strikes in the Caribbean this week killed three people on board and continue to raise questions over the U.S. military's strategy and whether the Pentagon has actually changed the strategy at all when it comes to countering drug trafficking.

[17:30:07]

The military's former boat strike campaign was called Operation Southern Spear but it recently shifted to taking crew members off larger boats rather than executing them extra judicially with airstrikes. This new campaign dubbed Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere was born after immense global and congressional backlash over the administration's kill everybody directive.

Joining us now, Will Freeman, he's a fellow with the Council of Foreign Relations. Well you've been following this closely for months. The fact that three people were killed in this strike, is it fair to say that this new campaign is basically just the old one rebranded and maybe tweaked a bit?

WILL FREEMAN, FELLOW, LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well it's disheartening because it had seemed that after a pause over the summer in the strikes that there was a return to strikes about two weeks ago but that these were now non-lethal. So we saw a number of strikes on fishing boats in Ecuador or off Ecuador's waters. But the fishermen were taken off first then the boats were blown up. So it's disappointing to see that now there is another legal lethal extra strike in the Caribbean. And hopefully it doesn't suggest that we're going to see yet a full scale return to even more of these. But it's a somewhat of -- some of the old tactics creeping back in.

TAPPER: And a reminder that the Pentagon refuses to share any evidence with the public justifying these strikes. And Senator Tim Kaine who has seen some of the classified evidence says that it's not worth the paper it's printed in to paraphrase him. Tell us more about what you thought was a new effort which started in the past five past month where it looked like the Pentagon would board these boats physically removing the crew sparing their lives. What happens from there?

FREEMAN: Well, let's be clear. I mean that is still what we're seeing in the Eastern Pacific and with the fishing boats. So there's two types of boats broadly that have been hit in this campaign. One of the go fast boats or the speed boats you see often in the videos posted of the explosions afterwards. And another class where these large civilian fishing vessels which the administration claims are being used to traffic illicit fuel to narco vessels further out to sea. So they're part of the chain even if they're not always allegedly transporting drugs.

Now what we have seen where we still see a change today is that whereas a few months ago the administration was hitting those fishing boats and we believe, you know, it led to several cases of deaths. Now we are still seeing those crews taken off first. For me that's a positive change. Of course it's not ideal. There should be more of a process around this. There should be more justification. It should be open to public scrutiny. But we are seeing a reduction in lethality in the Eastern Pacific.

TAPPER: We already talked in previous weeks and months about the fact that fentanyl and opioids are the killers of Americans and it's very unlikely that any of that are in any of these boats. Not to mention the fact that a lot of these boats seem to be heading their product if they are in fact drug traffickers towards Europe. What are other countries doing to fight trafficking or any of their strategies effective?

FREEMAN: Well, you know, you've had a long tradition of law enforcement cooperation between the United States and Latin America. I mean the administration's narrative is that that was a complete failure and never worked. I happen to think that actually some of those tactics made a lot of sense. I mean you know what we would do before is we would stop a boat that we thought of drugs on it.

We take the operators off bring them to into our custody and then often turn them into collaborating witnesses. I'd see if they knew anything about the larger structures that they were working for. Interestingly the Trump administration has pretty much abandoned that approach. So you're seeing a lot more of the suspected narco boat operators when they are actually detained and alive. They're just they're simply released back without any charges or coordination with the local law enforcement in those countries to figure out what was going on. So you know we shouldn't discount that all of that has been going on for many years. It actually did stop a large portion of drugs. Maybe not everything, right. But these are massive illicit economies. The profit incentive is huge. So smugglers are always going to find a way to get some amount through. I will say you know the other government that stands out is pretty cooperative right now is Mexico.

Maybe surprising because of course they have some of the strongest organized crime groups of all. But the Mexican government of Claudia Sheinbaum has really been stepping up. They've closed a lot of fentanyl labs and have come down pretty hard on that trade.

TAPPER: Will Freeman thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up next the new unearthed messages from FBI Director Kash Patel revealing that he really sure seems to care a lot about trolls and what they say about him online.

[17:34:45]

Plus, the notable exchange caught on camera today between New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that's raising hackles among conservatives. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, newly released texts, internal text messages between FBI officials show that the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, pushed the bureau's communications department to fight back against online trolls, despite warnings from the comms officials that it would look bad. On Thursday, journalist Seth Hettena found those texts released by the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act in February after an ex account posted.

And these are the accounts words, not mine. Patel's, "Retard rating just went to all time highs. Congratulations Kash." Patel pressed the FBI's public affairs team to respond with the bureau's record year results. An FBI communications official refused, writing, "We're not responding. That would look bad on you." Patel shot back that it wasn't about the troll, but about the number of views that the text -- that the tweet was getting, saying, "People see it and need to be seeing our stats." The FBI declined to comment to CNN today about this.

[17:40:26]

The panel joins us now. Corbin, let's start with you. Patel's focus on social media has certainly drawn scrutiny throughout his tenure. The Vice President's social media presence has drawn scrutiny throughout his tenure, including Patel disclosing some sensitive information about investigations, perhaps prematurely. What do you think about his push to respond to the, "retard rating"?

CORBIN TRENT, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIR., REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO- CORTEZ: Well, I mean, I think, you know, it sort of goes in line with a lot of the administration, which is they are very, very thin skinned and they are willing to use the resources of the government to protect their thin skin. I mean, I think he said he also doesn't understand social media. He thought that the views were actual comments. I remember reading that in the messages.

TAPPER: Yes.

TRENT: It's really bizarre what they're focusing. There's a lot of things happening in this country, right? There is a, you know, increase in anti-Semitic violence. There's an increase in Islamophobia. There's like all this stuff happening. And the FBI director is instead focusing on whether or not somebody thinks his retard rating went up or not. And, you know, I think it's bizarre and it's a dereliction of duty.

TAPPER: What do you think, Ashley?

ASHLEY DAVIS, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL, GEORGE W. BUSH ADMINISTRATION: Well, first off, my son said that word. I'd slap him up against the head. I just think it's such an offensive word.

TAPPER: And for the record, it's this troll that used.

DAVIS: No, no, I know.

TAPPER: Yes, yes, yes.

DAVIS: Look, I'm just saying, like, why are we even?

TAPPER: Right.

DAVIS: But anyway, the point is --

TAPPER: The only reason I'm just to justify why we even quoted it is to show how stupid it was.

DAVIS: Totally. No. Yes.

TAPPER: Like it's not worth responding to.

DAVIS: Exactly. Which goes back to your comment of thin skin.

TRENT: Yes.

DAVIS: Right. I mean, like, why would he even lower himself in my mind to respond to whether it was a troll or whatever? I mean, crime is down. So all the things that you said, but also crimes down, murders are down. Like, let's talk about that. Don't worry about some trolls calling you a retard.

TAPPER: Yes. Let's turn to the 9/11 ceremony at Ground Zero today, because there was some controversy a few hours into the reading of the names of the victims, a pool camera feed showed a clearly emotional man and then a few seconds of New York City's Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sharing a lighter moment, laughing. And Ashley, this is getting a lot of heat on the right. What do you think?

DAVIS: I think that there's going to be a lot of campaign ads made out of that. I mean, who knows what they were talking about. This day is -- that picture right there is what we should be remembering. Not that one. The one with the guy crying over who died in his family or loved one that day. And so I just I mean, it's poor taste, but I'm not going to criticize AOC, your old boss. And I'm not going to -- because who knows what was happening. But it's going to come back and bite them.

TAPPER: People have human moments. And unfortunately, sometimes they get caught. I'm sure what they were laughing about had nothing to do with it.

DAVIS: No, no.

TRENT: Yes, I mean, I think that's yes, there's -- I mean, I think, you know, unfortunately, when you're under a microscope, you have to be diligent about what you're saying when and you've got to know your environment, you know, and that's exactly the reason why, because if you're doing something that looks untoward, it can be completely taken out of context.

So, yes, there will be some political ads, but there'll be political hay made out of it and it'll be completely disingenuous. Like people will know that they're obviously not laughing about 9/11. They're not laughing about anybody that's dead there. And yet they'll say it was important.

TAPPER: I will say I could understand somebody -- I'm not saying this is my opinion, but like I could see somebody seeing that and saying you're at the 9/11 memorial. They're reading names. Don't laugh. You know what I mean? Like, it's not a lot to expect. Or I'm just saying like that. I think it doesn't have to be -- there's going to be a lot of disingenuous objection to it. No question. There's probably also going to be some sincere objection to it, don't you think?

DAVIS: No. I -- listen, was it wrong? Should you -- they should have been reminded that they're going to be on camera every minute of that service.

TAPPER: Yes.

DAVIS: And they made a mistake and it will come. I don't know if it's going to swing votes one way or the other, but it's definitely going to be remembered.

TAPPER: Here's a worse moment. So last night at the Republicans midterm convention, it wrapped up. Ted Cruz was giving a speech, a senator from Texas, an audience member could be heard shouting, "He should be shot" as Cruz attacked Mayor Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed, who's a Democratic Senate candidate. Here's that clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): When Mamdani says he wants to seize the means of production, he means it when Abdul El-Sayed says he has a, "obligation to comply with Sharia law."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He should be shot.

CRUZ: He means it. And when James Talarico says he wants to dismantle capitalism --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He should be shot.

CRUZ: -- he means it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Wow, that guy sure said that a lot. And it looked like Cruz heard the first one. Maybe he couldn't make out what was being said, but that is really, really ugly and awful.

[17:45:08]

TRENT: Yes, I think it reminds me of John McCain, though, right? I remember, you know, when he had the, you know, the comment about Obama being a Muslim and hating America or whatever. And then he stood up to that and said, no, you know, we're not going to do that. And I get that you're in a environment that's more of a rally and it's, you know, things are going, you want to keep the energy up. But that was a call and response, he should be shot. I think that should be, you know, I think that's a point to jump in.

But Ted Cruz also just I was watching him saying that he wants all the kill robots to be American. So Ted Cruz is on a gaffe spree, in my opinion, over these last few days.

DAVIS: Ted Cruz is running for president.

TAPPER: Yes. Well, I mean, you cited John McCain. He was a man of character. Well, what do you think of that, I mean?

DAVIS: Well, I don't know if he heard it or not. I don't -- I wouldn't, you know, I know Ted very well. I don't think that it's something that he would ever say is the right thing to say. But this is the problem with politics in our country right now, that people say that. And that's how you rile people up.

TAPPER: That's the problem. But also and I don't -- again, I don't know if he heard it, but if he did hear it and he didn't say anything, that was the wrong thing to do. Although anyway, he was giving a speech. So maybe he didn't want to disrupt the prog, who knows.

DAVIS: So he was thinking about his next sentence, right.

TAPPER: OK. Anyway, thanks to both you. Appreciate it.

Coming up next, I'll speak with the 9/11 widow who today bravely called out the lack of justice when it comes to Saudi Arabia since the attacks 25 years ago.

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TAPPER: Back in our National Lead, an unusual moment at the Ground Zero Memorial today, the widow of a bond broker who was killed on 9/11 used her platform to demand answers 25 years after that horrible day.

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STRADA: My husband, Tom Strada, you are missed more with each year that passes. But how can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder. For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families.

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TAPPER: That was Terry Strada, who you probably recognize. She's on the show as often as we can get her. And she joins us again today. Terry, you received a round of applause today, I presume from 9/11 families when you use the platform, not just to speak about your husband, Tom, but to demand accountability from the leaders who are sitting right in front of you who have covered up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11 for 25 years. Have you always planned on saying this? Tell us how this came about and what was going through your head when you made the remarks.

STRADA: Well, 25 years is a really long time to carry this burden. And we've always been trying to get the administrations to pay attention to us, to side with us, to work with us and to stop protecting the kingdom. And each and every administration has let us down. And I had just had enough of it.

And when I learned that all four of them were going to be in attendance, because I think we had all four, right? I knew it was a perfect time to say something. I kind of felt like if you had the nerve to do all of these bad things to the 9/11 community and to America, I mean, if you're going to bury the truth about the kingdom's role, that hurts all of us. Then I'm going to call you out on it.

TAPPER: It was the four former living presidents.

STRADA: Correct.

TAPPER: So Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, President Trump was not there, but Vice President Vance was. The 9/11 families involved in the case against the Saudi government, the legal case, are asking for the Trump administration to declassify a trove of records that you believe could show even more evidence that the Saudis and the Saudi government were complicit in the 9/11 attacks. What do you think might be in those records?

STRADA: A lot of it has to do with telephone records. You'd be shocked how telephone records tell the full story. There's other things, but, you know, Jake, we have so much already amassed. I mean, what we presented in the federal courtroom was amazing, and the judge ruled in our favor. And he said, you're going to trial against the kingdom because the evidence is so credible that they sent their agents here to the United States to set up the network that was needed for the hijackers.

And they said, you're going to trial. However, the Saudis appealed, but that's what's happening next month. We're going to go back in for oral arguments at the Second Circuit Appellate Court, and our lawyers are going to lay it all out again, how serious the charges are and what the evidence says. That's why we are now calling on the Trump administration to get involved, because you can't deny it any longer and you can't hide from the truth.

TAPPER: So you were just feet from Vice President Vance today, and apparently you asked him to deliver the message back to Washington, where President Trump stayed today. He went to the ceremony at the Pentagon. Back in November, President Trump met in the White House with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, MBS, for the first time in seven years. And he defended him when my former colleague Mary Bruce of ABC News asked about the anger from 9/11 families. He got mad at her. Have you or any of the 9/11 families received any kind of explanation from the Trump administration about the President's defense of MBS that day?

STRADA: No, we haven't heard anything. And then did you see how MBS was so eager, I'll answer the question, and then he took victimhood. He said that Saudi Arabia was a victim of Osama bin Laden, and that was the most absurd thing I've heard, although that was one of their talking points for years when I was working in Congress, to pass the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. They are not the victim.

[17:55:02]

The victims were every single person that was murdered on that day, whether it was in the Twin Towers, Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on the airplanes, or at the Pentagon. The mothers, the brothers, the sisters, the fathers, the daughters, the sons, they were the victims, not the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

TAPPER: Terry Strada, as long as I have this show, you have a chair and a voice and a platform to come and talk about these issues. We look forward to talking to you next month when the trial commences, and may your husband's memory be a blessing. Thank you for joining us today.

STRADA: It is. Thank you for having me.

TAPPER: As diesel fuel hits a new record today, news of a Saudi pipeline attacked, and an island at the mouth of the Red Sea captured by the Houthis, Iranian-allied terrorists. Could all this activity spell major trouble in the days and weeks ahead? What we're tracking, coming up.

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[18:00:02]

TAPPER: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, a fast moving situation tied to the war in Iran.