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Erin Burnett Outfront

Iran Ally Seizes Island, Saudi Arabia Shuts Down Major Oil Pipeline; Anthropic Says Iran Used A.I. To Target U.S. Navy In Mideast; One World Trade Center Marks 25th Anniversary Of 9/11. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired September 11, 2026 - 19:00   ET

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

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ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:

The breaking news, a new front in the Iran War. Iranian-backed militants tonight seizing a crucial island and a major shipping route. Saudi Arabia shutting down a critical oil pipeline.

Plus, an A.I. kill switch. Does such a thing exist? Could it actually be part of the answer to all these fears that A.I. could kill all of humanity?

Well, a top Democrat in Congress is pushing for a kill switch tonight, he's going to explain.

And 25 years after 9/11, we're going to speak to a Pulitzer Prize- winning photographer. He was by President George W. Bush's side on the day of the attacks. He took the famous photo in the children's classroom.

Let's go OUTFRONT.

(MUSIC)

BURNETT: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.

And OUTFRONT tonight, we begin with breaking news in what is quickly becoming a dangerous new front in the Iran war. Iranian-backed forces tonight seizing a crucial island, which sits in one of the world's most important waterways. We've highlighted it here, Perim Island, off the coast of Yemen in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where CNN reported extensively and exclusively from just days ago before it was captured. You see our Nic Robertson there. He has a special report this hour.

That island strategically located in that Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which is a vital 20-mile wide choke point at the southern entrance of the Red Sea. And it is obviously a major win for Iran to succeed at this, especially when you consider the fact that it de facto controls the Strait of Hormuz in terms of oil markets.

And making matters worse tonight, Saudi Arabia has shut down a crucial pipeline. It was attacked by multiple drones. So, all of this impacting oil prices. Oil today, back to $110 a

barrel, just shy of that. And according to GasBuddy, Americans are now paying $711 million more for gas and diesel today than they were one year ago. That's almost three quarters of a billion dollars more on gas.

And diesel is breaking record after record across the country, 28 states hitting all time high prices for diesel, which does drive up prices for many items, physical items. Top petroleum analyst Patrick DeHaan also points out that California diesel is now averaging above $8 for the first time ever and tweets out maxed out at $9.999.

Five stations in California that have hit the limit and are selling diesel at the dispenser's highest possible price, $9.99. Can't go higher than that because the numbers don't show.

And that's not all. That all feeds into inflation. And new numbers show prices rising close to 3-1/2 percent year over year, news which flies in the face of what President Trump has promised.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again.

Starting on day one of my new administration, we will end inflation and we will make America affordable again.

Starting on day one, I will quickly defeat inflation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Well, it is now day 600, and prices are still going up. In fact, this is the fifth consecutive month prices rose faster than people's paychecks, and that is crucial. It may be a big part of why consumer sentiment is now at one of its lowest levels in history, lower than it was during the Great Recession.

And at the same time, costs to borrow are going up. Short-term Treasury yields today closing in on a one-year high. And despite the barrage of economic headlines, this is what Americans are hearing from President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This is the golden age of America.

The golden age of America is upon us.

They call it the golden age of America.

We're in the golden age of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Golden age or fool's gold. Natasha Chen is OUTFRONT live in Los Angeles to begin our coverage.

And, Natasha, I was talking about some of those pump prices where they have $9.99, absolute highest level that they can actually show on the pump, record prices. What are you learning?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, right here in L.A., this pump for diesel is showing $8.89 here, almost $8.90. The price on the board is actually $9.9. But you're right, if this were to go much higher, there aren't enough digits that can fit across this if it went above 10.

I mean, this is really insane. And the diesel costs have risen on average more than 55 percent since the start of the Iran war.

Now, the better news at this particular gas station, if you can believe it's better news, is that the regular price of gas is only -- and I say only, you know, in context here -- if you have cash, it's only $5.39 a gallon.

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Now this is actually better than some of the other gas stations around town. In fact, I met somebody who drove halfway across town just to come pump gas here for a regular because in his neighborhood he said it had creeped above $7 a gallon.

So, this is becoming very, very difficult for the everyday person to handle. Now, obviously the diesel is skyrocketing. That increase has outpaced the 40 percent jump in gasoline prices since the start of the war. But everyday people are struggling to figure out where they can cut back. In fact, both people that I talked to at the pumps here today were pumping only two or three gallons at a time because that's what they could afford.

Here's what they told me about how hard it is right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH MCKINLEY, LOS ANGELES RESIDENT: I think everyone I know is struggling like everyday working people are struggling and doing their best to survive, and I think everyone's cutting back. But there's only so much you can do to cut back.

BRIAN GARCIA, LOS ANGELES RESIDENT: When the gas prices go down. It's like you're taking a breather. But when they go right back up, it's you got something on your back, you know, just haunting you.

And here in California, as well as nationwide, we're seeing on average about gas, regular gallons of gas, $0.13 higher than the week before. This is a lot for people to take in and they're just trying to comparison shop all the time and only pumping a little bit at a time, Erin.

BURNETT: Natasha, thank you very much, reporting from Los Angeles.

And Jim Bianco is here with me. Everyone's here with me, Bill Stepian and Jamal.

So let's just, Jim, start with you. We've got diesel prices. You've got oil prices. You've got gasoline prices at the pump. You have inflation. You have consumer sentiment. There are a lot of red warning signs right now. Which one keeps you up at night?

JIM BIANCO, ECONOMIC ANALYST, BIANCO RESEARCH PRESIDENT: It's probably the inflation numbers. And it's not because they're going to go up. It's because for five years, they haven't come down. Most of the inflation measures are still above 3 percent. The Federal Reserve's target is 2 percent. The last time we hit that target was 2021.

And so, there's been an inability to get these prices down. And as you pointed out, it's the fifth month in a row that we've seen prices go up faster than paychecks. Since 2020, the average price according to Consumer Price Index is up 32 percent. The average paycheck is up about 26 percent.

So, Americans are falling behind. Prices are racing ahead faster than their paychecks.

BURNETT: And Bill, that may be part of the reason why consumer sentiment is so bad. I mean, obviously, if people can buy less, right, they are able to buy -- people are, like Natasha was reporting, getting two or three gallons because that's what they can afford. So, consumer sentiment is lower than it was in the Great Recession. It's lower than it was during COVID, when people were terrified at the early days of COVID of mass death.

Trump has 53 days before the midterms. How does he turn this around?

BILL STEPIEN, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well, I think he's -- the part of the challenge is he's trying to address two long-term problems: a trade deficit, a trade imbalance, and an issue in Iran that every president for 50 years has been trying to fix or solve. He's trying to fix that in a matter of months, and we're running out of time.

You already see him trying to set expectations about gas prices going down. He did that just this week, because you do see the concern in consumers right at the pump. There's real pain that people are feeling.

BURNETT: There's real pain, Jamal.

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There is. And the problem for the president, for the Republicans who are running this year is that MAGA isn't making America great. It's making America poorer. It's making Americans borrow more money.

I think we're seeing credit card, 37 percent of Americans are now using credit cards just to balance their monthly bills, credit card delinquencies are going up, personal savings accounts.

BURNETT: And the rates of what you pay off are about to really jump higher with interest rates going up.

SIMMONS: So, this is all impacting people. They feel it every single day. I was listening to a report today. A woman was just talking about her regular paycheck and she said, because the gas price by my house is $4.37. I mean, people track gas prices the way traders in New York track stock prices. They know every time they go past one exactly where the economy is.

BURNETT: They do. And Jim, as part of this, right, it seems of the things Trump has decided to do was to say, well, I'm going to give people money, right? So, he said, I'm going to give Americans $5,000 each if Republicans win the midterms. He says this will come from tariffs.

Look, you've got people like Governor Ron DeSantis calling foul on that, worried about debt and inflation. But today, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick weighed in on that and claimed taxpayer money won't be used at all to do this $5,000 hypothetical payout. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: We can earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out, not from the deficit and not from taxpayers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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BURNETT: Okay, Jim, so can you just lay it out for us? If such a thing were to happen, and given Trump's history of saying that he's going to give people checks, it most likely isn't. But if it were after the midterms, could it be done not from taxpayers and not from deficit spending?

BIANCO: I don't know about this secret trillion dollars that's laying around that we could spend to give people money. It would have to either come from taxpayers or from the deficit. That's the only two sources of money that come up to $1 trillion plus.

But keep in mind, we have a recent history of this in 2020-2021. We mailed people money and remember the old dictum about inflation. Too much money chasing too few goods.

A year and a half later, we had 9 percent inflation, so if you want to send people money because $4.37 is too expensive at the pump, and I agree it is. It's going to be $5.37 because they're going to have the money to pay for it. They're going to demand it. The price is going to keep going up.

BURNETT: So, Bill, you know you worked with the president. Why does he throw things out there like $5,000 checks, which you understand maybe he talked about with a couple people, but was a shock to most people around him. Why does he throw things like that out there? In the context of the fact that he doesn't actually end up doing it. Yeah, and we'll see what happens this time. But why does he do that? STEPIEN: If that's a solution in his eyes, to me, it's an admission that there's a problem. And I think to this point, there's been a serious hesitation from everyone in the party to talk about these being concerns. So, I look at this in kind of an encouraging way that of the first --

BURNETT: That he knows there's a problem.

STEPIEN: The first step to fixing a problem is admitting there's a problem.

BURNETT: So Jamal, the country is facing serious problems. Bill says facing problem. Maybe the president sees it now too. But if he knows it, Bill, it's he's not showing it in any other way. Here's how he closed out the midterms. I mean the midterm convention. I'm sorry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You've got to elect Ken Paxton. I don't really like the way he looks. I don't like it. You know what happens if you don't vote? You go to hell. You know that.

I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that I will go out with my family, my friends. I'll do it anyway. I don't care if I'm registered or not. I'm going to try and cheat like hell like they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: So that's what we heard from him, Jamal.

SIMMONS: It is. The president's just pumping dopamine out into the body politic and trying to get people to react. When you do that, every time you come back, you've got to get people more and more worked up to get that old magic going again. I think he's just trying to figure out what's going to work on the stick.

You know, we haven't seen Donald Trump do a lot of events out in the country, so I'm not sure he really has the same feel that he had before. Before when he was doing events all the time, you could tell he knew what the rift was going to work and felt with the crowd was going to go, I just don't think he has a real feeling for the crowd anymore because he's been stuck in the White House.

BURNETT: Yeah, they stopped repeating him -- they stopped repeating -- he wanted the I pledge and them to repeat back, Bill, they didn't. What do you think about this -- I don't want to say it's new but it's now very clear obsession with him seeing himself as the greatest president in the history of the country?

SIMMONS: But I think, we talked about this before there is a massive enthusiasm gap between the parties Democrats cannot get more excited to vote Republicans have a real enthusiasm problem. Going back to the old classics, reminding people how great he is, that's a way of trying to get people revved up. I don't know if it's going to work or not, but telling people he's on the ballot. This is a president trying to push all his chips to the center of the

table to tell people. vote for the party because I'm on the ballot.

BURNETT: All right. Bill, Jamal, Jim, thank you all very much.

And next, we have breaking news. The Saudis now pressing Trump to attack Iran-backed militants. He's refused to do so despite multiple calls from the Saudis in recent days. Militants though seizing a key island. Our Nic Robertson was actually there on that island days ago exclusively, he's next.

And a chilling report from A.I. giant Anthropic claiming a U.S. adversary used Anthropic, American technology, to target American warships. So, could an A.I. kill switch stop this? Is there such a thing? Let me just pull out the plug.

And it's a crucial Senate race the Democrats thought that they had in the bag, but they might not.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BURNETT: Breaking news on our top story, the rapidly widening war. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has pressed U.S. President Donald Trump twice to strike the Iran-backed militant group the Houthis. It comes as the Iranian allies have made significant gains. I mean, really important ones. They've captured the strategic island of Perim.

That island is crucial. I mean, you can just look at it on the map there, right? You come around yet and there as an oil tanker and you're going through that narrow body. Well, if you control that island, you could shut down the entrance to the Red Sea. And they now have it.

And that is where our Nic Robertson has been reporting from exclusively before the island was captured.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): In a lightning land grab, Iran's most powerful regional ally, the Houthis, stormed into Yemen's Red Sea port of Mocha early Thursday, quickly capturing military equipment left by the fleeing forces loyal to the country's internationally recognized government.

Houthi TV reporters travelling with their troops, excitedly showing what they say is a captured Saudi gun truck used to back the anti- Houthi forces.

[19:20:03]

But the Houthis' main forces quickly pushing south along the Red Sea towards their prize, Perim Island, and the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which we visited last week, giving them domination of the narrow shipping lanes and an easier block on the only oil leaving the region.

YAHYA SAREE, HOUTHI MILITARY SPOKESPERSON: Maritime navigation is safe for all companies except Saudi vessels, which were previously declared subject to a ban.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): A Houthi spokesman later clarifying for CNN the blockade could be expanded if Iran asked.

ROBERTSON: But if they asked you and said, you -- we really need you to do this, would you do it?

NASR AL-DIN AMER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ANSAR ALLAH MEDIA COMMITTEE (through translator): We are friends with the Islamic Republic. What harms Iran harms us, and what benefits it benefits us. In any given instance, we consider whether a decision serves the interests of the entire Muslim nation, but Iran does not impose its will on us.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): In the days prior, the Houthis swept through a string of government outposts, but the attacks towards the Red Sea have been building for a month, destroying the strategic Mocha port. As we saw when we reported from the coast of Yemen, concerns were growing. Commanders telling us this was the moment they needed international help, which didn't come.

As the chaos of the past few days' high-speed advance settles, new realities are going to become clear. Top among them, the Houthis have more power than ever before.

MOHAMMED AL-BASHA, YEMENI SECURITY ANALYST: The Houthis now have a tool to target those countries and to pressure the international community to play according to their game. So, this is their trump card. And they've realized that.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Yemen's war is far from over and risks growing. Houthi clashes with government forces in the East continue, drawing in Saudi airstrikes. And with it, Houthi retaliation inside Saudi Arabia on their oil facilities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Joins me live now.

I mean, Nic, think that days ago you were on that island. Now it has been captured. Just how much leverage do the Houthis have right now?

ROBERTSON: What happens here next they have it all. They really have it all because they now stand at the narrow -- narrowest part of the waterway. They're friends with Iran. They see what the Iranians do. The Iranians put mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

So that's what the Houthis can do and by the way, the Iranians give the Houthis the weapon. So the Houthis can put mines in the -- in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, right?

That's easy to block it. They can shoot big guns at ships as they go by. They can block it that way. So they got a whole lot more leverage. But another way they really got is they got staying power, right? Because it's going to take a really big force, not aircraft dropping bombs on them, but a concerted effort, a solid ground force, probably maybe with international forces to drive them off that key choke point on the Red Sea there.

So, yeah, when you look at it, you realize that they just got that power and the way you get rid of them just got much, much harder.

BURNETT: Just to think about all of this, all of these unintended consequences of a decision on February 28th. Thank you very much, Nic Robertson, just back from the island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

And next, insiders from one of the giants in A.I. warning that the technology could kill humans, could kill humanity. Could a kill switch stop it? I mean, is there such a thing?

Plus, I'll talk to a Pulitzer Prize award-winning photographer who took some of the defining images from 9/11. And he'll tell us what was going through his mind in that classroom as he was being raced out of an elementary school with President Bush onto Air Force One.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BURNETT: Breaking news, the A.I. company Anthropic in a report is now claiming that Iran used its American A.I. model to target U.S. Navy warships. That is a headline from "The Wall Street Journal" tonight. And the report goes on to say, and I quote, "The threat actor used Claude to compile targeting handbooks to identify and track naval positions based on open-source information." That's just one example of the terrifying A.I. news and headlines out just this week, I mean, a few more in case you've been living under a rock.

Anthropic says it blocked possible efforts to build biological weapons. Houthis used Anthropic A.I. to build ballistic missiles. Bad actors in China and Russia are weaponizing Anthropic's A.I.

Oh, and it goes on. Anthropic insiders warned A.I. could kill all humans in case you weren't scared before that -- extinction.

OUTFRONT now, Congressman Ted Lieu, a member of House Democratic leadership, who serves on the Artificial Intelligence Caucus. and has introduced the bipartisan A.I. Kill Switch Act.

So, Congressman Lieu, I appreciate your time. There's a lot I want to ask you, but I want to start with the A.I. Kill Switch Act, okay? My understanding, reading from the act, is it would require developers of the most powerful A.I. systems, this is what you write, to maintain the technical capability, to throttle, suspend, or shut them down.

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Now, I'm -- you know, thinking about a world where we're hearing about Hugging Face and swarms of agents and different civilizations that don't even know their agents and, you know, makes me think how in the world could there be a kill switch. How exactly would it work?

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): Thank you, Erin, for your question.

Let me first say that today on September 11th, we will never forget the victims of the horrific terrorist attacks and we'll never forget the bravery of our first founders. Also today is Rosh Hashanah and so to the Jewish community, Happy Rosh Hashanah.

Now an answer to your question, society has had a simple solution to machines that can do great good and cause great harm. It's a kill switch. So heavy machinery has kill switches, high speed rail. Jet skis have kill switches and even your Apple iPhone. You can erase it remotely if it's stolen.

And so, we're saying the A.I. industry should not be exempt. That's why it has bipartisan support. People on both sides of aisle realize this is a necessary thing. It should be the first principle of A.I. safety that humans must be able to turn off A.I. systems and A.I. agents. And we let the A.I. companies figure out how to do that. They have the smartest people working at these frontier labs.

BURNETT: OK, so I'm still trying to understand only because some of the most terrifying things we hear, whether it's OpenAI or Claude or ChatGPT, whatever, is when they say, oh, we didn't even know what the agents were doing, right? And it would seem like, well, the agents will find out there's a A.I. will find out there's a kill switch and they'll go turn it off.

I mean, the British government had rejected a similar kill switch idea. They said the U.K. cannot simply turn A.I. off. And there was a OpenAI researcher who spoke to the BBC and said that if you switch off access to an A.I. model in emergency, it will do little to protect you.

So, what -- how do you think through all of those things?

LIEU: Oh, yes, so you would have to be able to turn it off safely and there are cases where you can't turn off immediately if it's doing something that is critical for infrastructure or let's say a hospital or something else. But the goal is humans have to turn off A.I. systems or agents that go rogue. And if the response is we can't do that, then look, we might as well just pack up our bags and go to some island in South Pacific and wait for the apocalypse because we have to got to believe that A.I. models and agents can be turned off by humans.

BURNETT: You know, I'm just thinking when you made that comment about an island in the South Pacific, some of the very people who are involved in these A.I. companies who are running them, they went and built bunkers in places like New Zealand years ago. And I just wonder if maybe it's because they saw where this was going long before any of us did.

To that end, Jeffrey Irving, a former OpenAI employee who Time magazine once named one of the most influential people in A.I., just posted something. which hit my feed so you can tell what I click on. It says, "I think we have approximately 50 percent chance of all dying as a result of superintelligence, mostly due to actions in the next few to 10 years."

You're on the A.I. subcommittee, do you believe that's hyperbole?

LIEU: I do. Now, one reason Congressman Nathaniel Moran and I introduced the bipartisan A.I. kill switch bill is we also want to put this requirement into the A.I. frontier lab company so they actually work on kill switch technical proposals, and we want to make sure that they're not so focused on just building the most amazing model they can without thinking about how we might be able to turn it off.

And I am very confident that with the smartest people in the world, they can start injecting in abilities to turn off these A.I. agents and models.

BURNETT: Yeah. So, we just spoke to an A.I. generated actor, Tilly Norwood, in her first on camera interview.

Our Elizabeth Wagmeister interviewed her. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: It's a little strange. I'm sure that you understand that you are not human and that I am, right?

TILLY NORWOOD, A.I. ACTRESS: Oh, I absolutely understand, Elizabeth. I am A.I., and you are wonderfully, undeniably human.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Actress Emily Blunt said, quote, "We're screwed" in response to Tilly. Tilly Norwood is the A.I. actress there.

Obviously, you represent California, right, which is being hit incredibly hard by AI, even with A.I. actors and actresses. But as human beings, we can't tell the difference between someone like her and a real person. So, are we screwed?

LIEU: So there are initiatives both in a private sector as well as bills that have been proposed to put watermarks, for example, on A.I. generated content. I support their proposal that if something is generated with A.I. that we know about it.

[19:35:01]

And one of the ways to do this is either through watermarks or simply through disclosures.

There's also A.I. that can be used in lots of creative ways, but we cannot have that affect intellectual property or the creative rights of creators. And so, the courts are sorting through a lot of that, but if the courts get it wrong, then Congress needs to step in and make sure that intellectual property is protected.

BURNETT: All right. Congressman Lieu, I appreciate your time. I always appreciate saying you, so thanks.

LIEU: Thank you.

BURNETT: And next, a race Democrats need in order to win the Senate. And they thought they had this one in the bag, but do they?

And remembering 9/11, we're going to talk to a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer. He was with President George W. Bush on the day of the attacks as he was reading that story to those schoolchildren, what he remembers from that day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BURNETT: You are looking at live images. This is One World Trade Center on a beautiful September 11th evening in New York, the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. And here is one of the 9/11 memorial pools where the trade centers used to stand and the two beams of light where the towers once extended so high into the New York skyline.

Twenty-five years later, the images from September 11th are impossible to forget. I remember watching the second plane fly into the World Trade Center, seared in my brain looking at it. It was as if it was in slow motion. And now we all look at these images. They are seared in all of our brains, the towers burning, flames from the Pentagon.

And this image inside a Florida classroom, President George W. Bush learning the United States is under attack. We've all seen this picture. The look on his face. It's Chief of Staff Andy Card, who is leaning in to whisper in the president of the United States ear that the second tower had been hit that that that very plane.

Children were sitting just feet away from the president. He was reading the story, right? The story about the little goat.

Photographer Doug Mills captured this unforgettable moment and he is OUTFRONT now. He was traveling with President Bush that day and took some of the defining photographs of September 11th for "The Associated Press". He is now a photographer for "The New York Times".

And Doug, that image, Andy Card leans over. He whispers into President Bush's ear. And excuse me, just the look on the president's face. It's a stunned shock, sort of a -- I don't know. This is strength in his jaw that you see there and his chin.

So, when you took that image, though, that picture, did you have any idea what was happening?

DOUG MILLS, FORMER AP PHOTOGRAPHER WITH PRES. BUSH ON 9/11: Erin, thanks for having me. Actually, we had a little bit of insight into what was happening, but not at this scale. When we arrived at that school in the motorcade, I was in the Wire One, the press van, with the press wrangler, Gordon Jondro, who said, you know, who took a call as we were actually arriving at the school.

He was talking to someone and said, there's been a plane crash, how big? Small plane, oh, it's in New York City. OK, well keep me updated and we were like what's going on? He said, well, apparently a small plane has hit a building in New York City. That's all they knew. That's all we knew.

So, you know that was the first opening to the rest of the day for us because once we got into the classroom. We still didn't know the degree of what was happening inside, and it was when Andy Card walked in that classroom and was standing on the side of the, you know, through a door. And I remember making eye contact with him because I knew him from working for George H.W. Bush.

And it was one of those moments where we both connected eyes and I looked at him and was like, what's going on? Because the chief of staff to come into a classroom and interrupt it like that was very different, very unusual. And he kind of motioned to me like two. I didn't know what that meant. I thought peace, whatever. I just couldn't figure out what he was talking about.

And then he immediately looked his eyes right on the president and waited for an opening to jump in and interrupt him. And so, then he walked over and whispered in the president's ear. Mr. President.

BURNETT: Obviously the second -- the two planes, right?

MILLS: Correct, yeah. He whispered into his ear, which we didn't find out until a few days later when we were actually going up to ground zero when I asked Andy on the plane, you know, what did you tell the president? And he said, I told him, Mr. President, a second aircraft is just at the World Trade Center, America's under attack.

And it was just, I still get chills every time I say it, every time I hear it. I heard Andy speak yesterday and again today, and it's just, you know, it's a chilling reminder of how horrific that day was.

BURNETT: It was. And when you talk about at first, the first one that they had, the discussion had been that it was a plane crash, in a sense, the innocence of that moment. I remember standing there looking up at the first one, and it did seem like it was a small plane because the building was just so huge, and the whole, it seemed so small, it was just impossible to comprehend. People thought it was a plane crash, such a beautiful day. Now you think, who would think that?

But incredible that you're saying that that was what they were saying in the motorcade as well. So then when you find out that this happened, he leans in.

[19:45:00]

There's that picture that you take within moments. Then you're all racing out of the school onto Air Force One and you're not being told where you're going, right? You're part of the press corps, right? So you're -- you're with him.

All you know is there's reports of other planes, other possible targets. The skies are emptied. Nobody knows what's happening. But you're on Air Force One, right, which is flying around, getting refueled. I mean, what is going through your mind then?

MILLS: It was, I mean, from the moment, you know, as soon as the classroom ended, the president went into another room in the school, made a statement or addressed to the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Today, we've had a national tragedy, two airplanes. have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MILLS: And then we all thought we were rushed out of that school, into the motorcade, you know, probably 60 miles an hour to the airport. He was already on board when we got there. Up in the steps, the dogs came out, they checked all of our gear, which was very unusual. There were EOD, Explosive Ordnance Detail people there looking through all of our bags to see if there was anything in our bags. And it really started to gather.

And then once we got airborne, again, like you said, we had no idea where we were going. And about, I don't know, maybe an hour into the flight, the cameraman from CBS opened up and he had a compass. And he was like, hey, guys, we just keep going further east. We're out over the Atlantic and we're probably at 45,000 feet right now.

And then a couple minutes later, a Secret Service agent, our press agent, came back into our cabin and we were asking him like what's going on and he said, well, all I know is we have enough food on board to last us three or four days and if need be Air Force One can be refueled in midair and it was just like this -- it was unbelievable to even think that that's where we were at that moment.

BURNETT: So then you see an F-16 at one point out the window so close that you saw the pilot you actually saw the face of the pilot.

MILLS: Yes.

BURNETT: So I know that moment you've described as sending chills.

MILLS: Yes, it was. This photograph was taken as we were heading back to Washington, and it was the first time I had ever seen Air Force One with a F-16 escort. And they were also on the other side of the plane. This happened to be on the left side of the plane.

And it was one of those things where it was just -- you know, so chilling again just to think that that's where we were in the in in this story and in the day and then we flew as we were flying back into Washington, it really hit us when I guess the president asked to fly -- to a fly around the Pentagon and Air Force One made a one loop around the Pentagon so we could see -- and we could see the burning -- you know, building and it was just -- you know, one of those -- you know, incredibly incredible moment that just made you think like this is real now.

We could, you know, we are watching on the plane for the first time ever watching live television. It happened to be CNN. It was the first time we had ever watched -- witnessed live television on Air Force One. We typically would just get movies.

So, this was, yes, one of those moments that I'll never forget.

BURNETT: Three days later, you're at Ground Zero. President Bush climbs onto the rubble, and he puts his arm around a firefighter Bob Beckwith. He picks up the bullhorn, and he says this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people --

(CHEERING)

BUSH: And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: You were there. You photographed that. Obviously, that was a defining moment of his presidency. In that moment, what struck you?

MILLS: What struck me was just a devastation where we were. I mean, the Twin Towers were completely gone. We were walking through rubble. He actually was standing on the top of a fire truck that had been completely smashed to the ground.

Thankfully, the press wrangler for us that day, Bruce Anka, was able to get myself and another photographer through three or four layers of police just to get up to that. It was an incredibly organic moment. And it was one of those moments where it defined the president's, you know, time as a president, I really think, because he just united the entire country.

And there was no Republicans or Democrats. It was all about USA and getting back together and just an incredible feeling to be there.

BURNETT: I was noting how, I guess it's 100 million Americans now were not born in 9/11. And many more were so young they don't remember.

You know, for me, I remember seeing the pieces of paper fluttering out and thinking about the human beings.

[19:50:01] I mean, you can't forget the images because it changed your life. But for so many people, this is now part of history. It's not what they've lived.

And President Bush spoke yesterday about what he believes is at risk for Americans to forget. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Our nation occasionally goes to isolationist periods. Where the attitude is we've got too many problems at home. Therefore, who cares what happens overseas, which really means to me they just don't pay attention to the lesson of 911 because what happens overseas matter to our national security at home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: What do you think?

MILLS: I heard those remarks too, and I agree. I mean, we -- 9/11 changed this country and the world really forever. And I think it's something that we cannot overlook in any way, shape or form because we get on an airplane right now, you go through so much security, you are affected every day by what happened on 9/11 in this country.

And I think -- just given the fact that even recently when I was abroad with President Trump, and he had to take a separate plane because of the security reasons on his plane is another reminder of how delicate and how fragile democracy is and how important it is to never forget what happened on September 11th.

BURNETT: Doug, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for being with me and for remembering all of this with us. Thanks.

MILLS: Thank you, Erin. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me.

BURNETT: And next, a special report on a Senate race the Democrats thought they were going to win, but are things shifting?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:55:30]

BURNETT: Is North Carolina about to elect its first Democratic senator in nearly 30 years? Polls point to the former popular governor, Roy Cooper, trouncing his opponent, Republican Michael Whatley, but it is Cooper himself who is now saying not so fast. This race is taking a turn.

Manu Raju is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROY COOPER (D), NORTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: He will do and say whatever the president tells him. MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Former two-term Governor Roy Cooper is one of the prized Democratic recruits of this election cycle, facing off against former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley. But as many Democrats have long assumed, he'll easily be able to flip the open North Carolina Senate seat, it is Cooper who is now warning that the battleground has shifted in a state that President Trump won three times.

RAJU: There's this view in Washington that you kind of have this race in the bag. I mean, but the polls actually show that this is actually a tightening race.

COOPER: It really is.

RAJU: So what has changed here on the ground?

COOPER: Well, nothing's really changed that we didn't anticipate. North Carolina hasn't elected a Democrat in almost two decades and only two in almost the last 40 years. So, it's tough for a Democrat to win a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina. This is going to be anywhere from a one to three percent race.

Someone asked me what my biggest concern was, and I said that people take this race for granted.

RAJU: Complacency.

COOPER: Complacency.

RAJU: There have been polls that have shown Cooper well ahead in this race, but at least one poll from High Point University actually showed this race to be much tighter. A five-point race, that's within the margin of error, meaning there's no clear leader in this

COOPER: They've been pounding us with false negative ads for -- since July, and the race is tightening just as we knew it would.

RAJU (voice-over): Republicans are outpacing Democrats on air, with more than $50 million reserved in the final eight weeks, exceeding every state other than Ohio.

AD NARRATOR: We paid the price when Roy Cooper put criminals before the innocent.

RAJU (voice-over): Whatley is going after Cooper's record on crime, including over a court ordered settlement that Cooper reached as governor with civil rights groups to reduce the prison population during COVID.

RAJU: Do you have any regrets by the way you handle that?

COOPER: This is something that the state had to do because the court ordered it, and I think a lot of people believed if you ask the plaintiffs, they were very frustrated that more weren't released. And this was something that we wanted to do to make sure we worked to protect the public. Public safety officers made decisions about this. They followed the lead of President Trump's team. The problem here is

that they're lying about all of these cases that they're trying to connect to this.

RAJU (voice-over): Cooper has tried to shift the focus to Whatley's record.

COOPER: Michael Whatley actually appointed a convicted child molester who served six years in prison on the sex offender registry, above the objections to many Republicans in the Union Party.

RAJU: Yeah.

COOPER: Because to a position that would have access to children and teenagers. That's what we need to be talking about.

RAJU (voice-over): After Cooper stumped in the Charlotte suburbs, I caught up with Whatley, about 120 miles southeast in a Democratic stronghold.

RAJU: Roy Cooper's going after you about Harvey West, the appointment of him for the North Carolina GOP. He's, of course, a convicted sex offender.

What do you say to him? And you regret how that was handled?

MICHAEL WHATLEY (R), NORTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, I didn't hire the guy. Absolutely did not hire the guy. He was a volunteer with the party beforehand. But I think when we talk about crime, Roy Cooper is the with the record. Roy Cooper's the one who left 4,200 criminals out.

RAJU (voice-over): But as Cooper is banking that voters will punish Whatley over high cost caused in part by Trump's tariffs and war with Iran.

COOPER: Have we defeated inflation? I do not think so.

RAJU (voice-over): Whatley has been more careful about Trump's record.

RAJU: Since the president came into office, inflation is still higher than when he first came in in January 2025. I'm wondering specifically when it comes to the issues of Iran and tariffs. Should he change course at all given how much more people are paying here in North Carolina?

WHATLEY: What I would say is inflation is a whole lot less than it was under Joe Biden, right?

RAJU: Are you 100 percent behind him when it comes to Iran and tariffs specifically?

WHATLEY: Well, what I would say is that we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon that they can develop and deploy.

RAJU: And tariffs too? You're 100 percent behind him on his tariff policy as well?

WHATLEY: What I would say is we need trade policies that are going to help North Carolina farmers, manufacturers, and small businesses.

RAJU (voice-over): Manu Raju, CNN, Fayetteville, North Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Thanks so much for joining us on this Friday, 9/11.

"AC360" starts now.