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CNN Live Event/Special
CNN Headlines: Americans Gather To Remember 9/11; Trump, Vance Close Out Two-Night GOP Gathering; A.I. Whistleblowers Warn The Technology Is Moving Too Fast. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired September 11, 2026 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:25]
BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: Today, the nation marks 25 years since the September 11th terror attacks. We pay tribute to the 2,977 people who lost their lives that day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE "JOJO" ESPOSITO, RESCUE COMPANY 5, NEW YORK CIOTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: Every day was just a lot of pressure on us, especially when you come home and get to face the families. Did you find him yet? No.
(END VIDEO
SMITH: Hear from the firefighters who ran into the danger zone, all while dealing with the loss of their own loved ones.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Brad Smith. This is CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. Glad that you're with us.
Let's get this started. Today is Friday, September 11th, 2026, 25 years since everything changed. This morning marks a somber day of remembrance as we pay tribute to the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives on 9/11. The devastating attack was orchestrated by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Nineteen hijackers seized four planes packed with people and crashed them in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. That last hijacked plane was headed to Washington, D.C. That is, until the heroic passengers of Flight 93 stopped it, saving countless more lives.
As the moments unfolded in real time, a nation struggled to understand just what was happening. Then, days later, President George W. Bush visited ground zero in New York and spoke these now iconic words to rescue workers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SMITH: Later this morning, President Trump will deliver remarks at a Pentagon ceremony. Families are also gathering at the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan, all living former presidents and their wives will attend, as will Vice President J.D. Vance. There will also be moments of silence to mark the tragic events of that day, one at each key moment.
This year, there will also be a new moment of silence for the thousands who have died since that day from 9/11-related illnesses and diseases. As many remember, the September 11th attacks 25 years later, the firefighters who ran into danger are reflecting on the day that they answered the call and the grueling days that followed.
CNN's Leigh Waldman spoke with a firefighter who kept working despite profound loss.
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ESPOSITO: I was either at the Trade Center or at the firehouse, or we were at a funeral. And that's -- that's what my life was.
LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For months after the towers of the World Trade Center fell, life for firefighter Joe Esposito changed.
ESPOSITO: Every day was just a lot of pressure on us, especially when you come home and you got to face the families. Did you find him yet? No. That was the tough part.
WALDMAN (voice-over): It was a heartbreak his own family was facing. Esposito's older brother, Michael Esposito, and his cousin, Frank Esposito, both firefighters, were killed alongside 341 others. Esposito's own firehouse, Rescue Company 5, lost 11 members.
ESPOSITO: Captain Louis Modafferi, Lt. Harvey Harrell, and Joe Fineman (ph).
WALDMAN (voice-over): Their Staten Island station is a working memorial dedicated to their lives and the heroism of their entire department.
ESPOSITO: It's something that you, you know, you learn to love and learn to be that fireman, to say, yeah, somebody needs me. I'm going in.
WALDMAN (voice-over): At Ground Zero, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum honors their lives. And the thousands of others killed that day. As the years tick by, museum Director Clifford Chanin says their mission has changed.
CLIFFORD CHANIN, EXECUTIVE VP & DIRECTOR, 9/11 MEMORIAL & MUSEUM: The story of these 25 years is the story of those two moments in time, the moment of the day, and then this extended moment of what do you do after such an event?
WALDMAN (voice-over): In Lower Manhattan, I'm Leigh Waldman.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SMITH: Thank you, Leigh.
A special tribute took shape in the skies over New York this week. Hundreds of drones recreated the outline of the Twin Towers in a display called 2,977 lights. One light for every person killed in the September 11th attacks. Organizers say that the aerial artwork was shaped by artists, first responders, survivors, and families of those who died, including relatives of fallen FDNY and NYPD members.
[05:05:05]
For years, the September 11th ceremony at Ground Zero has paused six times, marking the moments when the attacks unfolded. As we mentioned, this year, there will be a seventh pause, and that new moment of silence is meant to honor first responders and survivors who died years later from illnesses linked to their exposure at ground zero.
Many spent months working in the ash, the dust and debris after the attacks. Thousands more continue to battle cancers, respiratory diseases and other health problems tied to that exposure. Organizers say that the additional tribute recognizes a toll that has continued long after September 11th, and the families still living with its consequences.
There are lots of security preparations taking place in New York City ahead of today's commemoration of the September 11th terror attacks. Authorities have put up a sprawling eight-foot fence around Ground Zero. It's the first time that we've seen a barrier like this due to the higher level of security in place for the 25th anniversary.
Meanwhile, in Dallas, at the Republican midterm convention, a somber commemoration to remember September 11th. Some audience members were moved to tears during a salute from first responders and military personnel. As tribute footage was projected on a giant screen.
Several speakers also paid tribute to Charlie Kirk, one year after a gunman shot and killed the conservative activist. Leaders of the organization he co-founded, they vowed to continue with his mission.
But for the most part, night two of the convention was politics as usual, with the president and vice president closing out the GOP gathering with their midterm message to highlight Republican achievements since Trump's return to the White House and to call Democrats "crazy people", as the vice president put it.
CNN's Alayna Treene was there from the start and filed this report shortly after the last balloon fell.
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ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This was quite a night. The president closing out the Republican midterm convention for the second night in a row. I do want to apologize. We're actually still hearing some of the balloons that had fallen at the end of the speeches tonight. They're still popping behind me. But look, even though the president closed it out, really, the keynote
speaker on Thursday was the Vice President J.D. Vance. And sometimes, it actually felt like a audition for 2028. One thing Vance did was he actually focused on a lot of the issues. I know Republicans at large want their leaders to be talking about.
He talked about affordability. He talked about how he believes Democrats are anti-family and Republicans are pro-family. He specifically called it Abdul El-Sayed. Of course, the U.S. Senate candidate who's running for Senate in Michigan as being a foil, you know, a representative of what he argued were the crazy left lunatics who were taking over the Democratic Party.
What he didn't do is mention a lot of topics Republicans want to avoid. Things like Iran, tariffs, the presidential ballroom, all things Trump, I should note, actually did talk about on Wednesday.
But look, at one moment, people in the crowd did break out into chants of J.D. 48, Vance tried to play it off. He argued, that's too far in the future. We need to focus first on the midterms. But it did feel very much like a speech geared toward that potential presidential run.
As for the president himself, he came on recycled a lot of the material we heard him give last night. But one moment that really stood out to me was when he asked the crowd to raise their right hands and pledge to bring their family and their friends to the polls on November 3rd. So, help me God.
I could hear them as they responded in unison, so help me God. They would go to the polls in November. That was really the purpose of this entire two-day event. And one last thing I want to note, there was the classic balloon drop. As I mentioned, you can still hear them popping, but it was different from a normal convention where you have people who are being nominated.
Instead, it was the president standing up there alone, swaying to the music as the balloons fell. Kind of symbolic for convention that was conceived by him, for him. So just keep that in mind as we look ahead to whether or not this will actually do what his team intended and convince enough members of his base to get out there on November 3rd.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SMITH: Thank you. CNN's Alayna Treene reporting from Dallas last night.
Now, one thing that didn't come up much was President Trump's surprise pitch that took place earlier, $5,000 for every American adult if Republicans retain control of Congress in November, the president brought it up. But the vice president didn't, and neither did any of the other speakers.
We've got much more on how that unravels. Lots more to come on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, including an extraordinary court filing by the attorney of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mom who admitted to killing her three children. What he's asking the court to do now. Plus, the warnings just keep coming as A.I. advances faster than
safety measures.
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Experts are saying we have something else to worry about when it comes to A.I. We've got the details you need to know on the other side of the break.
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SMITH: A quarter century has passed since the September 11th attacks. People around the world are gathering today to mark the somber anniversary, 2,977 people were killed on 9/11 in the attacks orchestrated by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Stay with us as we'll be following this all morning long.
[05:15:02]
In another story that we're also following, the attorney for Lindsay Clancy has filed a motion asking the judge to enter a finding of not guilty after her case ended in a mistrial. The motion filed by Clancy's legal team is routine for a criminal proceeding. It does argue that prosecutors did not present sufficient evidence that she had the mental capacity to be criminally responsible for her actions at the time of the killings. The high-profile case ended in a mistrial last week.
Clancy's attorney has signaled that he's open to a plea deal to avert a second trial.
Some of the people building today's A.I. are sounding alarms about where it's headed. Several former employees at major companies have come forward recently with warnings that the technology is advancing faster than the safeguards meant to keep it in check.
CNN's Sherrell Hubbard explains more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED)! They actually might do it.
SHERRELL HUBBARD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An artificial intelligence researcher says there's increasing evidence that Anthropic and OpenAI will create A.I. models that reach super intelligence. Several workers in that field are raising safety concerns that A.I. could soon hit that state, where it will go beyond human's capability to understand it, restrain it, or shut it down, and calling on others to pay attention.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can listen to the warnings not just coming from inside the industry, but from independent experts.
HUBBARD (voice-over): Earlier this week, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon posted his resignation on social media while sounding the alarm. The 27-year-old, who also worked for OpenAI, saying, quote, "the people building ai earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade."
JACOB COXON, FORMER ANTHROPIC RESEARCHER: I've never seen an A.I. safety tweet go this crazy. I think it's because people saw the cyberattacks in the last couple of months. They're also starting to internalize the rate of progress.
HUBBARD (voice-over): A more senior anthropic employee chimed in on Coxon's post, saying that Coxon was correct and Anthropic's own latest risk report for catastrophic events acknowledged the concern, but adding that ai poses little chance of gaining such power. Wednesday, Anthropic said it believes the world would benefit from the industry working together on pacing the release of powerful models.
In a report published after the company blocked accounts from developing bioweapons, Anthropic said it considers biological misuse one of the most serious risks to A.I. models.
I'm Sherrell Hubbard, reporting
(END VIDEOAPE)
SMITH: Thank you, Sherrell.
In July, nearly 1,400 A.I. company employees signed an open letter urging the U.S. government to regulate the technology in order to rein in big tech and slow the pace of A.I.
Still to come on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, the fallout over Jimmy Kimmel moving his interview of the Texas Democratic Senate candidate to YouTube after threats from the FCC.
And we continue to reflect on the lives lost during the September 11th terrorist attacks, but how it also gave birth to community organizations to bring people together. That story is straight ahead.
Stay with us.
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[05:22:34]
SMITH: As we remember the September 11th attacks 25 years ago, it's natural to focus on all that was lost. But many people also found comfort in seeing how others across the country came together.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper spoke to CNN hero Jeff Parness. He started a nonprofit that not only paid that goodwill forward, but also revived an artifact that became a symbol of resilience and unity.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One of the most unique artifacts in the 9/11 Museum's collection isn't currently on display. It's a 500 square foot flag from ground zero that was repaired through an ambitious effort led by CNN hero Jeff Parness.
JEFF PARNESS, 2011 CNN HERO: It's emotional. Each one of the patches reminds me of all the people who stitched the flag.
COOPER (voice-over): Now known as the national 9/11 flag, it was hanging across from the World Trade Center and was destroyed when the Twin Towers fell. Jeff lost a close friend that day, but he was also deeply moved by the unity people showed after the attack
PARNESS; The day after 9/11, there were no Democrats or Republicans. We were just Americans. We were at our very best.
COOPER (voice-over): This led jeff to start New York Says Thank You, which brought New Yorkers to help other disaster stricken communities.
In 2008, the group helped rebuild Greensburg, Kansas, after a devastating tornado. A volunteer who worked at Ground Zero brought along the tattered flag and local residents started stitching.
PARNESS: They had gone through their own 9/11, right, and they took it upon themselves to start healing the flag.
COOPER (voice-over): It was patched with flags that had survived the tornado. Then, for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 --
PARNESS: We decided we were going to return it to its original flag format.
COOPER (voice-over): For more than a year, the flag toured all 50 states where patches and threads from historic flags, including the star-spangled banner, were sewn in by more than 30,000 people.
PARNESS: People lined up for hours for the privilege of putting one stitch in. It's kind of like the best of what America is about. People chose to strengthen our national fabric.
JAN SEIDLER RAMIREZ, CHIEF CURATOR, 9/11 MUSEUM: The national 9/11 flag was the first artifact walked into the newly opened 9/11 museum in May of 2014. So, it was a very moving, beautiful ceremony.
[05:25:01]
It's just a tremendous symbol of good.
COOPER (voice-over): It was on display for a year and a half and is now being safely preserved. Jeff hopes the flag will be exhibited again soon so people can appreciate its powerful message.
PARNESS: It's a symbol of not just resilience, but of compassion. This is living proof that love is stronger than hate.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SMITH: It's really moving.
To learn more about Jeff's work, you can go to CNN.com/heroes. Straight ahead on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, reliving the horror of 9/11 is
a painful but necessary history lesson. Coming up, how that fateful day unfolded from beginning to end.
Stay with us. You're watching CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS.
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