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The Situation Room

"Disbelief" Over Docs Revealing Toxic Air After 9/11; How Cartels Are Using Drones As Their Eyes on the U.S. Border. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired September 09, 2026 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens. I can hear you. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: An iconic moment from President Bush following the attack on the World Trade Center nearly 25 years ago.

[11:35:00]

And this week we're remembering the lives lost on 9/11 and after. And this morning, union leaders for New York firefighters are demanding answers. They want to find out what government officials knew about these newly released 9/11 reports showing toxic conditions at Ground Zero. That's after more firefighters died from related illnesses than were killed on the day of the attack. 453 in total.

Here now is former FDNY Commissioner of New York City Thomas von Essen. Commissioner, thanks for coming on. You were at Ground Zero on 9/11. I want to play sound of you talking about the loss of firefighters that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS VON ESSEN, FORMER FDNY COMMISSIONER OF NEW YORK CITY AND FDNY COMMISSIONER ON 9/11: I can't find anybody from five rescues and seven squads. It's just -- it's a devastating thing. I don't know -- well, the fire department will recover, but I don't know how.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Commissioner, what is your reaction to this new report?

VON ESSEN: Well, I think it's not a surprise and we knew the air around our 16 acres at the Trade Center was horrible. Everybody had respirators and doing the best they could to get them in and out of there. The reports that were just released yesterday, coincidentally, you know, a couple of days before September 11th, I think kind of shows the malfeasance of government in general, the federal, state, city administrations. 25 years to release medical documents.

I was on a panel yesterday with some doctors from Mount Sinai and they said that that information might have been helpful 24 years ago, 23 years ago, 22 years ago. Why it wasn't released then, I don't know. I certainly had no specific information that we didn't already know about that the air was terrible. The rest of the city, how bad it was in Lower Manhattan, whether it was just smelled bad or was actually putting carcinogens into people's bodies. That certainly wasn't -- I certainly wasn't aware of and it wasn't my role anyway.

BROWN: Do you hold anyone in particular accountable for this?

VON ESSEN: Well, I think we ought to take a look at this stuff and ask those questions. I know if I -- I mean, I just worked for FEMA. When I left, I sent some good information about some of the atrocities I saw in Puerto Rico to the New York Times and the Spanish caucus, you know. I think if you're a whistleblower and you did a report like that 25 years ago, shame on you for not getting it out there.

Do I think that Mayor Bloomberg or Mayor Giuliani said, hide this, don't let anybody know about it, let's let more people die? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. The union is -- I'm not surprised at all. The union, when we were trying to get the guys off the pile 25 years ago, were having demonstrations saying that we only cared about overtime and overtime was about the last thing we worried about. The guys wanted to be there. They wanted to look for the brothers that they worked with, for the dedication of the firefighters and the spirit. And it just was remarkable at that time. It still is today.

BROWN: Why are you so confident that former mayors weren't hiding it?

VON ESSEN: Oh, I'm not. I mean, I just worked with Giuliani every day, and I think Bloomberg is a remarkable man. When I look at the three after them, I question that. I mean, de Blasio, Adams, and this character who would release these documents three days before. He had them nine months ago, I'm told. Why didn't you just release them then? Why do you have to make this the subject of this year's remembrance?

25 years, and you've got all the people agitated. Now, they think that it was somebody knew about something. Come on. It's just a disgrace. But I'm not surprised at him at all. I think he's a genius using social media and playing people, and I think that's what he's doing.

BROWN: Well, I want to put politics aside here. And we also don't know when he accessed these documents. Of course, we'll be asking. But do you know when these documents were actually produced?

VON ESSEN: No, I haven't seen any of these documents. You know, this is up to the doctors and the lawyers and people who try to find when was it done? Was it done by a reliable medical institution? Was it done by the EPA at the federal level? Was it done -- I don't think the city does those kinds of intricate studies. So, I don't know who did them or when they did them. This will be another Epstein files where the lawyers and everybody will be screaming about this for a couple of years, probably.

BROWN: Do you have concerns now that these documents are out about your own health? I know the FDNY says that more than 12,000 first responders or FDNY members have been diagnosed with World Trade Center related illnesses. Are you impacted, as far as you know?

[11:40:00]

VON ESSEN: Well, more than my own health. I was concerned about my guys and their families. We took the families down there to visit and to see the site. I've had prostate cancer, melanoma, esophageal issues. I've had them all. But I mean, I don't go around talking about it.

BROWN: But do you relate that to the World Trade Center and 9/11?

VON ESSEN: Yes, they're all part of the World -- I'm part of the World Trade Center health program. We started that before September 11th with a good baseline for firefighters having an annual medical that before me was every eight years. So, I mean, I was always concerned about safety. And it breaks my heart to think that we could have saved more people if we had information in 2001 or 2002 or 2003. I don't know. I wasn't involved. I mean, we did our job. I was there four months after September 11th, and then we moved on.

BROWN: So, I mean, this is really personal for you. You know, you've had your own health struggles. And now, you have these documents coming out talking just about how toxic the air was when publicly there were reassurance given. There was reassurance given to first responders that it was safe.

VON ESSEN: You cannot imagine how personal it is for me. I was a firefighter in the South Bronx for about 16 years. Then I was in a union, ran the safety program. When I got to be fire commissioner, I changed everything in safety. Made more improvements than they had seen in, you know, 50 years before me. I cared so much about firefighter safety. And I was the commissioner who lost more in one day than anybody in history.

So, believe me, it is really personal to me. There's nobody cared more before or after than me. But watching this show that's going to go on now between Mamdani and all the people, blaming people, it just makes it even harder to -- you know. When I think about the widows and stuff, it's just -- it's tough.

BROWN: Yes.

VON ESSEN: But, you know, you got to deal with it.

BROWN: I want you to listen with us to the president of the FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association and what he said today about legal liability for the City of New York.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. JAMES BROSI, PRESIDENT, FDNY UNIFORMED FIRE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION: As far as like what the city's legal liability is in relation to the victim's compensation fund that already exists, I'm not sure. And I'm not even sure the city is sure. But I would say it was the basis for four administrations turning their back to all of us when we requested the documents. Thankfully, this administration did not let liability outweigh the importance of releasing the documents to the victims of that day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: What is your message to first responders, especially those who work in New York, as they're processing this information, as you are?

VON ESSEN: Well, I agree with him. To give this character credit is -- I'm not buying that part. He could have released it a year ago. But I agree that this should have been released. And what I don't understand is I'd like to see something that said that we had information that we did not release. I haven't seen that. I saw a deputy commissioner's letter or memo. I'm not sure exactly what it meant, whether it was just, you know, we're going to have issues with health and legal lawsuits and things like that. That's typical in New York City. We have lawsuits for everything.

But is there a document that says, oh, my God, this air quality throughout lower Manhattan is going to kill people over the next 20 years? I'd like to see that document. And if it was, then I'd be ashamed of being part of the team that hid it. And I doubt very much if that's the case.

BROWN: Yes. And just to be clear, Mamdani obviously took his oath of office this year, and we don't know when he accessed the documents. As I pointed out, we'll be asking all of that. But former Commissioner Thomas von Essen, as we look ahead to Friday, 25 years since 9/11, so important to hear your voice in this conversation and your reaction to this information coming out. Thank you.

VON ESSEN: Thank you, Pamela.

BROWN: At an event honoring 9/11 first responders yesterday, President Trump shared this new story about his own experiences, he says, happened after the attack. Listen here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I was building a big building in New York, and I took the whole crew down there right after this happened. And they were -- they had no hesitation. Everybody went down with me. We went down as a big group of people. Wasn't too much we could do. I'll be honest, it was raw. Nobody's seen anything like it ever.

We had other buildings. United States Steel Building was creaking, really creaking. And we thought it was going to fall down. The truth is, it creaked a lot. It creaked. It still creaks. But it never came down. And I'll never forget two firemen -- we thought it was coming down on top of us. And two firemen, big, strong guys.

[11:45:00] And I'm not the smallest guy in the world. They grabbed me under the arm and said, got to get out of here. And they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I'm big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, fellas, I can run myself. But they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It didn't come down, U.S. Steel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And when asked for any evidence or additional details on the president's claims there, the White House did not provide any. Trump has long told false or unproven stories about his experiences on and shortly after 9/11.

So, on that note, I want to bring in CNN's Daniel Dale, who looked into this story. He joins us now. Daniel, what did you find when you looked into what Trump has said?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I found that some of the president's story lacks evidence, while other parts are misleading at best. So, what's misleading? I think he at least left open the impression that this supposed firefighter semi-rescue happened on 9/11 itself. We know that he was not at Ground Zero or in the vicinity on 9/11. He was at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. That's miles away. Now, he did say on True Social last night that, of course, he went down to Ground Zero in the following days. But I don't think that was clear in his public remarks earlier yesterday.

Also, misleading, I think he conjured the image of himself trapped in a building, like so many people were trapped in the Twin Towers when he talked about firefighters saying, we've got to get out of here. We thought the building was going to come down on top of us. There is no hint of evidence that he was in this building, One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, even in the days after 9/11.

Now, it is true that there were public fears that that building would collapse at some point. We know that rescue workers did rush away from it. We know that Trump was somewhere in the neighborhood of Ground Zero in the following days. So, is it theoretically possible he was swept up in one of these panics? Yes, but the White House and nobody else has provided any evidence for that.

And then what else lacks evidence? Well, the larger premise of the story is that he took this large group of workers down to Ground Zero to assist with the rescue recovery. He's told this for years now. There has never been a shred of evidence for that either. A retired New York Fire Department Battalion Chief told the New York Times and PolitiFact in 2019 that if there was this 100-strong crew that Trump has repeatedly said he had actually there at Ground Zero, there would be a record of that. There would be logs of that. And also, that it wouldn't make sense for a private crew like one organized by a business and celebrity developer to have been on the site. So, no proof of that. Other parts misleading.

And so, this is another story from the president of many stories he's told about 9/11 that has so far at least not held up to scrutiny. BROWN: Daniel Dale, thank you so much. And coming up here in the Situation Room, the eyes of the cartels, how smugglers are using drones to keep tabs on the U.S. border from miles away. A CNN investigation is next.

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[11:50:00]

BROWN: New CNN reporting an analysis of hundreds of videos and state detection data reveal how cartels and criminal groups use drones to monitor U.S. law enforcement and support suspected smuggling operations, and why authorities struggle to counter them.

Here with us in the Situation Room is CNN's Priscilla Alvarez with her new reporting. What did you find in this investigation, Priscilla?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, our team found that cartels and criminal groups are using drones equipped with cameras to expand their smuggling operations. And this is evident just by looking at social media where there were hundreds of videos that were recording some of these suspected smuggling operations of people or drugs. And what was extraordinary is that these drones don't have to be in American airspace. In fact, they can fly in Mexico and look inland to the U.S., as you see there in that case, trying to evade U.S. border patrol.

Now, we went to the location of one of those suspected smuggling operations. This was in Laredo, Texas, which shares a border with Mexico. And where, Pamela, on the Mexico side, there has been more than 600 percent increase in drone detections over a three-year period. Take a look at what we found.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALVAREZ (voice-over): Many of the drone videos we reviewed looked like this one, capturing what appears to be an illegal crossing of the border. Drone flying inside Mexico is monitoring a group of people running up from the Rio Grande into a getaway car in the U.S. The car pulls up at the exact moment the group reaches the dirt road. And within a matter of seconds, the car takes off. That video happened right here. We geolocated it to the city of Laredo, Texas. We came to visit the location, and within seconds of arriving, we briefly spot a drone flying overhead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you see it?

ALVAREZ: This is the path that people came up in that video that you just saw. The river is behind me, and Mexico is just on the other side. Current and former law enforcement officials, as well as experts, they all say, when there are hundreds of drone detections in an area like this, the conclusion they draw is that it is to smuggle people or drugs.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ALVAREZ (on camera): Now, we also went with the Webb County Sheriff's Office along the border to see what areas they've noticed the greatest concentration of these drone detections and also these smuggling operations. These are the nearby cartel. They say has thousands of drones. The Webb County Sheriff's Office has two.

Now, in a statement, federal authorities, specifically U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said, quote, "That cartels increasingly exploit drugs -- or drones, sorry, for smuggling operations and monitoring law enforcement and that DHS has given them counter drone authorities."

[11:55:00]

But what became clear, Pamela, in our investigation, is that federal authorities and local law enforcement are still well behind the way that cartels and criminal groups are using these drones across the U.S.-Mexico border.

BROWN: Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much for that important reporting. You can watch Priscilla's full piece later today on "The Lead" with Jake Tapper, airs at 5:00 p.m. Eastern.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning. You can keep up with us on social media, @wolfblitzer and @pamelabrowncnn. We'll see you back here tomorrow morning. Inside Politics with our friend and colleague Kasie Hunt starts after a quick break.

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