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The Situation Room

Nation Marks 25 Years Since September 11 Terror Attacks. Aired 10:30a-11a ET

Aired September 11, 2026 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:01]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: And, on that day, they captured what no one else did. They have the single image that they captured as they were on a routine call and they heard the sound of a plane that was -- just sounded too -- it's too close.

They look up. And it's that horrific image that they captured of the plane hitting the North Tower. And they also have the only images then that they captured as they followed firefighters into the lobby and captured the moments, the tragic, horrible moments.

Some, they caught on film, and some they said that they have self- censored and did not in real time because it was too horrible to even pick up the camera, they had said.

So I spoke to them just this week, 25 years later, about the moments they captured behind the lens, the experiences of what they saw that day, the worst of humanity, and also the best of humanity.

Here's a bit of our conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: You documented, right, the tragedy and the horror of that day. What's the single most heroic memory or best memory that you hold on to from that day?

GEDEON NAUDET, 9/11 DOCUMENTARIAN: I managed not to cry on that day. I managed not to cry on the day after and for the three days after that.

We started to interview the firefighters just three to four days after 9/11. And the interview were heartbreaking. But one of them at one point said: "And then we escape, and the building just collapsed behind us, and we were rushing and running. And, at one point, we stopped."

And that's when he looks at the two of us and he said: "And we went back to look for you guys." And it was such a shock, even now saying it. I started to cry behind the camera, and I just couldn't stop. I think I left through the room.

That was a small thing that triggered -- and the flood was on after that. BOLDUAN: If you today could speak to those two brothers from that

morning when they were heading out, what advice would you give them?

G. NAUDET: I would not give myself any advice if I managed to go back in time, because I truly believe I'm a better human being because of what happened, because I have seen so much horror, but I have seen also so much, as Jules said, things that made me believe even more in human beings.

JULES NAUDET, 9/11 DOCUMENTARIAN: We had been pretty sheltered. And suddenly that reality to discover life in its horror, but also in its beauty, gave us a strength, gave us a maturity, made us grow up and understanding more fully the world and its complexities and its horrors, yes, but also of its good and its faith in human nature.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: In some of the video you saw there that they captured, they were with Fire Chief Joseph Pfeifer. He was the first fire chief to make it to Ground Zero. That's who they were with.

And he was actually on with Anderson last night and said something that is so important, and it gets to exactly what Jules and Gedeon say that they want to remember most, which is that 3,000, nearly 3,000 lives were lost that day.

But because of these men and the men that they now call their brothers because they have stayed so close with them, these firefighters, it helped save 17,000 other lives, as they helped them get out of those buildings before they fell.

So many memories to hold on to, the horrible and the beauty that can come from and did come from this tragedy as well -- Wolf, Pam.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Kate Bolduan, thank you very much for that. That was really, really moving and very, very powerful.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Very profound. Thank you, Kate. We will check back in with you later.

And still ahead: He is known as the man with the red bandana. Welles Crowther's legacy lives on long after his heroic efforts on 9/11. We will speak to his mother after President Trump honored Welles with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

BLITZER: And, next, we will go live to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to the ceremony honoring the lives lost on United Flight 93.

Our live, very special coverage marking 25 years since the terror attacks on September 11 continues after a very short break.

[10:35:03]

(MUSIC)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [10:40:07]

BLITZER: We are all continuing to remember 9/11, and including in New York, where they're reading the names of all of those who died on that horrible, horrible day. We're watching this, Pamela, very, very sadly, very closely.

It brings back for all of us a lot of horrible memories.

BROWN: It really does. It is a somber day and an important day to remember those who lost their lives on 9/11 and also after with 9/11- related illnesses.

BLITZER: And people are still dying from some of those illnesses that occurred as a result of the horrible situation that developed that day.

I want to go live to our CNN correspondent Brian Todd right now. He's over at the Pentagon not very far away.

Brian, 184 lives were lost when that hijacked American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon building. We just heard from President Trump on this somber, somber day. I take it the events at the Pentagon have now ended. Is that right?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf.

They have just wrapped up just a few minutes ago, and it was a very somber and poignant ceremony for the most part. They read the names of all 184 people who died aboard American Airlines Flight 77 and inside the Pentagon. It was very emotional.

I'm going to get to that in just a moment, but first to the remarks of President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Both of them told anecdotes, stories about victims and survivors of 9/11 and what they were doing that day, but both of them also did refer to the Iran war and their justification for engaging in the Iran war.

Pete Hegseth said that they are -- quote -- "laying waste" to the world's most prolific sponsor of state terrorism, saying that the U.S. has destroyed the Iranian air force, navy and killed its leaders. President Trump made mention of a similar theme, saying that they cannot let the world's biggest sponsor of state terrorism have a nuclear weapon.

But here is what President Trump said in a broader context about how future generations might mark this anniversary. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because of that spirit, when future generations come here in 25, 100 or 250 years from now, they will stand in a nation that is free and unyielding in the face of evil, and they will still honor the heroes of 9/11, 2001, who no age will erase from the memory of time. It will never, ever be forgotten.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And, shortly after that, the president and the first lady and their team of Cabinet members departed the stage. They did a closing invocation and a little bit of music there, and the ceremony just wrapped up.

One of the most poignant parts of the entire ceremony was -- I think it struck myself and several other people here -- was, shortly after the beginning of when they started reading the names, they read the names of four members of one family who all died at the same time aboard American Airlines Flight 77.

It was the Falkenberg family, Charles Falkenberg, his wife, Leslie Whittington, their daughters, very young daughters, Zoe Falkenberg and Dana Falkenberg. Zoe was 8 years old. Dana Falkenberg was 3 years old. This was a family from University Park, Maryland.

They were actually traveling to Los Angeles, then to Australia for an academic fellowship that Leslie Whittington was going to engage in. It was just a very emotional, sad moment when they read the names of all four of those members of one family, all who died in an instant here at the Pentagon -- Wolf, Pamela.

BLITZER: Brian Todd, over at the Pentagon, thank you very much.

It's interesting, Pamela. The president kept referring to 9/11 and the lessons learned from 9/11, and he kept referring to the war with Iran right now. "That's why we fight today," he said. "We don't have a choice. And we will do this. Because of the days of 9/11, we learned what a country is made of. On 9/11, we were all New Yorkers, all Americans."

And then he added: "Iran will never, ever have a nuclear weapon." So he was relating 9/11 to what's going on right now.

BROWN: And you heard that also from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, saying that this fight is continuing against Islamist -- an Islamist theocracy, and basically saying that we will continue to fight and really making that connection between what happened 25 years ago on 9/11 to the Iran war to this day.

We're going to delve into that a little bit later with some of our experts, Wolf.

But, first, I want to go to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, because there is a remembrance ceremony there for the 33 passengers and seven crew members of Flight 93. The plane went down in a field when the passengers stormed the cockpit after hijackers took control of the aircraft.

CNN correspondent Danny Freeman is in Shanksville.

And, Danny, tell us more about today's ceremony.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure thing, Pamela. So, the morning ceremony just wrapped up in the past few moments. [10:45:02]

And it really was an incredibly somber, thoughtful, and yet still grateful ceremony, of course, grateful for the 40 heroic crew members and passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, who revolted against the hijackers of that plane and ultimately forced the hijackers to ground this plane, making sure that it never reached its destination, which was the U.S. Capitol, likely at that time, saving untold numbers of lives.

Pamela, Wolf, we heard lovely music this morning. We just heard the reading of the names earlier. Wreaths were laid as well, not just at this specific memorial, but also to honor the moments where the planes hit the Twin Towers in New York City, and, then, of course, we heard the ringing of the bells of remembrance.

And, really, Wolf and Pamela, all of the energy here at this memorial today is to continue to focus on this incredible story of heroism. The flight, United Flight 93, took off 25 years ago to the day from Newark, New Jersey. It was heading to San Francisco when it was ultimately hijacked.

And then what happened was, passengers were able to call on the phone to loved ones or to 911 to alert folks on the ground that their plane had been hijacked, and realized that, oh, this was a part of a larger attack, because, by that time, planes had already hit the Twin Towers.

And it was at that point where these incredibly brave men and women took a vote and decided to storm the cockpit to try and stop this attack from going forward. All of that bravery was on display here.

You even heard President Trump at his remarks at the Pentagon highlight so many heroic members of Flight 93, including Todd Beamer, who was on the phone with the 911 operator on that flight reciting the Lord's Prayer, and then said the famous line of "Let's roll."

I want you to take a listen, though, to how one family member of one of those passengers is thinking about how hard it is still for some people to process this day. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORDON FELT, BROTHER OF FLIGHT 93 PASSENGER EDWARD FELT: I get asked all the time, what's it like coming back? Is it hard to come to the memorial?

And we have families that have yet to come to the memorial, because it's still, 25 years later, painful. And we're hoping that some of those family members will be here this year, so that we can share with them the progress that's been made to assure that their loved ones will be remembered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: Now, Wolf and Pamela, a little bit later this afternoon, we're going to hear from Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and the secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, again, as this remembrance and honoring of these heroic folks continue throughout the day -- back to you.

BROWN: All right, Danny Freeman in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, thank you so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And on a very, very personal note, this is very personal for me, because I lost my loving 48-year-old cousin Jeffrey Schreier at the World Trade Center that day.

He was working on the 102nd floor at Cantor Fitzgerald. Unfortunately, his body, like so many from that day, was never recovered. He was a very, very special man, and we all miss him very much.

And as we say, zikhrono livrakha, may his memory be a blessing.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:52:50]

BROWN: And with us now is CNN senior national security analyst and former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem and Tim Naftali. He is a CNN presidential historian and former director of the Nixon Presidential Library.

So, I want to begin this conversation with President Trump's speech. As Wolf and I were just talking about, he made several references to the present day and the war with Iran. What did you think about that?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, first, I want to say that this is a day when so many people lost members of their family and friends. And so I was pleased that the president spoke about other people and other people's experiences and the pain they must feel.

I thought it was unfortunate that he brought up the war in Iran. And I will say this. I have been thinking as a historian a lot about how our country reacts to moments of trauma; 25 years after Pearl Harbor, we were a much more unified country than we are today.

One of the reasons for that is that the war in Iraq was a war of choice. And many people could make the argument that, though Iran is not our friend, just like Iraq was not our friend, the war we're fighting now is a war of choice. And I -- it's a discordant note.

I would rather have not talked about today's war, because it's so controversial, and focused on the families and focused on the evil that we, those of us old enough, experienced on 9/11.

BLITZER: Juliette, what do you think?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I agree with Tim.

I mean, look, there's a fight right now that we haven't -- we didn't experience even at the 20th about the sort of narrative of 9/11, and it's getting played out on the politics. So I thought Trump's speech was unexceptional, in the sense -- in the sense that we're not talking about it. He read the script.

I thought Hegseth's speech is the one that we should really think about, because what Hegseth was trying to do is claim a narrative of 9/11 that was sort of a through line to the war in Iran, sort of to sort of justify a war that we're clearly not winning, whether we're -- and probably losing, and that the administration and Secretary Hegseth have been not able to win.

[10:55:00]

He -- Hegseth came out and made the speech about Trump. And I was pretty surprised by that. I mean, I thought that to make it about that war -- and I think this is the challenge we're in right now in terms of Islamic terrorism, the mention of Islamic terrorism in terms of that sort of constant refrain.

We hadn't seen that before in the 10th or the 20th. We tended to view 9/11 as the unifying issue and that everyone owned its narrative. And I think this has a lot to do with war and terrorism, and then, of course, much to do with what where the United States is right now.

BLITZER: You're the historian. What did you think of the way President George W. Bush handled the aftermath of 9/11?

NAFTALI: George W. Bush had the benefit of a father who was a World War II veteran. And one of the mistakes that FDR made in the moment of trauma was to intern the Japanese, Japanese Americans.

And the Bush family did not want the hatred against Muslims to in any way repeat the mistake that we made, that generation made in 1941 and '42 against Japanese Americans. And so George W. Bush went to the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., on September 17, and he said, Islam is peace.

He said, the evil of September 11 was not Islam. It was a perversion of Islam. And that was a very powerful message. Some will remember that there were people that were beaten up and discriminated against in our country. Actually, a number of them were Sikhs.

Americans were understandably so angry after this trauma, but they took it out on people of our community -- of our community. And the president wanted to say, stop. Keep -- focus on where the evil is.

And I thought, and I will always remember that as being beautiful and a sign of grace. And, boy, we could use some more of that grace these days, gosh.

KAYYEM: And, you know, 25 years. I given my career -- I feel like I never left 9/11. I mean, you're sort of -- but I think we have to remember about 40 percent of Americans did not experience September 11. They experienced COVID, an economic breakdown, the fissures in American society. And they are looking at A.I. and the climate and other disasters that face us. So, in some ways, I will be honest with you. I don't think we convene again until the 50th. I don't know -- I don't know if I will be here, but, I mean, the sense that this does feel like we remember, but also we are painfully aware of the threats that we face, including the changing nature of terrorism, other threats like A.I. and the climate, and the lack of unity that we're experiencing today.

I admitted in something I wrote that I was feeling a little bit of nostalgia for 9/11. There's nothing to be nostalgic about 9/11 about, a tragedy, a horror.

NAFTALI: No.

KAYYEM: But for the -- I'm sure I speak for all of us. You sort of look back at that time, it seemed a slightly simpler than it feels now, right, that we sort of -- we had righteous indignation, and that righteousness felt unifying.

NAFTALI: There was a moment of that today in Condoleezza Rice's speech. She was national security adviser on September 11. And she said she will always feel remorse because they didn't do more.

Now, think of that, a leader of this country feeling remorse, admitting error, understanding they're human and they're flawed, and knowing that the pain that others, other Americans suffered was in part -- I mean, they're -- the 9/11 -- our government on 9/11 didn't want what happened to happen.

But they recognized they might have done more to prevent it. And feeling that sense of remorse, that's a sense of a public service. And if we could be capable of that remorse again, in other words, understanding that we make mistakes, we could be a lot closer together as a people.

Think about 1966, 25 years after Pearl Harbor. What did they -- what was Congress able to do? A bipartisan group in Congress dismantled Jim Crow. We don't seem to have that ability 25 years after this tragedy.

KAYYEM: And just quickly on the service issue, I think we are -- this generation that went into military intelligence, public service, and how we think about public service today during the era of DOGE, just that one change in 25 years is a -- is also part of this narrative of where we are as a country 25 years later.

BLITZER: Yes.

BROWN: All right, thank you both.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

BROWN: ... Juliette Kayyem and Tim Naftali.

Juliette, we will see you in 25 years.

KAYYEM: Yes. No. (LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: Yes.

BROWN: All right, we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)