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New Documentary Examines the Generation Born After 9/11; Anthropic Says It Blocked Possible Efforts to Build Bioweapons; Honoring Police Officers Who Died From 9/11-Related Cancers. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired September 11, 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]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: -- too young to remember, but now, a new documentary explores life for that generation of Americans after 9/11 and the very profound legacy that formed our nation since then. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My father was working at the Pentagon on September 11th. I just turned four.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My dad was the co-pilot on Flight 93.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was 10 months old.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was five years old when 9/11 happened, and I wanted to serve my country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was three years old. We got attacked, and they killed a bunch of our people, and obviously, we should bring some justice to those that did it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Joining us now to discuss is the director of "Turning Point Generation 9/11," Brian Knappenberger. Brian, thank you for coming on. This is the latest in your award- winning Turning Point series on Netflix. Talk to us a little bit more about the decision to share the stories of the generation that came after the attacks.

BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER, "TURNING POINT GENERATION 9/11" DIRECTOR AND DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: Yes. Well, first of all, I just want to say this is such a sort of emotional day of remembrance. I mean, when you see these images from Ground Zero, if you've ever had a chance to walk the grounds of the museum, to hear the words of people who are, you know, telling stories of loved ones, this day is so -- still so powerful and so emotional for so many people.

Like everybody, I will always remember every minute of that day, the confusion, the fear, the loss, and this sense that it was really a kind of turning point in history, and we didn't know what would happen next, but here we are 25 years later, and in the next few years, we're going to reach a point where nearly half of all Americans will have been born after 9/11, or were too young to remember those days, so this film is for them. It's about them. It's seen through their eyes. We're at a point where really living memory is giving away to history.

And so, we try as much as possible to give people a sense of the fear, the trauma, the confusion of that day, the real uncertainty about what would happen next, the unity that a lot of us felt, so many people felt, but we also try to understand the decisions that were made as a country in the days and the weeks and the years after 9/11, decisions that were, you know, often made in fear and suspicion, and in so many ways, shaped the country maybe even more profoundly than the attacks themselves.

BLITZER: We saw in the trailer that you spoke with the children of some of the victims. You also spoke with Marines who were deployed to Afghanistan. How did these very different groups view the legacy of the war on terror?

KNAPPENBERGER: Well, it's very telling, and it was just very, very profound, what came out in these interviews. You know, we interviewed a woman named Laurel Homer, whose father was a co-pilot on flight United 93, the plane where the crew and the passengers, you know, took this extraordinary step of rushing the cockpit and sacrificing their own lives in order to save even more lives. So, powerful.

You know, another young man named Ann Nguyen, who lost a father in the Pentagon, and is still very much struggling to understand that day and living with those events. His father had actually escaped Vietnam when Saigon fell, but we also conducted some, as you mentioned, some very harrowing interviews with young Marines who were sent into Kabul during the United States' withdrawal from the country. And they take us through the events at Abbey Gate. And so, you can imagine their story says so much about the actions our country took around the world after 9/11.

And so, taken as a whole, you really get a sense of the impact that this day had on, and the world that these, that this generation of young people is living in now.

BROWN: Yes. That impact continues to this day. I'm curious, what is your hope for viewers who watch this, that may have not been around when 9/11 happened, and they're just now looking at these images and listening to these voices in your film?

KNAPPENBERGER: Yes. I mean, I actually -- you mentioned the word hope, I actually emerged from this project with quite a lot of hope. I mean, sometimes the younger generation, I think, you know, a lot of times they don't know what happened, but that's kind of on us to tell that story and to keep these stories alive. You know, sometimes they get a bad rap for not, you know, caring about history or not understanding history, but for me, I think it's the opposite.

You know, yes, I feel a certain responsibility to keep this day alive and to help people understand what made it so pivotal. And I think I'd like the next generation to feel what it was like to live through that day, not to really justify, but to understand some of the decisions made in the days and the weeks and the months after. So, they remember what's so important and not, you know, fall into the kind of fear and suspicion that, in many ways, led us down some dark paths down after 9/11 as well.

[11:35:00]

So, this film is, I think there's a lot to learn from what happened here and the way we reacted to it. And I just have emerged with this -- from this, with a hope that, you know, a younger generation, as they begin to take the reins of government and society, will understand it and be responsible as future events unfold.

BROWN: All right. Brian Knappenberger, thank you so much and thank you for all of your work.

KNAPPENBERGER: Thank you very much.

BLITZER: And thanks for me as well. The passengers of the crew on Flight 93 that stormed the cockpit and crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, knew they were likely going to die. Some of them had time to call their loved ones and share a final goodbye. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH WAINIO, SISTER OF ELIZABETH WAINIO, UNTED 93 PASSENGER: The phone call between my mom and my sister was one of the last phone calls from United 93. One of the first things my sister said was, Mom, I'm calling to tell you I love you and that my plane has been hijacked. And, you know, my mom said, I have my arms around you. Look out the window. It's a beautiful day. Try and focus on the clouds. We don't know what's going to happen. Although they both did. My sister said something to the effect of they're getting ready to break into the cockpit. I have to go. I love you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The September 11th attacks, a horrific moment in our country's history that I covered, along with so many of my colleagues, including Nic Robertson, who reported live from Afghanistan as explosions rang out. Here's part of his reporting from that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We can hear explosions around the perimeter of the city. We're in a position here which allows which gives us a view over the whole city. We just had an impact, perhaps a few miles away. If I listen, you can hear the ripple of explosions around the city.

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Perhaps we've heard there the fifth explosion, six explosion. I see gun bursts and starbursts in the air. Tracer fire is coming up out of the city. I hear aircraft flying above the city of Kabul.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. Let's go live right now to CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson, who's joining us from London. Nic, I remember those days and you remember them, of course. I want to get your perspective on what has changed in international relations between the Saudis and the U.S. since that day.

ROBERTSON: Yes. They became key allies, al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden, who was a Saudi turned on, you know, his former supporters, you know, going back to the pre-Taliban days in Afghanistan, it was the Mujahideen who were fighting the Russians, the Soviet, the Soviet Army, the Red Army in Afghanistan. And the CIA, along with Saudi intelligence, has supported the likes of the Islamic fighters, if you will, the Mujahideen. They weren't that radical at that time to push out the Soviets.

And so, bin Laden had sort of come out of all of that era. But it was very clear he was turning on his own government as well. He was turning on the Saudi government and saw them as enemies because of the way that the United States and Saudi had worked together in the first Gulf War in 1991. And bin Laden had become an enemy to the International Community. So, in intelligence terms, Saudi and the United States really began working together. And I think that was somewhere where they had common ground, a common enemy. And in the years intervening since then have really worked together.

Obviously, 25 years of U.S. intervention in the Middle East has had a legacy there that many people in the Middle East would see as a negative. But I think from the Saudi perspective, the relations with the United States and other Gulf states as well has really gotten stronger. You could say it's being tested right now with what's happening in the U.S. tensions with Iran. But it really has changed.

I mean, my reflections back then, Wolf, for what they're worth, were that we were such a long way from -- in Kabul as I was standing there from what was happening at Ground Zero in New York. We couldn't see it. There were no televisions. The Taliban didn't allow televisions in Kabul. We've gone to Kabul in part to try to get to al-Qaeda, find out what they were doing. But we were also so far removed from the anguish and pain that was happening in New York that day.

But on the ground in Afghanistan, it was very clear that there was a war coming and it changed a lot for millions upon millions of people in the region, Wolf.

BLITZER: It certainly did. Nic Robertson, excellent reporting then and excellent reporting now. Appreciate it very, very much. Pamela.

BROWN: All right. Wolf, our special coverage, looking back at the attacks of September 11th, 25 years ago, continues in just a moment. But right now, we wouldn't talk about a modern-day threat facing the world, the dangerous side of artificial intelligence. Anthropic now says it blocked several accounts that were using the company's A.I. models in ways that could have led to the development of biological weapons.

The A.I. firm says it found nearly three dozen separate instances of potentially concerning research over the course of a month. Anthropic says the users were working scientists, but that it can't be sure if they were intending harm or were conducting legitimate scientific research. And as reports of A.I. misuse and misbehavior by the models themselves grow, a congressional bill that would establish nationwide rules for safety and transparency in A.I. seems to have hit a wall.

I want to bring in one of the sponsors of that legislation, Democratic Congressman Lori Trahan of Massachusetts. She serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Thank you for coming on. I'm going to talk about the bill in just a moment. But first, I just want to get your reaction to this latest news from Anthropic.

REP. LORI TRAHAN (D-MA): Well, absolutely. More and more people who are actually building this technology are the ones sounding the alarm, and I think it's incumbent on all of us to listen. Safety researchers are resigning. Models are breaking out of their labs. And as you mentioned yesterday, the report was released detailing how bad actors are trying to use this technology to create bioweapons that could cause harm of massive scale.

So, if the architects are telling us that they can't guarantee where all of this goes, that is the case for Congress to get off the sidelines. Today, the only thing we have in place is the honor system. And just think about that for a second.

[11:45:00]

The most powerful technology in human history is being regulated by the people who are developing it. So, I, you know, believe, as many of my colleagues do, that we need to put proper guardrails in place, which is what the Frontier Act sets out to do.

BROWN: And just to be to be clear on the Anthropic story, they didn't know if they were bad actors, but they were concerned if they were, what could happen? And that has always been the concern, right, in terms of how A.I. could pose an existential threat to the U.S. One of those is that a bad actor could create a bioweapon and essentially extinguish humanity.

You know, as you say, there is an honor system in place, but that does not go far enough in terms of making sure the threat is not posed to humanity. And you actually, reportedly, decided to not run for a House Democratic leadership position so that you could focus entirely on A.I. policy and regulation. Tell us more about that decision and what exactly you believe you can accomplish in your current role.

TRAHAN: Well, this is too important. And, you know, the time to act is right now. So, you know, I sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee where so much of this is under our jurisdiction. But we have so much to do. When you think of what all the areas that A.I. is going to affect, jobs in the economy, our kids' classrooms, data centers, energy, our national defense, for sure. But I think about it in terms of sequencing. We have no guardrails in place for these frontier labs. These are the largest companies who are building these models that are capable of, you know, catastrophic risk. So, I think what we first have to do is the Frontier Act. It creates real rules of the road instead of an honor system or the ad hoc approach by the administration. You start with transparency, right, mandatory incident reporting, independent verifications by auditors embedded in these labs. And then a kill switch.

You know, if a model is capable of catastrophic risk, the government steps in and stops it. That's frontier, and I think that's the priority piece of legislation that, by the way, can pass both House and Senate and get signed by the president. It's bipartisan.

BROWN: The larger question is, you know, much can be done perhaps in this country, but what about the other countries that are in this A.I. race developing their own models? Would you be open to working with leaders and adversaries like, you know, China and Russia to try to get an international agreement together?

TRAHAN: Absolutely. The United States has always been a leader in setting international standards. But think about us showing up to that table without doing any of this back home. We have to have the leverage and the credibility in those conversations by passing, you know, table stakes legislation around these frontier labs, which is why I'm pushing so hard for the Frontier Act. It doesn't solve all the problems by any means, but it's a start. And it gives us the credibility and conversations with our international partners to set standards right from the jump.

BROWN: And this is a bipartisan effort you're involved with. But what has the appetite been on Capitol Hill to impose more guardrails and regulation on these A.I. companies?

TRAHAN: Well, I'll tell you, recent events, you know, the whistleblower this week, the report, certainly we've read reports of models breaking out of labs. It's all really led to a tipping point. I mean, this week, my phone's been ringing off the hook of people who really want to be a part of creating urgency in Congress. I mean, I don't have to tell you right now we're not even in session. And the Speaker of the House, Republican Mike Johnson, canceled the last two weeks of session.

We're calling for a special session or at least have a group of us who have put pen to paper on legislation work in Washington to put a deal together because I don't, you know, we've avoided a catastrophe, but we have to heed these warnings and be ready so that one does not strike.

BROWN: Yes. I mean, you heard the former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warning that A.I. could potentially drive humans to extinction by the end of the decade. That is alarming. And he is not the only one saying that. Congresswoman Lori Trahan, thank you so much. We'll be right back.

TRAHAN: Thank you. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:00]

BLITZER: Last hour, President Trump spoke over at the Pentagon as he honored the 184 people killed after American Airlines Flight 77 struck the West side of the Pentagon. In his tribute, he brought up the war in Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We salute the service members working right now to ensure the world's number one sponsor of terror. The Islamic Republic of Iran will never, ever have a nuclear weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's go live right now to CNN Correspondent Brian Todd, he's over at the Pentagon. Brian, in addition to the people who died on that day, we're also remembering first responders who have battled various illnesses related to the September 11th attacks. How is the Pentagon honoring their sacrifice today?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, today was all about the first responders in many ways, both in New York at the World Trade Center site and here at the Pentagon.

[11:55:00]

During his speech, President Trump acknowledged three firefighters from Arlington County, Virginia, who responded to the attack that morning and who helped unfurl that massive flag that was unfurled on September 12th, 2001, when George W. Bush, the president, and Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, visited the site. Those three firefighters he acknowledged were Joseph Morabito, Scott Morgan and Carl Solberg. And he had those gentlemen stand up and be acknowledged by the crowd.

But also, you know, we're getting information about the response here in Arlington. You know, of course, much is made about the response at the World Trade Center, as it, of course, should be. But the response here in Arlington was really heroic as well. All 282 members of the Arlington County, Virginia, Fire Department on that day responded to the attack at the Pentagon and were here for several days afterward. They actually were able to save several people. 106 people were transported to hospitals that day, not all of them by Arlington County Fire, but by Arlington County and other jurisdictions as well. So, there was some success here at the Pentagon as far as rescues.

But when the -- you know, the mention is of the people who died from 9/11 related illnesses in New York, and of course, we know there are more than 450 first responders and others in New York passed away in the ensuing years from 9/11 related illnesses. There were also two people here from the Pentagon who passed away, and they were both police officers from Arlington County, Virginia. One was Corporal Harvey Snook III. He responded on the site immediately after the attack on 9/11. After the plane crashed, he was on the site for a week. He died of a 9/11 related illness on January 14, 2016.

Also, Corporal Barry Foust of the Arlington County Police. He, like Corporal Snook, was here and responded for about a week trying to find the remains of people. Corporal Foust was diagnosed with cancer in June of last year and passed away in May of this year. So, honoring them as well today. Wolf.

BLITZER: Our deepest condolences to their families. May they rest in peace. May their memories be a blessing. Brian Todd, thank you very, very much.

Joining us now is Kenneth Feinberg, who for almost three years, he was the special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001. His new book just out about that time is entitled, "What Is Life Worth?" It's been reissued to coincide with this year's 25 year commemoration.

Thanks very much for being here, Kenneth. Excellent book, "What Is Life Worth?" Thanks for writing this book. How important is it right now to deal with these issues?

KENNETH FEINBERG, SPECIAL MASTER, SEPTEMBER 11TH VICTIM COMPENSATION FUND OF 2001: Oh, I think it's very important. The main reason I reissued the book with additional reflections, a third of the country knows nothing about 9/11 or the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to bring them up to date. And the second reason I wrote the book and updated it is to contrast the political world we live in today with the world in 2001, Wolf, you'll recall where the Congress set up this fund without any roll call, unanimous consent.

Both houses, President Bush immediately signed it into law and the country was solidly behind the effort to assist the victims of 9/11.

BLITZER: To compensate them for what they've gone through. The New York City mayor, as you probably know, recently released more than 170,000 pages of documents that appear to show city officials misled people about the quality of the air around Ground Zero in New York.

When you were overseeing the fund, the compensation fund, was there any sense that health problems could linger for decades after 9/11?

FEINBERG: Yes, there was a sense. Back then, a lot of these diseases like cancer hadn't yet manifested themselves. They were latent diseases based on inhalation that didn't manifest and become apparent for a decade or more. Congress then re-enacted the 9/11 fund for purposes of compensating the adverse health effects of these first responders and others a decade later.

BROWN: You know, overseeing the fund took its toll on you personally. Tell us about that and how you view that 25 years later.

FEINBERG: That was the toughest part of the job, calculating the value of a life. Judges and juries do that every day, Pamela, around the country. The tough was the emotion. This find was setup so soon. And when I met privately with individual victims or their families, some would say, Mr. Feinberg, you're paying me $2 million in public taxpayer money, $2 million. They haven't even recovered my wife's body yet, and you're here offering me money. Bring my wife back instead.

And that emotional part of it was by far the biggest challenge in, you know, designing and administering this fund so soon after 9/11.

BLITZER: Kenneth Feinberg thanks very much for writing this important book, "What Is Life Worth?" It's just coming out right now. Appreciate --

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