I'm guessing, but in order to be all business, you really had to not pay attention to your emotions, not only as chief of staff, but as a human being, as a citizen of this country.
When did you actually face those emotions? It wasn't until we were well out of harm's way, when we were on Air Force One. Obviously, the words I used with the president were grave words. So I knew the situation was serious — grave — and that there were a lot of things unknown. But nevertheless, I tried to be very, very deliberate and focused and cool, calm and collected. Remember, by the time we got on the plane, the attack on the Pentagon had happened, and the plane Flight 93 was heading towards Washington, D.
We were going through all those emotions. I was very, very cognizant of the burden the president was carrying and his desire to have perfect knowledge, and it was never going to be there. President, this is all the information we have as of right now.
Did you worry about your family at that moment? That sounds cold, but I was so disciplined. I remembered going through that crisis, which paled in comparison to the reality of the crisis of September 11, and I wanted to a good job for the president and a good job for the country. So I was very focused and I tried to be unemotional. I was really not allowing emotions to get in the way of the job that I had to do. What kind of emotions were you not allowing to get in the way? I tried to worry about the president doing his job.
The thought of worrying about Andy Card actually visited you and you ignored it? Did you revise those words to President Bush in your head at all? How did you come up with those two sentences? What are your thoughts on the war on terror? I think there is a war on terror. Terrorists declared a war on the U. How would you evaluate its strengths and shortcomings? I think we have to be on our toes. And we have to challenge the intelligence community to pay attention to what is happening around the world — in dark places — and analyze to the best of their ability what the potential dangers are to the United States and try to mitigate those dangers and hopefully eliminate them.
Do you feel safe today? And that we are better organized as a government. But I know that the threat continues to be real. I do feel safer but I am not going to abandon the appropriate level of paranoia that I came to recognize having read most of the intelligence reports all those six years as chief of staff.
Doug Mills. It was a Tuesday. A day like any other day. This, I figured, was going to be nothing special. It started out slow. In that modest room, I was a witness to history. We strained our eyes to see them come tumbling down. One, after the other.
We stood there, dumbfounded how this could happen. A bit of perspective came from Wilma Hamilton, superintendent of schools for Sarasota County.
We were all on edge. Steve Newborn. See stories by Steve Newborn. WUSF Support WUSF now by giving monthly, or make a one-time donation online. Donate Now. Related Content. Pete Mayor. The United States has seen an uptick in homegrown terror threats in recent years, particularly from white supremacists, capped by the deadly Jan. Capitol by followers of Republican former President Donald Trump.
The attackers were hoping to stop U. Bush, recalling the unity of the American people after the attacks, appealed for a return to that spirit amid growing political division in the country.
In the afternoon, he repeated his frequent lie that the election was "rigged" to a group of New York police officers at a precinct near his Manhattan home, and said the city's crime would stop if police were allowed to act as they wished.
Former U.
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