Glenn and Stu remember the day 9/11 changed their lives forever. They talk about what they remember about that day, and how it changed the course of their lives. Glenn Beck: This is a very different day. I m approaching this day differently than I have ever been approaching a commemoration of this day.
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01:02:33.820So, Brad, we are now paying for the consequences of our actions, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, all of these different things.
01:02:59.720Um, uh, what is the, what is the lesson?
01:03:05.300And, and you might even want to come back tomorrow and answer this.
01:03:08.420What is the thing that we have done in the last 18 years that we should now look back and go, that was a mistake.
01:03:17.380And we should talk about it and correct this mistake.
01:03:23.140Listen, um, I think when we look back on history, and obviously be happy to come and talk tomorrow, because I know, you know, you know,
01:03:29.220there's just two big issues to talk about today and we have to, but I, you know, I think the thing that haunts me is, um, that misinformation that took us to war as if we were, you know, we were so rightfully, you know, looking for someone to get, right?
01:03:56.700Um, but that is haunting that we had the wrong information and went to war on the wrong information that in Iraq, that, that is, is forever haunting because, you know, I've done books on Dover Air Force Base and the men and women who take care of our fallen soldiers.
01:04:11.580And how many fallen troops have gone through Dover for truly what I can only say is the wrong reason.
01:04:21.120And not just because it's wrong that anyone should die, right?
01:04:24.480We don't want any one of our troops to pay the ultimate price, but, you know, sent to battle for what, you know, and that's what, you know, you have to, at the end of the day, we see war.
01:04:35.380And that's a big word, but we forget that, you know, when you enlist in the military, they will tell you, um, as the spouse of a, of someone who is sending their spouse into battle, that if two people show up at your front door, it means your loved one's dead.
01:04:53.480And if one shows up at your door, they're just injured.
01:04:56.720And those are real things that happen.
01:04:59.640Those were real funerals that happened.
01:05:02.220Um, thousands of, of, you know, men and women buried because of this.
01:05:05.840They told me, you know, at Dover that at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan, there were so many bodies coming through there that they literally had to, you know, find another cooler to stack them up on.
01:05:18.260They were coming so big, so many so fast.
01:05:21.200And that's, that's the thing that I look back on and say, that's what, you know, one of the places where we went so, so wrong.
01:05:40.700So listen, uh, again, oh, and you know, we're talking about heroes.
01:05:44.900So let's actually talk about the positive side of this, right?
01:05:47.240I mean, the reason why we're so moved today, I still believe is our culture is, you know, I started this book series and in many ways, you know, almost in a similar vein.
01:05:57.580I was tired of my kids looking at people who are famous for being famous, famous for the wrong reasons.
01:06:02.360I wanted to give my kids heroes like these 9-11 heroes, but heroes of character, heroes of kindness and compassion and hard work and perseverance.
01:06:11.640And, and we did, I am Amelia Earhart and I am Abraham Lincoln and I am George Washington.
01:06:15.080But our number one requested hero is the one that comes out today.
01:06:35.740I gotta, I gotta take a quick break back with Brad Meltzer, um, who is gracious enough to be with us, uh, today and talk about 9-11, but also heroes.
01:06:45.120And I want to talk about heroes when we come back because the world is in need of heroes and you're starting to see them.
01:24:15.980He has people that were way up in the World Trade Center that you're, I have no idea.
01:24:24.220I had no idea that all of these people were even alive, let alone, he's just talking to, you know, just regular people that were in the building, you know, regular police office.
01:24:36.760I can't imagine the research and the amount of time it took to write this book.
01:24:42.720And it is the best history book I think I've ever read because it's, there's no opinion.
01:25:07.400He's going to be going through it and, and, and we're just going to go through some of the most riveting parts of this book right after the top of this next hour.
01:35:04.720You go into the accounts of the people in the elevator that had burst into flames.
01:35:09.880I didn't know any of these people survived.
01:35:14.980Yeah, and those stories are so harrowing to hear, in part because, and this was one of the things that just really came across to me in doing this research and telling these stories,
01:35:28.560is what the sensory experience of 9-11 was like, that we remember the facts of the day, but none of us actually really know what 9-11 tasted like, what it smelled like, what it sounded like, what it felt like.
01:35:48.180And so, you know, I was amazed as I was going through and writing this and compiling this, is, you know, what this, you know, the people talking about the smell of the plane crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville as those volunteer firefighters arrived on the scene.
01:36:06.080You know, the people like Harry Weiser and Richard Eichen talking about what that heat felt like.
01:36:12.020You know, they get down then through those stairwells.
01:36:15.520The stairwells have the fire sprinklers going.
01:36:19.900And so they're coming out the bottom of the Twin Towers, soaking wet, that water pooling at the base of the stairwells.
01:36:27.900And, you know, the idea that these people in their final moments before they walk out to freedom, they are wading through knee-deep water in the stairwells of the Twin Towers as it's pooling at the bottom.
01:36:42.040I mean, what the dust of the collapse tasted like in your mouth, what it was like to step in it, you know, just the sounds of that day.
01:36:54.300I mean, it was just so amazing to sort of understand that sensory experience.
01:36:59.680The chapter at Emma Booker Elementary School is also fascinating to me.
01:37:10.080The way that Rudy Giuliani, when he first heard, you know, he was at a hotel and he was like, hang on, I gotta go to the bathroom because I'll probably be out for a long time.
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01:41:07.120Talking to Garrett Graff, the author of The Only Plane in the Sky.
01:41:29.080Garrett, what was the thing that, there had to be more than one, that jumped out at you as you were going through this, that you thought, oh my gosh, I've never read this, I haven't heard this, this is incredible to me.
01:41:45.440Well, I'll tell you one of the, you know, so many of these stories I felt, you know, just very lucky to be able to help tell and share with America about that day.
01:42:00.680But one that really stood out to me was I spoke to Commander Anthony Barnes, the Navy officer in the bunker with Vice President Cheney under the White House that day.
01:42:14.260And he told me for the first time the story of what it was like asking Dick Cheney, the vice president, for shoot-down authority of the hijacked airliners.
01:42:25.800You know, he was a naval aviator himself.
01:42:28.520He was the person that morning running sort of liaison between the Pentagon and the White House.
01:42:35.380And as they feared that more hijacked planes were coming towards Washington, towards the White House, towards the Capitol, he told, you know, he went to Vice President Cheney and asked for military authority to shoot down hijacked airliners.
01:42:53.320You know, a decision that no one had ever contemplated before.
01:42:58.320And Vice President Cheney immediately said yes.
01:43:01.980And Commander Barnes went back a second time and asked again.
01:43:06.780And then he went back and he asked a third time because he knew just what an order he was asking, sort of just how unprecedented.
01:43:15.960And he wanted to make sure that there was no confusion about what was transpiring, what the authority he was asking for.
01:43:23.540And finally, Dick Cheney got fed up and basically said, yes, I know what I'm doing.
01:43:28.920We need to shoot down any hijacked airliners that's heading towards a population center if we can't get them to change course.
01:43:38.520You know, just an incredible moment of that day that, you know, America had would have been unimaginable, you know, even 90 minutes earlier.
01:43:53.080Do you get a sense at all about how Dick came to that?
01:43:56.900Is it just years and years of experience or how did he get any sense of that?
01:44:04.280Yeah. And that's really exactly what had happened was, you know, sort of one of the things that we forget about Dick Cheney's career was, you know, he had been secretary of defense.
01:44:17.900He had been White House chief of staff before.
01:44:20.980And so he had been part of these government training exercises for, you know, emergency operations, for continuity of government exercises for years.
01:44:32.680And so, you know, in some ways, one of the quotes that really stands out for me in the book was Dick Cheney saying, you know, as terrible as 9-11 was, we have actually trained for worse.
01:44:47.180And so I had this set of instincts from my decades of government service to fall back upon that day.
01:44:59.860So this was, you know, Bush was just being hustled out of the Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, rushed aboard Air Force One.
01:45:09.860And Bush, you know, was really torn that day between and, you know, you're a student of American history, so you understand this tension, the role between being head of state, the person who is sort of supposed to be reassuring the country and the person who is commander in chief, the person who is supposed to lead the military and to preserve the office of the president.
01:45:32.800And so he's rushed aboard Air Force One, Air Force One takes off, flies over the southeastern United States, goes first to Barksdale Air Force Base, and then eventually to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.
01:45:47.020And through that whole day, President Bush is pushing to come back to Washington.
01:45:51.460You know, he's, you know, shouting at the pilot of Air Force One, shouting at his, you know, chief of staff, Andy Card, and the Secret Service agents, who effectively say, you know, Mr. President, this isn't your decision.
01:46:08.280Our legal duty today is to protect the office of the presidency, and we can't let you go back to Washington until we're sure that it's safe.
01:46:17.740They land at Barksdale Air Force Base sort of late morning, and it's this incredible visceral reaction that they have, the passengers, as they're getting off the plane.
01:46:29.900They land surrounded by armored vehicles, Humvees with .50 caliber machine guns, men in flak jackets with M16s, and they sort of realize that they had taken off in peacetime from Sarasota,
01:46:45.140and that they have landed now in Barksdale, and America is at war.
01:46:52.580Garrett, I, this is, you've done a remarkable job.
01:46:58.660Did you, did you, was there a reason you selected this style?
01:47:03.060Yeah, so to me, it's very much, you know, the, the goal of telling the book this way was to capture the way that America lived the day.
01:47:17.100You know, that we, we know the facts, and, you know, there are, there are some great books that have been written about it in a narrative sense.
01:47:24.620You know, the 9-11 Commission spent years and millions of dollars, you know, compiling the world's most accurate second-by-second TikTok of that day.
01:47:36.000And yet what we are, I think, sort of in danger of forgetting is what the day was like to live, what the day was like to experience.
01:47:47.940And so my goal for this was they are, that they are trying to capture, you know, the voices of 9-11 as America lived it, and not get bogged down in the facts of the day.
01:48:03.900Really, truly amazing. Garrett, thank you so much for your book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
01:48:11.440It is The Only Plane in the Sky, An Oral History of 9-11. It is fantastic. Get it now.
01:51:17.880Now, you have in the book, there's another piece of a woman who was in first class with one of those phones, you know, that you could use your credit card with.
01:51:32.520Yes, and she is in contact and talking about how they believe they've been hijacked, and it goes through, you know, it's minute-by-minute transcript of all of these calls.
01:51:44.400And, you know, we've heard pieces of some of these, but, I mean, the detail is ridiculous.
01:58:53.540You're one of the, you know, most powerful men in the world.
01:58:57.080You, people do what you tell them to do in an everyday life.
01:59:00.840And here's a moment where physically you're being taken over by other people and told, basically, no, we're not listening to you right now.
02:00:39.560That's, that's, for the most powerful man in the world, that has got to be a bizarre thing.
02:00:44.580And we saw that in the recent documentary, Angel Has Fallen, where thousands of little tiny drones come along when they're fishing and attack.
02:01:01.180By the way, on today's TV show, we have a two-day episode.
02:01:06.020I have two people that were there in the building at the time.
02:01:09.580Uh, and I told them, you know, when we were recording this episode here just a couple of days ago, I had both of them together and we were thinking about doing them separately.
02:01:20.200And I, and after reading their stories, I realized they had one thing in common and they didn't even catch it.
02:01:27.440After they heard their stories, I said, what, so what do you think the thread is here?
02:01:32.200And when you see the thread, it's, it's remarkable.
02:01:35.240And it's, it's just remarkable and something that you need to see.
02:01:39.880Tonight, at five o'clock, only on Blaze TV, um, a story you've never heard, two stories you've never heard before, that I think you will really, really, uh, get a lot out of, especially when you see the thread.
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02:02:01.700Supposed to be another pleasant drive to work.
02:02:03.480You know, you get in the car, you turn on, you know, the radio.
02:02:08.380You were laughing as I was berating Stu for not eating meat or something like that.
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02:03:30.560You know, I, I think I may be one of the only ones that, um, am, am disappointed that John Bolton is leaving the white house and not for the reasons I, you know, I used to be a hawk.
02:03:59.560You know, I, I'd like the two strongest voices in the room being a hawk and a guy who's not a hawk with the guy who's not a hawk having the final say, you know what I mean?
02:05:46.500I mean, yeah, that's, you know, I, that's not something that I support.
02:05:49.440And ultimately the president didn't support it either as, as he wound up canceling it.
02:05:53.820But, you know, I think the, the media leaks were an issue or at least an alleged issue with Bolton in which he wanted everyone to make sure they knew that he was not into this idea of a meeting with the Taliban at, at Camp David.
02:06:08.740And, and, you know, the president, eventually those, those relationships, when you disagree, they can be fruitful for a while, but eventually you hit a wall where, okay, well, you're just sticking to your side.
02:06:20.040I'm sticking to my side and we're not getting anything out of this anymore.
02:06:22.640I just hope he, and I hope he replaces John Bolton again with somebody who doesn't necessarily always agree with him.