1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,340 GWEN IFILL: (From video.) Joining me tonight to take stock of today's terrible events are 2 00:00:09,340 --> 00:00:12,220 four reporters who - 3 00:00:12,220 --> 00:00:16,590 YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Twenty years ago, on September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks rocked 4 00:00:16,590 --> 00:00:21,000 America. On that day the nation watched the horror unfold. 5 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:25,970 The loss of life was profound. The U.S. would never be the same. 6 00:00:25,970 --> 00:00:30,060 MARTHA RADDATZ: (From video.) There is a new security problem in this country. 7 00:00:30,060 --> 00:00:35,680 ALCINDOR: Soon after the carnage, U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan to hunt down those responsible. 8 00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:44,050 They stayed there for 20 years. Thousands were killed at war and in the war that followed in Iraq. 9 00:00:44,050 --> 00:00:51,020 In the years since others, including many first responders, died from 9/11-related 10 00:00:51,020 --> 00:00:56,490 illnesses, military and political leaders scrambled to prevent America from being 11 00:00:56,490 --> 00:01:01,740 vulnerable to terror again, a generation came of age with leaders focused on surveillance 12 00:01:01,740 --> 00:01:06,870 and secrecy. Some also unfairly targeted Muslims and people of color. 13 00:01:06,870 --> 00:01:10,800 DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete 14 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:14,690 shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. 15 00:01:14,690 --> 00:01:18,830 ALCINDOR: Two decades later, we explore how the nation is still reeling from the impact 16 00:01:18,830 --> 00:01:23,390 of 9/11 on a special edition of Washington Week. 17 00:01:23,390 --> 00:01:28,090 ANNOUNCER: Once again, from Washington, moderator Yamiche Alcindor. 18 00:01:28,090 --> 00:01:32,290 ALCINDOR: Good evening and welcome to a special edition of Washington Week. 19 00:01:32,290 --> 00:01:38,000 I'm Yamiche Alcindor. Twenty years ago, the 9/11 attacks dramatically changed America. 20 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:40,980 It was a tragic and emotional day. 21 00:01:40,980 --> 00:01:46,350 This evening we look at how the attacks impacted American life, politics, and national security. 22 00:01:46,350 --> 00:01:50,980 Joining me tonight to take stock of the horrific events are five top reporters who 23 00:01:50,980 --> 00:01:55,460 covered 9/11 and its aftermath: Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New 24 00:01:55,460 --> 00:02:00,790 York Times; Pierre Thomas, chief justice correspondent for ABC News; and joining us here 25 00:02:00,790 --> 00:02:06,260 in studio, Asma Khalid, White House correspondent for NPR and co-host of the NPR Politics 26 00:02:06,260 --> 00:02:12,380 podcast; Martha Raddatz, chief global affairs correspondent for ABC News and co-anchor of 27 00:02:12,380 --> 00:02:17,550 This Week; and Vivian Salama, a national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal. 28 00:02:17,550 --> 00:02:21,040 Thank you so much, all of you, for being here. Martha, I want to start with you. 29 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:28,110 You were here in D.C. when this attack happened. You had a husband who was working in the 30 00:02:28,110 --> 00:02:32,220 Pentagon, you yourself working at the State Department. I wonder what sticks in your mind both 31 00:02:32,220 --> 00:02:36,170 personally but also professionally because, of course, you were reporting that day. 32 00:02:36,170 --> 00:02:42,930 RADDATZ: Well, I think first of all it can't help but be immediately personal when you 33 00:02:42,930 --> 00:02:48,680 have an attack on your homeland. And you can go through the day, you can be a journalist, 34 00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:54,820 you can do your job that we all did, and when you go home at night you're a scared American. 35 00:02:54,820 --> 00:03:02,570 I had - my husband, Tom Gjelten, was in the Pentagon that day, a correspondent for NPR, I 36 00:03:02,570 --> 00:03:09,360 was at the State Department for ABC that day, and Tom and I had driven in that morning 37 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:14,440 together right after the first plane hit and started heading in immediately. 38 00:03:14,440 --> 00:03:19,910 And you know, just today looking at the timeline again and when the planes hit, and I 39 00:03:19,910 --> 00:03:24,320 remember being on Memorial Bridge, and I called my daughter who was a freshman in college 40 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:29,150 - rather, sophomore in college, and my son was in the fourth grade. 41 00:03:29,150 --> 00:03:34,180 So I immediately called my daughter, obviously didn't call my son, told her to turn on 42 00:03:34,180 --> 00:03:41,020 the news, went to the State Department, Tom went to the Pentagon, and the second plane hit. 43 00:03:41,020 --> 00:03:44,980 And then the State Department was evacuated and there were fears that there was a bomb in 44 00:03:44,980 --> 00:03:48,750 the parking lot. There were so many rumors going around that day. 45 00:03:48,750 --> 00:03:54,420 I spent the entire day on Memorial Bridge, and when the Pentagon was hit I think I 46 00:03:54,420 --> 00:03:58,000 really put on my journalist hat then because I really couldn't think about Tom. 47 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:01,820 And I'm not a huge worrier, so I'm just, he's fine, it's a huge building, I know it's a 48 00:04:01,820 --> 00:04:04,690 huge building; obviously, he was fine. 49 00:04:04,690 --> 00:04:08,460 But to see the smoke rise from that building all day and see the fighter jets going down 50 00:04:08,460 --> 00:04:12,630 the Potomac River, and hearing all day - because we had walkie-talkies because the 51 00:04:12,630 --> 00:04:17,430 cellphones were pretty much down that day - and hearing that there was another plane 52 00:04:17,430 --> 00:04:24,000 headed for D.C. And I remember saying to my cameraman, oh my gosh, they're going to, 53 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:27,950 like, hit the Washington Monument. He's like, no, no, no, they're going to hit the 54 00:04:27,950 --> 00:04:31,260 Capitol, they're going to want mass destruction. 55 00:04:31,260 --> 00:04:35,560 And then in between, you know, you're trying to manage your personal life, and I'm 56 00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:41,560 worried about my son and is he OK at school, and is my daughter OK, and is Tom OK - and I 57 00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:45,510 finally - Tom finally got through to me - is my mother OK. 58 00:04:45,510 --> 00:04:50,500 You go through that, but you do have to just keep doing what you're doing, and you also 59 00:04:50,500 --> 00:04:55,430 think of all the people who have lost their lives and then you just know you can keep 60 00:04:55,430 --> 00:04:58,730 doing what you're doing to report on that story. 61 00:04:58,730 --> 00:05:06,710 ALCINDOR: Harrowing, really, to listen to. Pierre, you happened to be in New York on 62 00:05:06,710 --> 00:05:12,280 the - on the day of 9/11. You happened to find yourself then on set with Peter Jennings. 63 00:05:12,280 --> 00:05:17,720 Talk to us about what it was like to report, to see Peter Jennings lean into his instincts 64 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:22,550 as he was anchoring the news, but also what were you hearing from your sources at the FBI? 65 00:05:22,550 --> 00:05:27,550 PIERRE THOMAS: Well, you know, just thinking about that day, it just brings up a wealth 66 00:05:27,550 --> 00:05:34,280 of emotions. You know, I had been in New York to meet some of the ABC News brass. I had been 67 00:05:34,280 --> 00:05:38,600 at ABC News at that point nine months and there were some people in New York I had not met. 68 00:05:38,600 --> 00:05:45,590 And that morning, after a thunderstorm kept us in New York overnight, my wife called me a 69 00:05:45,590 --> 00:05:50,980 little bit after nine and said, did you see that plane hit the World Trade Center. 70 00:05:50,980 --> 00:05:56,790 And immediately I thought it was a small propeller plane, and then I turned on the 71 00:05:56,790 --> 00:06:00,360 television and saw that it was much worse than that. 72 00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:04,850 And as you said, the next thing I know I'm on the set with Peter Jennings, John Miller 73 00:06:04,850 --> 00:06:10,810 who was then an ABC News correspondent and a former public affairs director for the NYPD. 74 00:06:10,810 --> 00:06:19,690 And there's this moment when the first tower comes down, and Peter immediately knew that 75 00:06:19,690 --> 00:06:25,720 there were no words so he raised his hand on the set just like that, which was a signal 76 00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:34,020 to all of us to say nothing. And in that moment, you're horrified for the people that 77 00:06:34,020 --> 00:06:40,800 are in the building and you just cannot believe what is unfolding. 78 00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:45,520 And when that first tower came down, it was if something biblical was happening the way 79 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:52,790 that smoke and debris sort of moved through the city, and my sources were shellshocked. 80 00:06:52,790 --> 00:07:02,960 They knew that this was an epic failure, they knew that this was something that they 81 00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:06,790 would have to answer for in terms of the law enforcement community, but their immediate 82 00:07:06,790 --> 00:07:14,650 response was just stunned and anger. And among the first tips that I got was that the 83 00:07:14,650 --> 00:07:23,090 FBI was going to descend on those airports because, my sources said, the flight 84 00:07:23,090 --> 00:07:28,690 manifests will be the key to understanding who did this and who directed them. 85 00:07:28,690 --> 00:07:33,600 They immediately were telling me about al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden being their primary 86 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:40,190 suspect because, as you recall, the CIA director, Tenet - George Tenet - hair was on fire 87 00:07:40,190 --> 00:07:47,350 worrying about that al-Qaida was planning something. So they were suspicious that it was 88 00:07:47,350 --> 00:07:53,490 al-Qaida, but my sources said we have to get to the airports, we have to find out who was 89 00:07:53,490 --> 00:08:01,500 on those planes. And it just was a searing, grotesque day is the best way to describe it. 90 00:08:01,500 --> 00:08:06,650 ALCINDOR: A searing, grotesque day. Asma, you - like me, you weren't a reporter yet. 91 00:08:06,650 --> 00:08:11,110 We're around the same age. But you experienced something that became distinct and a 92 00:08:11,110 --> 00:08:16,490 distinct consequence of this attack, and that was targeting of Muslims. I want to 93 00:08:16,490 --> 00:08:20,680 know from you, what was your experience and how did it inform your reporting later on? 94 00:08:20,680 --> 00:08:25,140 Because you ended up in Pakistan after the capture and kill of Osama bin Laden. 95 00:08:25,140 --> 00:08:29,450 ASMA KHALID: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's been a lot of talk as we approach 96 00:08:29,450 --> 00:08:35,630 the 20th anniversary about the legacy and the enduring legacy that it's had on Muslims in 97 00:08:35,630 --> 00:08:39,960 the United States. You know, I don't know that just in conversations I've had with 98 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:44,390 Muslims - I grew up in Indiana, a fairly small town in a fairly red state of the country. 99 00:08:44,390 --> 00:08:49,590 It was not very diverse, and you talk to people, there is really not a Muslim I've come 100 00:08:49,590 --> 00:08:55,180 across who will say that they don't see a clear demarcation of a before time and an after 101 00:08:55,180 --> 00:09:02,090 time, after 9/11. I think we were all very aware of that the moment that the towers were hit. 102 00:09:02,090 --> 00:09:06,750 I would argue that, you know, instinctually many of us also were aware of that even 103 00:09:06,750 --> 00:09:10,830 before we knew who was responsible for the attacks because there had been a number of 104 00:09:10,830 --> 00:09:14,090 terror threats throughout kind of the late '90s. 105 00:09:14,090 --> 00:09:22,410 You know, I think, though, the challenge is to figure out how to use some of that fear, 106 00:09:22,410 --> 00:09:28,330 and I would argue anxiety, and turn it into something that is actually, like, powerful 107 00:09:28,330 --> 00:09:32,510 and useful, right, because I do think fear can be very debilitating. 108 00:09:32,510 --> 00:09:36,920 You know, I talk about the fact that every Muslim knows there was a before and after 109 00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:41,050 time, and the reason I say that is, like, there's - I was thinking back to what life was 110 00:09:41,050 --> 00:09:44,450 like. I grew up in this fairly small town, I mentioned, in Indiana. 111 00:09:44,450 --> 00:09:49,600 This is not a unique, isolated experience, but I remember that the neighbor of our local 112 00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:55,470 mosque came and put, like, mounds of dirt up so that he could build a physical barrier so 113 00:09:55,470 --> 00:09:57,890 that he would not need to look at the mosque. 114 00:09:57,890 --> 00:10:03,320 And then on top of the mound of dirt, he put an American flag and, you know, would tell 115 00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:06,950 folks who came onto his property that he would shoot anyone who came onto his property, 116 00:10:06,950 --> 00:10:10,200 and this was kind of a more rural area of the town. 117 00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:14,010 And these were not, again, isolated experiences - (laughs) - or isolated incidents. 118 00:10:14,010 --> 00:10:18,170 I think I always knew I wanted to be a journalist, so fast forward, and as you 119 00:10:18,170 --> 00:10:22,660 mentioned, I was with my colleague Steve Inskeep; we went to Pakistan after bin Laden had 120 00:10:22,660 --> 00:10:29,440 been killed and I think understanding and having some level of cultural fluency is important. 121 00:10:29,440 --> 00:10:34,410 You know, we'll talk, I'm sure, more about this later in the show, but overall, 9/11 has 122 00:10:34,410 --> 00:10:39,220 a long legacy in terms of the war on terror, and you look at civilian casualties, U.S. 123 00:10:39,220 --> 00:10:44,120 troops lost. Brown University's Costs of War Project estimates that, I believe, about a 124 00:10:44,120 --> 00:10:48,780 million people have died in the subsequent 20 years. That's a lot of death. 125 00:10:48,780 --> 00:10:53,090 ALCINDOR: And following the attacks, former President George W. Bush in stark terms urged 126 00:10:53,090 --> 00:10:56,710 world leaders to join the U.S. in fighting terrorism. 127 00:10:56,710 --> 00:11:01,830 PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: (From video.) Every nation in every region now has a decision 128 00:11:01,830 --> 00:11:08,860 to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) 129 00:11:08,860 --> 00:11:16,730 ALCINDOR: That call to action led to the longest war in American history, the war in Afghanistan. 130 00:11:16,730 --> 00:11:21,470 Peter, I want to come to you because you were one of the first reporters in Afghanistan. 131 00:11:21,470 --> 00:11:25,990 Talk a bit about what those early days of reporting was like, and also, how did this mission change? 132 00:11:25,990 --> 00:11:31,600 Of course, the war just ended a few weeks ago, but what was the mission and how did it evolve? 133 00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:35,550 PETER BAKER: Yeah, Yamiche, it was an extraordinary time. 134 00:11:35,550 --> 00:11:40,230 I was based in Moscow at the time for The Washington Post and decided after 9/11 that I 135 00:11:40,230 --> 00:11:45,460 would go down to Central Asia, which was part of our territory, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, 136 00:11:45,460 --> 00:11:52,060 to write about Islamic, you know, extremism there and their fight to control it there, and 137 00:11:52,060 --> 00:11:56,090 it turned out that Tajikistan was the only way to get into Afghanistan at that point. 138 00:11:56,090 --> 00:12:00,820 Pakistan was closed off, but the Northern Alliance, which was this rebel group that the 139 00:12:00,820 --> 00:12:04,960 Americans were planning to ally with, had an embassy in Dushanbe and so I got on a 140 00:12:04,960 --> 00:12:09,900 helicopter there that they flew over the Hindu Kush, an old, rickety Soviet helicopter 141 00:12:09,900 --> 00:12:16,360 that was flying well above its height ceiling to get to the Panjshir Valley north of 142 00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:20,500 Kabul, and that's where the Northern Alliance had their base. And I got there basically 143 00:12:20,500 --> 00:12:25,300 a few days after 9/11. The CIA wasn't there yet. Special Forces weren't there yet. 144 00:12:25,300 --> 00:12:30,680 It was just me and eventually a group of reporters who were trying to figure out what was 145 00:12:30,680 --> 00:12:34,110 going to happen and learn a lot about Afghanistan overnight. I didn't know anything about 146 00:12:34,110 --> 00:12:38,920 Afghanistan. A lot of us were new to the territory. We were learning a lot on the fly. 147 00:12:38,920 --> 00:12:44,990 And what we saw there, Yamiche, was a country of enormous, enormous suffering. It was a 148 00:12:44,990 --> 00:12:52,380 biblical scene. You know, it was almost like transporting yourself back to the 1500s or something. 149 00:12:52,380 --> 00:12:57,580 It was dusty and no electricity and no running water and people had been brutalized by 150 00:12:57,580 --> 00:13:05,110 the Taliban for years, women only allowed to emerge in public in full burkas from head to 151 00:13:05,110 --> 00:13:11,050 foot with a male escort, young girls not allowed to go to school, and to then see, you 152 00:13:11,050 --> 00:13:16,200 know, the American war begin there was this idea that there would be something better - 153 00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:20,750 right? - that the Americans would take out the Taliban and then eventually something better 154 00:13:20,750 --> 00:13:25,320 would emerge. And that's of course where we began 20 years of rather frustrated efforts 155 00:13:25,320 --> 00:13:28,360 to remake a country that didn't want to be remade. 156 00:13:28,360 --> 00:13:33,830 And all the people who have benefited from these last 20 years in terms of more freedom, 157 00:13:33,830 --> 00:13:40,690 more opportunity, more economic possibilities are now 20 years later, of course, thrust 158 00:13:40,690 --> 00:13:47,010 back into the same kind of repressive regime that we saw there on the ground 20 years 159 00:13:47,010 --> 00:13:50,350 ago. And that's a little hard to imagine. It's really something we would not have 160 00:13:50,350 --> 00:13:54,800 pictured when we went in there in this - 20 years ago this month. 161 00:13:54,800 --> 00:13:58,350 ALCINDOR: Twenty years ago this month. Vivian, you were working in New York City, 162 00:13:58,350 --> 00:14:03,110 that - you later became Baghdad chief of the AP, the Associated Press. 163 00:14:03,110 --> 00:14:07,640 How did what you see that - how did it lead you to covering the Middle East, and what 164 00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:10,880 understanding did you come away with when you think about what you covered? 165 00:14:10,880 --> 00:14:13,280 VIVIAN SALAMA: So I was living and working in Manhattan. 166 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:17,860 I'm also a New Yorker, so my whole family was there and here we were; it was a primary 167 00:14:17,860 --> 00:14:20,680 day in New York, and so we were all going to be working late. 168 00:14:20,680 --> 00:14:26,510 I was a producer for NBC News, the local NBS News, WNBC, and we had planned a late day 169 00:14:26,510 --> 00:14:30,440 that day and so I was sleeping in and I had to rush to work, and I got there before the 170 00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:32,750 first tower fell. 171 00:14:32,750 --> 00:14:36,390 But of course, we were, you know, in Midtown Manhattan seeing plumes of smoke all the way 172 00:14:36,390 --> 00:14:40,920 from downtown and just knowing that this was such an extraordinary event, but I was two 173 00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:43,630 years out of college at that point and had really my whole future ahead of me and 174 00:14:43,630 --> 00:14:47,440 suddenly, like, in one shot, it was just changed forever. 175 00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:51,730 A, my career just sort of took a different direction than I never would have anticipated 176 00:14:51,730 --> 00:14:57,030 because all of a sudden this horrible event opened my eyes to this reality of there are 177 00:14:57,030 --> 00:15:01,700 people out there who want to do bad things to us. And so all I could think of was why? 178 00:15:01,700 --> 00:15:05,360 Why would anyone want to do this? I had to understand because I felt like just "they 179 00:15:05,360 --> 00:15:09,210 hate us" wasn't a sufficient answer. I needed to know. 180 00:15:09,210 --> 00:15:14,370 But what was also really striking - and Asma just really kind of touched upon it - it 181 00:15:14,370 --> 00:15:19,420 was also, I'm an Arab American and I never really knew that until 9/11. I'm a New Yorker, born 182 00:15:19,420 --> 00:15:23,700 and raised, and I never thought of myself as anything else. And suddenly I was a hyphen. 183 00:15:23,700 --> 00:15:28,490 My family members, relatives were all of the sudden getting criticized in public for no 184 00:15:28,490 --> 00:15:32,040 reason, you know, just because of their names or the way they look, and suddenly 185 00:15:32,040 --> 00:15:36,130 everything that I knew to be true about who I was seemed different. 186 00:15:36,130 --> 00:15:40,830 And so everything about it, from my experience as a journalist having to rush down as a 187 00:15:40,830 --> 00:15:46,380 kid, you know, in my early 20s down to Ground Zero with people still covered in dust, the 188 00:15:46,380 --> 00:15:53,100 smell in the air that will never leave me, and having to do that and work around the 189 00:15:53,100 --> 00:15:57,840 clock. We were sleeping on couches at 30 Rock; 30 Rock was a target. We were told to 190 00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:02,380 evacuate it. We chose to stay, even though the NYPD told us to evacuate because it's a 191 00:16:02,380 --> 00:16:05,920 landmark, and we decided that we were going to go, and it changed my life. 192 00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:08,390 ALCINDOR: And you decided that you were going to go into that building. 193 00:16:08,390 --> 00:16:13,200 Martha, you also covered the war extensively and decided to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. 194 00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:16,650 I wonder, for you, when you think about - of course, we've had a lot of conversation 195 00:16:16,650 --> 00:16:21,020 about the war in Afghanistan, but the war in Iraq - what lessons do you think we should 196 00:16:21,020 --> 00:16:24,560 take away from that, given what the administration said but also how reporters reported 197 00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:26,760 on that information? 198 00:16:26,760 --> 00:16:31,760 RADDATZ: Well, I think there are so many lessons learned from Iraq and we have gone over 199 00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:36,520 them and we have looked at them and there's so much to talk about this week because of 200 00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:42,480 what we've learned. Iraq was a huge mistake. I mean, I remember at the time being at the 201 00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:50,050 U.N., and thinking, if Colin Powell comes out and supports this, it's done. And Colin Powell 202 00:16:50,050 --> 00:16:54,690 came out and supported it. It was shocking. I actually - I'm a little bit proud of myself 203 00:16:54,690 --> 00:17:00,780 because I remember saying this sounds like circumstantial evidence and not much beyond that. 204 00:17:00,780 --> 00:17:06,850 But once they got into Iraq and, you know, there was such joy and we've done it and we've 205 00:17:06,850 --> 00:17:10,370 overtaken this place, there was simply no planning. 206 00:17:10,370 --> 00:17:15,390 I, you know, watched Donald Rumsfeld for years and years and years kind of perform at 207 00:17:15,390 --> 00:17:20,220 these press briefings, and I think I was probably one of the few really grumpy people in 208 00:17:20,220 --> 00:17:24,790 the briefing room because it seemed a performance to me, and there was no way getting at 209 00:17:24,790 --> 00:17:30,120 it. Now, the lessons reporters can learn? We don't have access to super-secret classified 210 00:17:30,120 --> 00:17:35,850 reports all the time. Hopefully, if we'd seen them, we would have said this is a huge mistake. 211 00:17:35,850 --> 00:17:39,840 But I do think - I mean, it is our job every day. 212 00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:45,690 It's not just the lessons from the Iraq War, it is our job every day to try to find out 213 00:17:45,690 --> 00:17:49,460 the truth and try to find out who's telling us the truth. 214 00:17:49,460 --> 00:17:54,110 ALCINDOR: And after 9/11, thinking about learning the truth, billions of dollars were 215 00:17:54,110 --> 00:17:58,580 poured into Homeland Security and new departments focused on immigration and security, 216 00:17:58,580 --> 00:18:01,720 and vast powers were granted to surveil Americans. 217 00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:05,520 That fueled profiling and discrimination of Muslim Americans, as Asma was just talking 218 00:18:05,520 --> 00:18:10,180 about, and people of color, and that set off a wave of hate crimes targeting Muslims in 219 00:18:10,180 --> 00:18:15,480 particular. Pierre, I want to come to you. How do you - can you connect these two for us? 220 00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:19,800 There's the issue, of course, of the way that the law enforcement agencies in this 221 00:18:19,800 --> 00:18:22,910 country changed, but there was also the surveilling of Muslim Americans. 222 00:18:22,910 --> 00:18:26,930 How do they connect? What was the good that came out of it but also, of course, the bad? 223 00:18:26,930 --> 00:18:32,640 THOMAS: Well, one of the things that happened as a result of 9/11 is the law enforcement 224 00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:37,010 and the intelligence community, but particularly the FBI, had to admit that they were 225 00:18:37,010 --> 00:18:39,800 caught completely flat-footed. 226 00:18:39,800 --> 00:18:44,830 And I can recall a meeting with a very senior official at the Justice Department in the 227 00:18:44,830 --> 00:18:49,690 days just after 9/11 and this official basically admitted that the United States had no 228 00:18:49,690 --> 00:18:56,230 sense of what other al-Qaida operatives might be inside the country, and there was this 229 00:18:56,230 --> 00:19:01,290 desperate attempt to figure out, OK, we know the countries we think that al-Qaida 230 00:19:01,290 --> 00:19:06,170 operates from; we need to figure out all the people that came from those countries, and 231 00:19:06,170 --> 00:19:11,890 there was a huge issue of overstays and people who were - had stayed in the country 232 00:19:11,890 --> 00:19:20,550 longer than was allowed by their visas, and the FBI and the Justice Department was saying 233 00:19:20,550 --> 00:19:23,490 we don't know if there's another wave. 234 00:19:23,490 --> 00:19:29,890 There was great fear of another wave, and I think those were the seeds of the Patriot Act 235 00:19:29,890 --> 00:19:34,790 in terms of the government being granted these vast powers of surveillance all in the 236 00:19:34,790 --> 00:19:39,310 name of we need to protect. It was out of fear that those things developed. 237 00:19:39,310 --> 00:19:45,830 But you know what they say in the South and my mother used to say, haste makes waste, 238 00:19:45,830 --> 00:19:52,260 and critics would say that they were granted too many powers. People were rounded up, 239 00:19:52,260 --> 00:19:57,940 assumed to be terrorists when there was not much evidence indicating that they were. 240 00:19:57,940 --> 00:20:02,590 And so I can tell you that it was born out of this sense that the United States 241 00:20:02,590 --> 00:20:08,590 government had no clue as to whether, OK, is there going to be another wave, and they had 242 00:20:08,590 --> 00:20:13,660 a very clear sense that al-Qaida was not done. And you recall a few months later 243 00:20:13,660 --> 00:20:21,780 Richard Reid tried to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb, and I just remember law 244 00:20:21,780 --> 00:20:27,220 enforcement saying over and over these people, these terrorists are incredibly creative. 245 00:20:27,220 --> 00:20:32,330 Who would have ever thought that they would use a plane and turn it into a missile? 246 00:20:32,330 --> 00:20:39,320 So I think part of what your question belies is this notion that there was fear, and the 247 00:20:39,320 --> 00:20:45,190 government started just acting very quickly to resolve what it thought was a huge vulnerability. 248 00:20:45,190 --> 00:20:51,470 ALCINDOR: And Peter, this idea of civil liberties and fear, it also really turned into a 249 00:20:51,470 --> 00:20:56,310 political issue. When you think about modern politics, the rise of former President 250 00:20:56,310 --> 00:21:00,900 Donald Trump, talk a bit about how the Patriot Act and really the fear of Americans, 251 00:21:00,900 --> 00:21:04,130 it turned into a sort of political movement. 252 00:21:04,130 --> 00:21:08,510 BAKER: Yeah, it's really remarkable if you think about it what a difference we have seen 253 00:21:08,510 --> 00:21:10,950 over these last 20 years. 254 00:21:10,950 --> 00:21:15,650 You know, for all of the excesses there were in that post-9/11 period in terms of 255 00:21:15,650 --> 00:21:19,090 targeting Muslims who had nothing to do with anything in the United States, you had a 256 00:21:19,090 --> 00:21:24,050 president at the time who at least said that was the wrong thing to do, right? President 257 00:21:24,050 --> 00:21:28,950 George W. Bush went to a mosque three or four days after 9/11 to make the point that this 258 00:21:28,950 --> 00:21:33,450 was not a war on Islam, it was not a war on Muslims; it was a war against extremism and 259 00:21:33,450 --> 00:21:37,970 against violence, but not against a part of the American public. 260 00:21:37,970 --> 00:21:42,240 And that was a theme he repeated throughout his presidency, even if there were examples 261 00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:45,960 of his administration taking actions that would seem to belie that. 262 00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:51,350 He at least believed or spoke to the notion that this was not supposed to divide us in 263 00:21:51,350 --> 00:21:55,690 the way that, ultimately, it would. And you fast forward to see Donald J. Trump, 264 00:21:55,690 --> 00:21:59,480 you know, in that clip that you showed at the beginning of the show speaking 265 00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:03,650 during his campaign in, I think, 2015 saying we should ban all Muslims coming into the 266 00:22:03,650 --> 00:22:06,540 country; what a radical change. 267 00:22:06,540 --> 00:22:11,270 What a radical change in message from the very top leadership of America from 2001 to 268 00:22:11,270 --> 00:22:17,680 2015, you know, and rather than the other way around - rather than, you know, taking the 269 00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:23,660 rhetoric too far at first and then moderating it, we've gone the other direction where it 270 00:22:23,660 --> 00:22:29,230 became more fashionable later in this 20-year cycle to target Muslims who had nothing to 271 00:22:29,230 --> 00:22:33,710 do with anything that was violent whatsoever. 272 00:22:33,710 --> 00:22:40,760 It was suddenly acceptable and rewarded politically by the election of President Trump, 273 00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:45,890 and he then of course enacted this travel ban that he had talked about in the campaign. 274 00:22:45,890 --> 00:22:50,460 That's a - that's a remarkable evolution, and it's what was - I don't know is we'll see 275 00:22:50,460 --> 00:22:57,040 where will this go from here. You know, will we, you know - where will this attitude, 276 00:22:57,040 --> 00:23:03,030 you know, take us at this point in terms of our views of each other? The notion of other, 277 00:23:03,030 --> 00:23:09,420 which was so, you know, taken by Trump as a political tool, will that continue to be - 278 00:23:09,420 --> 00:23:12,680 ALCINDOR: And Republicans - taken by Republicans as a political tool. 279 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:17,890 Asma, there was - there's a poll from NPR and PBS that shows that Americans are split on 280 00:23:17,890 --> 00:23:21,810 how the threat of terrorism presents itself. 281 00:23:21,810 --> 00:23:27,010 Republicans see it as a(n) international threat; Democrats see it as a domestic threat. 282 00:23:27,010 --> 00:23:30,820 We only have a couple seconds here, so I want to come to you: What does that tell us 283 00:23:30,820 --> 00:23:34,290 about the way that America sees and the politics of this, if you can in about 10 seconds? 284 00:23:34,290 --> 00:23:37,800 KHALID: Sure, just real quick, I mean, I think there is a clear partisan divide, and 285 00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:42,390 that's established and developed and metastasized, I would say, over the last two decades. 286 00:23:42,390 --> 00:23:47,220 Republicans were no different than Democrats in terms of how they thought of terrorism 287 00:23:47,220 --> 00:23:51,110 immediately after when you look at polls from 2002, or marginally different I should say. 288 00:23:51,110 --> 00:23:54,810 ALCINDOR: Martha, you get the last word. You were here 20 years ago. 289 00:23:54,810 --> 00:23:58,950 Again, in about 10 seconds, though, reporters feel - Gwen Ifill said this. 290 00:23:58,950 --> 00:24:02,820 She said that this made her look at the talk of war and peace differently. 291 00:24:02,820 --> 00:24:05,550 That's what she said before she passed away. I wonder if you could - if you 292 00:24:05,550 --> 00:24:08,390 could talk in just a couple seconds of what you think of that. 293 00:24:08,390 --> 00:24:11,900 RADDATZ: I think it should. I think it should. I think all Americans should look 294 00:24:11,900 --> 00:24:16,870 at why we go to war, when we go to war, and how we go to war, and ask themselves 295 00:24:16,870 --> 00:24:20,680 questions all the time. We don't want this to happen again. 296 00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:24,610 ALCINDOR: Yeah, we don't want it to happen again. We'll have to leave it there tonight. 297 00:24:24,610 --> 00:24:29,110 Thank you so much to Peter, Pierre, Asma, Martha, and Vivian for sharing your reporting, 298 00:24:29,110 --> 00:24:33,090 and thank you for joining us. It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since these attacks. 299 00:24:33,090 --> 00:24:37,060 So many lost so much on that day and in the years that followed. My heart breaks for 300 00:24:37,060 --> 00:24:40,930 every person and family touched by this tragedy. We will never forget. 301 00:24:40,930 --> 00:24:45,990 And tune in Monday to the PBS NewsHour for "Fresh Faces," a report on the mayoral race 302 00:24:45,990 --> 00:24:49,930 in Boston that includes a more diverse field of candidates than ever before. 303 00:24:49,930 --> 00:24:53,980 And our conversation on how 9/11 changed American life will continue on the Washington 304 00:24:53,980 --> 00:24:57,530 Week Extra. Find it on our social media and on our website. 305 00:24:57,530 --> 00:25:18,190 I'm Yamiche Alcindor. Good night from Washington.