Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

America's New War: President Bush Addresses Rescue Workers in New York

Aired September 14, 2001 - 16:40   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: We expect in another few seconds or so to get another one of the pool reports from David Gregory. David is the pool correspondent who is traveling with the president today, and he will be telling all of the other reporters and us what he is seeing.

DAVID GREGORY, WHITE HOUSE POOL REPORTER: This is David Gregory with the president in Lower Manhattan, who continues to survey the damage in what they are calling ground zero. We are within sight of where the Twin Towers stood. The president has been working a rope line, surrounded by throngs of policemen, search and rescue crews, firemen, many of them getting on the bulldozers that they had been using to clear the debris to take a picture, to wave at the president.

We understand now that the president is actually going to stand on some of the rubble, grab a bullhorn and make a statement. Some of these men have been chanting "USA, USA," and "don't let them get away with any of this."

The cheering you're hearing is now the president now with the bullhorn in his hand, as he's standing aboard some rubble, his around (UNINTELLIGIBLE). A fireman (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and you can hear the chanting. Listen to this.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWS (chanting): USA, USA, USA, USA!

GREGORY: The president about to speak now, listen in.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want you all to know...

(CROSSTALK)

BUSH: It can't go any louder.

(LAUGHTER)

BUSH: I want you all to know that America today -- America today is on bended knee in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn, this nation stands with the good people of New York City, and New Jersey and Connecticut, as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens.

(CROSSTALK)

BUSH: I can hear you, too.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

BUSH: I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people...

(APPLAUSE)

And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD (chanting): USA! USA! USA!

BUSH: The nation -- the nation sends its love and compassion to everybody who's here.

Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for making the nation proud. And may God bless America.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD (chanting): USA, USA, USA!

GREGORY: You can hear the chants that continue as the president climbs down off the rubble, grabbing a small American flag and waving it in the air. This crowd here clearly loving it. It's an amazing scene. And as the pictures ultimately get sent back, everyone will be able to see what we're seeing now, a completely electric crowd of people determined to overcome this, as the president, with the throng of workers that's surrounded by complete destruction.

At one point, as you heard, some of the workers who were about maybe 50 yards away from the president said "we can't hear you." The president beckoned back, "I can hear you," and he said, quote, "the people who knocked down these buildings are going to hear all of us." That's the latest with the president as he tours the destruction in Lower Manhattan. I'm David Gregory.

BROWN: Well, that is about as memorable a scene -- and I don't make predictions out here, but I will make this one. I think you probably just saw what is going to be the front page picture in your morning paper tomorrow, the president with the bullhorn or an American flag in his hand, or both, talking to that group of rescue workers. I can't wait to see now the pictures, the lower level pictures.

Again, this is tape of the pool of the president at the scene with members of the congressional delegation and New York City officials as well. These are familiar faces now to many of you, and should be, given how much focus has been on the city, this small area really, relatively small area of New York City. How much -- how important it is to the city, how symbolic it is about the country -- Wall Street, which will open again on Monday, 9:30, after being closed since Tuesday morning, the longest such closure ever.

We expect the president to -- well, before I do that, if Kelly Wallace on the roof is still able to hear me -- Kelly, I hope you are able to see that on your monitor, I know what that monitor is like up there. Have you ever seen anything like that before?

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I have never seen anything like it. As I watched and listened with you, I was just thinking, what an extraordinary moment there. The president, as you noted, holding a bullhorn and as the chanting "USA, USA, don't let them get away with it."

You know, Aaron, we've been reporting that many people hoped the president coming here would be sort of a morale booster for these firefighters and the search and rescue teams. Clearly, it appears that that is exactly what happened. It probably, though, Aaron, was a bit of a morale booster for this president, who is obviously facing the most difficult challenge of his only nine-month-old presidency, and that is, of course, balancing an absolute tragedy, trying to comfort the nation, as well as focusing on the investigation and trying to make the difficult decisions about next steps, military options, working with the international community in his words to "whip out" terrorism.

So this likely to be a very memorable experience for the president. And Aaron, as we have all been reporting, one of really the most, you know, incredible stories here and certainly one of the toughest is the stories of all of those firefighters and police officers, who were going into those buildings as all the people working in these buildings were coming down. I know I was on Tuesday not too far from the buildings, talking to people who got out, and many people saying that they remember coming down the stairs and firefighters -- many very young, young firefighters going up and people would cheer, and of course many people very, very upset, because many of those same firefighters are now some of the missing, and the president even talking about that in his speech earlier at the prayer service, Aaron.

You heard that when he said, talking about all the names that we are learning, and he said, "they are the names of rescuers, the ones whom death found running up the stairs and into the fires to help others." And obviously, many of those firefighters and rescue workers out there certainly concerned about their colleagues and comrades, so obviously a very important moment for those firefighters and rescue workers. Obviously, an important moment for the president too -- Aaron.

BROWN: I was just thinking about the president's morale, as you were. Presidents, as you and Judy both know, you've covered them, live in a kind of bubble, and it must have been good for him -- Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: I was just going to say, I read in I think it was "New York Times" this morning, someone who saw those firefighters going up the stairs at the Trade Center, as he was coming down, and thinking later it was a ladder to heaven. That phrase has stuck in my mind. And just again, thinking about the people, the president getting a boost in a way, if you will, from meeting with these people. I do not think we can underestimate how important it is to those people on the ground working so hard to see the president of the United States coming in their midst, if only for a few minutes or an hour or half an hour, whatever it is, to shake their hands, to congratulate them, just to do a thumbs-up. It must be just an extraordinary lift, provide an extraordinary lift for them to have him there.

BROWN: Well, meeting a president under any circumstance is not routine, and meeting a president or seeing a president in this circumstance must be something else. It must be something, and goodness knows these men and women down there that have been working long and difficult and today very uncomfortable days, and any morale boosts they can get much appreciated.

Richard Roth has been down there as this group moves through -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron. Normally I'm at the United Nations. I guess I am struck by the fact that here we are again in the year ending in '01 and the Bush in the White House, and the talk, the rhetoric, the language, from the national prayer service in Washington, and some of the rallying around the flag that we and you saw just now -- certainly, very similar to the Persian Gulf War and his father's conflict.

When the president Bush says this conflict has begun on the times and terms of others and will end in a way in our choosing, he's certainly setting the table for some form of military action to come, and certainly the firefighters and the rescue workers who are feverishly clawing through the rubble will back him to the hilt.

There has been 10,000 tons of rubble already removed, a lot more still left there -- some of which the president was standing on.

WOODRUFF: You know Aaron...

BROWN: Go ahead Judy.

WOODRUFF: I was just going to say, listening to Richard I'm reminded of -- I was talking earlier today at the cathedral prayer service with Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham. And he was saying he thinks the American people are ready for what comes next. He was talking about -- we were talking about how in the last 50 years nothing has really brought the nation together and made people prepared to make what will be some sort of sacrifice in the days, weeks and months to come. But this is different.

BROWN: Well yes. I mean, say what you will about what went on around the Gulf War, and it was important and it mattered -- it was, I think for many people in the country they felt it was something the country had to do -- to engage the Iraqis. There was an economic threat and somewhat of a political threat, I suppose.

But this has been a smack in the side of the head of the country, and that's wholly different, it seems to me, in the way people are reacting to it. This is -- I mean, I was on the street yesterday, I thought people have taken this personally. This is like personal business now.

And that's a very different feeling to me, as I see it, from the one when the president's father was trying to marshal forces against Iraq.

WOODRUFF: I think we feel violated as a nation. You know, people talk about feeling violated if they've been mugged or if their house has been broken into or something on a small scale. Of course, it's important to you if it happens to you; but I think our country feels, and has been violated; and everyone does take it personally.

BROWN: And when you hear the reporting of Jeff Flock in Dubuque and in Wisconsin yesterday -- other correspondents in other parts of the country -- you become aware that it's not just those of us here in New York or in Washington who have this sense of being violated. This is something -- this wasn't an attack on New York and Washington, this was an attack on the United States, on institutions of the United States. And I think people have, in fact, taken it quite personally.

You continue to look at the bulldozers working the area. The president -- it's not, I'll confess here, not clear to me whether he has moved on. We expected him to go to one more location, perhaps to meet with some of those he has now met with -- some of the rescue workers. Perhaps to meet with some of those sad and desperate people who are seeking their loved ones. We have at various times visited the armory in New York, which has been set up to deal with the friends and family of the missing.

Just a bit ago the president holding the bullhorn in the center of the picture and addressing the rescue workers, firemen from all over the area. Not just New York City, but from all over the area. At one point, they said "we can't hear you," and he said, I can hear you. And they were chanting USA, USA. There are hundreds, of course, hundreds of workers down there. And in that area, obviously everything came to a stop for a while.

It's just a remarkable -- even as grainy -- this was shot, I suspect, from quite a distance -- as grainy as that is -- and we'll get a much clearer picture; and you will see still pictures very soon of this, too. As grainy as it is, it is still quite remarkable. It's...

WOODRUFF: Aaron...

BROWN: Yes.

WOODRUFF: Watching this and, you know, we're talking about how much this means to the rescue crews and the people involved in this recovery. I had a phone call -- a couple of phone calls Wednesday night from people in New York saying, where is the president? We know -- you know, a lot of us didn't vote for him, but we need his presence here. And it's almost as if the White House was listening, because it was Wednesday -- or Thursday, rather, yesterday that the White House announced the president would go.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Sorry, I did not mean to interrupt. I think there's your morning picture, right there: the president waving a small American flag in the center of that group of people. What a shot that will be.

WOODRUFF: Yes. These -- this is grainy, we should explain, because the light is poor in there. I think that's what's going on.

BROWN: Yes, it is almost 5:00 here on a very dreary day in New York. As we were saying, it is possible the president will meet with some of the people whose loved ones are missing.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com