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Inside Politics

Nation Marks 25th Anniversary Of 9/11 Attacks; Vance, Republicans Invoke 9/11 To Attack Democrats; Trump To Supporters: If You Don't Vote, "You Go To Hell"; New Report: Prices Rose Faster Than Wages In August; Top Republicans Say Trump's $5,000 Check Idea Is A Bad Policy. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 11, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Kenneth Feinberg, thanks very much for writing this important book, What Is Life Worth, is just coming out. Right now, I appreciated very much. Appreciate all the good work you have done for so many years.

KENNETH FEINBERG, AMERICAN ATTORNEY: Thanks, Wolf. Thanks, Pamela.

BLITZER: And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Inside Politics today with our friend and colleague, John King, starts right now.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm John King in today for Dana Bash.

You're looking right here, live pictures. That's Ground Zero. Family members reading the names of every single life lost when terror pierced a cloudless September sky 25 years ago today. 2,977 innocent people killed that day from Lower Manhattan to the Pentagon to Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Americans are gathering to mark a day that shattered our sense of security and changed the course of this nation forever.

The Vice President J.D. Vance joining all former living former presidents to bear witness to where the twin towers once stood. While President Trump marked this solemn day at the Pentagon, where he could address the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We were all New Yorkers that day, every one of us. We were all New Yorkers, but we were also all Americans. We were all family. We were all patriots. The enemy might destroy what American hands had built, but we could not touch the fight and the fire and the love in our great American hearts.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: And throughout the morning, we've heard six moments of silence. Each of those moments marking a moment of horror on that morning, September 11th. But today, for the first time, a seventh will honor those who died in the years since from exposure to toxic ash and dust in the aftermath, of course, of the horrible attacks. And we will bring you that special moment live a bit later this hour.

I'm joined at the table today by a fantastic group of reporters, and no offense, gentlemen, but among them, an icon and a legend in our business, a friend and a former colleague, Ann Compton, of ABC News. You were with the president that day. I was at the White House. The president was in Florida, addressing school children, and you were in the classroom when he learned, and the nation learned by the look in his eyes once we did see that tape of what was happening.

ANN COMPTON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, ABC NEWS RADIO: The expression on George Bush's face when his chief of staff came in and whispered, a second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack. You could see the president beginning to connect the dots. He had been president for only seven months, but the CIA and the FBI for years had had Bin Laden units. They'd been tracking Al Qaeda. They'd had even notes a month, two months before this, that maybe there were airplanes involved and I think at that moment President Bush realized he is a wartime president.

KING: I remember I was at the White House that morning, coming into the building. I thought I could show up late that day because the president was in Florida. Coming into the building, thanks to one of our great producers who told me I better get there as soon as I can, as they were evacuating the White House. And I will never forget the female staffers running out, were running out of their shoes because the secret service was screaming, run. They thought the White House would be under attack, and you could see the stream of shoes on the. You walk through this gate all the time.

Zolan, now covering the White House 25 years later. That path, when you go through the north gate was littered with shoes. How? It's a fascinating question for me, as someone who was there that day, for a younger generation. How does 9/11, in your view, impact a, where we are and how we do our jobs?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, I mean it's -- I mean these are obviously different experiences, right? I mean I was very young when 9/11 happened, which meant that the anniversary and the organizations that came together to memorialize this event were even more important, or were so important for someone my age because of the level of education, the level of actually witnessing in a way. That's the level of just the somberness of that kind of event. The families that are still impacted by this, the people that also suffered from the toxins of -- during that day and later became ill. That are still feeling the effects of it today.

I mean, right now, 25 years later, there's an entire generation that doesn't have memory of that day but are relying on the organizations like those putting together the event at Ground Zero today that are listening to public officials, speak about the message of unity, and that's how they're really remembering that.

[12:05:00]

KING: It's a fascinating point because history then creates history. And just yesterday, Mayor Mamdani deciding to release these documents, becoming transparent, becoming honest about things that were kept from people at the time, about the known toxins in the air, about that would happen. So, you're constantly learning from an event that happened 25 years ago. You could argue, (inaudible), politically, Obama doesn't become president, at least not at that time. Had the Iraq war not happened?

You could argue again, Trump does not become president, or at least the climate that created Donald Trump does not become president. If you don't get the more nativists close the border, you know, not quite America first at the time, but isolation, the mood that hit the country. 25 years later, how much does that day shape where we are right now?

AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I mean, I think all you have to do is look at how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the president talked about the issue today. They're both invoking 9/11 to justify the Iran war. You could argue that is a continuation of this kind of progression of events since then. They're seeing a need to, you know, deal with a threat that comes from the same region that resulted in the 9/11 attack.

And so, it is a situation where we -- it's interesting to think about what our political world would have looked like had that day not happened. How different would things be? And everything that has been happening since then, you know, there are a number of things that you can trace back even decades later.

KING: To that point, one of the things, whether it was Obama after or Trump, was the idea that we would not get into foreign wars, the Iraq part, not the Afghanistan part, but the Iraq part. That that was misguided. Listen to the former president George W. Bush, and this is yesterday, Wednesday, as he's talking about what he believes the legacy is and what he believes sometimes is the loss of focus is in the 25 years since.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, 43RD U.S. PRESIDENT: Our nation occasionally goes to isolationist periods, where the attitude is, we've got too many problems at home. Therefore, who cares what happens overseas, which really means to me, they just don't pay attention to the lesson of 9/11, because what happens overseas matter to our national security at home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The former president has said that many times since 9/11, and for the first 10 years of Donald Trump, you would say Donald Trump was listening to the degree of not getting into foreign wars. In fact, he called them stupid. Now he is in a war that has undermined his presidency and undermined his political support. So, does that message ring the same way this year, in the middle of this war, that it might have if we were having this conversation on the 23rd or the 24th anniversary.

COMPTON: Yeah. I think to the institutional government, which has been looking for and chasing the terrorist movement all these years, that they think the 9/11 commission came out and said, you missed connecting some of these dots. You were looking for something coming from overseas to hit us. These were people who had come to the United States to attack us, and there are all sorts of deep, deep crevices way into government planning that must have changed dramatically since that day 25 years ago.

KING: One of the ways we know that we are 25 years away is that the first year, the second year, the third year, for a long time, I can't remember exactly when we didn't talk politics on this day. We remembered, we paused, we were solemn, and I'll tell you, just tell it up front to everybody watching. I was conflicted when I was asked to fill in today because I knew I was going to have to talk about politics.

And I'm somewhat uncomfortable doing it because of being at the White House that day and remembering how that day changed everything. Trying to find out where my kids were, my young kids were in school. Where are they? While I try to do my job, but we are where we are, and we're just a few weeks away from a big midterm election.

The vice president of the United States last night at a midterm convention, an unprecedented event called by the president of the United States, brought up this day and this anniversary this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT: The Democrats are the party of hatred. They're the party that despises America and the people who built it. They're the party that can find sympathy for the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11, but they say that people with names like James Vance are incapable of loving people with names like Usha and they couldn't be more wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Help a dinosaur. The party that can't find -- can find sympathy for the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11. Now there are influencers. We'll talk about it more in the program as we go on, who have said horrible things. Democrats' writ large do not sympathize with the people who brought us 9/11, but that's today's politics.

KANNO-YOUNGS: It is a sign of today's politics, right? We talked about -- I mean, I just remember growing up with, you know, being the speeches of unity at that time on this day, and that has given way to the more divisive politics of our nature that defines the politics of our time. We also talked about lessons learned. Bush was even saying it in those remarks that we played. I think like another lesson learned that even I'm aware of is, you know, he came out and said this is not going to be a war against Islam, right? He was very specific about that.

[12:10:00]

KING: He went to a mosque and said that the terrorists had bastardized a great faith.

KANNO-YOUNGS: And I think it is worth noting, right, that we are in a time right now where Islamophobia is being increasingly mainstreamed by the ranks of the GOP. That was once on the fringe of that party, and we are seeing that increasingly normalized. I'm thinking of Randy Fine, I'm thinking of Andy Ogles, and I'm thinking of the silence in the face of those remarks by top members of the White House. Not just silence, but at times stoking those flames as well, right? That once wasn't as normalized as it is today.

KING: To that point, it is front and center in one of the most important Senate races in the country this year. Abdul El-Sayed is the Democratic candidate in Michigan. As I said before, he has associated himself. He had a campaign appearance with. He has not -- he says he disagrees with, but he has not repudiated. Hasan Piker, who has said and then tried to clear up his remarks that America deserved it. Mike Rogers is a Republican running against him. This is his take and the candidate's response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE ROGERS, (R) MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: I never imagined that 25 years after 9/11, I would be running against somebody that campaigns with Hasan Piker who thinks America deserved it.

ABDUL EL-SAYED, (D) MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: If he thinks that the issue is a streamer in California, then he's got another thing coming, because what I hear about is the fact that people can't afford their gas, they can't afford their groceries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Mr. El-Sayed is correct, Aaron, that the economy is issue number 1, 2, 3, 4, and five in this campaign. But is it fair game that whether you're Mayor Mamdani or Abdul El-Sayed, that if you in today's world if you associate with somebody who says ridiculous, reprehensible, horrible things, you're going to be -- you have to answer for it.

BLAKE: I think it is fair. You know, El-Sayed when he made that decision to campaign with Hasan Piker, people like us looked at that, and I at least immediately knew that that was going to be an issue if he got to the general election. That was a -- that was a primary play. You know, he was trying to win a very close primary. What became a very close primary.

I will say though that after he won that primary, as Zolan noted, we did see a very kind of outwardly Islamophobic approach from Republicans. It wasn't just these House members who have said these kind of things over the course of the last several months. We had senators like Tommy Tuberville come out and explicitly call Abdul El- Sayed a terrorist. We had Republican senators repeatedly use his full name, Abdulrahman, in a very suggestive way.

So, I do think that's an important thing here. There's a difference between saying you associated with somebody who said something that's very objectionable, and to some extent, if you associate with that person, you do own that. But then it's being taken to a whole other level by bringing in this kind of Islamophobic attacks.

KING: I want to come back where we began before I let you go. 25 years later, that day was so defining to our country, to the White House, to our job covering the presidency in those days. Do you look at it differently, 25 years removed than you did in the heat of it?

COMPTON: John, it feels heavier this year, in part because it's framed in the politics that we live in now, it feels heavier. But I was struck by thinking of George Bush when he finally got back to Washington, 10-hour odyssey, wanted to get back to Washington, wanted to address --

KING: Louisiana to Nebraska to Washington.

COMPTON: Yeah. And as he flew in the helicopter from Andrews to the White House, they flew very low because they didn't know what could be out there. And he saw the Pentagon, and he turned to Andy Carter, his chief of staff, and said, that's the face of war in the 21st century. We've come that far.

KING: Data changed everything, and I'm grateful that you're here for us on this day. Up next, the president closed the Republican convention in Dallas. Asked everyone there to raise their hands and make him a promise. We'll tell you what he was asking when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: President Trump is not on the ballot. He knows he needs to drive huge turnout among his base if, if Republicans are to have a chance of holding onto Congress in the midterm elections. The president knows that. How do we know he knows that? Listen to this moment last night. This is the president addressing a crowd of MAGA diehards at the GOP convention in Dallas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Please raise your right hand. I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can't even breathe. That I will go out with my family, my friends, I'll do it anyway. I don't care if I'm registered or not. I'm going to try and cheat like hell like they do. They never -- there's never been bigger cheaters that don't care. I am going to go out and I'm going to get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3rd.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Our great reporter is still with us. We're joined by Lauren Fox. Lauren, the president, I think, is trying to help a lot of the people you cover every day up on Capitol Hill, trying to get people to turn out, humility at the top, the greatest president in the history of the United States, then the cheater's part in the middle.

[12:20:00]

What do Republicans who are in the battleground races who have to deal with this dilemma? They need the Trump base to come out, or they can't win, but Trump is an albatross in many ways in their races. What do they make of this? Did this convention help them? Do they know?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that that moment probably didn't help them, and it's also interesting because all the people who are attending a convention like this are going to turn out to vote, right? These are the most passionate voters. But for people who are in the middle and are watching that tape, does that make you want to vote for more Republicans?

I think a lot of Republican lawmakers already have so many ways that they're trying to distance themselves in very small ways right now in part because they do fear that the president is a drag on them, and moments like this that go viral when people are scrolling through their phones, that certainly doesn't help.

KING: Right. And so, he can give a big speech like that, and it does rally his base. And Republicans do need, they need them. They need them. They also need more than that. If you're in a purple district or a tough state, but the morning after, these are the numbers. These are the numbers that are the problem for the president. Just this morning, we saw another inflation report that says inflation is persistent.

Gas is up 29 cents just in the last month. We have 3.4 percent annual inflation, for the last five months wage growth has trailed inflation. That's the math the president can't talk you out of, you know, that every day when you go to the grocery store. And plus, now we're weeks away. There comes a point where it's baked in. Is that -- does that tell you that the economic problems for the Republicans at this point is baked in?

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yeah, right. It's the math and it's the feeling that he is trying to talk himself out of, which former presidents have failed to do, right? Like people when they go to fill up the tank and they see that number, it's a scorecard on the economy almost for them, right, and we know that energy prices have surged as this war in Iran has been prolonged.

So, the calculation here, when you talk to people familiar with the president's political operation, is that by trying to put him on the ballot and send him out there. By the way, he hasn't traveled all that much and campaigned all that much, so this --

KING: Does he's going to, but --

KANNO-YOUNGS: He says he's going to, but we've heard that before. KING: Right.

KANNO-YOUNGS: But the calculation is, OK, we're just going to double down on the MAGA voters that tend to turn out for presidential elections and try to get him out this November. But as you said, what does that mean for those independent voters that would also be crucial in some of these races? It's a risky calculation here. He's also trying to group it with this dividend promise of a promise for direct cash. We've seen that before. Hasn't really --

KING: I was just going to say, I make the mistake sometimes of asking for intellectual consistency in politics, which is a mistake. The party that says the Democrats are socialists and communists and big government and big spending liberals, their president now says, I'm going to give you a $5,000 check from the government. Last night he was asked about this. Is it feasible? Does it work? Is it smart? He got a little testy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I didn't do it for turning out the vote. I viewed it as a reward for people having to put up with five years and four years of horrible, a horrible situation caused by Biden. It's almost a reward for the people having to put up with Biden's policy. No, that's not you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You also offered checks during -- tariff refund checks --

TRUMP: Not you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's a -- it's a constant look, but it's not a good look for the president to be leaning in and yelling at White House reporters. In this case, another woman White House reporter and a very good one at that about the idea that he's -- it's not to drive turnout. It's Biden. He's been president since I believe January 2025.

BLAKE: Accurate.

KING: Yeah.

BLAKE: First of all, the idea that this wasn't like a quid pro quo that he was proposing just doesn't match up with what he said. He said that this is something that he is going to give to people after the election if they give him what he wants. So, if we win, I pay you money. It's pretty clear what the bargain was here, but also, you know, this idea that he can simply say, you know, keep pointing backwards to Biden. It was Biden's fault. The reason we have inflation is because of Biden.

Inflation was high after COVID. You know some of that could have been traced to legislation that passed during the Biden administration, the Inflation Reduction Act, which probably didn't reduce inflation, but a lot of it was due to COVID. And if you look at polling, people understand that to some degree. They didn't like the situation, but they understood it.

If you look at polling, even before the Iran war started this year, even before Trump gave people more of a reason to attach inflation to him personally, people blamed Trump overwhelmingly more than Biden for inflation. Reuters/Ipsos poll was more than 50 percent blame Trump, 15 to 16 percent blame Biden. I would wager if you asked that same question today, it would be even more lopsided. I don't think this, you know, that dog don't hunt. That argument is not really going to work.

KING: People remember, especially people who had voted for Biden and came back to Trump in 2024. Remember, he said he would lower prices on day one. He said he would lower them fast. Now that's always -- there's always a little hyperbole, but the interesting thing to me though is the dissent was in his own party. This convention is designed to bring the Republicans together to get unity to try to drive up turnout.

[12:25:00]

Look, no matter who is president? This is a huge problem in a midterm election. The president's party always suffers. It's more in a second term, even though he had a break in between, where you're considered a lame duck, right? After this election, no matter how you do, we're on to the next election.

But listen to this, Lauren. From within his own party, I'm usually in favor of winning the midterms and love much of this administration, but I'm strongly against bread and circus bribes. That's Joe Lonsdale, a big GOP donor. That will lead to more inflation. That will lead to more debt, the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The problem with sending people checks, it actually has a negative economic consequence, Stephen Moore, who's been an economic adviser to Trump. Members of his own Republican family, loosely defined, were saying, bad idea, boss.

FOX: Well, I -- when I first saw the headlines, had to sort of dig in because it sounded like the antithesis of a Republican idea in so many ways, right? And it's not that we haven't seen that with Donald Trump in the past, but this particularly struck me as so sensational at a moment when I know you're trying to turn out your base, and I know you're trying to get voters excited to turn out to the polls, but a lot of Republicans just are not going to accept this idea and I think that applies to some Republican voters as well.

KING: Well, to that point, the Babylon Bee, if you're not familiar, it's kind of like the onion of the right, satire gets into MEGA themes. And here's what they thought about it. Trump pledges that if voters defeat socialism in November, they will each get an equal redistribution of wealth from the government. So, he's being essentially mocked by his own wing right there.

Coming up for us back to this incredibly solemn day, a seventh moment of silence. For the first time, the nation will honor the thousands of people who died from 9/11, but not on 9/11.

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