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CNN Live At Daybreak

America's New War: President Bush and Staff Observe Moment of Silence

Aired September 18, 2001 - 08:44   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's check in with John King as we move up at that 8:45 timeline, when the first jet bomb hit one of the first of the Twin Towers.

John, tell us what the White House is going to be doing?

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: As you mentioned, Paula. The president ordering this moment of silence from his staff. I believe we might have a picture from the South Lawn of the White House showing the scene at the White House. This a moment of reflection. You see the president coming out here to join this moment of silence. Let's just watch the president for a minute here.

Urgent economic discussions, urgent military planning going on at the White House, but the president wanting to take time here. You see the vice president as well, and the first lady, pausing to remember.

(MOMENT OF SILENCE)

KING: We have searched all of us, our correspondents up in New York seeing the devastation, our correspondents in Washington seeing the devastation across the river at the Pentagon, and trying to report on what happens after these attacks. For the right words to put all of the past week into context, it is a frustrating and difficult and I would say unsuccessful search to find the right words. The president there leading the country and his White House staff in a moment of silence, yet another snapshot of the so many faces we have seen of the president in this crisis, a spiritual moment there, trying to lead the country in mourning and its grief. At the same time, Mr. Bush back into the White House for urgent economic meetings, a bailout of the airline industry, an emergency stimulus package to try to keep the economy from sliding into recession as a result of these terrorist attack, military planning for an operation he himself said yesterday would not come without costs and another U.S. general said today simply will come with casualties.

So the president returning now to his business at White House, as the investigation continues. And as the country remembers those tragic events of one week ago -- Paula.

ZAHN: John, you mention obviously, the Vice President Dick Cheney was there. I didn't have a really clear shot of the monitor. I saw advisers Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes. Who else was gathered? KING: You saw pretty much the entire senior White House staff there, as well as what we White House reporters called the worker bees, people who man the phones and run the memos and run back and forth in the traffic. This is a president who wandered the halls of the White House, shaking everybody's hand, thanking them for coming into work at difficult time. They had sent -- quote, unquote -- nonessential workers home, asked them not to return until they were confident the White House was a secure environment. The president yesterday went over we saw in coverage to greet those workers as well. The president inviting not only the vice president, chief of staff, Andy Card, his national security team and his closest advisers for this moment of silence, but many of the nameless, faceless people, if you will, that do much of the important work at the White House.

ZAHN: John, thank you very much.

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