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CNN Live Event/Special

America Under Attack: President Bush Preparese For Trip to NY

Aired September 14, 2001 - 02:18   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.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it is in the early morning hours in the U.S. Capitol. President Bush is going to be heading to New York later on this morning.

Major Garrett joins us now with the very latest there from Washington - Major.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Colleen, in the immediate aftermath - the tragedy in New York and Virginia - members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, pledged immediate and bipartisan support for President Bush in whatever response the U.S. undertook. Well the first evidence of that swift, bipartisan action is now before us.

The White House and senior congressional negotiators, Republican and Democrat, have reached an agreement on a 40 billion dollar emergency supplemental spending bill to provide immediate assistance in New York and Virginia, recovery and cleanup efforts, and also to assist the president in whatever counter-terrorism activities he undertakes.

This 40 billion dollar amount is twice what the administration asked Congress for, a clear signal from Congress that it is ready to pony up federal resources, not only to provide cleanup and recovery efforts in New York and Virginia, but also to back whatever counter- terrorism actions he chooses to undertake.

The president discussed this very aid package earlier Thursday at the White House with members of the New York and Virginia Congressional Delegations. You see the junior senator of New York, former First Lady Hillary Clinton, there, very next to the president. Other members of the Virginia and New York Delegations were there.

The House of Representatives will vote on this legislation late Friday afternoon, after the president and members of the New York Delegation return from the president's trip to New York City to see the damage to New York City. The Senate is then expected to pass the legislation Friday evening. It is due to be on the president's desk for his signature on Saturday.

The president also talked to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York, and the governor of New York, George Pataki, by phone from the oval office. And thereafter, he took questions from reporters about the entire situation. And one of the questions was very personal, asking the president how he felt, and in his response, the president showed the emotion, the pressure, the situation has born upon him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: I think about the families, the children. I am a loving guy and I'm also someone, however, who's got a job to do, and I intend to do it. And this is a terrible moment. But this country will not relent until we have saved ourselves and others from the terrible tragedy that came upon America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GARRETT: Colleen, U.S. presidential history is replete with presidents having to confront epic tragedies. Many U.S. presidents have had to deal with the loss of thousands of U.S. service personnel on any given day. We can think of Abraham Lincoln reading the messages, the telegrams, from the front lines during the Civil War. Of FDR receiving the notice of the thousands of deaths on D-Day. Harry Truman getting the horrible details from the first days of the Korean War. Lyndon Johnson, the daily death counts from Vietnam.

But what separates this president from all those previous presidents is the civilian casualties. The thousands of Americans, all civilians, who never took up arms, never agreed to take up arms; nevertheless, victims in this first war of the 21st century. The president's emotions clearly etched upon his face as he deals with that very new and very painful presidential reality.

There's also another reality here in the nation's capital. We'll show you some videotape we shot just a few moments ago of a search helicopter that rotates and spins over the White House in a rather rhythmic, slow motion search. You can see a search light piercing the early morning darkness in the nation's capital. As I stand here I can hear a helicopter coming in the distance.

There is a heightened level of security all around the White House. The secret service has extended the normal security perimeter several blocks around the White House. I've talked to several members of Congress and their aides who are very edgy, indeed. There was a bomb scare on Capitol Hill this afternoon, an evacuation order there. You don't want to get melodramatic in a situation like this, and you certainly don't want to overplay or over-describe the sense of edginess around here, but it is very real, it is very palpable. I would describe that helicopter searching the night as a precaution. No sense of panic, but a very high sense of precaution here in the nation's capital - Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: Well, and this an enormous test for this president so early in his young mandate. We saw his emotions today. You were with him in Sarasota on Tuesday when he first got news that this had happened. How was he then?

GARRETT: Well the events were just so unreal, so unimaginable, so incalculable for all of us who were with the president in Sarasota. The most remarkable part of the morning, Colleen, is how ordinarily it began. The president took a jog; he actually brought some reporters with him. He was in a very good mood when it finished. You know, one of the assumptions about the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, is that he always knows everything, he's always on top of everything, he can always anticipate everything. Well there was no more stark proof that that's not always the case in what I observed that Tuesday morning.

Here was the president of the United States coming back from a relaxing jog, talking with reporters, saying he had a good run, feeling great, looking forward to an event to talk about education reform - a high domestic priority. And very soon after arriving at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, he gets the word of the first jet crashing into the World Trade Center.

He moves in, tries to carry on with that morning, sits down with a room full of children and begins to read them a book. As he is reading them a book - a very innocent, a very gentile setting - in walks his chief of staff, Andrew Card, who whispers the dreadful news that a second jet has crashed into the other tower. The president's face darkens. You can see the emotion running down his face.

Reporters say, "Mr. President, have you heard? Have you heard?" He raises a hand, "Well talk about it later." Trying to protect the children sitting feet in front of him from the conversation that he must very soon thereafter have with the nation. Moments later, he reads his very first statement telling the nation of an apparent act of terrorism. Moments later, he is whisked away and we get the dreadful news of the plane crashing into the Pentagon.

All of this - the press corp who travels with the president - watching this on television monitors, all of us turning to each other thinking the thoughts that were thought by millions of Americans, "Can this possibly be happening?" The president takes off, we are told, for Washington. We check our watches. An hour and a half later he still hasn't landed. We learn later, he goes to another Air Force base to carry on his day - Colleen.

McEDWARDS: All right. CNN's Major Garrett, thanks very much.

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