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CNN Saturday Morning News

Congressman Reynolds Addresses WTC Attacks

Aired September 15, 2001 - 11:48   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.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Joining me now, another member of the New York congressional delegation, Congressman Tom Reynolds, a Republican. Tough to watch that piece, isn't it?

REP. TOM REYNOLDS (R), NEW YORK: It is tough to watch it. And I went up with Joe yesterday, and so many stories like that, not just members of Congress that know people from New York, as I and others have, but the country. Whether they went to college at Princeton, as one friend of mine said, or they worked together in another part of New York, and now they know that those people are missing in the city.

All this coverage for a week has been devastating to watch. But when you go there and you know the World Trade Center and the symbol of what that is, of capitalism and the strength of democracy in America, and see it gone, as a landmark, to see the rubble.

But you talk to the spirit of those firemen and those cops and those emergency workers, and they say they're working around the clock. Because they believe that there's pockets of air space down there that brings the hope of life for rescue in what is about five to seven stories below the ground. We think of ground zero with the rubble that's now piled on where the two World Trade Center was, but there's so much down below.

And to see the spirit as they worked, and as they stopped moments to chant, "U.S.A.!" to the president, and the president kind of exchanging that hope and support, it was a tremendous thing to see.

But the most important thing is the commitment of those rescue workers, as Joe Crowley said, the heroes, the firemen and the cops and the emergency workers who, one, lost their life, and two, are still working there to find those who are still alive.

KING: The president said he was struck by the anger as he was shaking hands. And you were up there with him with the firefighters. People telling him, you know, Go get 'em, retaliate, what's taking so long?

REYNOLDS: This country's ready for retaliation.

KING: Do you think, though, that those firefighters, those rescue workers, your colleagues in the Congress, understand that what the president is considering here could involve a sustained military campaign with ground troops? REYNOLDS: Well, I think that's the process over the next couple days and weeks, to convey to America what I think we in Congress know, is that you don't take a resolution that passed almost unanimous last night, with only one dissenting vote, on use of force and have the type of latitude the Congress gave the president, without knowing that that is a very significant step towards bringing justice through retaliation.

KING: The last time a major scene of terrorism in this country, it was a domestic act of terrorism in Oklahoma City, the site of that tragic bombing now turned into a memorial. As you were walking through the rubble up at the World Trade Center yesterday, what should be done at that site? Rebuild an office tower, a memorial?

REYNOLDS: John, it's so early to know. The important thing is to try to get the debris and rubble cleared away so we can find people who may be alive, and the ability to bury our dead. But you don't really replace the World Trade Center, and the image of what that was for the last 30 years in the skyline of New York.

That'll be up to the people of New York and this country as we move forward. But right now, we've got to rescue the people that are alive and bury our dead and move towards bringing the perpetrators to justice.

KING: All right, Tom Reynolds, congressman from New York, we thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us today.

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