18 Years After 9/11: We Must UNITE Again | Guests: Bob Beckwith, Brad Meltzer, & Garrett M. Graff | 9/11/19

I woke up, remember it being a beautiful day, and normally I had to get up early, so I slept.

And I just remember thinking, it's a really nice day out.

I sat down.

The bell had just heard.

I was actually deployed

with the United States Marine Corps at the time.

Funny enough, I remember the exact same thing.

And we had told

sitting in my boss's office installing the software.

So I went up to the library.

September 11th

changed my life entirely.

Hi, my name is Glenn Beck.

I was born just outside of Seattle.

I'm Rich Hudson from Lake Forest, Illinois.

My name is Jared Rue.

I'm from Dallas, Texas.

My name is Ashanti.

I'm from Omaha, Nebraska.

I'm from the small West Texas town of Adeline, Texas.

My name is Vilma.

I'm from Plano, Texas.

And this is what I remember.

My name is Sean, and I'm from Brooklyn, New York.

And this is what I remember about 9-11.

Miles and miles of sunshine.

Other than that, it's kind of quiet around the country.

We like quiet.

It is beautiful outside, perfect September day with lots of sunshine.

Oh, would you look at Washington, huh?

It's Tuesday outside, September 11th, 2001.

Morning, 64 degrees at 8:40 on this Tuesday, September 11th.

Thousands of New Yorkers will head to the polls today to cast ballots for mayor and a host of other city offices on primary day.

Yes.

American 11.

I am monitoring.

Nobody moves.

There's someone in the cockpit that's taken over.

You You have no idea where he's going.

Record three on flight 11.

The plane did a rapid descent.

I've got to during the cockpit.

I think we might have lost.

Kenneth Cowell reports that there was a fire

at the World Trade Center.

I understand that there has been a plane crash on the southern tip of Manhattan.

You're looking for...

New York 852 a.

Lots of thick black smoke coming from the top of the World Trade Center.

It looks like the plane struck about two quarters of the way up, maybe a little higher.

Yeah, I can't, it's unbelievable.

I've never seen anything like this in my life.

I was on the job about five months on the firefighter for a local city.

And I just heard on the radio going to another station that

an airplane ran into

my mom runs her bathroom.

She said, Sean, Sean,

said, Hey, get out here.

There's something on the news.

We're sitting there going through our lessons for the day.

She goes, A plane just flew through the World Trade Center.

I remember looking up on the screen as soon as I walked in the door and seeing smoking buildings.

It appeared to be an accident to me.

I'm supposed to be on the 82nd floor for 9 o'clock meeting at the moment.

Those images always make my heart hurt.

I'm Hillary.

That's your four-minute buzz.

And here's Glenn and Stu with the start of our show.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Today is going to be a riveting, riveting show.

You're not going to want to miss a second of it.

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I will make a stand, I will raise my voice, I will hold your hand,

cause we have won.

I will beat my drum, I have made my choice, we will overcome,

cause we are one.

The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

This is the Glenn Beck

program.

This is a very different day and a different year.

I'm approaching this moment, this

day of commemoration of 9-11 differently than I ever have.

It feels different to me.

And we'll talk about that a bit today.

We have a show you do not want to miss.

I wanted to begin with something I hadn't heard

in 18 years.

They were the first words that I spoke publicly on radio

as I started my show 18 years ago today.

Here it is.

As I came in this morning, I don't know about you, but

it all seems so surreal.

Now, even this morning, I was on the phone with Stu at about 8:30.

As we were getting ready to go over what we were going to do on the show today,

and I said the biggest thing that's happening is probably the economy

and

George W.

Bush being in town screwing up our highways.

I was shaving

as I heard Jack Ted and Sharon

say that a plane had hit the World Trade Center,

and at first I thought it would be just a small Cessna.

And when I saw the size of the hull

and heard speculation that it was an airliner,

I had a gnawing feeling at the bottom of my stomach.

It was a beautiful day in New York,

clear blue sky.

There's no way a plane could miss

seeing the World Trade Center.

Stu called me.

He said, Did you see the news?

As we were on the phone, we both watched in horror

as a second plane hit the World Trade Center.

I said at that time we're under attack.

They're going for icons.

They want to take down the World Trade Center.

Minutes later, the Pentagon.

It's been 18 years since that day.

And I think it's time to look back up into the sky.

I think it is time for us to look back up and say, What have we done with our time?

What path are we on?

Have we made things better or worse by the decisions that each of us have made since that day?

Because we promised each other on that day that we would,

that we would hold together, that we would work together,

that we would find our way back

out of the rubble and the dust and the blood.

We've done a pretty lousy job.

This year is the year that we must answer the question,

who are we?

The only way we can

figure this out is to look at where we've been.

I continue in one minute.

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Hi, the captain now next to all the n-tip.

So people remain quiet.

Say again.

Executive 956, did you understand that transmission?

Yeah, that transmission he said was unreasonable.

It sounded like someone said they have a bomb on board.

Sir, did you hear the transmission of the airplane just said he had a bomb on board?

The affirmative, he said there was a bomb on board.

That's what we thought.

We just

didn't get it clear.

he turned to the east now?

He's just turned to the east, also.

Do you have a visual on him now?

We did, but we lost him at the turn.

He can make a turn back to 220 heading on the north to east.

American 10-6 in executive 956, we just lost a target on that aircraft.

Man, Z-100-852.

Something weird is going on.

The World Trade Center is on fire.

Oh my god.

Seriously, the top of the building.

We're trying to get information

on the top level of one of the

news to unfold from New York City.

The plane crashed.

My sister's in that building.

Okay.

And I hope she's okay.

And I gotta run to New York.

Oh, my God.

First of all, calm down.

We're gonna go to the bottom.

It's raining papers and

People are jumping out the windows.

Oh, yeah, they're jumping out the windows.

A second plane has now flown in.

Wait, explosion into Pantagon.

A third location on

and outside of West.

I don't have words to describe what I'm witnessing right

Detective immediately until further notice.

Flight operations in the national airspace system by United States civil aircraft and foreign civil and military aircraft are prohibited.

Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward.

Mountain freedom will be defended.

Oh my god!

One of the World Trade Towers

has collapsed and fallen.

I've never seen anything like this.

They've got five patients.

They need to be.

We got an ambulance full of cops and pedestrians.

Female officers, where are you now, King?

Where are you, King?

Where are you?

We're not gonna be stopped.

We're not gonna be deterred.

We're not gonna stay at home.

We're not gonna be frightened.

We're going to live our lives as Americans.

We're all brothers.

We've all got to stick together.

My God, look at the skyline without the towers.

It is Tuesday, September 11th,

2001.

This is Glenn Beck.

Dateline, New York.

In one of the most audacious attacks ever, terrorists hijacked two airliners,

crashed them into the World Trade Center in a coordinated series of blows today that brought down the twin 110-story towers.

Thousands may be dead.

58,000 people

work at the World Trade Center.

One plane, United Flight 93,

crashed north of Somerset County Airport,

a small airport airport 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

United said that flight counted on America to be passed.

Boeing 757

left Newark at 801

heading through San Francisco with 38 passengers.

I think we have to fear.

We will not tire.

It is as old as the scriptures.

We will not falter.

And it is as clear and we will not fail as the American Constitution.

That is

the news

United Night Three,

United Ninety Three

United Ninety Three

United Ninety Three

The Glenn Beck Program.

I know we

don't see

everything

in the same way.

But I know we

won't be

really

free if we don't stay

united.

Cause divided,

we will fall for anything it's true.

So I have

decided

I will send for you

and I will

make a stand,

I will raise my voice,

I will hold your hand.

Cause we are one,

I will be my strong,

I have made my choice,

we will

Cause we are one.

We are one.

We are one.

That was the thing that brought us together:

E pluribus unum from many

one.

We've lost our one, We've lost our

unum.

Can we take the day and just look for it for a second?

Get away from all the other noise

and just look for that.

Back with more in 60 seconds.

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Ten seconds.

Station ID.

We started going back and listening to what we did on September 11th, 18 years ago.

And I remember doing one thing.

I haven't heard it since.

Could you please play the Last Cut

GB's prayer?

I have not heard this since I did it, and I remember the moment.

Go ahead.

I think it is appropriate

as we end our business day today

that we together

ask for her blessing on this great nation.

so I ask you to pull over your car,

stop what you're doing,

hush your surroundings,

and take a moment with me

as we speak to our Father who gave us life.

our most gracious Heavenly Father, we ask

you today

to watch over us.

Your children are confused and frightened.

We are saddened by the loss of our brothers

and saddened by the violence that our other brothers

have brought upon us.

We ask for your warm embrace.

We ask for your

we beg for your guidance now.

We ask for the guidance of our leaders

that they may put aside all hatred

and have a clear view

as to the truth and what must be done.

I remember giving this prayer,

and I remember looking up at Stu early on, and he was, we had never done anything.

It was a different world.

We had never done anything like that before.

And I looked up, and he looked at me like, you're going to pray.

Do you remember that, Stu?

It sounds like something I would do.

And

I wanted to play that

because

when was the last time

we actually reached out like that

to him?

When was the last time we had that

much of a heartfelt collective, we're in trouble.

Please help us.

Perhaps that's why we

are struggling as much as we are.

You're listening to Glenn Beck.

You've heard the old saying how an armed society is a polite society, and it's basically true.

I mean,

unless you're in the Wild West or, you know, unfortunately in Chicago.

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The picture seared in the nation's memory.

President Bush at Ground Zero three days after the attacks.

A bullhorn in one hand, the other draped around firefighter Bob Beckwith.

With President Bush, who's Bob Beckwith.

Beckwith stood shoulder to shoulder with President Bush.

Bob Beckwith, a firefighter from Queens, New York, in his mid-60s.

That day, he stood alongside the president and stepped onto the national patriotic stage.

Bob, are you there?

Yes.

Hi, Bob.

How are you?

Very good.

And yourself?

I'm very good, sir.

Very good.

I just wanted to touch base with you

your experiences with 9-11 because I painted a painting of you a couple of weeks ago for an auction.

And as I was painting you, I thought,

you know, I know this man's story, but not really.

And now that you've had, you know, almost 20 years to digest it, I'd love to hear, first of all, where were you on 9-11 when it happened?

When it happened,

my daughter had called me that my grandson, going to school on his bicycle, was hit by a car

about two blocks away from me.

And I ran over there to see what was happening, and I saw him on the ground, but he was moving, so that was a plus.

And I found out from the ambulance driver what hospital they were taking him to.

And I came home to get my car.

I listened on the radio, and it said I heard a guy saying...

I don't know if you guys know that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.

We don't know anything about it.

And so I came inside and my wife had it on the television already and they had cameras there.

I was looking and I said, that's a little bit bigger than a small plane.

I figured I got a bad day going.

My grandson gets hit by a car and now a plane goes in.

Where were you living at the time, Bob?

I was living right here in Baldwin, New York.

When did the phone call come in that you had to go?

Were you with your grandson in the hospital?

When did you start?

So I went to the hospital to be with him.

Everybody was watching television at the hospital.

And I saw the South Tower come down.

Oh, my God.

One World Trade Center has collapsed in its entirety.

One World Trade Center is gone.

And then a few minutes later,

the North Tower came down.

The other towers just collapsed.

Ready to collapse.

And I knew that there was guys in the building, you you know, because the firemen were in there, you know what goes through your head when

it just hits you pretty hard.

Bob,

did you have

any inkling that those towers might come down when you saw them?

I really honestly never thought they were coming down.

Boy, was I shocked when that happened.

So when would you when did you first arrive at Ground Zero?

What happened was I came home

from the hospital later that day,

and I told my wife and my kids that I'm going down to Ground Zero, and they said, don't go down, you're too old.

I was 69 years old, and they thought I was an old man there, and I'm going to get in the way, so just don't go down there.

The next day, I find out that Jimmy Boyle, now Jimmy Boyle was the

president of the UFA, the Uniformed Firefighters Association,

and I was one of his delegates.

And when I found out his son is missing, I said, that's it, I'm out of here.

And I suited up the next morning, and I got to go down to ground zero.

So I'm driving down there.

I'm on a BQE, the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, and I'm going towards the Williamsburg Bridge.

Guess what?

The bridges are closed.

And I saw a cops car going over the bridge with two vans behind it.

I said, I'm going to give it a shot.

And I drove between the cones and I went on the bridge.

But when I got over to the other side, there was nobody, nobody was there.

Everything was gray.

And I went over to the house watch at 55 engine and I told him I'm going down to ground zero.

And I said, well, good luck.

I said, what the heck is that?

Good luck about.

Anyway, the police department.

They're lined up in a perimeter all around Ground Zero.

I said, I got to get in there, you know.

And I showed them my badge, and they let me in.

And then the guy said to me, Good luck.

So I went down to about a block or two, and then I see the National Guard.

They were on the perimeter, also.

And I said, We don't care that you're a fireman, but you're not getting in.

So I had to think fast, and I talked my way in.

You know, I was at that perimeter.

I don't know how anyone could have talked themselves through that line.

How did you do it?

I told told a little fib, Dev.

I told them I missed a rig, and I was going to get in trouble if I didn't get in there.

And they bought it.

Wow.

Wow.

Okay.

So you're there.

You snuck across the bridge on the island.

Then

you sneak across the barrier with National Guard.

Right.

And then what happens?

And then I came into Ground Zero, and I tell you, it was a shock.

You can see the people running as these buildings began to run.

One of the buildings is partially collapsed.

The first thing that came to my mind was, this is how it probably looked in the blitz, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

Wow.

You know what happened?

I worked down there all that day.

And I went on the bucket brigade and I found a shovel and I started digging with the guys and

we found a plumper.

A pumper is a fire engine in the rubble.

And we told the crane operator to put the

rig out in the street, which he did.

Some guy comes over and he says, the president is here.

And I saw the guys put their shovel down and I put mine down and I walked out to the street and there's that pumper we just dug out of the rubble.

I jumped up on it and right across the street was a command post, a tent with all microphones in front of it.

I figured, oh, that's where the president's going to talk.

This Secret Service man came over to me and he said, is this safe?

I said, yeah.

And he said, well, jump up and down on it for me.

So I jumped up and down on it for him.

And he said, okay, he said, somebody important is coming over here.

And when they come over here, you help them up and then you get down.

I said, okay, because you do what the Secret Service guy tells you to do.

The President comes around and he does a hard ride and he comes right in front of me and he puts his arm up.

So I pull him up and I turn him around and I said to him, are you okay, Mr.

President?

He said, yeah.

And then I started to get down.

He said, where are you going?

I said, I was told to get down.

He said, no, no, you stay right here.

And he put his arm around me and that's my story.

That's unbelievable.

It is.

I didn't know.

I didn't know any of those things.

What did the president say to you at one point, do you even remember, when he turned to you in the middle of the speech and he said some things to you?

Do you remember?

No, we couldn't hear.

We couldn't hear each other.

We did speak to each other, but we didn't hear each other.

It was too loud.

The guys

were yelling.

I didn't remember him having that megaphone, the bullhorn.

Really?

And then he started to speak, and he's speaking to the right.

And the guys on the left, they're yelling, we can't hear you.

And then he turned to the left with the bullhorn, and he said, I can hear you.

And the whole world hears you.

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

They went crazy.

They went nuts.

They started chanting, USA, USA, USA.

And it was, he said everything in those three sentences.

So, Bob,

you were given

a flag right after his visit, right?

Yes.

When I was helping him get down from the rig,

somebody handed him the flag,

and he puts his arm up and he waves the flag.

I saw Governor Pataki standing there, so I tapped him on the shoulder, and he turns around and he grabs my legs and he picks me up and he puts me out in the street.

I said, you're going to hurt yourself.

He said, I'm a big guy.

I said, okay.

I'm walking back to go back to work.

And this Secret Service guy taps me on the shoulder and he said, the president's been looking for you.

I said, oh, no, what do they do?

And he said, he wants you to have this flag.

I said, oh, very nice.

Thank you.

And I stuck it in my pocket and I'm going back to work.

Anyway, Glenn, the Secret Service guy that told me when the politician comes over there and takes my spot to get down, when I went on television, I would tell them my story.

And I got a letter from the White House.

I'm the guy that told you what to do.

Thank you for calling me a Secret Service guy, but and he signs it.

Carl Rove, senior advisor to the president.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes, exactly.

That's what I said.

So let me ask you this: because the day before,

your family was saying you're just going to get in the way.

When you got home after sneaking across the bridge sneaking past uh the national guard working then the president is giving the one of the most memorable speeches probably since the day of infamy uh

what did your family say

i drove over and i said who's going to believe that i was with the president there were no cameras down there glenn no cameras at all that i saw Anyway, I pull up in front of my house and people are coming out, my neighbors, and they all carrying the candles.

That was the day they had candles.

And they came into my driveway and

this police officer across the street from me, a city cop, and he said to me, Becky,

you're on television.

And I said, get out of here.

There were no cameras down there.

So I came in the house and my granddaughter was sitting on a couch and she says, Grandpa,

you're on television.

And they were showing it over and over.

I said, wow.

I was surprised

that they had me and the president, who was the most important thing.

Yeah.

You stayed in touch with the president?

We did.

We still keep in touch.

Myself and my wife and a couple of my kids, we were invited to the Oval Office.

And it was very nice.

Everybody was there.

You know, Governor Pataki, Carl Rove was there, Mayor Giuliani, Tommy Varness and the Commissioner, and Chuck Schumer.

You've had had some special experiences because of that picture.

Yes, we were called into, excuse me, Germany three times and then twice in Cologne

and that

really treated top shelf.

So, Bob, when you look back at this now,

what is it that you take away?

What is it that we should, as a people, take away from that moment on the fire truck?

You know what, Glenn?

We fought two wars.

We fought the Japanese and we fought the Germans and we stuck together and that's the same thing that happened at 9-11.

People came in from every state to help us.

Search and rescue and

the food.

I was there, Bob, and I saw people come from all over the country to feed you guys.

My wife and I went.

These firemen were coming out after a long day, and both of us just started to applaud.

Like, I don't know.

It was just, it was, everything was upside down, and the enormity of it was just remarkable.

Yes,

it really was.

But we stuck together, and

we received rigs that we lost in it.

And other states helped, they built the rigs and sent them to us.

You know, this is America, and people are great.

They really are.

Bob,

it's an honor to talk to you.

It really is.

I made a painting for charity, and I was wondering if you would be willing to sign it.

If I sent it up to you, would you be willing to sign it?

Of course.

That would be great.

That would be great.

Bob, thank you so much.

God bless you.

God bless you, Glenn.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

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This is the Glenbeck program.

There are two new books that are out today that are remarkable.

One is by Brad Meltzer.

He's one of our favorite guests, and he is the guy who found the 9-11 flag.

We'll talk to him about that.

He's in the studio, is he not?

Maybe not, maybe not, but he'll be with us here in a few minutes.

And then the other book that has come out, The Only Plane in the Sky, an Oral History of 9-11.

I've never read a book like this before.

It is riveting from cover to cover.

Started reading it, and I thought I would just browse through it.

I couldn't put it down.

It is, I don't even know how this author wrote this, how he gathered this information.

He talked to people who were up with

Counter Fitzgerald.

I mean, I thought all of them died.

This is a remarkable.

history of 9-11 and it's not told by him.

It's all of the people in in chronological order that were affected at different points and what was going on from start to finish.

It's incredible.

He's going to be with us.

His name is Garrett Graff.

He's going to be with us in hour number three.

This is a show you don't want to miss a second of

as we remember 9-11.

Perhaps we should

honor our promises that we all made to each other.

We wouldn't forget and

we wouldn't break ranks with one another.

And boy, have we ever.

And

really, a lot of our problems that we have right now, the issues that we're dealing with right now,

were made, I think, you know, with good reason at the time and good faith at the time.

And

we should

reevaluate those things and what we originally said we would do, all on today's broadcast.

You're listening to Glenn Beck.

Gosh, for those of us who were old enough to really be, you know, parents at the time, this is a bizarre day.

I want to talk to you about our cruise through history.

We're going to, how do we put the pieces back together?

How do we come back together as a nation?

I mean, we have now been on

a course that is just a collision course now for about 20 years and tearing ourselves apart.

How do we do it?

Well, that's one of the things that we're going to talk about and is going to play a big role in 2020 in my personal life and this broadcast life.

And we are putting all of the pieces together for about 3,000 people on board this ship that we're going through the the Mediterranean.

We're going to be in Venice and Athens and the Holy Land with Rabbi Lapin, with David Barton, with Tim Ballard, with Bill O'Reilly.

It's

what are the lessons that we learned from Europe and what are we really based on?

And if you would like to come on this cruise, very few seats are still available, but it's 100%

all included.

No tips, nothing.

You don't have to bring your wallet, just your passport.

Cruise through history, go to comesaileaway.com comesaileaway.com and learn more about it.

And get on board now.

Comesaileaway.com.

The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

There is a famous picture from 9-11 that happened 18 years ago that is almost

my generation's version of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima.

But that flag was lost.

People thought they had the flag, and it wasn't the flag.

It wasn't the right flag.

The guy who found it,

his search is incredible.

A good friend of ours who has a new book out starting today, Brad Meltzer.

He joins us in just one minute.

This is the Glenbeck program.

As a conservative living in today's America, I am well aware it just wouldn't be possible for me to transact every act of business that I do with only businesses that contribute to conservative causes.

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I have

I have never gone back and listened to my own archives on for the week of 9-11.

And I just, it is,

it's been something that I just haven't wanted to do

at all.

I just don't go back and listen to my old shows.

And

9-11 that week was extraordinarily painful.

But my staff has gone back, and they've brought a couple of things to me that I had forgotten about that kind of put the day into perspective.

And

can we just, before we go to Brad, can we just play the clip of what I said during the show, everything that was closed on this day, to give you some perspective of

what this day was like 18 years ago?

The White House, the Capitol, the United Nations have been evacuated.

For the first time ever in the history of our country, we have stopped all aircraft.

All flights nationwide stopped at their departure airports.

All international flights were diverted to Canada.

Fighter jets are now circling Washington, D.C.

and New York City.

Only medical personnel are allowed to use the streets in Washington.

Israel has evacuated their embassies.

Chicago Sears Tower has been evacuated.

The Centers for Disease Control,

Atlanta

evacuated.

CDC at this hour is preparing bioterrorism teams.

16 fighter jets scrambled over Washington, D.C.

Shopping centers across the country have been closed.

Kennedy Space Center, LAX,

Disney, closed.

World markets today down dramatically.

U.S.-Mexico border, closed.

And that was all for six inches of snow.

And, you know, no,

it was

a bizarre day that you completely forget

what that day was like, even if you were there.

Brad Meltzer is a good friend of mine.

We became friends after 9-11, a few years after that.

And we have connected on history.

And Brad is with us.

He has a new book out today.

It's about Walt Disney, and I want to talk to him about it.

It's a great children's book.

I am Walt Disney.

But I also wanted to talk to him about 9-11.

Where were you, Brad, when the towers came down?

I was in Washington, D.C., of all places.

And this is, you know, we lost our friend Michelle Heidenberger, was a flight attendant on the Pentagon flight.

And my wife,

this is why it hits me today, not because of the finding of the flag, which obviously was an honor, but it was the personal side.

As we all know, we all have our one story that makes up this quilt of history.

And my wife worked in the U.S.

Capitol, and she was driving to work.

She was eight months pregnant, giant belly, my son about to be born in October.

And my wife thought, you know, the towers were hit.

I wonder what security, I wonder if they'll increase security at the Capitol.

And she said, wait a minute, our security is terrible.

And she pulls over to the side of the road and calls me and says, I have a bad feeling.

I'm just going to stay home.

And I know to this day that but for the heroes on United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, that if that flight did not go down in Pennsylvania, it was headed to the Capitol.

I know people say the White House, but if you look, the plaque that honors them is actually in the U.S.

Capitol.

And but for them, my life could have been profoundly different.

And I think of them, of course, every 9-11,

but they deserve to be remembered every single day for what they did.

That was

one of the most moving things of 9-11 was

not only the way everyone kind of pulled together, but what those people on that flight did.

And it wasn't, you know, it was weird.

I haven't even heard this.

Can I play

my response?

Somebody called into the show.

I haven't heard this yet.

This is seven hours after the planes hit the World Trade Center.

There's plenty of time to scream for blood.

There is plenty of time to exact

the price

of the day's events.

But I don't know about anybody else.

I'm not there yet.

I'm barely hanging on emotionally

just on the overwhelming events of the day.

I haven't been able to process,

take out the human take out the human toll.

I haven't even been able to process that the skyline of New York is different,

let alone that there is a possibility with 58,000 people working in the World Trade Center,

the possibility within an hour

of business this morning

we lost more American lives than were lost in the entire Vietnam War.

I'm not ready to scream for blood yet.

Devastating.

I think it's time to be around like-minded people, people that you don't know,

And hold on to them for dear life.

It was such an

I mean, remember that day we didn't, we really thought

30 to 50,000 people could be dead.

By God's power.

I remember being in D.C.

and we didn't, you know, it was, we were putting together the funeral for my friend Michelle, who was the flight attendant on the Pentagon flight, and driving down to make photocopies for the memorial program and the big poster of her, I should say.

And there was armed guards like it was under martial law that we thought there was another plane coming at any moment.

We didn't know what, you know, we'd lose that.

And I really was struck, Len, by what you just said in that clip, which is, you know, holding on to people you don't know.

And I'm just so saddened.

as we all relive this moment of 9-11 and those visceral memories kind of come back

that in that chaos, there was that unity again, right?

We felt somehow that these United States of America were that magical word again, united.

And it's so horrifying to me that it takes a tragedy to do it.

But it is amazing what kindness comes out in those low moments.

You know, the lowest moments always bring out the best of us.

And when we were searching for the 9-11 flag,

everyone knows the great photograph of the firefighters raising the flag at 9-11.

And the flag went missing 24 hours later.

I became obsessed with it and started searching for it.

We did a story on it on our TV show and said to America, please bring it back.

Now, here's a story I don't know if anyone knows,

is

on the episode of our TV show on History Channel where we asked to come back, I said, I added something to the script that we had, and I said, I want you to bring it back to my friend Michelle Heidenberger, this flight attendant on the Pentagon flight.

3,000 people dead, it was always too hard to imagine.

But for me, it was always for my friend.

And when the flag finally was returned, right after the episode aired, I couldn't tell anyone, but four days later, a man walked into a fire station in Washington State, in Everett, Washington, and said, he was a former Marine.

He said, here's the flag.

I saw a lost history, and I want to bring it back.

And I finally, secretly, when it came back, I called him to say thank you on behalf of the American people.

And I said to him, he said to me, you want to know why I brought it back, Brad?

And I said, yeah, I did, because we offered a reward.

To this day, he's never taken the reward.

We offered him $10,000 to whoever brought it back.

He's never taken it.

But he said, you want to know why I brought the flag from 9-11 back?

And I said, sure.

And he said, because of your friend, Michelle Heidenberger.

He's like, you mentioned her on the air, and it got to me.

And I knew I had to bring it back in that moment.

How did he get it?

How did he get the flag?

He was like yourself and myself.

He was a collector.

But his specialty was American flags.

And he got it from someone who lost someone at ground zero.

And he doesn't even know someone gave that flag to that person who lost their loved one.

And, you know, again, at that moment in time, it wasn't a famous flag.

It was just a flag that had been lifted.

It wasn't, it didn't become famous until it ran on the cover of Newsweek and everywhere else.

So it wasn't like anyone was like secretly going, oh, I'm going to steal this flag and give it away.

It wasn't famous then.

No one knew what it was.

It was just a flag.

So he got it from someone who just cleared it out of their attic and said, you know, I don't want this anymore.

He saw the the show and returned it.

And

again, to be a small part of that, on the 15th anniversary of 9-11 a few years ago, I got to unveil that flag in the 9-11 Museum.

It is currently on display.

And I highly encourage anyone, as you think of it today, when you're in New York next time, go to the museum.

It is a museum that is proof that heroes still exist in the world.

And we knew that that wasn't the right flag.

Not this one, but

I think with Giuliani, didn't he go out to Yankee Stadium and he claimed that that was the flag and somehow or another somebody figured out that's not it?

How did that happen?

Yeah, so Giuliani and everyone signed the flag at Yankee Stadium and had this big kind of homecoming and they brought the flag out and everyone cheered and they all signed it.

And the owners of the flag, it was actually taken from a boat down at ground zero, was this Greek couple.

And the Greek couple said, hey, that's our flag.

And everyone knew it was off their boat.

They knew where it came from.

They said, can we use the flag at a charity benefit?

They're doing a 9-11 benefit.

We'd love to bring the flag there.

And the city said, Of course, they gave the flag to the couple, and the couple unfurls the flag at the event.

And they realize this flag is gigantic.

Their flag was small.

They're like, someone switched the flag, they lost it.

And then to cover it up, someone just added a new flag.

So that was how they finally realized it was missing.

And that's how, of course, we got on the case and just said, you know, someone out there must have the real one.

And please bring it back to us.

I'm going to ask you a tough question that is kind of unfair in some ways to ask you on the spot.

But I'm looking at

last hour I played something that I haven't heard in 18 years.

I was on the air and it was at the end of the broadcast and I think we had been on the air for about eight hours.

And I said, I want you to pull your car over

because I think it's appropriate that we pray.

And in that, it was a real

anguished kind of help us, Lord, kind of prayer.

And I think we have gone so far astray because as I was listening to that, I thought, I

don't know the last time we as a nation

collectively said, help us, we're in trouble.

Listen,

I think that's,

I say a prayer.

Of course, I say my prayers every day, every night, right?

But on this 9-11, and my prayers will, of course, be with those we lost, but the prayer that I'm saying today

is I just read this article that all the first responders, right, who were lost 18 years ago, how many of their kids who were just born are now signing up to be firemen and

firefighters and police officers that are in this incoming class.

They know exactly what is at risk.

They know exactly the cost of this job.

18 years ago, they lost their dads, their moms.

And my gosh, how do we not include them in our prayers too?

It's a thankful like that these people are out there.

Hang on.

I want to ask you a different question in one minute.

Stand by.

Brad Meltzer, who's got a new book out.

It's fantastic.

And I am a Disneyophile.

It's called I Am Walt Disney for Your Kids.

So well worth it.

We'll talk about that coming up in just a second.

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So, Brad, we are now paying for the consequences of our actions.

The war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, all of these different things.

What is the lesson,

and you might even want to come back tomorrow and answer this.

What is the thing that we have done in the last 18 years that we should now look back and go, that was a mistake.

We probably shouldn't have done that.

And we should talk about it and correct this mistake?

Listen, I think when we look back on history, and obviously be happy to come and talk tomorrow, because I know, you know, there's just just two big issues to talk about today, and we have to, but I, you know, I think the thing that haunts me is that misinformation that took us to war as if we were, you know, we were so rightfully, you know, looking for someone to get, right?

We were attacked personally.

Yeah.

And I do think that,

you know, and I, and, and I was at President Bush's funeral.

I saw W was at dinner with him months ago.

Right.

But that is haunting, that we had the wrong information and went to war on the wrong information in Iraq.

That is forever haunting because I've done books on Dover Air Force Base and the men and women who take care of our fallen soldiers.

And

how many fallen troops have gone through Dover

for truly

what I can only say is the wrong reason.

And not just because it's wrong that anyone should die, right?

We don't want any one of our troops to pay the ultimate price, but

sent to battle for what?

And that's what you have to, at the end of the day, we see war, and that's a big word.

But we forget that

when you enlist in the military, they will tell you as the spouse of someone who is sending their spouse into battle, that if two people show up at your front door, it means your loved one's dead.

And if one shows up at your door, they're just injured.

And those are real things that happened.

Those were real funerals that happened.

Thousands of

men and women buried because of this.

They told me at Dover that at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan, there were so many bodies coming through there that they literally had to

find another cooler to stack them up on.

They were coming so big, so many, so fast.

And

that's the thing that I look back on and say, that's

one of the places where we went so, so wrong.

Brad, let let me switch to your book.

I am Walt Disney.

You know how much of a fan I am of Walt Disney.

I did not know about the tar painting on the back of his house.

How good.

So listen,

again, oh, and you know, we're talking about heroes.

So let's actually talk about the positive side of this, right?

I mean, the reason why we're so moved today, I still believe, is our culture is, you know, I started this book series, and in many ways, you know, almost in a similar vein, I was tired of my kids looking at people who are famous for being famous, famous for the wrong reasons.

I wanted to give my kids heroes like these 9-11 heroes, but heroes of character, heroes of kindness and compassion and hard work and perseverance.

And we did, I am Amelia Earhart, and I am Abraham Lincoln, and I am George Washington.

But our number one requested hero is the one that comes out today, I am Walt Disney.

Number one request?

Number one request is I am Walt Disney.

We had to do the book.

And kids, when they come to my books, they don't make requests.

They make demands.

They're like oh, you know.

uh, when you're when you're really old or really young, you can get away with that.

Hang on just a sec, Brad.

I got to take a quick break.

Back with Brad Meltzer,

who is gracious enough to be with us today and talk about 9-11, but also heroes.

And I want to talk about heroes when we come back, because the world is in need of heroes, and you're starting to see them.

You're starting to see them.

And what would the world be like without some of these heroes?

And I put Walt Disney into that category.

More with Brad Meltz here in just a second.

You're listening to Glenn.

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You know, I think it's appropriate to take a break from the mainstream media that's, you know, just talking about Donald Trump and a tweet or the Taliban or whatever and just all the politics around that.

And then the other side, you know, talking about how the New York Times said that airplanes targeted the Twin Towers instead of saying that it was terrorists that targeted.

Shut up.

Shut up.

I'm telling you, Stu, I want the Glenn Beck radio program shut up t-shirt.

I need a t-shirt that that's all it says.

Shut up.

And I thought maybe, you know, maybe we could talk about, you know, what did we learn in the last 18 years?

And one of those things is we got it from Flight 93.

Heroes.

We got heroes.

And there are a lot of heroes.

Brad Meltzer is with us.

He writes a series of books about heroes, and he's got a new one out

today called I Am Walt Disney, who is truly one of my heroes.

I have to ask you, you are also one of my heroes because somehow or another, you got the rights to include all the images of Disney, Mickey Mouse, and all of the characters in your book.

How did you do that?

We're going to have to talk about this for short, tomorrow, because I got to run in one minute, but I will tell you this.

They just booked two things at once.

Let's save it for tomorrow because it's a crazy story.

It's got to be.

I had to give away a child to get Mickey, but it might be worth it.

Okay.

All right.

We'll have you back.

Thank you so much, Brad.

You got it, brother.

Gosh, I didn't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Brad is always fascinating.

He is the guy who we got to know each other real well because he called me up and he said, you love history.

I said, yeah.

And he said, you know that they're tearing down the Superman house?

I'm like, you know Superman is a comic, right?

And he said, no, the two brothers that came up with Superman, And the one brother did on the wallpaper, right behind the wallpaper of this house, you have the original sketches of Superman.

And they were tearing it down.

It was in Ohio, and we raised money to save the house.

We've been good friends ever since.

He is a real lover of

history.

Let me ask you, Stu.

I think it's the Patriot Act for me.

What is the one thing that we walk away after 18 years and go,

shouldn't have done that or should have done this?

Wow,

that's an interesting on-the-spot question.

I don't know that I have an instant answer to it.

I mean, the Patriot Act, I think,

is an interesting example because it was something that, at least for me,

helped me understand that even when

something has A, good intentions,

I think it did largely.

And B,

I think it was actually written in a way that

that safeguarded against many of the ways it was misused.

I mean, it was actually

a lot of the things that were in the Patriot Act were written to guard against the way it was actually used, and still the government misused it.

I mean, it shows you you can't have too little faith in the federal government.

You can't have too little faith in this type of situation, even in those most desperate moments.

And I come back to thinking about 9-11 and the Patriot Act often when we have these terrible mass shootings and

terrible events like that, where afterwards, the media not only doesn't learn the lesson of that particular part of 9-11, where if you rush to try to do things in a big hurry and implement them, it has long-lasting consequences.

They cheer it on.

They say, how can we not act?

Look at what New Zealand did.

They had a mass shooting and they just changed all of their laws.

And they say that as if it's something to praise, something to chase after as a country.

And it's like, that's the exact opposite.

If you would have learned the lesson, I mean, it's an important lesson to learn, I think, from a lot of the stuff that we did after 9-11, which is even though completely good intentions were there and in a real serious situation, and we probably did actually,

when it comes to the Patriot Act, probably did prevent terrorist attacks, or at least may have.

And even with all that, I mean, we've basically shredded the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

We've given up incredible amounts of our liberty.

We've given up the, I mean, there's really no party now that's pushing back against mass surveillance in ways that we never could have imagined, even after the Patriot Act was implemented.

I mean, the guy who wrote it said afterwards, none of this stuff was allowed by what I wrote.

I mean, that is a...

You just realize that no matter

when or how you increase the power of the government, eventually they will take it further.

And that's why sometimes we hold, I, I get really iffy about holding lines on stuff that I even have.

So, you know,

you were talking yesterday about guns and you said, I can't, we got off the air and you said, I can't believe the guy who is more on, you know, surveillance and

new technology, I can't believe that you are saying, well,

okay, if we're going to have, you know, a gun check and then we have to check it, you know, against selling guns to strangers,

don't have a problem.

And I have to tell you, I retract that.

I retract that.

It bothered me all day yesterday.

Bothered me all day yesterday.

And because I do want to do things that are sensible, but you know what?

Having the government involved in background checks and having

it becomes very easily, as we're talking about the Patriot act none of this was in there

okay same thing that becomes a registry for guns and uh we already have enough on the on on on these things this guns are not

uh for sporting it is not for hunting food uh it is for protection and not even protection of yourself.

It is for protection against the government.

And if we really want to take the Second Amendment seriously, it is a protection against an out-of-control government.

And anything, our government is already out of control.

And we all know it.

Both sides know it.

And yet, both sides seem that they think that their style of government will correct it.

It won't.

And, you know, with what's happening in China and how close we are with the government and Google right now, they are already in bed with each other and it's only going to get worse.

No.

No.

I retract what I said.

Nothing.

You get nothing.

Guns are weapons of war.

And guns are weapons of war against any out-of-control government anywhere in the world that

is holding their people captive and violating the rights of man,

the rights of man.

I have a right to be free.

And we are quickly closing that door.

And anything that gives the government more power over the only real power we have, the only reason why these doors have not closed on us sooner is because we are an armed society.

They must be afraid of a educated, a well-educated, well-armed and responsible citizenry.

Yeah, I mean, I always think of the Second Amendment as not, it's not that we have guns and it's going to

like it's not necessarily even to defend yourself in a war or some terrible government crackdown.

God forbid Adolf Hitler gets elected.

It's because

no one would ever try it.

It's to prevent it from ever occurring.

That's why they're all saying, we're not going to confiscate your guns.

Of course you're not.

Of course you're not.

You will lose.

And people say, you're going to fight against the U.S.

Army?

Yeah.

How long have we been fighting the Taliban?

People will be throwing rocks at us.

It's really hard.

I think that's pretty darn effective.

I think it's pretty darn effective.

It's not that you're going to wipe out.

It's going to be a simple war, but you don't lose your freedoms.

And it's not your freedom that you're protecting.

We have to look at the First Amendment.

I did a lot of thinking about this yesterday.

We have to look at the First Amendment as, hey, I have a right to question you, to gather, to be in a group.

I have a right to say, what are you doing?

Stop it.

I have a right to expose you in the press.

I have a right to do all of that to the government.

All of that is to the government.

Remember, your First Amendment is not for what you can say in a movie theater.

It's what you can say about the government.

So the First Amendment is, I can say whatever I want.

Well, that doesn't mean anything if they have a militia or a military unless you

have another counterpiece.

If you've ever played chess, you know you don't make a move if you know they can make a move and hurt you just as bad.

That's what the Second Amendment is.

I can say whatever I want about you in the government.

I can question you.

I can gather together in groups to question you.

I can print anything I want against you because because I might think that you're corrupt, might

think that you're corrupt.

And the Second Amendment says, and you know what?

I have the steam to back it up.

I don't want to, but it keeps them at bay.

It keeps them in check.

That is the critical part.

And that is the thing that we are forgetting right now.

And every time we have done something in the last 18 years

for security, and it's common sense, and we should do this.

And, well, that's just, I mean, we should just, it doesn't work out that well.

I mean, look at the TSA.

I don't mean to drag down the TSA because there are a lot of good people.

There was a guy here in Dallas who I think was the best TSA guy I've ever seen.

And, you know, I have to take off your belt and your shoes and everything else.

And he's like, don't touch that.

Don't touch.

He was an Indian guy.

He's like, don't touch.

No, no, no, no, don't touch.

And he was running that line, but he was effective and he was good.

And he wasn't doing it because he was some overlord.

He did it with a sense of humor.

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I loved the guy.

Loved the guy.

There was another woman who was in another airport.

I think this was in Los Angeles.

And she said,

you have tickets.

That's that's how she,

you have tickets.

And I said, um,

yes.

and i was headed toward the place where you show them the tickets and i said yes and i showed them and she just she just looked at me and it wasn't because she even knew me she just looked at me and she gave me the dirtiest look all right

and i'm like that

who what is this

this is a government official that's what that is

when you put the government in charge you want to do tsa good do it do it uh privately and those airports they have a choice those airports that are doing it privately, they're the ones every time we do a check on the TSA, those are the airports that catch something wrong.

Every time we get the government involved, every time it ends up poorly.

No, sorry.

You get no more.

None.

You're not responsible.

You're not responsible with the powers that we gave to you.

It's time for the people to start start taking those powers and the states to start taking those powers back.

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This is the Glenbeck program.

Welcome to the program.

We're so glad that you're here.

We have a guest on next.

He wrote the book, The Only Plane in the Sky, and I picked it up.

I thought it would be good to talk to the author,

but I didn't think it would be a book that I would like to read cover to cover.

And it's called, it's just an oral history of 9-11.

And this is the most fascinating history book I have ever read.

There is no opinion from the author because it's all first-hand accounts and it is all in order.

So he likes to interviewed somebody maybe for an hour, and then he's like, Okay, well, so what happened first?

What happened?

And then he took them and pieced everybody's together in chronological order.

So, they're all telling the story in real time, but you're seeing it from you know 10 different perspectives the same moment from 10 different perspectives with no stringing together of anything, just their words.

I'm telling you, I started reading this last night, and I could not put this book down.

It is,

it's the way history books should be written.

I can't even imagine the undertaking that is to put together because they have quotes from everybody in the room.

Everybody.

Yeah, I mean, it's everybody.

Yeah.

He's got people, I thought they were dead.

He has people that were way up in the World Trade Center.

That you're, I have no idea.

I had no idea

that all of these people were even alive, let alone he's just talking to, you know, just regular people that were in the building, you know, regular police officers.

I can't imagine the research and the amount of time it took to write this book.

And it is the best history book I think I've ever read because it's, there's no opinion.

There's no opinion.

It's just the words of the people who experienced it.

It's called The Only Plane in the Sky.

It is out this week.

It was written by Garrett Graff, an oral history of 9-11.

I can't

recommend this book highly enough.

Truly remarkable work.

He's going to be going through it

and we're just going to go through some of the most riveting parts of this book

right after the top of this next hour.

Stand by.

You're listening to Glenn Beck.

This hour is going to be absolutely riveting.

This new book that is out, Garrett Graff is going to be joining us.

It's one of the best books I've read in a long time.

Best history book I've read in a long time, for sure.

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The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

I have to tell you,

a new book has come out, and I was not interested really in reading it because of the format, I think.

And I thought I had read everything about 9-11.

And then last night I took this book home and I have not been able to put it down.

I think this is the best history book I have read in a very long time and you know I love history.

This is an oral history.

I don't know how this guy did it.

This is the most comprehensive

look at any event I have ever seen

in American or world history.

This is the future, I think, of history books and it is riveting, absolutely riveting.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

The only plane in the sky, an oral history of 9-11.

It has just come out.

We have the author on with us today, and I will show you why it is so riveting in 60 seconds.

This is the Glenbeck program.

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off now.

The name of the book is The Only Plane in the Sky, an oral history of 9-11.

Garrett Graff is the author.

Garrett, welcome to the program.

Thanks so much for having me on this day.

It's an honor to have you.

I have to tell you, this, your book, you are going to sell, I hope, millions of copies.

This is a hard topic to get people to look at,

and I don't really want to live through another rehash of 9-11, and I don't want somebody's opinion on 9-11.

I just want to know what happened.

How long did it take you to put this book together?

It was three years, start to finish, trying to pull together ultimately what are the 480 voices that I follow across America, coast to coast, morning morning to night, that day.

I mean,

it is incredible the number of people that you have in, and your voice is not one of them, which I so appreciate.

It is just you.

Did you interview everyone about that day and then cut them up minute by minute to place them?

Yeah, so the book is a mix of my original interviews, several hundred stories that I collected myself,

and then some incredible work by institutions like the 9-11 Museum in New York, the Flight 93 National Memorial, the Pentagon Historian, people who recognized after 9-11 the importance of capturing these stories.

And we started the book with about 2,000 of those archived primary source oral histories that I ultimately spent

months and years.

years boiling down to this story minute by minute.

And I think that to me, the reason that I wanted to tell this story, and I think that the reason you're feeling that it's so powerful, is that when we say never forget, what we generally mean on 9-11 now are the facts of the day.

You know, the four planes, the twin towers, the Pentagon, Shanksville.

And what we are losing as we celebrate, you know, this 18th anniversary now this year is what that day was like to experience, what it was like to live through.

Because the story that we now tell ourselves of 9-11 is so much neater and cleaner than the day that we lived as Americans that day, that we now know the attacks were 102 minutes long from the first crash at 8.46 to the collapse of the second tower at 10.29.

We didn't know that on 9-11.

And when you go back and you tell that story through the voices of the people who were living it, what you come away with is the fear and the confusion that we felt that day.

You know, well into the afternoon, worrying about follow-on attacks, worried about more hijacked planes in the skies.

I mean, Disney closed that day.

You know, Disney feared an attack on itself that day.

The Sears Tower in Chicago was evacuated.

You know, schools closed coast to coast.

And everyone that day, you know, no matter how far you were from the Twin Towers, from the Pentagon, from Shanksville, you felt that visceral fear that we now, I think, have lost as we sort of forget just what that day was like to live.

And let me, if I may, just, I just want to read a couple of things from this, and I'm going to just kind of jump around a bit.

But this is how this book is written.

Roger, Robert Leder, executive of SMW Trading Company, North Tower.

I was on the 85th floor.

I was looking out the window facing the Empire State Building when I saw the plane come into the building.

There was such a dramatic change of atmospheric pressure.

The building swayed from the impact, and it nearly knocked me off my chair.

Our ceiling imploded.

Some of the walls began to explode.

Harry Waitser, Tax Counsel,

Canner Fitzgerald, North Tower.

I was in the elevator at 846 in the North Tower when the first jet hit the trade center.

My office was on the 104th floor.

I had gone up to the sky lobby on 78, and I had made the transition over the local area, local elevators.

I was somewhere between 78 and 104.

Gene Potter, Bank of America, North Tower 81st floor.

I was thrown out of my chair, like thrown.

It was a horrible, loud explosion.

The building started to rock back and forth.

Smoke filled the air immediately.

We were fortunately right by the staircase because our floor was fully

involved with fire.

Maybe I heard four or five survivors from above us.

Vanessa Lawrence, artist, North Tower 91st.

I literally put one foot out of the elevator onto the 91st and was thrown to the side.

Smoke and debris blasted down our corridor and the building shook.

Richard Eichen.

I saw my left shoulder an Asian man coming towards me.

He was on the 90th floor.

He looked like he had been deep fried.

He had his arms out.

His skin was hanging like seaweed.

He was begging me to help him.

He said, help me, help me.

And then he did a face plant right between my legs.

He died there.

I looked down, and that's when I saw my shirt was full of blood.

I didn't know that I was hurt.

You go into the accounts of the people in the elevator that had burst into flames.

I didn't know any of these people survived.

Yeah, and those stories are so harrowing to hear,

in part, because this was one of the things that just really came across to me

in doing this research and telling these stories is what the sensory experience of 9-11 was like.

That, you know,

we remember the facts of the day, but

none of us actually really know what 9-11 tasted like, what it smelled like, what it sounded like, what it felt like.

And so

I was amazed as I was going through and writing this and compiling this,

is

what this, you know, the people talking about the smell of the plane crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville as those volunteer firefighters arrived on the scene.

You know, the people like Harry Weiser and Richard Eiken talking about what that heat felt like.

You know, they get down then through those stairwells.

The stairwells have the fire sprinklers going.

And so they are coming out the bottom of the Twin Towers, soaking wet, that water pooling at the base of the stairwells.

And, you know, the idea that that these people in their final moments before they walk out to freedom,

they are wading through knee-deep water in the stairwells of the Twin Towers as it's pooling at the bottom.

I mean, what the dust of the collapse tasted like in your mouth, what it was like to step in it.

You know, just the sounds of that day.

I mean, it was just so amazing to sort of understand that sensory experience.

The chapter at Emma Booker Elementary School is also fascinating to me.

The way that Rudy Giuliani, when he first heard, you know, he was at a hotel and he was like, hang on, I got to go to the bathroom because I'll probably

be out for a long time.

But he had no idea the gravity of it.

He thought it was a small Cessna.

Let me just read this part a thousand times a day.

This is Andy Carr, the guy who told the president at the elementary school.

Dave Wilkinson said, We're beginning to get the motorcade up and running, getting the motorcycle cops back.

We're ready to evacuate at a moment's notice.

And all of a sudden, it hits me.

The president is the only one who doesn't know that this plane has hit the second building.

It was a discomfort to all of us that the president didn't know.

The event was dragging on, and that's when Andy Card came out.

Andy, a thousand times a day, a chief of staff has to ask, does the president need to know?

This was an easy pass to test.

My job that day was to be cool, calm, and collected.

Not the same magnitude, of course, but I knew my job on 9-11 was cool, calm, and collected.

Carl Rove, I remember Andy Card pausing at the door before he went into the classroom.

It seemed like forever, but it was probably just a couple of heartbeats.

I never understood why, but he told me years later that he needed to spend a moment formulating the words he wanted to use.

Andy, I knew I was delivering a message that no president would want to hear.

I decided to pass on two facts as an editorial comment and an editorial comment.

I didn't want to invite a conversation because the president was sitting in front of the classroom.

The teacher had asked the students to take out their books and I took that opportunity to approach the president.

I whispered in his ear, a second plane has hit the second tower.

America is under attack.

I took a couple of steps back so he couldn't ask any questions.

Then you quote a couple of the students that remember his face and how it changed.

Andy, I was pleased how the president reacted.

He didn't do anything to create fear.

Then he walked out.

Carl Rose said, when the president walked back into the staff hold, he said, we're at war.

Give me the FBI director and the vice president.

I mean, it's

you've

just by using the dialogue, it's almost a movie script,

the whole thing.

And it's riveting, absolutely riveting.

Let me take a one-minute break and then we'll come back with Garrett Graff.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

If you want to have a real history book on what actually happened, The Only Plane in the Sky, an oral history of 9-11, it is absolutely fantastic.

Please get one for your library at home.

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We pause for 10 seconds, station ID.

Talking to Garrett Graff, the author of The Only Plane in the Sky.

Garrett, what was the thing that

there had to be more than one, that jumped out at you as you were going through this that you thought, oh my gosh,

I've never read this.

I haven't heard this.

This is incredible to me.

Well, I'll tell you one of the,

you know,

so many of these stories I felt, you know, just very lucky to be able to help tell and share with

America about that day.

But one that really stood out to me was I spoke to Commander Anthony Barnes, the Navy officer in the bunker with Vice President Cheney under the White House that day.

He's never spoken publicly before, and he told me for the first time the story of what it was like asking Dick Cheney, the vice president, for shoot-down authority of the hijacked airliners.

He was a naval aviator himself.

He was the person that morning running sort of liaison between the Pentagon and the White House.

And as they feared that more hijacked planes were coming towards Washington, towards the White House, towards the Capitol,

he told,

he went to Vice President Cheney and asked...

for military authority to shoot down hijacked airliners, you know, a decision that no one had ever contemplated before.

And Vice President Cheney immediately said yes.

And Commander Barnes went back a second time and asked again.

And then he went back and he asked a third time because he knew just what an order he was asking, sort of just how unprecedented.

And he wanted to make sure that there was no confusion about what was transpiring, what the authority he was asking for.

And finally, Dick Cheney got fed up and basically said, yes, I know what I'm doing.

We need to shoot down any hijacked airliner that's heading towards a population center if we can't get them to change course.

You know, just an incredible moment of that day that, you know, America

would have been unimaginable, you know, even 90 minutes earlier.

Do you get a sense at all?

I haven't read that part yet.

How do you get a sense at all about how Dick came to that?

Is it just years and years of experience?

Or how did he

get any sense of that?

Yeah, and that's really

exactly what had happened.

One of the things that we forget about Dick Cheney's career was, you know, he had been Secretary of Defense.

He had been White House Chief of Staff before.

And so he had been part of these government training exercises

for emergency operations for continuity of government exercises for years.

And so

in some ways, one of the quotes that really stands out for me in the book was Dick Cheney saying,

as terrible as 9-11 was, we have actually trained for worse.

And so I had this set of instincts from my decades of government service to fall back upon that day.

Where was Bush at the time?

So this was,

you know, Bush was just being hustled out of the Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, rushed aboard Air Force One.

And Bush, you know, was really torn that day between, and, you know, you're a student of American history, so you understand this tension, the role between being head of state, the person who is sort of supposed to be reassuring the country, and the person who is commander-in-chief, the person who is supposed to lead the military and to preserve the office of the president.

And so he's rushed aboard Air Force One.

Air Force One takes off, flies over the southeastern United States, goes first to Barksdale Air Force Base, and then eventually to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.

And through that whole day, President Bush is pushing to come back to Washington.

You know, he's

shouting at the pilot of Air Force One, shouting at his,

you know, chief of staff, staff, Andy Card, and the Secret Service agents, who effectively say, Mr.

President, this isn't your decision.

This is ours.

Our legal duty today is to protect the office of the presidency, and we can't let you go back to Washington until we're sure that it's safe.

They land at Barsdale Air Force Base sort of late morning,

and it's this incredible visceral reaction that they have, the passengers, as they're getting off the plane.

They land surrounded by armored vehicles, Humdees with 50-caliber machine guns, men in flak jackets with M16s, and they sort of realize that they had taken off in peacetime from Sarasota and that they have landed now in Barksdale, and America is at war.

Garrett, I, I, this is, um,

you've done a remarkable job.

Did you, did you,

Was there a reason you selected this style?

Yeah, so to me, it's very much,

you know,

the goal of telling the book this way was to capture the way that America lived the day.

You know, that we know the facts, and, you know,

there are some great books that have been written about it in a narrative sense.

You know, the 9-11 Commission spent years and millions of dollars, you know, compiling the world's most accurate second-by-second TikTok of that day.

And yet, what we are,

I think, sort of in danger of forgetting is what the day was like to live, what the day was like to experience.

And so, my goal for this was

that they are

trying to capture the voices of 9-11 as America lived it and not get bogged down in the facts of the day.

Really, truly amazing.

Garrett, thank you so much for your book.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

It is The Only Plane in the Sky, an Oral History of 9-11.

It is fantastic.

Get it now.

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The Only Plane in the Sky in Oral History of 9-11 is the name of this book that has just come out, and Stu and I have been

both reading it, and it's just absolutely riveting.

Things you'll never have heard before.

This one,

this is a ticket agent at Portland International Jetport.

Mike Tewhey, ticket agent.

Everyone was in a good mood.

It was a gorgeous day and things looked like they were going like clockwork.

Von Alex, ticket agent, Washington, D.C.

International Airport, Virginia.

These two guys came running in the front door looking around and didn't know which way to go.

Mike, I saw these two fellows standing there looking around.

I looked at the tickets and I go, whoa, first class tickets.

You don't see a $2,400 ticket anymore.

They were less than 30 minutes prior to the flight when they arrived.

The younger fellow was standing off to the right.

I was asking the standard questions, has anybody given you anything to carry on board the plane?

Have your bags been out of your control since you packed them?

He was shaking his head, smiling at me, so it was okay.

Alex Vaughn.

We had just finished the morning checkout, a check-in, and the counter was clear.

I said to the other agent, here are the passengers that are running late, but I think we can get them on.

Mike Touhey, I said, Mr.

Ata, if you don't go now, you're going to miss your plane.

Wow.

Yeah.

Now

you have in the book, there's another piece of

a woman who is in first class with one of those phones, you know, that you could use your credit card with.

Yeah, the airphone.

Actually, she was a flight attendant.

A flight attendant?

Yes.

And

she is in contact and talking about how they believe they've been hijacked.

And it goes through, you know, it's a minute-by-minute transcript of all of these calls.

And, you know, we've heard pieces of some of these, but I mean, the detail is ridiculous.

Let me give you this.

This is from actually Madeline Sweeney.

She was an American Airlines Flight 11 flight attendant.

She's in the middle of all this going on.

It's 8.44 a.m.

So, right, I mean, 8.46 was when the plane hits the building.

She calls

her friend Michael Woodward, who's a services manager and a friend of hers.

She says, the flight has been hijacked.

This is flight 11 from Boston to L.A.

The plane is a 767.

I'm in the back with Betty Ong, AA flight attendant.

A man in the business class has had his throat slashed and is presumably dead.

Number one flight attendant has been stabbed, and number five flight attendant has been stabbed.

There's a bomb in the cockpit.

I can't make contact with the cockpit.

Can you do it?

We have paged for a doctor or a nurse for the flight attendants.

The coach passengers don't know what's happening.

The hijackers are of Middle Eastern descent.

One spoke a good English and one didn't.

It is a rapid descent.

Something is wrong.

I don't think the captain is in control.

I see water.

I see buildings.

We're flying low.

We're flying very, very low.

Oh my god, we're flying way too low.

That's the transcript

from this, from it.

I mean, and they, I mean, it's page, every single page has stuff like that on it.

I'd forgotten too that Muhammad Atta, when he was trying to page the plane and tell them, he said,

we have some planes, just stay quiet and we'll be okay.

We're returning to the airport.

Nobody move.

Everything will be okay.

If you try to make any moves, you will just injure yourself in the airplane.

Please stay quiet.

Nobody move, please.

We are going back to the airport.

Don't try to make any stupid moves.

He thought he was talking to the actual airplane, the passengers, and he had called back to air traffic control by mistake.

So they have all of that.

I mean, can you imagine being on the other end of that call?

No.

It goes through.

I mean, it really is incredible.

So somewhere over the plains,

Major Scott Hooter Krog, F-16 pilot with the Fighter Squadron, Houston.

We started following Air Force One north.

They had just taken off from Sarasota and they were on on each wing tip.

At some point I was expecting them to turn east and head to Washington.

The longer we were heading north, the more I realized something was unsettled.

They still don't feel safe returning to Washington.

I asked for a tanker to come and meet up.

After I hooked up, I asked for every radio channel between I asked him for every radio channel between here and Canada.

Ann Compton reporter ABC News.

In each cabin on board the Air Force One, three digital clocks stare out from the bulkhead.

The LED numerals show the time in Washington, the time in the current location, and the time of the plane's destination.

All three clocks read 1.36 p.m.

Eastern Daylight Time until the destination clock snapped to central time,

12.36.

That was our only stunning confirmation that Air Force One was headed west, away from Washington.

Andy Card, also on the plane, chief of staff, there were lots of tears, there were lots of quiet moments staring at a TV screen, no conversation.

There were prayers and fear.

It was a roller coaster because we were just in the, it wasn't a roller coaster because we were in the pits.

Oh my god, this is terrible.

And that's worse.

And that's even worse.

Major Scott Hooter Krog.

It was an eerily silence on the radio.

There was no one in the air.

We were talking among ourselves, the fighter pilots, on our radios.

I wonder if we're going to Canada.

A lot of, man, this is effed up.

I also was talking the guys through what happens if we have to shoot someone down.

The world is watching.

Let's fly by the book and let's do everything we can to protect the President.

We know uh we know this is a plumb target, but we also figure no one would expect Air Force One right now to be flying over North Kansas.

Ari Fleischer uh on Air Force One.

Listen to this.

There was no live television.

It put us in a different spot than most Americans that day.

People around the world were riveted to their television sets.

We had intermittent television on Air Force One.

We had it in Barksdale at the base commander's office, but there was no email even on Air Force One at the time.

You're in the air.

You're completely cut off.

Eric Draper, presidential photographer, everyone was starving for information.

We couldn't hear anything unless the plane was flying over a major city.

Ellen Eckert, stenographer, the plane was like in this twilight zone.

There was no one aboard anywhere.

The staff cabin was empty.

The guest cabin was empty.

That's when it all came falling apart for me.

I saw one of the agents standing in the hallway, and I went up to him and I said, so this is the safest place to be, right?

This is Air Force One.

He said, ma'am, we might as well have a big red X on the bottom of this plane.

We're the only plane in the sky.

That was scary.

It didn't help.

I went to the bathroom and used one of those Air Force One notepads to write a letter to my family, six siblings and two parents.

They're never going to see this.

I'm going to burn up in a fiery inferno.

One of the flight intendants opened the door and comforted me and gave me a washcloth.

We've got this.

We have this.

We're all together.

Major Scott Krog on the wingtip of Air Force One.

Fifteen minutes after we tanked up, we saw Air Force One begin to descend.

I did the math and figured out we were probably headed to Offit.

Now we had a full tank of gas.

You can't land like that in a small plane, let alone Air Force One.

So we were doing afterburner 360s at 7,000 feet to burn off enough gas to land.

Mike Morell, president briefer Central Intelligence Agency.

On the way from Barksdale to Offutt, the president asked to see me alone.

It was just me, him, and Andy Carr.

He asked, Michael, who did this?

I explained that I didn't have any intelligence, so what you're going to get is my best guess.

He was very focused.

He said, I understand that.

Get on with it.

I said there were only two countries capable of carrying out an attack like this, and that was Iran and Iraq.

But I believe both would have everything to lose and nothing to gain from the attack.

When all is said and done, the trail would lead to Osama bin Laden.

I told him, I'd bet my children's future on that.

They talk about how Dick Cheney was picked up.

They have pictures of him in the office of the White House.

How long before the plane hit the Pentagon?

Like a minute?

Yes, it was one minute.

So they went to, I mean, the Secret Service came in and picked him up.

And I think the way they described it was that

his feet only sometimes touched the ground as they carried him into the bunker.

And it was one minute later that the plane hit the Pentagon.

Now, obviously, they at that point believed it may very well be coming to the White House.

And that's got to be a weird moment.

I mean, think about this.

You're Dick Cheney.

You're one of the

most powerful men in the world.

People do what you tell them to do in an everyday life.

And here's a moment where physically you're being taken over by other people and told,

basically, no, we're not listening to you right now.

We're going to do what we're doing.

I have been in that situation, not like on a 9-11, but been in that situation before with my protective detail when we've had a threat.

It is the weirdest thing ever because you don't.

They're not talking to you.

They're not talking to you.

They just come in, pick you up by your belt, and you're you're lucky if your feet hit the floor.

I mean, I'm a big guy, and I have been picked up and removed and thrown into a car.

It's bizarre.

It's bizarre.

And it was just a thing.

And all they're saying is, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

No explanation.

No explanation.

No go.

The only thing I heard was, go, go, go.

Watch your head.

As they threw me into the car.

And then the door was closed.

They hit it on the top.

Go.

And the car went away.

It was, it's incredible.

But if you think you're Dick Cheney,

you know, or the president on the plane, and he's like, he's shouting at them, turn the plane.

Sorry, sir.

You are not in control here.

You don't have anything to say.

When you are in that situation, you're the president.

They make the decision.

You don't.

Because you are no longer, you're their property now.

You're the office of the president.

You're not a person anymore.

You're the entire office.

I don't care, Mr.

President.

I don't care.

We're here to protect the office of the president.

Shut up.

Here's where we're going.

For the most powerful man in the world, that has got to be a bizarre thing.

And we saw that in the recent documentary, Angel Has Fallen,

where thousands of tiny drones come along when they're fishing and attack.

Wow,

just another tragedy that we'll remember

18 years as well.

Not a documentary.

All right.

By the way, on today's TV show, we have a two-day episode.

I have two people that were there in the building at the time,

and I told them

when we were recording this episode here just a couple of days ago, I had both of them together, and we were thinking about doing them separately.

And after reading their stories, I realized...

They had one thing in common, and they didn't even catch it.

After they heard their stories, I said, So, what do you think the thread is here?

And when you see the thread, it's remarkable.

And

it's just remarkable and something that you need to see tonight at 5 o'clock only on Blaze TV.

A story you've never heard, two stories you've never heard before that I think you will really, really get a lot out of, especially when you see the thread.

Blazetv.com slash Glenn.

Blazetv.com slash Glenn.

Promo code is Glenn.

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Promo code Beck.

You're listening to Glenn Glenn Beck.

You know, I think I may be one of the only ones that

am disappointed that John Bolton is leaving the White House.

And not for the reasons, you know, I used to be a hawk.

I'm not a hawk anymore.

Stay home.

Stop it.

But I liked the idea that you had somebody balancing the president who is not a hawk.

And I liked that.

Yeah.

You know, I'd like the two strongest voices in the room being a hawk and a guy who's not a hawk with the guy who's not a hawk having the final say.

You know what I mean?

If the best voice in the room who's a hawk cannot convince him, that's great.

I want that strong voice there.

And I thought it was a great balance myself.

I really liked it.

I'm bummed that he's gone.

I don't care at all who quit, who fired.

I don't care.

I believe John Bolton, but it doesn't matter.

Why are we arguing about this?

None of that matters.

I mean, you know, look, he was never a good ideological fit with the president.

I mean, the president does not want to go to war, does not want to be involved in these things.

And John Bolton is very aggressive

on those terms.

But I like it too.

I mean, the sort of team of rivals situation

is a good thing.

And, you know, he's done that several times in a lot of these different arenas where he has real strong opinions.

I mean, I think that's one of the things he really believes strongly, right?

Kudlow.

Yeah, Kudlow is not a guy in trade.

He's not a guy who's with,

excuse me, with the president on trade.

Nope.

But he's in there and he's advising, and I think that's great.

I mean, I'm for more voices, you know?

President doesn't ever need to be triggered, and he's not.

He's a big boy.

He can handle it.

Give him something that he doesn't agree with so he can reason it out himself and go, well, that's the best case.

I don't agree.

And those things work usually for a time.

There's usually an expiration date on relationships like that when you have people who are going at each other that aggressively.

I mean, Bolton

really disagreed.

I mean, the thing that apparently had set him off more than anything was inviting the Taliban to Camp David in the week of 9-11.

Couldn't be worse optics.

I mean, yeah,

that's not something that I support.

And ultimately, the president didn't support it either, as he wound up canceling it.

But, you know, I think the media leaks were an issue, or at least an alleged alleged issue with Bolton, in which he wanted everyone to make sure they knew that he was not into this idea of a meeting with the Taliban at Camp David.

And, you know, the president, eventually, those relationships, when you disagree, they can be fruitful for a while, but eventually you hit a wall where, okay, well, you're just sticking to your side, I'm sticking to my side, and we're not getting anything out of this anymore.

I hope he replaces John Bolton again with somebody who doesn't necessarily always agree with him.

This is the Glimbeck program.