captioning sponsored by newshohour productions, llc >> yang: good evening. i'm john yang. judy woodruff is away. on the newshour tonight: mandating the vaccine. how the president's inoculation requirement for millions of americans might be enforced in the workplace. then, 20 years later. how the 9/11 attacks shaped american foreign policy over the last two decades, for better or worse. >> only after we understood better what the nature of the terrorist threat was, did we become more careful and more precise. and i think those early mistakes really cost us. >> yang: and it's friday. david brooks and jonathan capehart discuss the anniversary of 9/11, the politics of vaccinations, and the california recall election. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> the john s. and james l. knight foundation. fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and friends of the newshour. and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> yang: president biden is firing back at republican critics of covid vaccine mandates for most american workers. some g.o.p. governors are threatening to file lawsuits over the issue. this morning, while visiting a school in washinon, the president told his opponen to "have at it."

>> i am so disappointed that particularly some republican governors have been so cavalier about the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communits. this is-- we're playing for real here. this isn't a game. >> yang: florida governor ron desantis is one of the republicans opposing the president's policy. he attacked it today, in ponte vedra beach. >> when you have a president like biden issuing unconstitutional edicts against the american people, we have a responsibility to stand up for the constitution and to fight back. and we are doing that in the state of florida. >> yang: desantis won a round today in a related battle. a state appeals court allowed him to enforce a ban on mask mandates for public school students. that's pending a final ruling

on that order. we'll return to the vaccination fight after the news summary. in afghanistan, the taliban allowed more people to leave kabul today-- the second departure in as many days. they were on a qatar airways flight that reportedly carried 158 passengers to doha. white house officials say 19 americans were on board. president biden and china's president xi jinping have had their first direct talk in seven months. the white house says mr. biden initiated thursday's 90-minute phone call. the united states is pushing for progress with china on both climate change and north korea-- despite disputes over cyber- security, trade, and human rights. china's foreign ministry says xi warned that u.s. policies are the problem. >> ( translated ): tod, the international community isacing a lot of common challenges. china and the u.s. should show broad visions, and demonstrate the strategic courage and political resolve to bringing the china-u.s. relationship back to the right track of stable development as soon as possible. >> yang: hours after the

two presidents spoke, three activists in hong kong were charged with subversion in china's ongoing crackdown on dissent there. the three had organized a vigil marking the bloody 1989 suppression of protests in tiananmen square. back in this country, the elecic utility entergy reports 98% of its customers around new orleans have power back, 12 days after hurricane ida. some 220,000 others remain in the dark across southeastern louisiana. in the pacific, murk hola caused damage in mexicand later veered out to sea. los angeles dodgers pitcher trevor bauer will not return to play this season. he's under investigation over sexual assault allegations, and has been on paid leave since july. today, major league baseball extended that leave through the world series. the dodgers are the defending

world champions have the second best record in the major league. a major ruling today in a tech fight. a federal judge in california ordered apple to stop making app developers use its payment system in the app store. it charges up to a 30% commission on some sales. eliminating that charge might mean lower prices for apps. the judge ruled for apple on other points, and rejected claims that it's running an illegal monopoly. and on wall street, the apple ruling weighed on tech stocks and the broader market. the dow jones industrial average lost 271 points to close at 34,607-- down 2% for the week. the nasdaq fell 132 points today. the s&500 gave up 34. still to come on the newshour: how the 9/11 terror attacks shaped american foreign policy. the smithsonian helps to preserve the memory of that day through artifacts. two teenage tennis breakout stars meet in the women's final of the u.s. open. and much more.

>> yang: the vaccine mandate president biden announced yesterday is the most aggressive step he's yet taken to get shots in the arms of the nearly 80 million eligible americans who are not yet vaccinated. william brangham explores what the move means for companies and their workers. >> brangham: this mandate, where employees have to get vaccinated or face weekly testing, will be enforced by the federal agency that sets workplace safety standards, osha: the occupational safety and health administration. joining me now to help us understand this policy might actually work is david michaels. he ran osha from 2009 to 2017. he's also an epidemiologist, and served on the biden administration's covid transition task force.

he's now a professor of public health at george washington university. david michaels, great to have you back on the "newshour". let's stipulate from the outset, this mandate has caused enormous controvers g.o.p. governors across the country are threatening lawsuits, there is likely to be a wave of litigation about this. we are not talking about that. we're talking about how this might unfold. from your experience at osha, how does this get enforced? >> osha doesn't need to do a lot of enforcement because most employers want to be law abiding and they will look at the rule and say how do we make the rule? their attorneys and hmm r. specialists will say this is what we feed to do so that alone will have a great impact. >> so you think employers even before the rule comes out and is officially stamped on u.s. government letterhead, they might actually roll this out in advance of that? >> our experience in osha at

every rule that we put out is employers anticipate the rule. they say we're going to have to do this in weeks, months and years and they start making the changes to meet that rule. so i wouldn't be surprised if we saw that immediately. this rule is going to come out relatively weekly, in weeks, i hope. once it comes out, employers will say how do i do this? many of them will be relieved. they would like to do this now, but they understand it's controversial, but now they will be able to say, look, the federal government says we must do this and, therefore, if you want to come into work here, you need to be vaccinated or need to show us you're not infectious, and that's the key. osha says to the eployer, you have to make sure your workplace is safe. your employees don't have to be vaccinated. there's no vaccination mandate per se that says you can't let someone in your workplace that is very likely to be spreading

the virus. >> reporter: from your experience, has osha ever tackled a vaccine requirement like this before? we think of osha as governing repetitive stress and things that would hurt you while you're in the workplace. this seems like a different thing. >> it's a little different. osha has a requirement that, in healthcare facilities, workers have to be offered a hepatitis b vaccine and if they don't want to be vaccinated, they have to sign saying that they have been offered the vaccine because the risk of hepatitis b used to be quite significant in healthcare facilities. it's not significant now because gosh has a rule that said workers have to be protected. but this is a step forward, but still within the philosophy of osha which says the employer has to make sure the workplace is safe, in this case the hazard comes from unvaccinated workers, so you've got to control the hazard. it makes sense within the law. i'm not worried about legal

challenges to the law. >> reporter: does it complicate matters from an enforcement measure that we don't have a good way of proving who is vaccinated. we have the c.d.c. cards but there's an ocean of counterfeits out there. it's basically an honor system. does that complicate it? i think it does complicate it. if an employer shows they tried to do the right thing, if they don't succeed, they won't be cited, and that certainly could come up here. but i think the expectation is if you suspect a worker has a counterfeit card, you probably have to pull some strings an figure out whether it's true or not. but that's going to behe exception. >> reporter: i want to ask about penalties. the white house covid coordinator was asked today about the penalties involved in this, and he was a little reluctant to get into that but they say they could be upwards of $13,000 per infraction.

from your experience, do penalties work as a leaver? >> you know, penalties work as a disincentive for small employers. large employers generally look at penalties as a minor cost, but they don't want to be cited by osha because osha put out press releases, and turns out press releases saying this employer violated the law or this regulation, and we saw that, that is much more effective with many employers. they don't want to be in an osha press release. one study by an economist at duke showed an osha press release gets as much compliance -- this is in safety -- as 201 inspections. so the fear of an inspection and the fear of citation and the monetary pnalty, i think, will motive some employers, and osha has lots of tools, and that's certainly one of them. i think employers will see, you know, they've got to take this seriously. of course, many will do it anyway, and i think it will have

a very big effect. >> reporter: lastly, p ut your epidemiologist hat on for a second. do you think, in the end, this will serve the purpose the president intends it to serve, with i is will this get more people vaccinated and save people's lives? >> yes, it's the right first step, but it's not adequate. there's really comlling evidence that vaccination alone is not going to stop this pandemic, it's not going to stop spread, we know that. what we need to do is apply the basic common sense public health precautions, masking in indoor settings, improving ventilation and filtration to make sure the air is clean and doesn't have virus in it. i think this is a lost opportunity. while we're telling employers to make sure their workers are vaccinated, we should also be saying make sure people wear masks in situations where it's important to do that, where people are congretatin whether restaurants, gymnasiums,

warehouses. make sure you've done everything you can to make sure clean air is coming in. if it's not, let's put up god filters to make sure we're catching the viruses. it's an important first step and i think will have a great impa. >> reporter: david michaels of george washington university, thank you so much for being here. >> my pleasure. >> yang: tonight, we've been marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. tonight, we look at how that day and its aftermath reconfigured america's role in the world. judy woodruff leads the conversation. >> woodruff: john, we want to step back a moment to ask whether the united states made the right decisions in response to the attacks, and how, 20 years later, those decisions have changed the way the united states fits into the international order. for that, we get three views. robert grenier had a 27-year

career at the c.i.a., and was the station chief in pakistan anafghanistan. on 9/11, he played a key role in the u.s. ouster of the taliban in 2001. he waslso director of the c.i.a.'s counterterrorism center from 2004 to 2006. he's now a consultant. corey shaoqi worked on the national security council staff, and then at the state department during the george w. bush administration. she's now director of foreign and defense policy studies at the american enterprise institute. and, frank wisner had a many-decades-long career in the foreign service. he was u.s. ambassador to india d to egypt, among other places, in the 1960s. he worked with the u.s. agency for international development in vietnam. he's currently a foreign affairs adviser to the law firm squire patton boggs. and we thank you all three for being back with us at the "newshour." robert grenier, let me start with you.

as we mentioned, you were in southwest asia when 9/11 happened. you were there watching this unfold. looking back, did the u.s. make the right moves at that time? >> i think we did. we often talk about the u.s. invasion of afghanistan. in fact, it really wasn't an invasion at all. we only had a few hundred special forces operators and intelligence officers who were on the ground in afghanistan, very importantly, aided by u.s. close air support. but we came in very much with the idea that we needed to aid anti-taliban afghans to take charge of their own future. we departed from that model very seriously later on, but i think that we started out in the right way. >> woodruff: and corey shaoqi, you, as i mentioned, joined the bush administration. but it was after 9/11 when you did. reflecting on that time, were the right decisions made? >> you know, i think we made a lot of mistakes, actually,

because we were acting out of fear. my strongest impression joining the bush white house after september 11th was how fearful senior policymakers were that they hadn't kept america safe. and because we didn't understand the dimensions and even the nature of the threat we were facing, they made choices that were large and imprecise. and only after we understood better what the nature of the terrorist threat w, did we become more careful and more precise. and i think those early mistakes really cost us. >> woodruff: and, but-- but the initial mistake, the decision to go into afghanistan, and then not long after, into iraq. >> i don't think the decision to go into afghanistan was a mistake, but i do think the decision to invade iraq was a mistake of historic proportions. >> woodruff: we can talk about that a little more. frank wisner, with the benefit of hindsight, what does it look like to you, whether there was

wisdom in what the united states was doing at the time? >> i think that as we look, in hindsight-- you're quite right to put it in that perspective in the two previous remarks-- underscore the fear that we entertained as a nation. but i think i'd add one other point. it's worth refcting on. and that is a sense of arrogance, aense that the united states could do what we ended up doing in afghanistan, a sense of hegemony on the world stage coming out of the cold war. and that lack of restraint, lack of sense of having to work in an international system, meant that we were unleashed to act on our own. and that led to many of the mistakes that followed. >> woodruff: robert grenier, from your perspective, was there a sense, at the time, that the united that there was almost a hubris, an overconfidence on the part of the united states? >> i think if we look this

over the span of 20 years, i very much agree with ambassador wisner that we, as a reaction, ultimately was disproportionate, that rather than aiding afghans in direction that we hoped would, we're down to our own interest as well. we essentially took over the-- the entire endeavor. afghanistan became too important to leave to afghans. and i think that what we tried to do was, involved expenditures, both in terms of money and blood, as well as risk that were ultimately greatly disproportionate to the actual national security intest involved. >> woodruff: frank wisner, i want to broaden this out, to-- to ask the three of you about what this experience of 9/11 has led to for the united states 20 years later.

is this-- is our country still in the place that it obviously is 20 years later? but in terms of its leadership in the world, role in the world, how we are seen by other countries? how do you reflect on that? >> well, i reflect on it with some deep distrust. i feel very disturbed about it. i look back at these 20 years and i see our own domestic culture of tolerance having been eroded. i see a break down in our politics, which the war on terror certainly fed into the trillions of dolrs spent, not spent on public health and education and infrastructure in this country. i think we took our eye off the ball as china began to rise on the world stage. and we didn't adapt, didn't react to that in time. and then we put ourselves in a position where we were a threat

to the sovereignty of nations in the middle east, where muslim opinion in particular reacted negatively. so as we take a step back and look at it, the standing of the united states in the world today is diminished, and, well, that is the result of secular changes over many decades. the 9/11 response, the war on terror response, the way we went about it-- that has significantly contributed to where we stand today, and we stand in a diminished place. >> woodruff: corey shaoqi, do you see it the same way? the united states has diminished from what it was in 2001? >> i think that's true internationally. i think we squandered an enormous amount of goodwill. if you think back to the reactions of people and countries had right after september 11th, the enormous amount of goodwill for the united states, we squandered a lot of that with the policy

choices we made in the aftermath in the next few years. and we dramatically underestimated how much soft power, that magnetism, that attractiveness of american society, reay affect international attitudes out us and-- and we-- it's very much in our national interest to rebuild that goodwill because it makes everything we are trying to do in the world less expensive and easier. >> woodruff: robert grenier, does that say that what the united states should be doing now is forward-leaning? the u.s. should be thinking about how it leads as the indispensable nation, or thinking more about how do we work with other countries? >> well, i would say both. i-- i don't subscribe to the view that somehow the u.s. is completely discredited on the world stage. obviously, i think we have diminished in terms of our image, but we remain the

indispensable nation. there are things that-- that we are doing that need to be done in the world that frankly, only the united states still can do. i think it's most important, however, that we do it in conjunction with others. and i think withdrawing from the world is a big mistake. i think we need to remain engaged and very much as a leader, working in concert with allies in like-minded countries. we're no longer the dominant power that we were even coming out of 1989 and the end of the cold w. we are one nation-- a leading nation, a nation with huge purpose and huge resources-- but one among many. and we have to balance our interests with our capabilities, and recognize in a multi-polar world, we have to build alliances, and have to come to terms with adversaries. that's the big challenge for americans today, as they readjust their view of the world and our place in it. >> woodruff: so finally, robert

grenier, in terms of lessons learned-- what the u.s. needs to-- lessons the u.s. needs to have absorbed from the terrible experience of 9/11, what would that be? for me is that we have to be aware and cognizant of the limits of our own power, what we can reasonably accomplish, and to have the discipline and the wisdom to recognize those limits and to act accordingly. >> woodruff: and, corey shaoqi, lessons? >> we ought to have more perspective, keep things in perspective, and have a longer- term horizon for sustaining an international order that's very much in the interest of american security and prosperity. and by overreacting to the terrorist threat of 9/11, we squandered a lot of american strength. >> woodruff: and frank wisner, you get the last word on this question about lessons.

>> we need to be very careful, apply ourselves within strictly defined objectives, be careful that we use military force only as a last resort, that we have a preference for political, diplomatic and intelligence, as well as economic tools, as we make our way in the world. but we do not lead with our military force. >> woodruff: frank wisner, corey shaoqi, robertrenier. we thank you all so much for being with us. thank you. >> thank you. >> yang: on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the deadliest terror attack in the country, we are in the midst of another calamity: covid-19. here to break down the political aspects of all this, the analysis of brook and

capehart. that's "new york times" columnist david brooks, and jonathan capehart, columnist for the "washington post." gentlemen, we just ladder judy lead a discussion about the foreign policy aspects of all of this. and certainly i can, looking back on 9/11, i remember how we felt changed from this. but looking back, looking backward at it, how did we change? are we changed as a people, as a nation, as a political system, david? what's your take? >> well, it's a globe. it was the first act of the 21st century. i was a foreign correspondent in the '90s, covered nothing but good news. the end of apartheid and the oslo peace process. it was convergence, china was liberalizing. we were communicating with each other and thought the internet was a good thing back then. then 9/11 happens and a group of terrorists said, we don't want

to be like you, we reject you. that was a shock. other shocks -- the chinese stops liberalizing, we don't want to be like you. russia goes to putin, we don't want to do that. the 21st century is the reerection of barriers and 9/11 was the first shocking foretaste of a much tougher world. >> reporter: jonathan, you were working for mile bloomberg? new york. >> i was working on his first of three mayoral campaigns in new york city, and it was primary day, and i remember waking up, lived in a highrise, so i had a perfect view of the city, and it was crystal clear day. i remember walking to the voting place, looking up at the sky and thinking, this is a spectacular day. still to this day, that is -- i'd never seen a day like that in new york city. and, you know, all hell broke loose, about 90 minutes later that morning. lots of things changed that day.

we were in the middle of a mayoral campaign. the campaign stopped. at one point, while we were watching the coverage on television, someone asks out loud, has anyone heard from the mar -- meaning rudy giuliani at the time -- who, on primary day everyone was looking forward to turning the page from rudy giuliani's mayoral take and the rest is history. i think in these 20 years, just to add on to what david was just talking about, we've seen a lot of what i think of as one giant step forward and then two giant steps back. one giant step forward was the election of barack obama's president of the united states, first black president. but a huge step back was the election of donald trump as president. another huge step forward, the election of joe biden as president of the united states. another huge step forward, marriage equality. but another huge step back to my

mind, one was the fact that even though donald trump lost election, he got 12 million more votes than he did in 2016. so it just highlights the divisions within the country. then the ultimate step back, january 6th. my colleague carlos said this morning on television that how i orange it is that -- how ironic it is that on september 11 there were reports the plane that went down in shanksville was headed to crash into is it capitol and, yet, at almost 20 years later, the capitol was ransacked by domestic territories who lay siege to the u.s. capitol at a time when the members of congress were certifying the last election. that, to my mind was the ultimate step back. and to your point about, you know, the world turning away from democracy, we have that

issue here at home right now. >> reporter: so, jonathan, what i hear you saying is that other forces have changed politics more since 9/11 than 9/11. >> oh, i think so. i think maga and the domestic terror threat is much more worrisome than any foreign threat we could face. >> i think we thought we had some debates settled, and the settlement was liberal pluralism, democratic capitalism, and the world is sort of evolving away from some sort of primitivism, then suddenly 9/11 happens and afhanistan and al quaida and i.s.i.s. so apparently we're not evolving away from that. capitalism, 2008, that sort of disillusions that. then barack obama, 2016 disillusions that. covid, can't function as a people, we've lost faith in each other.

so it's been a sad epoch of disillusionment, not without good things, as jonathan said, but just look at the figure -- do you trust your neighbors? do you trust the people around you? a generation ago 50, 60%. now it's 30%, 19% of millennials. and this is the world they've known and their distrust is an earned distrust. so this is the legacy of what we faced in the past two decades. >> reporter: and we are in the midst of another calamity,he pandemic. as we have been focusing on 9/11 this week, it struck me, someone pointed out to me that every two days this week, with covid deaths, we have essentially had another 9/11 and also had another 20-year afghan war in terms of the americans who've died. this week -- or yesterday the president tried, after resisting mmadates has ordered mandates.

david, what do you think of that shift? is this going to work. >> in 2001, george bush had a 90% approval rating. we were unified. we're not anymore. the government mandates, i think the government has a right, i nonetheless think it's a mistake. if you go to a town, nebraska, chicago, north carolina, you say who's trusted here? in every neighborhood people gives you the same names. everybody knows who the nodes of community is in their community. i thought it was public health 101 that you go to the grassroots level to who's trusted in each neighborhood and try to get them to influence people to uptake vaccines and do anything else. having a top-down, highly-partisan process from the part of government that is disliked the most, the politics that is distrusted the most, it seems to me the wrong way to go,

and it seems to me it's going to create a backlash where a lot of people like joe biden say hell, no, i'm not taking the vaccines now, and the way we've gone about it is counterproductive. >> in this day, the grassroots aren't working. from the bottom-up, it's not working. the president has resisted doing what he did yesterday forest time, facing enormous criticism from lots of people, asking why isn't washington, why isn't the president doing something, exercising all the power that he has to do something, hoping that neighbors would trust neighbors, people would listen to health professionals, and it's not happening, and the anger in the country at the unvaccinated is palpable. i am one of those people. howard stern is out there, you know, cursing at people to get vaccinated because he, quote, he wants his freedo back.

millions of americans, the majority of americans want their freedom back and i think that the presidt was channeling that anger. and on behalf of the majority of the american people who just want their neighbors and friends and co-workers who are resisting getting the vaccine or even putting on a mask, just do these two simple things, and we could be clear of this faster than we could imagine. but folks aren't doing it. if they're not going to do it voluntarily, then the president decided i'm going to click some levers to make it happen a little more quickly, and i don't think it's going to backfire on him. >> reporter: as david pointed out, this is generate ago huge amount of anger from people who don't like joe biden to begin with. the republican governors say they will go to court about this. is this going to be -- is it going to backfire? >> john, it was bound to happen. republican governors were bound

to be against anything that the president proposed, and, quite frankly, republican governors, especially the governor of texas, don't want to hear anything from him, given that texas abortion law he signed -- bill he signed into law. >> i would say the government doesn't even know how to do grassroots in. washington people think top-down. they think, let's get celebrities, that will persuade them. that's just lame. if in every church, pastor, in softball leagues, if neighbors got together among the avenues of trust that exist and say you can't play in the baseball league till you get shots, it's neighbor talking to neighbor, less political and partisan and doesn't happen on its own. we're in a sophisticated company where swarms of people know how to create activity across networks andhe government isn't capable of thinking that way. >> rerter: are people going to use this as a cudgel against

the president, the democrats in 2024? >> absolutely. they've had trouble trying to figure out how to attack probed, but as a friend said they have their line, inconscious national, inconstitutional, running your life. that's a line republicans know how to use. i don't want to associate myself with them, i think they're being crazy, i think we should all be vaccinated but that's a pretty effective line. >> reporter: we have a democratic leader who got into trouble because of covid and the reaction he's going, governor gavin newsom in washington, 46 candidates running to replace him if he is recalled. what are your thoughts on this, jonathan? >> this is insane that the governor of california who has a high approval rating, high 50s, low 60s, that he is facing a recall simply because people don't want to wait until the next election to exact

whatever revenge or to hold him accountable, so they're going to attempt to get rid of a popular governor and then, due to maybe apathy and low turnout, he could get recalled, and then, yeah, there are 46 candidates, but the one leading person, larry elder, is somebody who is seases -- i mean, he's from the trump schl and trump wing to have the republican party, he is also african-american, and, you know, i'm almost speechless because i cannot believe california is in this mess. yet if democrats don't come out and vote and don't return those ballots, i think the election is next week, if not next week, the week after, governor newsom could be history. but i don't think that's going to happen, but the fact that we're talking about this just demonstrates how crazy our

politics are now. >> the pattern in the referendum of nos is going to rise at the d. i love democracy but not direct democracy. california overdoes it with the referendum and they overdo it with this. we elect people for terms for a reason and the reason is sometimes they have to do unpleasant thingthat are going to make them unpopular. and if you can be recalled as a moment's notice, they're not going to do those things. it's not like the ratings on tv where you cancel a show if it has a bad season. we go through ups and downs with our politicians. >> reporter: david brooks, jonathan capehart, thank you very muc >> thanks, john. >> yang: with memory of 9/11 fading for some, and images of that day unknown to a younger genetion, the smithsonian institution is piecing together history, object by object.

william brangham is back with a behind-the-scenes look, part of our arts and culture series, "canvas." >> brangham: tucked away within the national museum of american story in washington, d.c. are some of the most personal and poignant relics from september 11th. >> there are people that really wanted to make sure that the loss, the sacrifice, the loss of their loved ones was recorded. >> brangham: in 2002, congress tasked the museum with preserving the story of 9/11 in artifts from that day, and beyond. >> collecting is truly a black art. there's-- there's no book on how to do it. we wanted to collect those icons, those really important pieces, that-- that create a signpost. today, there are deniers of the holocaust. we hear from afghanistan that-- that the taliban is denying that osama bin laden was involved in

september 11th, that-- that having those artifacts that make it undeniable that something happened is so critical. >> bngham: there is no special exhibit right now, in part because of the pandemic, but the museum rotates many of its some-300 objects from 9/11 in and out of exhibitions. >> this is a piece of steel from the world trade center. we traveled to the scrap yard, picked out a piece that that we really thought looked like the emotion of-- of-- of the place, and collected it. the world trade center was assembled like a tinkertoy set, in little pieces. we could actually figure out whose office this was, who it represented, and allowed us to >> brangham: in addition to the steel beam, other items from that day are this airphone from flight 93, where passengers and

crew fought the terrorists and downed the plane in rural pennsylvania. and this i.d. card, worn by navy commander patrick dunn, who'd kissed his pregnant wife goodbye before heading to the pentagon, where he was killed in the attack. there's the cellphone used by then-new york city mayor rudy guiliani, as he helped his city respond. the angry aftermath of 9/11 is reflected, too. this sikh turban belonged to balbir singh sodhi, who was murdered in a hate crime, mistakenly targeted as a muslim in the days after the attacks. other powerful objects came from the donations of loved ones. new york fire chief joseph pfeifer was one of the initial commanders on scene at the world trade center, directing firefighters up into the burning towers. one of those firemen was his brother, kevin. >> and we stood there and we looked at each other, wondering if each of us was going to be

okay. and then i told him to go up, to evacuate and rescue people in the building. and that was the last time i saw my brother kevin. >> brangham: his brother's body was discovered in the smoldering wreckage days later, along with kevin's "officer's tool," an implement used to wedge open doors. >> we knew it was him because, on the back of his bunker gear, it had his name. and lying next to him was his officer's tool. and they put him in a stretcher along with this tool and covered him with an american flag, and and we carried them out of ground zero. >> brangham: joe pfeifer later donated kevin's officer's tool to the smithsonian. >> i hope that after seeing the artifacts and-- and knowing the that they represent what i call ordinary heroes. that day, as my brother was

coming up, people were coming down, and he was-- he was telling them, "don't stop, keep going. you can get out of here." he stopped to take and redirect people from one stairs to a safer stairs, a faster way out. i'm sure he used that tool to-- to point. doing ordinary things in an extraordinary time made a difference. >> brangham: 20 year ago, univision reporter blanca rosa vilchez-- in her blue suit-- was out covering the new york mayoral race. but when the towers fell, millions watched her in real time. after days reporting on the attack, vilchez put that outfit-- unwashed-- into the back of her closet. years later, she too donated it to the smithsonian. >> what if we learned in these two years. this person with that jacket is alive. how is she doing now? what happened to the country in 20 years? and if that jacket talks to us,

the question itself, that jacket doesn't belong to me, it belongs to a >> brangham: that outfit will soon be part of a new, larger latino exhibit, examining 9/11's impact on that community. >> individual communities were affected on different levels. this is our opportunity to be able to tell their story. it allows us to see the broader story, especially after 20 years. >> brangham: in another area of the museum, photo curator shannon perich continues to add to the 1,000 photos the smithsonian has gathered to help document that day, and its ripple effects. >> this is a body of work by photojournalist ashley gilbertson, who created a-- who created a series and a book called "bedrooms of the fallen." it's an homage to those soldiers who gave their lives in the line of duty in afghanistan in particular. but it also reminds us of where the war takes place.

it takes place at the home front. >> brangham: for the past 18 yrs, the smithsonian has been building this time-capsule- like collection, including this clock from the pentagon-- frozen in time, the moment t plane hit-- a reminder for all time. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham. >> yang: the public can share stories, see photos and artifacts, and watch discussions on the national museum of american history's website, www.americanhistory.si.edu. >> yang: for their first assignment of the school year, high school journalists from our network of student reporting labs asked educators in their schools about the significance of teaching 9/11, what the events meant to them, and why it's important to study

the history before and after that day. >> for my generation, i mean, this was a defining moment of our childhood. anso, that fear that, like, it could potentially happen again, is kind of always there. >> our whole sense of normalcy had been snatched away from us in a matter of about five minutes. >> you guys are, you kno one of the first generations to be born after 9/11. and so, for you, it's kind of more abstract. >> every year, when it comes to 9/11 and teachers start mentioning it, the kids kind of roll their eyes. like, we already talked about this year, you know, about this. which is probably what i did about world war ii or vietnam or something, when i was in school. but there is a reason why we teach it every year. why we bring it up. is because it was a group trauma that america suffered. >> 9/11 signified what's best about america-- that in a time of crisis, a time of attack, we have this ability to band

together as a nation. >> a lot of the negative stereotypes that came out as a result of 9/11 followed my family and myself all through my childhood. and even today, is still where i will be in a wal-mart parking lot and i'll be called a terrorist out of nowre, just because of something that happened 20 years ago. >> we talk about it as if it's a singular day. and the singular day is scarred into our collective national memory-- and it should be. but to understand it requires more than understanding when the first plane took off. and then, when the sun went down on september 11th, there's just a lot more to that story. >> ireally helped me understand how stupid i was, how much you just don't know about the rest of the world. why did they do that? where did they come from? who are these people? and so, in that regard, it was a blessing for me, because i started to study other cultures and had no idea that people thought this way.

>> we just ended a 20-year war with afghanistan, the occupation of iraq. we don't even know how many people were killed and displaced. and it's because we don't really think about the people we're killing and displacing. they're on the other side of the world. >> it was certainly in my lifetime as one of the-- was the first time that i realized that the united states is vulnerable to outside attack. so i think that u should learn that the outside world matters, and our impact on it, and its impact on us. >> yang: tomorrow's u.s. open women's singles championship match will be a fairy tale ending, no matter who wins. the finalists, 19-year-old leylah fernandez of canada and 18-year-old emma raducanu of

britain, were barely known just a couple of weeks ago to anyone other than the closest followers of the sport. stacey allaster is the u.s. open tournament director-- the first woman in that job-- and the former c.e.o. of the women's tennis association. she joins me from the open in new york. stacey, who are these two young women and tell us a little bit about their paths to tomorrow's match the last couple of weeks. >> well, they have become instant stars in these last two weeks here in new york at the u.s. open. leylah had her 19th birthday here. she's from canada, she's been playing the sport since she was seven years old. comes from an athletic father, an ecuadorian soccer player, mom is a french canadian of filipino dissent. i've seen her in the juniors for a few years and everybody kept talking about her. it's incredible. she beat three grand-slam

champions to get to the final of a major here inew york, incredible. and emma is a similar story of incredible accomplishments here in three weeks, emma played in the qualifying, where you're trying to earn your way into the main draw. she beat the olympic gold medalist. she's been playing since she was five. these two young athletes are lifers, been playing a long time, and they are having their fairy tail moment here on arthur ashe. >> reporter: emma, not too long ago, was finishing her high school finals, final exams, what they call the a-levels in great britain. as you say, they've developed quite a following in their march to the finals, what's this going to be like? what do you anticipate tomorrow to be like in the stadium? >> well, we have had, john, the most incredible two weeks. everyone keeps sayinthis has been the most exciting u.s.

open. the fans just seem to be energized at a different level. maybe it's because to have the pandemic, and they're just so happy that they can come to a live sporting event, and/or is it what's happened on the court? and it has been unbelievable matches. we've played almost 20 hours more than what we had scheduled on espn. so the quality of the competition, the fans have been into it and the fans helped lift up these two particulars. everyone loves the underdog and each athlete has said that the fans helped pull them through to this final moment. i cannot wait for tomorrow. it will be electric, and history ll be made tomorrow afternoon. .>> reporter: this is a sport where the favorites tend to be the same usual names tournament after tournament. what does this do for the sport to have these two young women, fresh faces, in the finals? >> it's an exciting time for our

sport. we have been blessed with serena williams, we've had her in the draw for almost a quarter of a century. i've with un, as we started this tournament, we don't have serena, we don't have roger, we don't ve raffa due to injure. where is the future and the champions? i said at the start to have the tournament, what we know as legacy athletes begin their next chapter of life, the next generation comes along, they stand on their shoulders and they take the sport to the next level, and these two athletes have done it, and it really is then fantastic to bring more youth to our sport, for the usta, our mission is to create new, diverse participants, to have two athletes of color and of asian dissent is fantastic for the growth of our sport. that's really it at the end of the day, they inspire kids to

come to our game, and we want everyone to feel welcome to play the sport of tennis. >> reporter: you mentioned the legacy sport stars of this game. i have to ask you, as we sit here, we will know later tonight whether novak jobvich will play in the finals sunday for a chance to be the first calendar year grand slam winner. in the 52 years since rod labor did it, talk about the significance of that. >> the fact that a male hasn't won a grand slam since 1969 just shows you how hard physically it is to do. and novak, alongside of 20 majors, this will be 21, so there's that historic moment, and with the pandemic and the difficulties of performing week in, week out, i think it is even further incredible that tonight and possibly sunday he will be

going for the calendar grand slam. it is really historic and he's written his own legacy irrespective of what happens tonight. >> reporter: stacey allaster, tournament director of the u.s. open. you have a big weekend coming up. thank you very much. >> thank you, john. >> yang: and on the pbs newshour online, saint nicholas greek orthodox church in lower manhattan was destroyed by the 9/11 attacks. 20 years later, it's reopening, as a shrine to victims. read more about the reconstruction, and how organizers are paying tribute to those killed and first responders, on our website. that's www.pbs.org/newshour. and coming up on a special edition of "washington week," my colleague, moderator yamiche alcindor, and her panel mark 20 years since the 9/11 attacks, and discuss how the day changed america. that's tonight on pbs. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm john yang. join us online, and again here on monday.

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