from washington, "the mclaughlin group," the american original. for over two decades, the sharpest

issue one, 10 years later. [cheering] >> i can hear you. the rest of the world hears you. and the people and the people who knocked these buililngs down will hear all of us soon! >> this sunday, september 11th, is the 10th anniversary to the very day of the 9/11 attacks. on that fateful day exactly one

decade ago, al-qaeda operatives hijacked four airplane flights and used the planes as attack missiles to strike u.s. landmark buildings with their thousands of victims. two planes originated in boston, both from logan. hijackers commandeered both flights within 35 minutes from takeoff, seized controls and steered the aircraft to lower manhattan, driving them, one each, into the north and south towers of manhattan's famed twin towers. a third plane took off from washington dulles airport, was hijacked 34 minutes later by five terrorists and slammed into one of the pentagon's five sides, killing 125 pentagon officials and visitors. a fourth rplane, united airles flight 93,tookoff from newark airport and was seized by hijackers onboard who

took control of the aircraft, forcing it no a u-turn to washington, d.c. before reaching targets in dc, presumably the white house or the capitol, the passengers of the ua flight confronted the hijackers and forced the plane to crash-land into a field in shanksville, pennsylvania, 65 miles southeast of pittsburgh in order to averted the horrors of a white house or u.s. capitol impact. there were 19 hijackers in the four planes, plus 226 plane passengers and crew. no one survived. and all four impact sites, the two twin towers, pentagon and shanksville, some 3,000 lives were lost, including the 19 hijackers. this september 11th, 2011, we have yet to experience another terrorist attack on u.s. soil. former journalist fbi agent, and u.s. intelligence official

john mill points to the reason why no plots have been actualized. even though 40 to 50 attempted tacks on the u.s. have been uncovered since 9/11. >> the intelligence there has time and time again extraordinary work done by the c.i.a., the nsa and our agencies, the fbi has stopped those attacks in their tracks, either bybyactions overseas or things here. >> and most importantly, commander in chief barack obama carried out an operation in may that killed osama bin laden, the mastermind and underwriter behind the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist horrors. without bin laden, and with the recent killing of al rahman, his second in command, al-qaeda now its two top leaders. question, is president obama carrying on the bush-cheney war

in every way except calling it bush-cheney? pat buchanan? >> yes, and he's been i have' good commander in chief, he's took down osama bin laden and kept guantanamo open. al-qaeda's being decimated and decapitated in afghanistan and pakistan, due to the president in part drone attacks. that is the good side. the tough side is this, john -- the zone attacks are during a lot of collateral damage, they're expanding the universe and the hatred of the united states in that area, and they're creating a larger pool in which al-qaeda fishes. al-qaeda has also even though it's in tough shape there, it's metastasize ode. it's al-q-qda in arabia, in yemen, somalia, libya, and in addition to that, this entire war on terror and again the president's done a good job, has caused us for a decade to ignore a really rising challenge, which is the rising challenge of china as a rival

super-power of the united states, while we've been focused on nation building and the rest. >> eleanor? >> this president is not going to eradicate all terrorism. no president could do that. heis trng to bring thwars in iraq and afghanistan to an end, but when you steer the shape a stay, got to avoid sudden moves. and i think he has made adjustments to the bush-cheney policy. i don't think we do what -- anymore. no extraordinary rendition. and i think he has changed our image around the world. but this is a war, if you use the bush terminology, the war against terrorism that has been very costly to this country and coinues to be costly. not only two to wars, the extraordinary medical costs associated with it and as pat says, the lack of a decade's worth of not paying attention to our internal problems. we have american businesses

scrambling to get b-1's to bring in people abroad from other countries to fill jobs that we should be educating people in our schools. and when the president goes before the congress and has to beg for money to modernize schools and build science labs, that's just one small example of the cost we've paid with the exceceive focus on terrorism. >> rich? >> john, i think given what the kind of attack we saw, the jacksonian spirit still runs so eye in this country that you'rer you're going to see a very strong national response. we'll go out and hit 'em hard. that's what we did. i think this whole -- we heard from the left, across 10 years about how we lost touch with our values, was utterly false. there is no serious become lash against muslims in this country. there's no violation of civil liberties, certainly not compared to the lincoln, wilson or fda administrations. and what have we done overseas,

maybe not naively, maybe arrogantly, but we've attempted to spread a decent system of government. so it was a strong response p fundamentally a good response, that talks to -- speaks to our profound decency as a people. >> before we go overboard, let's listen to this. john miller, flip it. >> the flip side of that, though, is when they're pumping outs over the internet magazines with bomb-making instructions and tactical advice for how do a shooting that are on the internet and available to millions and millions of people, some of whom may be followers, that's pretty hard to keep a thumb on. >> how worrisome is the interin the in the recruitment of new al-qaeda? >> i think it's certainly one of the principle ways in which the recruitment is taking place. it's a very efficient way do it. it's a very easy way to communicate amongst a group of people who are essentially

terrorists. and we -- you ask are we going to be continuing the bush policy? the united states is still the number-one target. that's not going to change for a long, long time. and we're just going to have to be in a position to defend ourselves, and it's going to take all sorts of -- the one that i worry about the most, which is the one which we're the most is accept in, is cyber terrorism. we're being attacked in the cyberspace domain, and it's hugely dangerous for this country. and sooner or later we'll have to deal with that. >> what is cyber terrorm? >> well, people are xbasically breaking into -- they can break up our electric power grids, transportation networks, a whole range of american businesses are being basically hacked in all secrets sole stolen. all kinds of ways we can be basically in items of our normal functioning and sooner or later that will happen. >> the detroit underwear

bomber, he was an incompetent times square bomber, he was incompetent. but there's no doubt miller is rrect, outstanding work of e fbi and the security agencies, they've run down a lot of stuff. you're not going to get they will all. one day these people will hit us again. >> miller is quite congratulatory about the investigative functioning of the united states' various entities, and they clearly did a fantastic job. but he in that same interview with piers morgan does say there were some breaches in one of the breaches of the underwear bomber, i think there was that detroit plane -- >> times square. underwear bomber on times square. >> then the times square with the -- >> shoe bomber. >> shoe bomber. >> it relies on vigilance of the american public, and american people get a lot of credit for disrupting. and this weekend people will have to be u think --

>> excuse me, the white house counter-terrorism advisor says he does not sub vibe to do the inevitibility there thereby another attack. >> you think mayor bloomberg is being alarmist by stopping every car going into manhattan? >> i don't think he is being alarmist at all. there's recently been a discussion of the role of the new york city and the counter- terrorism proportion of their activities. they stopped 7 terrorist attacks in new york city alone. so this is not something that's going away. >> let's not make a mistake here. bush administration adopted policies that made us safer, that was smeared for. for years the patriot act, the terror wiretapping, and then the obama administration in its wisdom adopted them once it cameinto office. but these were policies that were very controversial at the time. >> how about that invasion of iraq? you count that as keeping us safer? cost a little money. >> i do. >> lot of people angry. >> exit question.

all right. >> there's a huge battle -- but when we went in there, there was a huge battle with al- qaeda, but the left in the country wanted to lose. they wanted to give that up and we bet the hell out of them. >> exit question, is al-qaeda a spent force? yes or no? >> al-qaeda is capitated, and it is badly damaged in afghanistan and pakistan, but it is now decentralized, john. and you've got a lot of these separate groups in yemen and somalia, in libya, and all these places, so it's a dangerous thing. it's like one of these snakes that that carved up into a couple pieces and they become smaller pieces. >> eleanor. >> spent but since the millenia people will use terrorism and use violence to achieve their means, we're not to be able to ericate all of that. >> much reduced but still dangerous. >> yes, and there is just an explosion of radicalism, and

that part of the world that gave birth to al-qaeda and this won't go away. and we'll still be the principal target. >> our cause of that quite frankly, our intervention has exacerba1ed that problem and increased the hatred of this country, across that part of the world. >> exactly. but it also gave birth to the arab spring. there's a narrative american,ing. >> good narrative? >> good night 95 we'll see. al-eda is totally irrelevant to the arab spring. >> and that is a good thing. >> yes, absolutely. >> as a matter of fact, arab spring fights in the face of al- qaeda? >> absolutely. >> so al-qaeda is unwelcome? >> absolutely. >> i think al-qaeda is a spent force, and there's also the money factor. i don't think the money is there anymore because of osama bin laden. he brought a lot of money in. money and terrorism go hand in hand. people can be bought. >> i agree. >> that means we're living in

thera of lone wolf terrorism. that's hard to get on a big scale. and it can usually be found out. >> i would agree. but there's still -- >> dangerous. that's timothy mcveigh and that can be very dangerous, john. >> not if you're on the alert for it. the way we have a condition of ongoing alerts. should be -- should we be on a status now at and period of wartime alerts? >> look at major hassan, the single terrorist at fort hood, 13 dead soldiers, 29 wounded. >> on a different scale with al- qaeda, obviously. >> president obama just on friday afternoon renewed some proclamation that the u.s. is on emergency alert because of terrorism, and i guess -- >> who? >> the president, our president. so -- i think -- >> intelligence of a threat. that's why new york is going through what it's going through now. >> a lone wolf threat? >> we don't know what kind of threat. we just don't know how big it is.

all i can tell is that -- >> not like the al-qaeda role? >> for the first time in the last decade, going on both the west and east issue two, ponzi and perry. >> it is a ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you are paying into a program that's going to be there, anybody that's for the status quo with social security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids. and it's not right. >> social security, the entitlement program that currently provides income to 35 million retirees, is a ponzi scheme. why? because it misleads our young citizens. so declares texas republican governor rick perry during his g.o.p. presidential debate on wednesday night. a ponzi scheme is named after the man who created the ripoff,

charles ponzi. a ponzi scheme occurs when a sham investment pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, not from any actual profit earned by the business. perry believers that social security is a ponzi scheme because the social security trust fund will be empty, gone, nada, by 2036, 25 years from now. so says the obama administration, in fact. in the report supplied to upon request from the white house by the social security administration. perry added if elected president, he won't abolish social security. he will transform it, and that transformation will be gradual. it will not come immediately. >> people on social security today, men and women who are receiving those benefits today or individuals my age on -- in line quick to get them, they don't need to worry about

anything. >> perry elaborated in his book titled "fed up." question, is it in the nature of a pay as you go social security system that it does resemble a ponzi scheme? mort? >> yes, you know, there was a cartoon in the new yorker p sob was asking bernie madoff what was your inspiration? he said social security.

okay? that's true! i'm not making that up. okay. so that's in fact, what you have in social security as we all know, millions of people who will be beneficiaries over the next several decades, and the funding still isn't there. if nobody is willing to address it either by postponing the age at which you get it. so in one sense it's clearly a false basis for the financial structure. >> before we proceed with this, i have to emphasize that you must go to the exact quote of governor perry. he's talking about the corrupting effect it has on the outlook of young people today, because they think there's going to be a social security fund. and he's careful to say that. >> he's not thinking about social security. he's talking about the impact on young people and the falsification that is present to them because there's not going to be anything there. so it's a ponzi scheme as far as they're concerned! it's limited to them! >> we all know that -- >> he is 61 years old, he'll

continue getting the benefit. so stop the scare tactics. >> john, there is no trust fund. they say look at trust fund. they borrowed it and spent it! there's an iou. he's telling the honest, tough, hard truth. is it smart politically? romney is stomping all over him for saying it. >> you notice in the new york times does not treat this ponzi matter, whereas on the air this was seized as a weakness and a terrible -- mistake and a -- >> the ponzi language is not most dangerous to him. if he goes if a general election saying it's a failure and unconstitutional, but no one believes in the financing of social security over the long-term. but it's a mistake for romney to take this on now. >> let's look at romney doing that. >> no ponzi side here! >> no, you catil after this. rom nee on the ratings. >> perry's leading rival, former massachusetts republican governor mitt romney was quick

to pounce on perry's word. >> our nominee has to be somee who isn't mmitted to saving social security! >> is romney correctly representing -- >> no, he's not going to abolish it. he hammered it very well. >> he said i'm going to transform it. >> he's right, it is a fraud. but that will be a problem. >> before we turn governor perry into a saint -- on social security in his book he says it was a failure from the start, and he said he doesn't want on relitigate the 30s and 40s. but would you stress someone to reform the program who thinks it was mistake? that's where he ivulnerable. >> i have a problem with -- >> if you want to reform it, you cannot communicate a general hostility to the program. that's where he is on thin ice. he'll end up with a common sense republican program to grandfather in, everyone over 55, and then make changes for the younger generation. and that is saleable.

>> acceptable changes. [everyone talking at once] >> ronald reagan and tip o'neill reformed social security. and -- . >> it's not that hard. >> nobody -- [everyone talking at once] >> you mean it's a mistake written? >> no -- >> it's a cap, you take the cap off so people like how make more money -- >> there we go! >> well, i don't like this fixed retirement age. it's baloney. brought in because roosevelt wanted to free up jobs so he induceeds retirement. but it's -- [everyone talking at once] >> issue three, stimulus 2. >> i am send this is congress a plan that you should pass right away. it's called the american jobs acted. there should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. everything in here is the kind

of proposal that has been supported by both democrats and republicans, including many who sit here tonight. >> president obama this week turned up the heat on his political rivals at a joint session of the u.s. senate and house. mr. obama announced his elaborate plan to create jobs. here are the main elements. one, infrastructure, invest billions of dollars to rebuild roads and bridges. and especially, get this, new public schools. this will mean jobs for workers in all kinds of construction. two, aid to states and local governments for hiring. federal money will be given to hire more teachers and more emergency personnel. tax credits to hire new workers, who motivate business and bring on new employees, including returning veterans. four, more take-home pay. employees will have less taken out of their paychecks by

reducing outlays to social security and medicare, so an employee who makes $50,000 a year will get an additional $1,000. five, unemployment compensation. extend that to compensation for one more year. also in order to boost consumer spending, the president hopes that more money will allow for more consumer spending, the big lever of the u.s. economy. which, by the way, wentupin june and july. u.s. unemploymentntnow stands a 9.1%. but 26 of the last 28 months the unemployment rate has been at 9% or above. americans who have been outs of work for six months or more now number 6 million. that number has dragged down the president's approval rating, the percentage every americans who approve of #his job performance as president of by the way, president obama's

amican jobs act will cost $447 billion. question, what is the difference between stimulus one and stimulus two, just presented by the president, the american jobs act? richard? >> will well the race of taxes is higher. but it's warmed over leftovers from the first stimulus, the idea that there's shovel-red projects that will make a difference in jobs. even president obama has put scorn on that idea. the funniest thing was his line that he was going to tell us how to pay for it, a week from monday, which is a classic, the check is in the mail line. he won't tell us how to pay for it. >> there's a lot of basically pork and earmarks, or another term for infrastructure. but i think that $4,000 tax credit for long-term unemployed, some of these others things if i were the republicans, would you pick and choose in there -- i do agree it's a dog's breakfast -- pick and choose in there and give

him something, don't do had they did to harry truman, give him noing and enable >> it's a dog's breakfast but it's a liberal's feast because it's clear and something he'll for for and take to the country. and it's more than half tax cuts. the republicans are going to be shamed into going along with it. so he's going to get something out of this. >> i got a question for you. >> not people at the upper end like you, but -- >> no, i'm with hn among the rich? >> your famed leader said after stimulus one, this would keep unemployment under 8%. >> they've got lots of -- >> now it's 9.1%. >> minimum forecast at the time. >> why should we believe the jobs act will lower the unemployment? >> it's not going to work,. >> not going to work. >> no, it's not going to work. >> it's not going to work. >> no, if you think it's going to work -- >> but the centerpiece is more

money for working people and a tax cut for businesses, small businesses. >> you got five seconds, mort. >> the reason is because that's going to affect -- computation by two or 3%, companies are not going to hire people because of compensation 2 or 3% less, and people are aren't going to spend the extra money because they're worried about the job, because the real unemployment rate is 19%, not 9%. and everybody knows th forced prediction, who will be the next republican to drop out? >> weak vote for huntsman. >> rick santorum. >> i hope michelle -- huntsman. >> huntsman. >> michelle bachmann. >> probably santorum. bye-bye!

no. well, it's just past there. first house in the right after the cottage on the l don't panic. brazen it out. me? - no. - right. here goes. yippee!