today we commemorate september 11th, nearing the 20th anniversary of the day, the hour, the moment that moved us out of an old world and into a new age in which we now live. nothing, of course, can be said, no image shown, no memory recounted here or elsewhere that will adequately honor the dead from that day or from the last 20 years. for those americans who gave their last full measure of devotion in the fight against the darkest forces of error. lincoln's words at gettysburg resonate still and will be important over the next 24 hours we cannot dedicate, we cannot

concentrate, we cannot hallow this ground, the brave men and women living and dead who struggled here have concentrated it far above our power to add or detract. and so it is today, because at the pentagon, and willie is at ground zero. a location every bit as sacred to americans as gettysburg or the edmund pettis bridge or the waters surrounding the "u.s.s. arizona" and, of course, the patch of land in shanksville, pennsylvania where the heroes inspire us still. let's go to willie. >> joe, good morning. on this september 10th, you think about this day 20 years ago and as you put it well, this is the last day before everything changed, september 10, 2001. we know at 8:46 when the first

plane hit the north tower behind me, our world changed, america changed, but the globe changed as well. we're now at the end of a 20 year war that was launched because of the attacks at that day. here, at the pentagon where mika is and shanksville, pennsylvania. i have to say coming here it's never any less powerful when you walk up to the beautiful memorial that's been here for ten years and look at the names etched forever into a pool and look at the waterfall, down beneath the surface, down where the world trade center towers once stood. it still hits you. i grew up in new jersey, there were 12 people in my town who died, including my next door

neighbor. members of my own family escaped the building, one of them pregnant, running down 70 flights of stairs. but you don't have to have that close of a connection to it when you're here. i'll get the cliche out at the top. it's hard to believe it's been 20 years because the memory is so vivid, that day is so sered into our hearts, souls, and imagination. and now as the sun comes up over new york city and we approach the 20th anniversary, we think about the people who were lost here, who came to work, came to work in the buildings, of course all the heros from the fire department, police department, and port authority who charged into the building. we'll talk to andy carr who delivered the news to president bush that day, jeh johnson, and two members of the new yorked from -- of the new york fire

department. >> i am at the pentagon this morning where 20 years ago tomorrow, the flight struck the western side of this building just past 9:37 a.m. eastern time. 184 people were killed in all. 125 in the pentagon building and 59 on board the plane. a group of children, their chaperones and national geographic society staff members were on board that flight embarking on an educational trip. we also learned later the casualties could have been even worse. the plane struck a section of the pentagon that was being reinforced and was largely unoccupied because of that renovation. i have david ignatius here with me. we'll speak live with retired rear admiral john kirby just ahead about this. and the latest out of afghanistan. there's also a lot of other big

stories we're covering this morning. los angeles is now the first major school district in the united states to require vaccination for eligible students. under the new regulation, all children 12 and older in l.a. public schools must be fully vaccinated against covid-19 by january 10th in order to attend in person classes. los angeles is the second largest school district in the country with more than 600,000 students enrolled. more than 5,000 students have tested positive for covid since the start of the school year. that news came after president biden unveiled sweeping new plans. the administration's strategy could impact more than two thirds of the american workforce. peter alexander has details. >> reporter: with covid cases surging and deaths now five

times higher than a month ago, president biden is requiring tens of millions more americans to get vaccinated. >> we've been patient but our patience is wearing thin and your refusal has cost all of us. this is not about freedom or personal choice. it's about protecting yourself and those around you. >> reporter: the president is ordering nearly all federal workers and employees of contractors that do business with the federal government get vaccinated within 75 days eliminating their option to be tested in instead of getting shots. employees who refuse can be punished, even fired. >> get vaccinated. >> reporter: while initially reluctant to issue mandates, the president's plan requires vaccinations for 17 million health care workers. president biden is now pressuring private countries, too, directing the labor department to require businesses

with 100 or more employees ensure their workers are fully vaccinated or provide a negative test each week. companies that do not comply could face fines, the white house anticipating lawsuits. >> we're going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated coworkers. >> reporter: all of it as approval of the president's handling of the virus dropped from two months ago. >> we're in the tough stretch, it could last for a while. >> reporter: the tsa is doubling fines for airline passengers who refuse to mask up. >> if you break the rules, be prepared to pay. and by the way, show some respect. >> show some respect, let's bring in white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. and dr. vin gupta, an msnbc news contributor. jonathan, to you, this is

obviously a move by the white house that many people would consider politically courageous, the fact is, an overwhelming majority of americans support these moves despite the fact that republicans and republican governors, i'm sure most of whom if not all of whom have been vaccinated already. despite the fact that we're hearing a lot of complaints from them. they are loud but they are definitely the minority. >> joe, the white house framed this as a sweeping escalation of the president's plan to combat the delta variant. and escalate the vaccine mandates across the country. pushing the federal government and federal workforce, leaning hard on businesses, drawing up regulations that could require strict vaccination or testing requirements for 80 million or more americans. this was the president giving voice to the frustration of those americans, the majority of

americans who have already been vaccinated against those who have not been inoculated who are putting everyone else at risk. there was real anger from the president at moments yesterday and senior white house aides said this is something that's been eating at him and his team for a long time now. they put out the vaccines and made it available to everyone and they're doing everything they can to make people take them, to avoid the step of mandates but they have no choice. you're right, the south carolina governor, for one, said he would fight this to the, quote, gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every south carolinan. the white house feels like they can overcome any objections. this is going to be a fight but one the white house and the

democrats believe they're right and the public backs them up. >> joe biden does things that 60, 70% of americans support and southern governors saying they're going to fight him to the gates of hell to stop what most americans support. as mike allen said there's certain historical parallels there with the 1950s and 1960s. yet you have republicans in texas running over what 70% of americans want and other republicans around the country supporting. a texas abortion law that's unconstitutional. a look at how the two parties are operating now. vin gupta, how important is it for the president to step forward and move towards vaccine mandates like we have done -- let me say again -- for over a half century for every child that goes to school? >> joe, good morning. what we're seeing in l.a.

county, obviously this is going to be a local and state decision in determining what happens in their school districts. you'll see the paradigm repeat itself across the country and should. the department of education can flex some muscle here. just to build on what jonathan mentioned with regard to work places, it's going to take some time. the occupational safety and health administration hasn't written the executive rule yet requiring vaccination or proof of a weekly test. over the next six to eight weeks, how long it will take, we'll lose nor americans. there's going to be bleed in time. businesses across the country that i've spoken to, help advise, they were looking for this cover. they didn't want to tell their workforce they were going to man date out of step with what the government was saying.

now that the government has said do this or that, this has provided coverage because it was a tight labor workforce. this is a choice to get vaccinated or provide testing. you'll see more employers choose to mandate vaccines because the testing is constrained. if they go the testing route, who's going to pay for that test? to make that option work they have to put the cost of the test onto the unvaccinated employee, that's the way the option will work to encourage up tick of the vaccine. >> we heard republican governors promising lawsuits against this mandate against businesses. we've heard many people will lose their job, because they'll choose to leave their job rather than get the vaccine. we've heard extreme republicans talking about civil disobedience

in the country because of what the president said. how much did that weigh on his mind, it served a philosophy like he had in the presidential campaign which is to block out the loud minority and go with what he believes is the majority position in the country. >> yeah, the biden campaign and then the biden white house is good with doing that, blocking out twitter with the loud voices, and look at what a majority of americans want. i was reminded that during the transition, back in december, he said he didn't think a vaccine mandate would be needed. and the reason why, aides that i talked to said in the last couple days, is he said he believed americans would want the vaccine. let's flash back to last december, before the vaccine was readily available. remember how difficult it was to schedule an appointment to get a vaccine, because there was such demand and months later the

government can't give them away to certain parts of the country. this has been an evolution, the president has not wanted to take these steps. did not want to go the route of a mandate but now has and has also allowed for the possibility he will do more in the months ahead if there are stubborn segments of the population that don't want to get the vaccine. the white house believes they can fend off the political storm, take on the legal challenges. they're happy to have the debate with governors about the vaccine. they believe they're right and more and more americans will realize that the vaccine is the key to regular life, opening up the economy again and they believe there will be some americans who have been hesitant to get the vaccine who feel they now have to do keep their job, make sure their kids will stay in school, and they believe it's an important step the president has made and he's reserving the right to make others. >> so often we heard about the

anger from the minority, the small minority that are against doing the responsible thing to help businesses stay open, to keep hospitals, emergency rooms clear. dr. gupta, you talked about the anger, we talk about the anger from conspiracy theorists and others. there is, joe biden's right, a growing anger as the new york post calls the unvaccinated the new 99%. they are the 99% filling up emergency rooms, they are the 99% who are in hospitals, and the most critical portions of the hospital. they're the ones that are causing insurance cost -- or will cause insurance costs to go up, they're the ones shutting down schools, they're the ones causing the need for mask mandates. they're the ones, right now who are causing the chaos still

because we have a way to end covid-19 and they won't take it. how do you feel going into emergency rooms and knowing that of the -- the covid patients there with serious, serious problems that are really draining resources from hospitals across the country that they're the unvaccinated who choose not to take the cure? >> joe, i'm taking this segment from an icu here in seattle as we speak. 30 patients behind me under my care in incentive care. everybody with covid, we're a five-state referral center, five states around us come to seattle to get care if they need advanced care. what we're seeing, to your point, exactly the case, everybody with covid is unvaccinated, requiring the most intensive care, two to three nurses, respiratory therapists you name it. what does that mean? it's redirecting resources from

other people who need an elective procedure, those coming in who need intensive care. we talk about rationing care as if it's a fatal end state we're hoping to avoid. no, it's happening. it's happening in portland, oregon where people can't get the help they need. we don't have enough beds in the icu. this is happening in zip codes across the country, not just florida, and that's the direct result of people's choices making otherwise irresponsible decisions. so there is a reason why people are angry because this is impacting everybody's ability to stay safe and healthy. >> dr. vin gupta, thank you so much for being on this morning. and joe mentioned the department of justice yesterday, filing suit against texas over the state's new restrictive abortion

law. here's pete williams with more. >> reporter: barely a week after the law took effect and after the supreme court declined the block it, the justice department took swift action to fight it in court, concerned that the law results in a near total ban on abortion in texas. >> this kind of scheme to null fie the constitution of the united states is one that all americans, whatever their politics or party, should fear. >> reporter: texas designed the law to make it hard to challenge in court, a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, earlier than many women know they're pregnant. it does not make abortion a crime, it says anyone other than a state official can file a lawsuit for $10,000. the law denies women the right to seek an abortion, deprives the federal government the power to enforce that right and blocks delivery of federal health care.

but legal experts say fighting the law won't be easy. >> the question is a law blocking the state will also block private parties from enforcing, block copy cat lawsuits by other anti-abortion advocates. that's the tricky part here. >> jonathan lemire what more can you tell us about this major play by the doj? >> certainly the pressure had been mounting in the days since the law was passed and the supreme court let it stand in a middle of the night decision from democrats and those across the country, the white house, the administration to do more, we've heard some sharp rhetoric from president biden about this, deeming this law un-american, to use his phrase. and now we're seeing the escalation of measures by the department of justice. this lawsuit here, they recognize it's going to be challenging, there's real concern that other states will follow suit. and i'm told by aides this is not going to be the last thing the doj does and other members

of the government. president biden wanted a whole of government response here to try to reverse what's happening there, protect women in texas and their right to get an abortion and to crack down on the vigilante aspect of this law in which say an uber driver could be sued for giving a ride to someone to get an abortion. i'm told this is an important step but not the last one. now to the story developing out of afghanistan during our show yesterday morning. for the first time since the u.s. military withdrawal from afghanistan, the taliban allowed a plane carrying americans and others to leave kabul for qatar. others are still trying to cross by land to neighboring pakistan. molly hunter has more. >> reporter: the first international flight taking off from the taliban run kabul airport, americans on board a

u.s. facilitated evacuation plane to doha, qatar. the first since u.s. troops left and a far cry from the chaotic runway scene two weeks ago. the state department said they invited more than 30 american citizens and permanent residents but not everyone took up the offer. there will be more flights but due to an ongoing terror threat no details in advance. on board, 113 people, alongside americans,canadians, brits and germans. >> reporter: this is it, after a journey that started in kabul through an airport controlled by the taliban these passengers are coming down the steps here in doha to safety and security. >> reporter: for those so desperate in the last two weeks over land has been the only way out. we headed up pakistan's pass to the border crossing with

afghanistan. the new taliban guard we spoke with said pakistan isn't letting all these people. the military is having us move back. but these sisters made it. >> if you had stayed under taliban rule, what would that have been like? >> the big problem was that girls were not allowed to go to school. there was not education place. >> reporter: they're headed to ottawa, soon to be canada's newest refugees. >> let's bring in associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius here with me at the pentagon and katty kay joins me as well. david, i'll start with you, a lot to talk about, almost 20 years to the day on the attacks against america. how precarious is this situation with the taliban as we try to get more and more people out, is

there concern things could fall apart? >> yesterday's flight was good news, obviously for the americans on the flight, the dual nationals. it's good news in qatar has acted as an intermediary. they've been a very effective go between between the united states and the taliban government. and then, finally, this shows that the taliban, who now form this very traditional looking government in kabul, at least seem to be understanding international demands that more people be allowed to leave. there's still many americans north of kabul that are of great concern. it's not clear that the taliban is fully prepared to let these americans, dual nationals go from that venue. but we're just in these first stages where we're trying to figure out how do we communicate

with the new government, what will the government do? >> is it hopeful that qatar stepping up helps hold this them to account from several fronts? >> one of the truly hopeful signs for me is that qatar, a long-time contact, host of the taliban, during all the years of negotiations taliban officials were in qatar, that qatar is able to play a role as a bridge between the east and west. there are other countries that may play a similar role. this is going to be a long road back and people should take heart this first flight left. there's supposed to be another one today, we'll watch that. but after the scenes of chaos that we saw last month as the government fell and this american project in afghanistan really ended, we've got -- this is just a first step. >> yeah. willie geist?

>> katty, i'm at ground zero where effectively the war in afghanistan that just ended, at least america's involvement began 20 years ago tomorrow. the idea was to degrade al qaeda's capability to attack the united states, drive them out of the country, something that the military was capable of doing. now the concern is what happens now the american military is no longer there, do the terror groups, does isis move in and reconstitute and establish a capability to attack the united states. how does the biden administration plan to handle that side of it? the worry is that threat grows again and what will have been gained after 20 years of stopping it? >> that's on the minds of everybody in the intelligence community and the military establishment, they've been vocal about the prospect there could be a revived terror threat

in afghanistan. you're standing there on the eve of this extraordinary anniversary and we're still worried about the prospect of a terrorist threat out of afghanistan. some things have changed in terms of intelligence sharing, the dots were there before 9/11, but they weren't connected between the various intelligence agencies often because of rivalries and bureaucracies, that has changed. the 9/11 commission did set a better pathway for information sharing within the united states and the united states and its allies. so we're better defended than we were on the eve of that attack. we can work with our allies, we can work with each other, even if there is a resurgence of isis or al qaeda in afghanistan, even if the taliban were to change saying they don't want those actors on foreign soil i think

our intelligence community would be better prepared to prevent an attack. but we're in a position of con tell me -- contemplating that after trillions of dollars and so many lives lost in that war. >> david ignatius, let's have you explain to those viewers questioning why the taliban is allowing americans and others to leave the country, why there appears to be a modicum of cooperation at this time. the taliban needs funds unfrozen they're in no mood to do that. the chinese are wary of afghanistan, sending warnings about terrorism there. they're going to give them $30 million right now for food, maybe 300 million. but they're not jumping in

there. so can you talk about the situation? it is precarious getting people out but also right now if the taliban wants to set up a functioning government in afghanistan, if they want to stay in power, they need funds and they need them unfrozen. >> joe, the taliban is, by winning, it inherited a situation for which they're radically ill-prepared. this is a rural movement drawn from the remote districts of afghanistan. at their height they never controlled more than 40% of the country. and in these 20 years of war, afghanistan has become much more an urban country, it's connected by cell phones. people watch television, they root for their saifrt soccer teams. it's a place not all that different from its neighbors. this traditional government look at them in their traditional garb looking like what they are

typically, religious judges sitting in a cabinet trying to run a country that has gotten used to moderate, had cash flowing in, $18 million of american money pumping up the afghan government. afghanistan exports about $2 billion a year in product. so the taliban have to figure out how to be rulers in this country. i think for me and mika being at the pentagon on this day before the anniversary, i think of all the thousands of americans who went to afghanistan, the service men and women, to try to -- to take the fight to al qaeda. this is the place that it began. this place was struck, 189 people died here as they died in new york. in the beginning of this story, the story ended in a way that shocked many of us, the sudden fall of the government in kabul

and the taliban suddenly, almost to their surprise, joe, inheriting responsibility for the country. it'll take them many, many months to learn. the question is, as they're trying to learn will they reach out for help to people who can help them. it's good they asked the qatari to reopen their airport. they have no idea how to run an airport. it's good they asked for help. but it'll be interesting to see that now they do depend on outsiders. still ahead on "morning joe," dr. anthony fauci is warning that americans are now getting infected with covid-19 at ten times the rate needed to end the pandemic. we'll explain that. plus, more as we remember 20 years since 9/11. president george w. bush first learned of the september 11th attacks while reading to a class of second graders in florida.

the man who discreetly delivered the news to that president of that unfolding crisis, former bush chief of staff andy carr joins us next, along with former secretary of homeland security under president obama, jeh johnson. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. right back. at usaa, we've been called too exclusive. because we only serve those who honorably served. all ranks, all branches, and their families. are we still exclusive? absolutely. and that's exactly why you should join. it's my 4:05 the-show-must-go-on migraine medicine. it's ubrelvy. for anytime, anywhere migraine strikes,

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160,000 new infections per day. that's not even modestly good control. which means it's a public health threat. he added in a country of our size, you can't be hanging around and having 100,000 infections a day. you've got to get well below 10,000 before you start feeling comfortable. fauci also said the longer it takes to end this pandemic phase, the bigger the chance we'll end up with a monster variant that not only eludes vaccines but also is dangerously transmissible. willie? this morning we are marking 20 years since the september 11th attacks on this country. this picture captures the moment president george w. bush was informed america was attacked. his chief of staff interrupted the president's visit to a

second grade class to tell him about the planes. and andy carr joins us now along with jeh johnson. good morning, gentlemen, great to have you with us. >> great to be with you. >> let's start with you, andy, i said at the top of the show it never gets less powerful to be here. >> literally 20 years ago was the day people woke up with no fear. september 11, 2001 did what the terrorists wanted to do. fear is their ally, their mode of operation. they attacked us to try to have us be so afraid that we would collapse. instead, it was a unifying moment. very, very sad. but america had all of its people giving up the labels of the past, republicans or democrats, they said we are american we will not let fear drive the way we do our

business. so it changed the world, changed america, but september 10, 2001 was a day we woke up happy, no fear, went to work, some people were getting ready to take trips from boston to los angeles or from newark, from dulles airport and everything changed on september 11th. the message i delivered to the president i knew was a misor the you can message, i didn't want to have to deliver it, he certainly didn't want to hear it. >> you said that was to be an easy day for the president. in the life of a president, it was, he was doing reading exercises with second graders in sarasota, florida. take us through what happened. you informed a plane had hit the first buildings, the first report, we remember it was a small plane we couldn't imagine what it was going to be. what happened from there? >> i was standing at the door to the classroom, the principal and the president had gone into the classroom with the president believing that a small twin

engine prop plane hit a tower at the world trade center in new york city. when the door shut, i'm standing there and a navy captain, deb lowrie came up to me and said, sir, it was a commercial jet liner. i had the fear the passengers of the plane must have had. that was a nano second because captain lowrie said my god another plane at the world trade center. i knew it wasn't an accident, a coincidence. i knew it was an organized attack. i actually reflected on the initials bl, osama bin laden. i knew about the attacks on the world trade center in the '90s. and i knew the president was in front of second graders, a press pool, i assumed there would be a microphone over him. i stepped into the room, thought

about what i would say and when the students were told to take out their books to read with the president. that's when i went up to the president and whispered in his right ear, a second plane hit the second tour america is under attack. i believe my words caused the president to reflect on his job. no longer was the presidency about his agenda, it was about the oath of office he took to preserve, protect and defend. i was impressed how he reacted when i told him. he did nothing to introduce fear to the second graders, demonstrate fear to the media, that would have demonstrated it to the satisfaction of the terrorists. i was impressed with how he reacted. he stayed there long enough for me to get ready for him to get back to the room. >> you had worked in the government, working for a law firm in midtown on september 11,

2001, secretary johnson, it didn't seem possible that a commercial airline could hit those buildings. >> i was one of those americans, 9/11 happens to be my birthday. and i remember vividly, i drove in from our home in new jersey out here. the weather was a lot like it is right now, a crisp, beautiful, blue sky day. got to work early in midtown manhattan, same law firm i'm with now. i was sitting at my desk and i heard somebody next door to me say a small plane has hit the world trade center. and from my office i had a view down sixth avenue at this site right here. i could see it and i thought to myself, that's not a small airplane. and the moment i'll never forget was watching the first tower collapse. because it had been, as you know, willie, a permanent fixture on the new york city skyline for so long.

i took family there, to windows on the world. my son was 3 weeks old, i took him up to the observation deck in 1994 and to see that tower collapse was incomprehensible. and it changed me, it changed our nation. the department of homeland security didn't exist in 2001. and here we are 20 years later, we built back bigger. i'm a trustee of this memorial here today, i'm proud to say. and i think it's important we learn the lessons of the past and honor the bravery and the suffering of those who died that day. >> you, as you said, ran this newly formed homeland security department under president obama. the threat matrix is something we hear about a lot. we heard how the military went to afghanistan and protected from further attacks on our soil

for 20 years. which on 9/11 anything was possible we thought we would be attacked again and soon. what did it look like to have a spread sheet in front of you of what the world looked like, the threats were? >> the corner stone of our mission was counterterrorism. it was the reason dhs was formed. so that was my principal focus. in the course of the day you're concerned about terrorism, aviation security, maritime security, cyber security, the coast guard. andy was with secretary of transportation when the coast guard was with him pre-9/11. immigration, of course. and a whole range of thing. i think it's important that one cabinet level person have eyes and ears on all those threats. but terrorism and the threat of terrorism was my principle concern.

and the threat of terrorism has evolved greatly since 9/11. >> joe has a question for you. >> andy, i want to start with you, obviously so many tense moments on that day, i saw the apple tv documentary where you talked about -- and others talked about what was going on on air force one, the pilot, after the second plane hit, putting an armed guard outside the cockpit door because he didn't know if it was an inside job if somebody on 9/11 -- or something on the plane could have crashed through the doors. but also extraordinary moments where you had to confront president bush, who understandably, wanted to get back to the white house, wanted to get back to washington d.c., didn't want anybody to think that he was running away from anything but you and the secret service had to deliver the

message, mr. president, it's not safe yet. can you talk about those extraordinarily tense moment and how difficult it was for you to have to tell our president, you're not going to get your way here. the secret service is not going to give you your way because this is their plane. >> i remember the president saying we're going back to washington d.c., can't wait to get to the white house. i said, mr. president i don't think you want to make that decision right now. i went up and spoke to the pilot of air force one and mark tillman said i'm not going to land at andrews air force base unless i know it's safe to land there. the secret service said they were not going to allow the president to go in a motor cade or be in a helicopter over the city without knowing that it would be safe. so i kept talking with the pilot, to the secret service, the president really was arguing with me. and i wrestled in my mind is he saying that as president or commander in chief? i decided he was saying it as

president. he wanted the image of him being back at the white house but i knew he had to have the tools to meet the responsibilities as commander in chief and protect the country. so we went to barksville air base first, trimmed down the number of people on air force one. he recorded a message for the american people that was released as long as we took off from the air force base, we went to strategic air command where he had good communications with all aspects of our government. and then he turned to me and said can we go back to washington d.c. now? i checked with the air force and secret service. the secret service was acquestionsing, i'm not sure they were enthusiastic but they acwested but we flew back to washington d.c. i'll never forget the jets protecting air force one. but then you could see the smoke billowing out of the pentagon.

and the president said that's the face of war in the 21st century. we flew down to the potomac, hugged the river and popped up behind the lincoln memorial. we then went into the dining room off the oval office, worked on a speech and at 8:30 delivered a short but significant address not only to the american people but the world. he said to every world leader, if you harbor terrorists you're as guilty. and that changed american policy. >> it was an extraordinary moment. as willie suggested earlier, so many americans thought more attacks were coming. secretary johnson, 70% of americans soon after the attacks thought there would be other attacks on our homeland, like the attacks on 9/11. i'd love for you to talk about, in these divided days and we've

had divisions in this country for some time politically, but talk about how you, as president obama's secretary of homeland security, worked alongside with republicans, also how you took many policies from the bush administration just like you tried to pass onto your successors, and i'd love for americans to understand that not everything is red state and blue state america. that, in fact, you had to work with everybody. and because of it, we have gone 20 years without another 9/11. >> well, we had to work with republicans, we had to work with the republican congress when i was in office. when the obama administration came in 2009, i started as general council of the

department of defense. a lot of the legal lanes in this post 9/11 conflict had been established during the bush years. so we knew the lanes we were allowed to operate in, and a lot of people believe that many of the things we did were similar to what the bush administration did. but by that point we knew where to operate. in my view, joe, homeland security, national security has to be a bipartisan issue. i worry very much today because of the polarized nature of our government and our nation that if we were to have another 9/11 crisis, our government would be incapable of effectively responding and bringing about a national response among the american people. the proof of that, obviously, is covid and what we're dealing with today with covid.

how americans view covid, how americans view the vaccine has broken down largely on partisan lines and the death toll is now over 650,000 in this country. it didn't have to be this bad, unfortunately. >> i was talking to alice greenwald who as you know runs the 9/11 museum. if 9/11 happened today would the country feel the way it did 20 years ago? and i think the hard answer is probably not quite. thank you both for being with us. joe? our next guest said 9/11 was a test and the books of the last two decades showed how america failed, carlos lozata joins us now ahead of the 20th anniversary. he read and re-read 21 books about 9/11 and america's response to the attacks. and carlos, what you wrote in

summation was extraordinary. a lot of failings. i do, if you could recount on this day, how you ended on the article. an extraordinary story of what the 9/11 commission happened on flight 93. >> thank you, joe, for having me on today as we approach this an -- anniversary. there were moments of heroism in the moments of 9/11. in the pentagon, outside the towers and flight 93 where the passengers resisted, rather than allow the plane to be -- to strike probably the capitol building. that story became lionized in 9/11 lore, but what detail i encountered in the 9/11 commission report is that the group of passengers that was considering rushing the cockpit

paused to take a vote before they did so. they voted, they deliberated, and then they acted. and nothing struck me as quite so american as that. the notion of pausing in the midst of this unfathomable stress and fear to engage in sort of a deliberate and deliberative consultation like that. that struck me as one of the most american moments of that early response. >> carlos, on this 20-year anniversary, it's so important that our leaders, whether in politics or whether they're thought leaders, reflect on the 20 years what we've gotten right and what we've gotten wrong. it's so important to look back and figure out as you said what parts of the test we failed. you re-read these 21 books, so many of them so important. what was your great takeaway, or

what are your takeaways from what we got wrong over the past 20 years? >> the test of 9/11 that i write about in the essay you mentioned is whether we could respond to this horrifying assault on america and still be america. still uphold the values that we profess. the very values that our leaders told us were the reason behind the attacks. remember, president bush on the night of 9/11 said the reason we were targeted was because of our values because we stand for freedom and openness and opportunity and democracy and the rule of law. yet in our prosecution of the war on terror, we didn't always display those high values. we sometimes revealed some of our lowest impulses whether that was deception or brutality or overreach or even delusion. we entered an unnecessary war in iraq, turned a war of liberation

into a war of occupation there, we prolonged the war in afghanistan but being less than forthcoming about how that war was progressing as my colleague craig whitlock has chronicled in hi new book. the irony is after so many years of attempting to spread democracy around the world, democracy at home feels weakened. and the same building that al qaeda attempted to strike on september 11, 2001 and failed to, the u.s. capitol building, was assaulted by our own citizens 20 years later. >> david ignatius? >> i want to ask my colleague, carlos, about his essay, which is extraordinary. everyone should take a look. 9/11 was a test, we failed.

in that, carlos, you're summing up, i think the somber mood that the country has 20 years later as we look back not simply at the tragedy of 9/11 but the ways we responded. and as you and i have discussed, that's not the whole story, that there are lessons learned in this period. maybe you can speak about what you think those lessons are that are valuable for us going forward. not a source of shame and embarrassment but something we can build on? >> i think one of the lessons we can probably draw from some of the documents that came out of this period, such as even the u.s. army marine corps counter insurgency manual, which essentially serves as a word of caution on, you know, what we're doing when we embark on these wars to try to remake the world wars that end up being

insurgency wars. and i think in some ways, documents such as that one, helped the u.s. military and help our elected officials be more cautious before entering these kinds of conflicts. i mean, the overarching test that we passed, that we did not fail is that there was not a second 9/11-scale terrorist attack in the united states. and that's an enormous success. the one note of -- the one caveat i would add to that, though, is that on 9/11, that evening, andrew carr just mentioned the president's speech that night. he didn't just say that the job of the united states was now to protect american citizens, he said it was to protect the american way of life. and those american values.

and i think in that regard, perhaps we were somewhat less successful. >> carlos, of course, 9/11 happened after a decade in which america had been omnipotent after the end of the cold war, one thing that struck me after the attacks was that america realized it wasn't in as much control of world events as it thought it had been. maybe some of the world events were going to happen anyway. we were going to see the rise of china, america may have been distracted from asia because of the middle east, but it was going to happen anyway. is there some sense in the world around us, 9/11 was a sering event for this country but the rest of the world, events happened as they were going to happen anyway. >> you know, i think you're seeing some of that now. and it -- it feels similar perhaps to that period before 9/11. in many of the books that i

read, there's a sense that the bush administration was focused on, you know, great power of politics, was thinking about china and perhaps russia, you know, missile defense, these sorts of issues. and i think, you know, 20 years later, as 9/11 recedes more and more into history, more so than simply memory, you know, you're seeing a return of those concerns now. and this 20-year period, you know, created sort of a long pause in those issues that as you say were going to recur and emerge regardless. >> carlos, you're so right. it is extraordinary what has been accomplished over the past 20 years as far as stopping

another 9/11-type attack, scale attack on this country. i want to go back to lessons we can learn. if somebody is watching today, and i know we have a lot of people in washington that watch the show, who's in power, if god forbid we have another attack like this. let's look back over the past 20 years, where we came up short on values, contextualize it to like for instance the sedition act of 1918 during world war i where you actually had a law that said you could get arrested to saying anything disloyal to the government. internment camps of world, years of lies during vietnam from leaders on all sides. what do we do if we're faced with another attack, another large-scale war to hopefully not keep repeating these same mistakes? >> i think one of the overriding

lessons is that sometimes underestimating threats ahead of time leads to overreacting to them after the fact. and, you know, on that evening of 9/11, president bush said we're the brightest beacon for freedom in the world and no enemy can keep that light from shining. and he's right in the sense that al qaeda was not within america's promise. we in some ways did that to ourselves. i think trying to get a handle on that kind of, you know, fervor and blood lust that comes in the initial aftermath of an attack and trying to think through long term on the potential consequences of our response to the attack is vital.

in the war in iraq, we under estimated all the difficulties of the potential difficulties that would come from that conflict, even as we vastly overestimated the rational for even engaging in it. we assumed the word of what saddam hussein would do or had done and we did the best of what our intervention would achieve. that misplaced calculus is part of what gets us into trouble. it's both inherent pessimism and overwhelming optimism about what we can achieve. >> carlos, it's willie geist i'm at ground zero this morning. i'm interested in your view on a question we were just discussing, that is the country we live in today, many of those books you're reading and write about so well, in some ways are to the story of a different

country in terms of how divided we are, so if god forbid we ever encountered a moment like that, how different would the lessons be? how would we apply them to a situation where so many people object to what the president says or does because of the party he's in or rejects what a senator says because of the party he or she is in? >> i think that's a great point. if you look at 9/11 in one point and 2021 in another, it certainly looks like a different place. but i think that in many ways, these things happen incrementally. there is some continuity i think as well as disruption. and in many ways, the legacy of the war on terror is the country that we've become today.

you know, it's hard to imagine a political candidate coming to power on the strength of the birtherism lie by denigrating the sitting president as foreign and illegitimate. you know, absent the war on terror. absent the war on terror, it's hard to imagine a travel ban against muslim majority country. it's hard to imagine dhs, which didn't exist shifting from an anti-terrorism organization to an anti-immigrant organization. so i think we've seen a lot of kind of gradual encroachment and continuity in the world that 9/11 wrought into what we have become today. >> all right. prize winning book for "the

washington post," carlos lozatta thank you so much. greatly appreciate you being here. appreciate your time. let's go to willie at ground zero. willie, one thing i've learned about this show is we -- we have a community of people who watch us and watch us regularly, watch us every day. really like a family. and i don't want to overindull -- over indulge here but i know a lot of people that watch you here and watch you on sunday, would love to hear your reflections of today. where you were on september 11th 20 years ago and how it impacted your lives and the lives of those you loved. >> well, ironically and maddening in many ways i was in atlanta. i was working for cnn down there

at the time when this happened. but so many people i loved and cared about were right here, literally right behind me in those buildings. i grew up in ridgewood, new jersey, about 45 minutes across the river from where i'm sitting right now. we lost 12 people that day, a woman named jean steinberg, her daughter was my first friend. she was working in these towers and died that day. a dear family friend of ours. we were calling around frantically. and a member of my own family, my sister-in-law was on the 70th floor, he was pregnant, she ran down 70 flights of stairs, escaped the building. very narrowly. and -- excuse me. her son, who she was carrying

that day is a 19-year-old college sophomore today because she survived. so it touched our lives, it touched our family, it touched our town. and as you can see, 20 years later, it's still very fresh. it's still very painful but nothing like the pain of all the families who lost people who can't make those phone calls, can't celebrate with babies who were born. there's too many of them here, 2,700 more on this site, more at the pentagon and more in shanksville, pennsylvania. >> and mika, you were just starting your job at cbs news at the time. that morning, you were the first -- one of the first correspondents in the building that morning and you walked through the door and what greeted you? >> well, personal feelings on the day and the matter.

i'll just never look at a brilliant, bright blue, hopeful, fresh sky anymore without thinking about 9/11. because it was such a beautiful day and the sky was so blue. it was so blue. and my girls were really young. they were 3 and 5. and they were starting their little schools, amelia had a uniform, they were so excited. their dad was an investigative reporter at channel 7 so he was down there and did incredible work that day, we both were down there somewhere far apart in the city covering it. and as you said, joe, i was starting a new job at cbs and the star reporter there, byron pits said come in early, stay late, get the first story of the day. my career was young, my family was young, and for me, 9/11

really drew a line in my life. life before 9/11 and life after. and i realize, on days like this, just how much it changed us completely. as for what i saw, i was in early at 7:00 a.m., i saw the first plane hit sitting in my office and ran down to the national desk and bill felling was just waving his arms saying, go, go, go. so i ran out of the building and tried to get a cap, it was gridlock, so i took off my shoes and i sprinted down the west side highway, which was also gridlock. and there were just so many cars just stopped and horns honking. and i could hear radios on, so i could get little blips of what was going on, what was it, it was a terrorist attack, did a plane hit a building? how was that possible? i didn't stop running until i was right down there under the

towers. i found myself standing right next to byron pits of all people. and we looked up and he was pointing the flickers in the sky, and i thought it was like a debris or -- from the fire and the building. and i noticed that the building appeared to be swaying. and i thought for a second, god, could it fall down? no way, not possible. and that's when byron pointed out to me that the flickers were people. and that's when i fell into a trance just looking at the flickers of the people jumping from the building to get out from what was in there. and then the building began to just crumble underneath itself and come down. and i was still in that trance, not believing what i was seeing when byron grabbed my hand, pulled me, said we have to get out of here. and we just started to run and by then the building was down

and the plume of whatever it was was just barrelling towards us. we dived under a car and crawled our way into a nearby school. we were looking for a phone. we were fumbling around in a closet in the school. i found some boots, i put them on, i wore them for the next five weeks 24/7. and we found a land line and we dialled in and started reporting. and that morning that school became the place that firefighters would come in to get a drink of water and wash their faces. and they would go right back in to the second. and i remember one firefighter getting on the phone with us and just begging us to tell his wife that he loved her very much. i'll never forget the look on his face because he was going back in and he had this look in his eye like he didn't think he was going to come out.

and they didn't. the second tower came down and the entire school went black. covered with that same debris that was barrelling towards us. and we stayed in there all day and in a live truck for weeks. and it was just something that whenever i think about it, i realize just how much i've changed, my family was changed by that, how the world was changed. joe? >> david ignatius, mika talks about the firefighters that became a symbol that day of her -- heroism unlike any we've seen in such graphic detail. nypd, other first responders that day, going up the stairs,

just with cold glare in their eyes as they're walking up the stairs while people are going down the stairs, understanding that they were probably walking toward death, but they had to do whatever they could to protect other americans. i want you to talk about what you saw that day, but more importantly, i want you to take our viewers to where you've been over the past 20 years on the front lines with the names and faces of people we will never see. we will never know. but special ops forces, people in the agency, others that have done everything they could to make sure that there would not be another attack like 9/11 on american soil. >> joe, as we tell these stories, as willie and mika and

you remember and the power of those memories, the courage and sacrifice of the people on that day and the way they suffered, but overcame that suffering, we remember what's best about us as human beings. that's one of the things about 9/11, it's a moment of horror but also a moment of remembering what's best. i was living in paris, i was running the international herald tribune, an international newspaper. it was stunning to watch the live footage. but in the aftermath of that, i decided that i wanted to do everything i could to cover the story of how america, our military, intelligence agencies were responding to this threat unlike any we'd ever seen, so i began traveling with them as these wars began to be fought, watching the mistakes made, watching the successes. and i've learned over the years

that the quality you described in the first responders, that selfless sense of my country has asked me to do this, i don't know the answers to where it's going but i'm going to go up those stairs, i'm going to go into that battle space in afghanistan or iraq, i'm going to do what my country asked. i keep seeing that over and over again, i think we should all take a lot of comfort and satisfaction from the absolute steadfast commitment that americans have shown over these 20 years. sometimes the missions didn't make sense, they did them anyway. that's just the way people are. >> yeah. i -- i've asked friends over the past week or two about afghanistan and was it a failure? did they feel like they had failed or wasted their times fighting in afghanistan over the past 20 years and to a person i heard no, said we were given our missions we completed our

missions the best we could do, our job was to stop another attack on america. and so, we thank them. we thank the nypd. we thank new york firefighters and all those other first responders who gave their all and continue to protect us. we'll be right back. we'll be ri.

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welcome back to "morning joe." special coverage remembering 9/11. we want to get back to yesterday's big developments in the fight against the pandemic. los angeles is now the first major school district in the united states to require the vaccination for eligible students. under the new regulation, all children 12 and older in l.a. public schools must be fully vaccinated against covid-19 by january 10th in order to attend in-person classes. los angeles is the second largest school district in the country with more than 600,000 students enrolled. and just before that news, president biden announced new vaccine mandates for millions of americans. >> over 200 million americans have gotten at least one shot. you've been patient. but our patience is wearing thin. and your refusal has cost all of

us. >> the sweeping new rules require any business with more than 100 workers to order employees to get the covid-19 vaccine or be tested weekly. any workers at health facilities that receive medicare or medicaid will also be required to be vaccinated. president biden also announced he will mandate all administration employees and government contractors to get the vaccine without an option to be tested instead. >> this is not about freedom or personal choice. it's about protecting yourself and those around you. the people you work with. the people you care about. the people you love. my job, as president, is to protect all americans. the department of labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100

or more employees that together employ over 80 million workers to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated. the bottom line, we're going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers. we're going to reduce the spread of covid-19 by increasing the share of the workforce that is vaccinated in businesses all across america. >> the president also tackled the up tick in violence on airlines. he has directed the tsa to double fines for unruly passengers who fight over mask requirements on flights. >> tonight i'm announcing that the transportation safety administration, the tsa, will double the fines on travelers that refuse to mask. if you break the rules, be prepared to pay. and by the way, show some

respect. the anger you see on television toward flight attendants and others doing their job is wrong, it's ugly. >> but the president's plan is already seeing push back, republican governor of south carolina, henry mcmaster tweeted that he will, quote, fight them to the gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every south carolynian, and the republican national committee announced its intention to sue. press secretary jen psaki said there will be a 75 day window for employees to get the vaccine. let's bring in the president on the council of foreign relations richard hauss. and bennyminton. 20 years away we came together with a global threat.

with what you're seeing here, are you worried you can't do that today? >> we did come together, but it didn't last. if anything the united states is far more divided today politically, economically culturally, you name it. and it's sobering because right now we reached a point where 20 years ago the immediate national security threat was a bunch of terrorists coming out of the middle east who had gotten guidance out of afghanistan, right now the greatest security threat to the united states i would say is ourselves. it's our political divisions. it's our inability to come together to meet all the challenges we face at home and abroad. so this has not been a good 20 years for this country. to ask ronald reagan's old question, are you better off today than two decades ago, i'm hard pressed to answer yes. >> does the world see that? that that threat to ourselves -- i think we're 55 in the world

under cambodia in terms of getting the vaccine. is this an impact on our place in the world, but also our national security? >> i'm sorry to say it is. and i think the world does see america much in the way that richard has eloquently described it. 20 years ago, the world was shocked, the world was appalled. the world stood in complete solidarity with america. and it was an extraordinary moment globally. when you look back at that now and you look at america now, and you look at the world's perception of america now, it's very different. i think america has lost a lot of credibility and actually some of its recent actions over afghanistan have added to that, for those american allies who looked at that happening. but more importantly people are looking in and looking at the divisions within the united states, the polarization where, in a sense people don't agree on

facts, people are so loathing of the other side and we look at that and many, many people around the world look at america with enormous affection, this is the shining city on the hill. this is the bastian of democracy. at a time when those values are under a huge threat from a rising authoritarian china and yet they see a u.s. that seems less able to champion the right side than it ought to be able to because of its domestic division. so it's in sorrow, i think, that people outside the u.s. are looking at those divisions. >> richard, what have we learned over the past 20 years, militarily? what have we learned diplomatically? what have we learned about ourselves? >> i think initially we got it right, joe. i think we were right to go into afghanistan when we did. i think we made the right call when we said we're not going to distinguish between terrorists and those who give them

sanctuary and support, and i think that established an important principle in the world and we went in and removed the taliban from power and took measures here and at home to make ourselves less vulnerable. that went good. but then things went off the rails and we learned we cannot use military force to transform other societies we did it in afghanistan as well as in iraq, i believe it was a distortion of american foreign policy. we learned we can't take our eye off of other trends in the world and what we learned is what we don't do is every bit as important as what we do. we didn't do things at home to rebuild our society, we lost the threat on china's rise. look at the challenges we face from a virus that broke out in china, to climate change, to cyber.

essentially 20 years ago, the united states had a preponderance of power unprecedented in history. and i think what we learned is what we don't do can be every bit as important as what we do. we got it wrong in afghanistan and iraq. but we also got it wrong what we didn't do, so american foreign policy failed in acts of comission and omission. and that's really the legacy, to me the tragic legacy of 9/11 is that we went off the rails and i believe again we're worse off for it. >> we are looking back 20 years ago today to september 10, 2001, it is hard to find another country that so dominated the world over the past few centuries than the united states did on that day.

20 years later we are in a bipolar world, tripolar world, you look at the eu, china and the united states. that said, let's talk about the opportunities that china has had to eclipse the united states and the series of unforced errors they've made in hong kong. they've made with the uyghurs, that seems to be the understatement of the day. and almost kples -- domestically. they have a model of government less attractive at a time when the united states is showing weakness itself. >> that's right. 20 years ago the u.s. was the -- in the 1990s i think the u.s. was aimless, wasn't quite clear what its role was, it was a super power but wasn't clear what it was going to do with

that power. after 2001, the war on terror really provided a framing of the whole foreign policy as richard has laid out. i think the initial goals were then sort of morphed into the broader nation building goals and the overreach that we've discussed. i think it was a big hit to u.s. credibility in that period and it did sort of mean that the ball was taken, the eye was taken off the ball to china. it's popular to say the last 20 years were a huge detour that is too simplistic. china's rise, the nature of it, the pace of it that that country was developed, was not foreseen. everyone expected china to be the large e economy but the notion it would become more raw authoritarian, the xi jingping

style, but i think it's not too late for the u.s. to, you know, really lay out why it is that there's the leading light of the liberal world of the free world, of the democratic world and there are many strengths the u.s. has. the u.s. is a place where people want to come to. no one wants to immigrant to china. single states with a dictatorship that china has, history doesn't shine nicely on that. its one child policy has led to a terrible demographic outlook. my own view, a liberal to the core. i believe free society is where individuals have the ability to express themselves, have the abilities to make the most of them, they'll end up more prosperous and better places to be. and i think what the u.s. needs

to work out how to do is to stand up for that kind of a society, to be the best avatar of that kind of society but also to work out how to coexist with a rising china. china is the rising power of the 21st century. so its coexistence and cooperation as well as standing up for the values of the u.s. what worries me about the way the current biden administration is shaping it as a struggle between good and evil is that it prevents the kind of coexistence and cooperation that is going to be necessary. >> thank you both for being on our special program this morning. willie? joining us now in new york the founding director of fdny center for terrorism and disaster preparedness. the first fdny fire chief to respond here at ground zero. now he's written a book

"ordinary heroes". thank you for being with us. this is a beautiful remembrance of a lot of guys you worked with. you were the first chief on the scene here, your firehouse not far. some people may remember, you and your guys were out checking on that morning on september 11, 2001, a report of a gas leak. you didn't find much, but what happened from there as you looked up at the sky? >> it's good to be with you this morning, the day before the anniversary, 20 years ago, while we're standing at this gas leak i heard a loud noise of a flame coming overhead, you don't hear planes in manhattan because of the tall buildings. then i saw a plane at a low altitude racing down the hudson river, so low i could read on the fuselage american.

it disappeared behind some taller buildings and then when it appeared, i saw the plane aim and crash into the world trade center. >> was there any doubt in your mind that what you were seeing was intentional? >> not at all. i knew in that moment this was a terrorist attack. i even said it on the radio that the plane was aiming for the building and i also said this was a direct attack. >> and so what do you do as a leader now? as a human being you're seeing something your eyes couldn't have conceived of minutes before that, now you have to go into you're in an emergency, how do you begin to respond? >> i was going to be the first commander at the scene. so what i did, i slowed down my thinking. and thought of what do i need to do next? so as i walked into the lobby of the north tower, i saw some people burnt and my first

instinct is to go home them but i knew my firefighters and paramedics and emts were right behind me. my job was to take charge. i talked to the fire safety director and he told me the fire was somewhere above the 78th floor, actually the plane impact on the 93rd to the 96th floor. and my plan was that morning was to evacuate the building, then we'll regroup on the upper floors to rescue those that were trapped by fire and smoke. >> part of the story is that your brother, kevin, was one of the guys under your command. tell me about that interaction you had with him in the lobby when you sent him in? >> a little bit before 9:00 in the morning, my brother kevin came into the lobby and he reported in to me. he didn't say a word. 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. and when he turned around and grabbed his unit, engine 33, that was the last time i saw my brother and engine 33. >> when you think about that moment 20 years ago, did you have any sense that perhaps that would be the last time you see him or did this feel, at least at the beginning, i don't want to call it routine because it wasn't routine but something your guys could go up, get the people, and come out safely or did it feel different? >> that morning we knew it was dangerous. i can tell you that every firefighter, every first responders that came that day, they saw the burning towers. and they knew they were going to the most dangerous fire of their lives. but we had hope.

because we knew thousands of people were trapped and needed us. so when i ordered my brother to go up, as i ordered many other officers, we knew it was dangerous, but there was a hope that we could go up there, save people and make a difference during this really difficult time. >> the number 343 is a familiar one to new yorkers. we'll never forget it. we see it on the sides of firehouses across our great city. when you think about those 343, including your brother on this 20th anniversary, where do your thoughts go? >> my thoughts go to watching their faces as they came into the lobby. they had this grim look on their face and firefighters aren't quiet, but they were quiet that morning. so my thoughts go to them. my thoughts go to i know as they

were climbing up, people were coming down and they did ordinary things, like saying keep going, you can make it out of here. we know those simple words made a difference of life and death and that morning we saved 20,000 people. >> when the buildings collapse, now you're in the fog of war that you could never prepare for, quite obviously. how do you, as a chief, run that operation from there? you want to save people from the rubble first and foremost, it's incredibly dangerous, obviously. how did you begin that process? >> after both towers -- i barely made it out myself. we were covered with heavy dust, our helmet, our bunker coats and pants. and as we walked back to the collapsed area, we had to look like stone statues standing on

the edge of twisted steel and crumbled concrete. and our top leadership, our chief of department, our first deputy commission, and so many other staff chiefs, they were all killed. so from the bottom up we started to form a command structure in each of the geographical sections created by the collapsed building. >> working around the clock, a lot of firefighters sleeping in st. paul's chapel, for a couple hours, coming back to the pile for the weeks and months. tragically we know now that a lot of the work on the pile made many of your firefighters sick. many of them have died. what more should we be doing as a country, as a government to protect those who have gotten sick for their heroic work on the pile?

>> since 9/11, we lost 257 members from the fdny, a staggering number. and i think what we have to do is continue the support, the medical support, not only for the first responders but for other people in the area. >> i want to, before i let you go, i want to read from what you wrote on top of the steel, the top of one world trade when it opened in 2014, this gleaming tower behind us. you wrote always remember the heroes who did ordinary things at extraordinary times so others may live. you are one of those heroes, we're grateful for your service to this city, to this country for what you did on that day, i'm so sorry about your brother. but we will never forget what you did and the new york fire department did on that day. thank you so much, and thank you for honoring those heroes in this book. it's called "ordinary heroes, a

memoir of 9/11". thank you for your time this morning. last hour we spoke with former homeland security secretary jeh johnson. in the years since he served in the obama administration, the threats to the nation have changed significantly. so where do things stand right now? how does covid play into all of this? let's ask the current secretary of homeland security, alejandro mayorkas. he joins us now. thank you so much for being with us on this day. i want to start with what we've learned over the course of 20 years. it's a very broad question, but as we look at current threats, maybe i can start by focussing in on the growth of online platforms and threats living and growing there. how are you coping with that angle of it? >> thank you so much. if i can just make one comment. >> please.

>> i just watched a very moving interview with chief pfeiffer. and the term heroes is the right term. we have so many heroes to whom we pay tribute and we pay tribute and memory for those who lost their lives on 9/11. i think the message from that interview, if i may, is that our democracy, our principles, our american way of life are enduring. and it's because of the heroes. the threat over the last 20 years has evolved. we were, of course, in the aftermath of 9/11 focused on the foreign terrorist, the individual who sought to penetrate our defenses enter the united states and do us harm. and that threat evolved and then became the most prominent threat of the home grown violent

extremist. the individual who was already here on american soil, who became radicalized by an ideology of a foreign terrorist organization and sought to do us harm. now that threat has evolved into the domestic terrorist or the domestic violent extremist. the individual drawn to violence because of an ideology of hate or a false narrative that is spread on social media or other online platforms. we've always kept our eye on every and each form of threat, but we do watch what becomes most prominent and build our defenses and our security accordingly in the service of the american people. >> secretary mayorkas, david ignatius is with us and he has a question for you. david? >> mr. secretary, one of the

questions of 9/11 is the failure, unfortunately, in the months before that attack of our intelligence and security agencies to connect the dots. to know what was coming at them and be prepared. i want to ask you now at a time when the united states has left afghanistan militarily whether you're confident that you and your colleagues in the government who are responsible for security will be able to see attacks coming, connect the dots and protect the american homeland against any future attack? >> david, i am confident. and we are far stronger and more secure now than we were 20 years ago. we work jointly across the federal enterprise. our law enforcement counterterrorism intelligence agencies and departments work collectively, number one. and number two, and importantly, we also work with state, local, tribal territorial officials in

an all-of-government effort to secure the homeland. i do think we connect the dots. we share information. we spread that information out. we are working as a system of security on behalf of the american people. we're stronger today. >> understanding that strength, we also understand that we are a divided country and i want to ask you, as the person responsible for homeland security, how that complicates your mission, a country where people inhabit different parts of the political terrain, can they really come together to work and share information easily and how can we make that work better? >> i think we are united there our effort to secure the homeland. it is a time of great division in the united states. sadly. i will say that as this week has

unfolded, the week before 9/11, we have become far more united in our memories of and our tribute to the heroes, the lives lost and those who have suffered as a result of that tragic terrorist attack. so i think we have the capacity to unify. and frankly, we as a department of homeland security, as the lead agency in welcoming vulnerable afghans to this country, see the country come together in support of those vulnerable individuals and we, once again, are rising in prominence around the world as a police of refuge. we're being celebrated. we're leading. and if i can, just very quickly share a story with you. when the afghan nationals come and arrive at fort lee in

virginia, a place of temporary residence, before they're resettled in communities across our country, generous eager communities to welcome them. they get off the bus and the children are handed an american flag by very proud soldiers. and you know what happens? the fathers of those children, put their hands over their heart and pay tribute to the united states of america. we're still the greatest country in the world. >> secretary of the department of homeland security, alejandro mayorkas thank you for much. very moving. still ahead, continued coverage leading up to the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. plus more on the major move by president biden in the fight against covid, unveiling a sweeping new strategy heavily focused on vaccine mandates. will it help get the delta variant under control? "morning joe" is back in a moment. orning joe" is back in a

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. welcome back to "morning joe" on this eve of the 20th i was in of the attacks of september 11th, 2001. i am high above the national 9/11 memorial and museum here at ground zero in new york city. it's a breath-taking memorial. if you have ever been to it, it's been opened a decade, of the names that died here are etched above pools that go into waterfalls, down the center staying in the footprints of those two towers. part of the job of the 9/11 museum here now is to teach the story of 9/11 to a new generation. 20 years on, there are many people in this country who do not live through it.

we treat it as a shared memory. we treat it as a national trauma. but there is a new generation that doesn't know that feeling, that story for which 9/11 has become a page in a history book. we talked to one young woman who has an extraordinary story and a personal connection to the tragedy of that day. >> any time i'm here, i try i to come i down, just so he knows we're here. >> reporter: amy hargrave was four-years-old on september 11th, 2001. amy's father tj hargrave lived with his wife and three daughters in reddington township, new jersey. he worked at the financial firm cantor, fitzgerald, in the north tower of the world trade center. 24 hours after it collapsed september 11th, amy's mother sat down with her girls. >> september 12th, she sat us

down and let us know, daddy wasn't coming home and that's really the only memory of i have of that. the first thing i said is, oh, he can't be my soccer coach n. a 4-year-old's brain, that itself most important thing. but when it claims i came to soccer game -- >> no, please. please. >> take your time. take your time, i know. >> sorry. >> what's it been like to have this anniversary come up every year? has it changed for you over the years? >> it's really hard. aal lot of time when someone los one, they're able to lose them fully and not get reminders every single area. unfortunately, we relive that every year with 9/11. >> reporter: one of the solemn rituals of the anniversary for amy is t the reading of the nam of those who died on 9/11, including her dad's.

>> and my father, tj hargrave, we love you and miss you, dad. >> reporter: 9/11 is a distraction. it happened to real families that lost loved ones, neighbors, colleagues, soccer coaches. >> alex greenwald is the ceo of the 9/11 memorial and museum in new york. her mission is to preserve the memory ofes that day and now to pass it along to a generation that did not live through it. >> where we're sitting is actually akin in my mind to a battleground. it's also, for some, a cemetery. this is where they come to grieve. >> as amy grew up and struggled with her grief, her family made a suggestion that she volunteer at the 9/11 museum and talk to visitors about her father as a way to heal.

>> i am able come here and share a little about my father and connecty with them and leave tt story here. it was also great meeting other volunteers who had a connection and realizing i'm not alone. >> what do young people ask you when you are in here, speaking, telling the story? >> something they want to know is who did i lose? that's a basic question, we find out it was a parent of mine, they want to dive deeper and learn about him and they also want to know kind of my feelings on the topic and how i felt during that daynd and who i am today. >> when you come here, our hope is that you see yourself in this story. we really see our mission as one of affirming the memories that the witness generation brings in with them. so that they say, yes, this feels like what i remember. this the how i need to remember. but alsoto to reach a new generation that really doesn't know what the pre-9/11 world was

like. that we didn't take our shoes off at the airport before 9/11. they didn't open my bag when i went to major cultural revolutions afternoon there was a shift. we want them to understand not just what happened on 9/11, how we responded. >> reporter: despite its vital place in american history, the 9/11 museum was fought immune to the pain of the pandemic. closed for long periods by covid restrictions, it lost tens of millions in revenue and still is fighting to stay afloat. >> it is in my mind no different than gettysburg. there are places we set aside in our nation in the soil of this country to mark moments that were transformative in some way. and i do believe this place will carry that mission forward. >> 20 m years after the day tha

shaped her life, amy now is headed to london for graduate school. always traveling with the memory of her father. >> what does it mean to you to have people all over the world come down and see your dad's name? >> that's knowing that 50 years, 200 kweers, people can see his name and maybe look it up and learn about his story and our story. >> four-years-old when she lost her father, now an incredibly impressive 24-year-old, our thanks to amy. the story continues at the museum behind me. thereum is a fund called the ner forget fund remember check it out at never forget.org. the 9/11 museum continues to create the story. they tell first person accounts of what happened that could be used by school systems across the country. so a generation that did not live through this story can

learn what it meant to the country and to the world. our coverage continues when "morning joe" comes right back. our coverage continues when "morning joe" comes right back after decades of big pollution liars, climate change deniers, and out-of-control fires we're almost there. congress is close to passing a clean energy plan that tackles climate change head on by creating millions of good-paying jobs in the fastest growing industries. we can lower utility bills for families today while protecting the planet our children inherit tomorrow. congress, our window to act is closing and once it does, it may never open again. act on climate change, now.

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♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." all morning, we have been covering the upcoming anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. in just a few minutes, we'll talk to press secretary john

kirby about the heavy burden carried by america's armed forces over the two decks e decades since that attack. first, we'll start the hour with the very latest on the pandemic. los angeles is now the first major school district in the united states to require the vax nation for eligible students. under the new regulation, all children 12 and older in l.a. public schools must be fully vaccinated against covid-19 by january 10th in order to attend in-person classes. los angeles is the second largest school district in the country with more than 600,000 students enrolled. more than 5,000 students in los angeles county have tested positive for covid since the start of the school year. and that news came after president biden unveiled sweeping new covid plans, heavily focused on vaccine mandates. the administration's strategy could impact more than

two-thirds of the american work force. nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander has details. >> reporter: with covid cases surging and deaths now five times higher than a month ago, president biden is requiring tens of millions more americans to get vaccinated. >> we have been patient. but our patience is wearing thin and your refusal has cost all of us. this is not about freedom or personal choice. it's about protecting yourself and those around you. >> reporter: the president is ordering nearly all federal workers and employees of contractors that do business with the federal government get vaccinated within 75 days, eliminating their option to be tested instead of getting shots. employees who refuse could be punished, even fired. >> if you want to work with the federal government and do business with us, get vaccinated. >> reporter: while initially reluctant to issue mandates, the president's aggressive new plan requires vaccinations for 17 million healthcare workers in

hospitals and other sites that receive medicare or medicaid funding. president biden is now pressuring private companies, too, directing the labor department to require businesses with 100 or more employees, ensure their workers are fully vaccinated or provide a test each week, a move the white house estimates will impact 80 million americans, companies that do not comply could face fines. >> we are going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers. >> reporter: all of it as approval of the president's handling of the virus has dropped as he expressed confidence about the pandemic two months ago. >> we're in the tough stretch and it could last for a while. >> the tsa is doubling fines for airline passenger who's refuse to mask up. >> if you be right back the rules, be prepared to pay. and by the way, show some respect. >> show some ready. let's bring in the white house reporter for the associated press jonathan le mere.

dr. ben gupta a pulmonologist in seattle and msnbc news contributor. jonathan, first to you. this is obviously a move by the white house that many people we consider politically courageous, the fact is, a willing majority of americans support these moves despite the fact that republicans and republican governors, i am sure most of whom or not all of whom have been vaccinated already. despite the fact we are hear ac lot of complaints from them. they are loud, but they are definitely the minority. >> the white house framed this as a sweeping escalation of the president's combatting the delta variant and escalate vaccine mandates across the country, pushing the next and federal work force leaning hard on businesses, drawing up regulations, that can require strict vaccination or testing

requirements for 80 million or more americans. this was the president giving voice to the frustration of those americans, the majority of american who's have already been vaccinated against those not inoculated putting everyone else at risk. there is a real anger from the president. junior white house aides i talked to say this has been eating at him and his team a long time now. they feel they have put out the vaccines, made them available to everyone and are doing everything they request to get people to avoid the step of mandate. they feel they have no choice. you are right, there are already some republican opposition. south carolina governor mcmaster just for one said he would fight this to quote the gates of hell of any carolinian. many in the south. there will be legal challenges. the white house feels confident in their ability to overcome them saying the president has

keeping powers here in a time of pandemic. this now is going to be a significant political fight, one white house democrats believe they're right and the public backs them up. >> it's so fascinating. joe biden does things that 60, 70% of americans support and you got southern governors saying they're going to fight him to the gates of hell to stop like most americans support as mike said there are certain historical parallels there with the 1950s to 1960s. and yet you have republicans in texas running over what 70% of americans want and other republicans around the country supporting texas abortion law that's unconstitutional. it's a fascinating look at how the two parties are operating right now. dr. gupta, how important is it for the president to step forward and move towards vaccine mandates like we have done, let me say again for over a half

century for every child that goes to school? >> joe, good morning. what we're seeing in l.a. county, ultimately, this is going to be a local and state decision when it comes to school boards in terming what happens in their school directs. you will see the l.a. county paradigm repeat itself across the country as it should. it makes sense, the department of education can flex a muscle here. just to build on what jonathan mentioned with regards to workplaces, joe, it's going to take some time the occupational southeast and health administration, they haven't written the executive rule yet requiring either vax nation or proof of a negative-free test that process usually takes six-to-eight weeks. over the next six toe eight weeks, we're expected to lose additional americans. what i will say is encourageing, businesses across the country

were looking for this cover. they didn't want to tell their work force they were going to mandate out of step with what the government is saying. now the government said do this or that, this is providing them cover. it was a tight labor market. especially as we are entering a peak holiday season, realtors needed that labor supply. they didn't want to miss losing it to a competitor. this is vital here. this is a choice to get vaccinated or provide testing. th. you are going to see more employers choose to mandate vaccines because testing is constrained and then the big question here is if they go the testing route, who will pay for that test? to make that option work, they're going to have to go put the costs on to an employee. that's the only way that option will work to encourage the uptick of the vaccine. >> so often we hear the anger from the minority, the small minority that are against doing the responsible thing to help businesses stay opened, to keep

hospitals, mortgages rooms clear. dr. gupta, you talk about the anger. we talk about the anger from conspiracy theorists and others, there is a growing anger as a new york post calls the unvaccinated the new 99%. they are the 99% felling up emergency rooms. they are the 99% who are in hospitals. they are the 99 -- in the most critical of portions of the hospital. they are the ones causing insurance costs to go up. they're the ones that are shutting down schools, they're the ones that are causing the need for mask mandates and causing the chaos still because we have a way to end covid-19 and they won't take it. how do you feel going into emergency rooms and knowing that

the covid patients there with serious problems really draining resources from hospitals across the country, through the unvaccinated who choose not to take the cure? >>. >> joe, i'm taking this segment from an icu, 30 patients behind me under my care and in intensive care, everybody with covid, we're at our peak levels, for the five-state referral center. five states come to seattle to get care if they need advanced care. what we are seeing to your point exactly the case, everybody with covid-19 is unvaccinated requiring the most intensive care. two-to-three nurses, respiratory cases, you name it. that's redirecting resources from other people who feed an elective procedure who are coming in with non-respiratory virus requiring intensive care. of course, this is having

significant impacts. we are rationing care, joe. we talk about fatal instinct we are hoping to avoid. no, it's happening in portland, oregon. where people cannot get the care they need. we can't give advanced life-saving therapies in the icu, we don't have enough beds. this is happening in zip codes not just in florida. that is the correct result of people's choices, making responsible decisions or otherwise, irresponsible decisions, exactly, there is sa reason because this is impacting everybody's ability to stay safe and healthy. >> thank you. still ahead as we mentioned at the top, progress press secretary john kirby is standing by. we'll reflect on the terrorist attacks 20 years ago that targeted this very building. plus an update on the aftermath of the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan. are you watch ac special edition of "morning joe." reich. edition of "morning joe. reich.

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states navy john kirby. i'd like to first start with the taliban, qatar stepping up. can we expect more of these flights to happen smoothly? can we be sure? >> that the what we are working for to be able to get americans out of afghanistan in a safe and effective way. that's going to require additional conversations in cooperate with the taliban. so far, they have been cooperative as we have just seen. so we are certainly going to keep trying to alloy for a process for americans to get out in as efficient a way as possible. >> any idea how many americans we have left in afghanistan? >> i think the overall number we thought we had left when the military mission ended is about 100. i don't think there has been changes to that estimate. >> a pull back on this entire mission, if i could, i want to ask you about the mood in the military, what is being

communicated to our forces? there is some reporting i have that they are deeply depressed. many are, some are, many are. >> sure. >> asking the question, what were we fighting for? who is the answer? >> i think it's important is that every veteran have a chance to process this for themselves. they're all going to feel differently. so i wouldn't speak for them and how they will react to answering that question, how they would answer that question. but what we would say here in d.c. and from the pentagon is that there was progress made and there was no other attacks on the homeland as a result of our involvement in afghanistan and we did allow and enable for changes in afghanistan that have endured. whether they can under the taliban is an open question. but i think every man and woman that served in afghanistan can be proud of the fact that there was not another 9/11 and we were able to prevent another attack

on our homeland. that will still be the focus going forward. we will maintain a rise in counter terrorism capability. we will keep our eyes and not allow a safe haven that exists that provides another option for on attack on our homeland. >> joe. i want to underline this fact. i have been reading how the war was for nothing. how the men and women that went over there and gave their all for this country did it for no reason at all. two decades we have gone without another attack on our homeland and right after, as you know, i don't know if you remember this very well, right after 9/1120 years ago, there was so much concern. so much fear, something like 70% of americans thought another 9/11-style attack was imminent. it was going to happen again. yet, those men and women that went over there for 20 years,

they kept this homeland safe. i don't think we can underline that enough and i would like to hear your thoughts on that. >> yeah, joe, i couldn't agree more. again, is there will be lots of emotions and feelings about the end of this war. everybody is entitled to their own views and their perspectives about that. i do think it's important for the american people to remember, we haven't didn't p been attacked like that since 9/11. our work in afghanistan assured that outcome. now we have to make sure we can continue to do that going forward. the other thing to remember is we have come a long way in terms of our intelligence capacity, in terms of networking and assessing and analyzing information and acting on that information since 9/11. we have incredible capabilities available to us. sit more difficult when you don't have a presence on the ground as it were? of course, it is. it's not impossible. we saw that in the last few days before the withdraw was over, over the rise in counterterrific strikes that were effective against isis-k.

we have is this capability. we're not going to take our eye off the bahama as secretary austin said just the other day. >> of course, these 20 years have been book ended by tragedies about what happened 20 years ago tomorrow. we remember the heroes of flight 93 who as car loss lozado said they got in the back of the plane and voted as americans, what do we do next? they voted to take down the plane, to end their lives, to save the lives of others. and it is so hard to not draw a slate ryan from that heroism to the 13 heroes in afghanistan who were a part of an air lift, a historic air lift, unlike any other air lift, any country has ever performed in the history of this world and helped get 120,

130,000 people out of afghanistan and literally save their lives. >> yeah, joe, that's important to remember, too. those soldiers, marines, sailor at that gate that day. they were risking their lives to save other lives. they were doing it in incredibly and difficult circumstances. every single day, it was a dangerous day. we were trapped. we were aware that isis-k was interested in causing havoc and taking lives. and they were out there doing very dangerous up-close personal work that the task of screening these individuals required our troops to literally be up close and personal with people and unflinchingly. it's definitely an important thing to remember as we close out this chapter in afghanistan. the other i'd say is we don't forget here in the pentagon what it was like on 9/11. 184 people perished here in the

building as they were just coming to work on a tuesday morning to do their task of defending this nation. >> and willie, as we remember the 13 heroes in afghanistan that helped 120, 130,000 people escape with their families, we understand that like the heroes of flight 93 they knew what they were doing was so extraordinarily dangerous. the warnings have been coming out for several days that isis-k was planning attacks, yet, they were right there on the line. actually we told the story of the hero who said, i love my job. even in those harrowing dangerous circumstances. >> yeah. it's been said they stood on the wall. they actually did more than that, as the admiral knows, they were waving out into the crowd to pluck people to safety, mipgling among the taliban.

admiral, i want to ask you about our allies, war time partners, tens of thousands who remain in afghanistan i. i know you are hearing from probably the same veterans groups, outraged and vambling to people they made a promise to, to get them out of the country. is there a plan at the department of defense to help those ally was sacrificed alongside our troops? >> we are working closely with our state department colleagues to do just that, willie. in fact, beer going to work closely with some of these veterans groups. we sharer that same concerns. we're all veterans, too. we know how important it is to meet our obligation to these interpreters and translators, without whom we couldn't have done the work over the last 20 years. we share the concerns. we will continue to work to get them out as safely and effectively as possible, absolutely. >> do you think america has an obligation to then them get out

of afghanistan if they want to leave? >> absolutely we do, willie. we sure do again we couldn't have done what we were able do, we couldn't have served in afghanistan without the help of afghan aallies, who put their life on the line. it's think it's so important we don't forget the casualties, they were in this fight as well, so, yes, i think america has an obligation to help those men and women and their families so critical to the operational progress that we will make in afghanistan and we will do that here at the pentagon, we will work inside the agency to make sure we meet that obligation. >> mike barnacle is with us. he has a question, mike. >> on that topic about former employees, afghans living in afganistan, still stuck in afghanistan who may want to leave, could you or you can talk about the logistics of getting those people out of there, given

the fact that we have nobody really on the ground? >> well, i think you will see it sort of similar to what we seen with this charter flight, mike, it will require cooperation with the taliban, making sure that they understand the credentials that these people have and why they deserve to be on these flights. making sure that there is full transparency there and helping them facilitate movement to the appropriate aircraft at the appropriate time to get them out. we're going to stay focused on this. we work very hard, right up until the end, until the end of august to move as, joe said, more than 124,000 people, by we know there are many more who need to come out and we're going to work inside the inner agency. we're going to work in cooperation with taliban authorities to make that come about. >> there the a lot of questions about the fight of women in afghanistan. i want your thoughts on that in terms of leaving that behind, any contingency plans in place?

also if the taliban, because the answer to your question has been all along that what we are hope secretary that the taliban will continue to allow these departures and we are hoping that the planes take off and if things don't go as planned, are there contingency plans in place if the taliban decides not to comply? >> look, we aren't just going to take the taliban at their word. we're going to judge them by their actions, not just in the mission of trying to get more people out, but also in the way that they govern. we don't, we can't be at the table with them as they govern, but we can hold them accountable. the whole international community hold them accountable. if they say they want to govern and have an economy, then they're going to need international assistance to have a functioning economy. so they're going to have to prove that with their deeds, not just their words, they're serious when they say they aren't going to strip away

rights from women. we have seen some actions in the last couple of days that belie those words, the by a they've beaten up protesters, particularly women protesters. so we aren't seeing the kind of action we want to see and need to see over the long term. but there can be international community pressure to hold them accountable for their activities. >> all right. pentagon press secretary john kirby, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> for being on with us this morning. and coming up, how the terrorist attack 20 years ago tomorrow has shaped the new york city fire department of today. the fdny commissioner joins us next on "morning joe." ner joinss next on "morning joe."

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i want you all to know -- that america today, america today is on bended knee in prayer for the people of the lives we lost here for the workers who work here, for the families and more. this nation's fans with the good

people of new york city and new jersey and connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens. i can hear you. i can hear you. the rest of the world hears you. and the people in the village will hear all of us soon. >> president george w. bush on september 14th, 2001, three days after those towers fell, welcome back to "morning joe" here at ground zero. i'm willie geist, joining us the new york city commissioner daniel nigro. you were here that day? >> i certainly was. >> i asked you what you feel, what do you think? you say it's hard to see the

memorial because all you see is what you saw that day. >> many times the sights of 20 years ago is what fills my head. although it's a beautiful location now with the memorial and new buildings, i see what was sometimes. >> so you rushed down to the scene like just about every other fire fighter in new york city that day. warp your first impressions? how did you hear about it. >> the chief, testifies e he was the chief of the department. i was chief of operations. we heard it. we fit it in brooklyn right across the bridge so we responded right away. we were on the ground here before the second plane struck. we knew we couldn't put all the fire out, but our goal was to rescue as many people out of those towers as we could. >> after the towers fell, something inconceivable when you woke up that morning, how did you view your mission? how did you begin to tackle what you saw down here?

>> well at that point after both towers came down, chief yancey was in charge. we thought perhaps the six layers below of subway and pat train tubes that people could be trapped. unfortunately, we only rescued a few. we did have members in the north tower miraculously who survived in a stairwell rescuing a woman in distress. >> rarely do we see in love such a cut heroism of buildings on fire and people running to leave and new york city firefighters doing the opposite, running into the buildings, pulling all that equipment up all of those steps. when you think of the 343 that number that we have all stuck to our hearts in new york city, what do you think? >> so many of those were friends of people i worked with and now that we've hit 20 years, what strikes me all the time is that things i have been lucky enough to enjoy the birth of

grandchildren, weddings, they missed out on. they missed all of these important parts of their life due to their heroism, their familys miss their company and that saddens me all the time. >> i can see the emotion in your eyes. i understand it, because you lived through it, you lost your friends, your buddies, the people you have lived and worked alongside fire houses to that point. what do you want people to know about some of those guys? not just the heroism we witnessed with our eyes? what should we know that you know about them next? >> i think for the most part, firefighters, the stories we heard at all the funerals were, they were the person in the neighborhood you could depend on any time anything went wrong, people would bring their help and say, can you help me? they always could. they were the little league coaches, active if their churches. they were the go-to people and in that way, they were the go-to people for the people trapped.

some they did what they said they would do, they would go to the aide of others. >> the new york city fire department had a lot of work to do to rebuild obviously after that, in so many ways. what is the state of the fire department, some of the improvements, lessons from 20 years ago? >> what we were lucky to have is people willing to step up afterwards. we lost such great people and take their place. you can't replace the people. you need to replace the positions. so we looked at ourselves critically, wondering what were we doing right? what did we need to improve, such as our communication systems? we've improved that. we were able recruit a lot of great young people veterans. we have own e over 1,500 military veterans serving with us. the department is if better shyp than ever? >> mike barnicle. i know you have a question for the commissioner. we should point out firefighters are heroes every day, everybody

that's walked around new york city and watched them up on a ladder, punched them through the window to pull somebody out to safety. >> that's so true. the commissioner, just listening to you and re-visiting, we re-visit every day, but talking about that date 20 years ago. i don't think i am alone when i tell you that i guess goose bumps thinking about those officers rushing in on that day. on that day, which question to you is you were stripped of a lot of the command leadership of the new york fire department. you became the chief's successor on the spot. how did the operations deaths of so many from the top ranks? >> the department is organized much like the military and unfortunately like in the

military leaders are lost. others are called to step up. i did so so many also. they are to be commended. it was a tough time. we knew the people depended on us and we did not lose a step in continuing to protect the people on september 12th, 13th and so forth. >> commissioner, beyond the 343 you lost on that day, we've lost too many due to the effects of working on the pile down here, all that toxic dust, where the heroism continued. they looked for survivors and pulled the metal, the steel away. what should we be doing better as a country to look out for these people? >> monday we will bury for the illness. we look hard and the new york delegation and centers fought hard to get us the mel cal care we need. we have to remember to continue to support people.

because this is going to be a long battle as these disease take hold. >> making it permanent is a big step. thank you for your heroism on that day and always and the heroism of your department, we in new york city and across the country are so grateful for. thanks for being here. >> thanks for giving me the opportunities. >> appreciate it. coming up next, what the release of classified documents related to 9/11 might reveal about saudi arabia's suspected role in the attacks. nbc news' keir simmons joins us with a live report from riyadh when "morning joe" comes right back. port from riyadh when "morning joe" comes right back

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welcome back to our special coverage of the 19 hijackers who struck america 20 years ago tomorrow. 15 were saudi citizens. in the years since many families of the victims have called for fuller transparency in what role since saudi arabia may have played in that attack. now the justice department is asking a federal court for per many eggs to publish fbi documents that could show links between the kingdom and the al qaeda hijackers who carried out that heinous crime. joining us from riyadh, saudi arabia, nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons. keir, what is the latest? >> well, mika, those fbi documents that may soon be declassified, those have cast a long shadow here, many senior

saudis i have spoken to have been saying they want to see them released. the saudi embassy in washington releasing a statement just this week saying any allegation that saudi arabia is police it in the september 11th attacks is categorically false him now, of course, there will be plenty of people who will doubt that sentiment. we will find out. but certainly what happened there 20 years ago has changed this place to most certainly so in the past five or so years since the rise of the crown britain back in 20 stefani. many changes we have seen here now particularly for women, famously unable drive or mix at work or airports or restaurants. the kind of changes you would say have been a long time coming. i guess you have to say that the killing of jam kashioggi.

they have the freedom to go to cinemas but not to speak out. so how deep are the changes? actually for the whole, mika, remember saudi arabia is the place of mecca, medinah, most muslims around the world look to this country. if those changes do stick, that would have profound implications for the world. another point to make, the saudis are also themselves concerned looking across the atlantic what they see, for example, in the nuclear deal signed by republican with iran, worrisome. they're not worried about our patriot missiles being removed, the saudis will say, we are the victims of iran, of terrorism. we value the security

relationship. just one last point, meek car, it's more than just in the past few months, saudi arabia signed a new defense agreement with russia. >> nbc's keir simmons reporting for us live from saudi arabia. thank you very much. let's bring in now the staff writer for the new yorker. lawrence wright. he se a pulitzer prize winning author of the book the looming tower, al qaeda and the road tot/11. what a book that is. also with us national security correspondent for "the washington post" sue mckenna joins us. joe. >> lawrence, we've had you on many times before and talked about your extraordinary work and detailing the terror network al qaeda on the road to 9/11. we showed a clip from george bush earlier talking about on september 14th talking about how world and the people that knock down the buildings would hear from americans.

talk i talk about the road in 9/11 for osama bin laden and al qaeda. did bush get that right? >> well, you know, we certainly evacuated afghanistan of al qaeda and the taliban right after 2001. at that point the war was won. we failed to finish the mission, however, and instead went into iraq and that's when the al qaeda had the opportunity to regenerate itself, which it has on 9/11, there were maybe three or 400 guys who were in al qaeda. now al qaeda and its affiliates they range from morocco all the way to bangladesh and people estimate 30-to-40,000 members of that organization and its affiliates. sol al qaeda has regenerated. one can't say that we have vanquished them. >> and so, what does it look

like 20 years later? how are they different from they were, than they were on september the 10th, 2001? >> well, the most obvious thing is the absence of conspicuous leadership. we conspicuous leadership. we don't know if the nominal leader of al qaeda is alive or not. we might find out tomorrow, if he misses the opportunity to make a speech tomorrow, might draw some conclusions. >> listening to larry wright talk about the looming tower is an incredible piece of work, of history. you have been covering this for 20 years. >> yeah. >> four different presidential administrations since september 11, 2001. do you think america has learned enough about the forces we confront? >> i unfortunately have to say i don't think so, no. i believe that as we just heard,

one of the biggest mistakes made was the idea of the united states, that there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq and iraq had somehow a connection to the 9/11 attacks. and indeed, this idea of going into iraq, toppling the saddam hussein regime gave al qaeda a new booster. what happened is when saddam hussein was gone, you saw shi'a militia take over and al qaeda who said to the followers and to the general public in the middle east, here, you can see what the americans are doing, they're after the oil. indirectly what they did is they justified then the 9/11 attacks. so after 9/11, what was interesting to me, when i did reporting in hamburg, three of the 9/11 pilots used to study, we forget they were recruited in germany and then went to

afghanistan and were able to get trained there. they became terrorists there, along with the saudis that joined them later during the attacks, so after the attacks of 9/11, many muslims all over the world felt deep sympathy with the united states of america and they understood why the u.s. would go after the taliban or al qaeda. but that all changed after the u.s. went into iraq. >> we talk a lot about lessons learned since 9/11. are there lessons we did not learn or new lessons we still need to learn when it comes to protecting the home land while connecting globally in order to prevent future attacks. >> so it is interesting to hear politicians talk about yes, we are safe, intelligence services are working better together here in the united states. but people seem to forget this is a global war.

this is an asymmetric war. this is about ideology and ideas. we saw that u.s. soldiers died just a few days ago in afghanistan because a suicide bomber was able to get close to the gates there, and along with them a lot of afghan people. i would say one of the big lessons we haven't learned is you can only win long term if you are able to win over hearts and minds of people and that is a war we have not won yet unfortunately. >> lawrence, i am at ground zero, when the attacks took place 20 years ago tomorrow, most of us thought who are these people that perpetrated this, why do they hate us so much. how could someone feel that way about the united states of america. what changed in that regard in the last 20 years. we prevented another attack from coming, the war in afghanistan played a big hand in that, counterterrorism efforts, but

what is sort of as you look at the chess pieces, the way you work backward for the looming tower and explain what happened on 9/11, what does the chess board look like as america looks at threats and people it should be thinking about? >> willie, i feel like just as the taliban returned to power, we feel like it has been some big circle, got back to where we were, in many respects, our relationship with the muslim world and of course with al qaeda is very similar except that al qaeda is far more fortified than it was in the past. it doesn't have the training grounds it did in afghanistan which made it so potent at that point, but it might well have them again soon. the united states has not played its hands very well. you know, i have a feeling, you know, in ji hadi discourse, they talk about the near enemy and the far enemy. one thing that might make a difference is that bin laden

described the united states as being the near enemy because it is present everywhere. ships were off the shore, there were bases in arab lands, conflicts going on. withdrawal of american forces from the region may diminish some of the antagonism, at least it will diminish proximity between america and those forces, and that might not be the worst thing. >> lawrence wright and suad mckenna, thank you for joining us. joe? >> thank you so much to them and everybody that's been with us on this morning. we greatly appreciate you being here. i just want to say we made terrible mistakes over the past 20 years as a country. we've done many things wrong but we've done a lot of things right and we've seen that this morning

and willie's interview with fdny, the nypd, men and women in uniform, special ops, the agency, the fbi, people in the state department who have given their lives, dedicated their adult lives to making americans safer. we thank them. i just want to say in the midst of all of the negativity that we're going to hear about all of the mistakes we made in the past 20 years, because of those heroes, there's not been another attack on the home land the scale of 9/11. they are still a country 20 years later despite our mistakes that is the supreme power in this world, economically, militarily, technologically,

culturally, nobody likes to talk about that. it is just a reality. we have to do better as a country. i understand that. but there are a lot of men and women out there over the past 20 years who have given their all, and i salute them this morning and i thank god for them and i thank god for this country, mika. >> yeah. i just want to thank the front line workers in the fight against covid for their relentless duty to protect life at the risk of their own. 20 years tomorrow it will be the frontlines of ground zero that we'll be thinking about, so deeply personally, the thousands that rushed to ground zero and it was there where so many died. and many others remained for weeks and months to come. it changed all of us. i will always think of the thousands that went to work on that bright, beautiful hopeful

day and never came home. willie? >> yeah, i am thinking about the men i just talked to today, chief nigro, chief fifer. they were asked to be superheros on that day and they were. 343 of them died. i am thinking about the families who lost somebody on that day, i know many of them. thinking about amy hargrave, 24 years old. she was four years old when her father died in one of the towers, she talks about how all he missed, she will get married someday, the birthdays. it is a trauma for the country, but for people that lost someone, it is a human tragedy. mike barnicle, i'm thinking i have something unexpected this morning. i looked between the buildings here, i can see the control tower at newark airport across

the river. that's the airport where flight 93 left at 8:42, four minutes before the first plane hit the tower. that group of people, those passengers on that plane got together voted and made a decision to go into the cockpit and take the plane down and prevent another tragedy perhaps at the united states capitol. heroes everywhere you look that day. >> no doubt about that, willie. as mika pointed out, our world changed forever on september 11, 2001. and a couple weeks ago, 13 americans were killed at the gate in kabul international airport helping people they did not know and never met before, helping to save their lives. 11 marines, one army ranger, one navy corpman dead. they're on the front lines. people like them are out there every single day, we ought not forget it.

they're there to preserve our liberties, our freedom, and to make the world a better place. that's the world run by the united states of america. >> thank you for sharing this with us. stephanie ruhle picks up coverage from ground zero right now. good morning. i am stephanie ruhle, live at ground zero in lower manhattan. it is september 10th, one day before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. 20 years ago today 50,000 people came to work right here just like they did every other day. they came in and out of the twin towers. iconic fixtures of the new york city landscape, our skyline. both of them, 110 stories high. this very place the world trade center was at the heart of new york city's financial