help them live in freedom. >> and my thanks to karen hughes. the far corners of the world, how america took the fight to the terrorists. that's coming up. >>> now pressuring the taliban is the first step toward rooting out bin laden and his worldwide operation. >> it will not be over until we have gotten into the inside of this organization, inside its decision cycle, inside its planning cycle and inside its execution capability and until we have neutralized and destroyed it. you a helicopter. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ [tv announcer] come on down to our appliance superstore where we've got the best deals on refrigerators, microwaves, gas ranges and grills. and if you're looking for... hey, dad! where we've got the best deals on refrigerhey, son!crowaves, no dad, it's a video call. you got to move the phone in front of you like..like it's a mirror, dad. you know? alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror? [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app with powerful, easy-to-use

downstairs to the situation room and there are now some famous iconic photographs of you, and karen hughes and national security adviser condoleezza rice, the vice president speaking with all of you. can you give us a sense of what was happening in that room? what was said? what you remember? yes, it took a while for everybody to actually get to the room. and it hadn't been really used for its intended purpose what's was to be a bomb shelter since its inception. we had drills and whatnot in there, but i think you'd be surprised it's a very small room. it has a lot of instruments in it. but the getting people there, karen was trapped in her neighborhood uptown. i think condoleezza rice, national security director was there and her aide. and i had been ordered, as had everybody in the west wing to evacuate. but was tracked down by a mail aide at the behest of the vice president to make my way back to the room. when i got and again, there were a few people there. but the vice president was squarely seated in the center. and a work activity was going on. and again, i would like to say it was e

downstairs to the situation room and there are now some famous iconic photographs of you, and karen hughes and national security adviser condoleezza rice, the vice president speaking with all of you. can you give us a sense of what was happening in that room? what was said? what you remember? yes, it took a while for everybody to actually get to the room. and it hadn't been really used for its intended purpose what's was to be a bomb shelter since its inception. we had drills and whatnot in there, but i think you'd be surprised it's a very small room. it has a lot of instruments in it. but the getting people there, karen was trapped in her neighborhood uptown. i think condoleezza rice, national security director was there and her aide. and i had been ordered, as had everybody in the west wing to evacuate. but was tracked down by a mail aide at the behest of the vice president to make my way back to the room. when i got and again, there were a few people there. but the vice president was squarely seated in the center. and a work activity was going on. and again, i would like to say it was e

karen hughes on september 11, she was serving as white house director of medications and counselor to president bush. a few years later, she would become under secretary of state for public display must see and ears and ambassador hughes serves as vice chair. the day come on the morning of september 11, 2001, president bush awoke in sarasota, florida where he would attend an education event at a local elementary school. in washington and new york, americans went to work under cloudless skies, flawless early autumn day. 8:46 a.m. -- a commercial aircraft plowed into the north tower of the world trade center. that was 9:00 a.m. and the port authority orders the world trade center evacuated. 9:03 a.m., the second commercial aircraft crashes into the south tower. 9:37 a.m., a third plane crashes into the pentagon. 9:59 a.m., the south tower of the world trade center collapses. 10:03 a.m., a fourth plane crashes, this one near shanksville, pennsylvania. it would later emerge that passengers had recaptured the plane from the terrorist who had hijacked it, intentionally forcing the plane dow

so i yelled hello, i am karen hughes, i'm here to see the vice president. and a couple of agents came running and took me to the bunker. i had never been there. i remember my first decision, i was very conscious of what dr. rice just said, that i had been home watching on television until i came back to the white house. the scenes of chaos, you know, the staff had been told to run from the white house. there was an erroneous report that there was a bomb at the state department, so the state department been evacuated. the pentagon had been hit and was smoking. it looked on television from these chaotic scenes as if the united states government was basically absent. so when i arrived at the bunker, , i saw the same scene secretary rice described, very calm decision-making, they were grounding the planes, the vice president and dr. rice were on the phone with the president. i felt like it was important that we had to brief the country on how the government was responding to this emergency. i felt secretary rice should do it. she and the vice president kept ins

karen hughes, they went down.e else was told to run and i will never forget the trail of shoes and sandals and you have worked there many years, the live locations for the cameras and to the west wing and to the briefing room to the office, there was a string of shoes and sandals for people who were sprinting outside of the building because we didn't know where that plane was going and we went out into lafayette park, it was hard to get cell service, an at&t phone and a sprint phone and a verizon phone and you had to go back and forth because there was such a scramble. we knew the president was in florida and we knew he rushed out of the classroom and we didn't know where he was and there was a big debate to go where he was safe, to go back to washington and we didn't know where they had taken the vice president and lafayette park, you could see the smoke rise up and it was the smoke from here. so you could see the first minutes, number one the panic and the fear and the questions you have as a reporter, where is

it's karen hughes, karl rove. they are getting the band back together. do you think that ultimately will help her? >> i do think it's interesting that she's reaching back to other republicans to show people this is what the party used to look like. i think trump would be eager to have a bush/trump matchup but the way this is really being framed, it is about january 6th. it's about democracy. you saw george bush speak about this at the 9/11 memorial in a way he's never done before. and what is interesting about this race is that liz cheney's opponent who used to be a cheney supporter, has not said much about january 6th. liz cheney is eager to talk about this. she serves on the committee. she wants to make this a test. her opponent is a lawyer and somehow got donald trump's approval without having to speak on this issue. i'll look forward to this debate because it will have national repercussions and my money is on liz cheney. >> she wants to run for president but has to win her house seat back first p. i don't know how much pull bush will have because of

condi is busy with other matters, what's happening, karen hughes counselor to the president, you were one of the dozen most important people in the administration and you were in the shower. the human aspect of this is what i find so striking. john, where were you? >> i was in tokyo on a mission the president was established that we would have a better working relationship with our allies in japan stop it was a shock, we went to the control room and of bunch of us and we looked in the world trade center started coming down. i was as close as i could be to the screen and i turned around and looked at these people's faces. they were in complete shock stuff you can imagine us all watching this together at the time, faces of horror. we immediately tried to find a way to get back to america. we got on a c-17 and within a matter of hours, we were on her way back. we had an air refueling over alaska so we did not stop we got to washington. all never forget the faces on the crew of the tanker. they give us more fuel. the radar screen had no planes, there was nothing. it was just amazing. i al

on the flight back, he called karen hughes, counselor to the president in charge of speeches, and he he put it. and he talked about the world leaders we had a heard from. he set the tone, gave the instructions to karen and the speech writers, and that's how that came together. as you know, george bush was very hands on about his speeches. they had to reflect him, his heart, his gut and he supervised it so it would sound like him. dana: and he knew he was a wartime president at that point. >> this is the part that sends a chill down my spine. i can talk about the memories of this morning -- the individual memories, but when you're standing next to the president of the united states and you hear him say we're at war, september 11th, that sent a shiver down my spine because i knew he meant it. and i knew what it meant to bring up and rally the military might of this country after we had been attacked. i knew a counterattack would be coming, and that was chilling. bill: ari, we would be remiss not to try and put in context what we have all watched from afghanistan over the past 27 days,

seeing the pictures of karen hughes and rice and dick cheney in the bunker and the president wantingn't have space in canada so i didn't hear from him until 2:59 in the afternoon. >> wow. >> when my cell phone rang finally. the old flip phone. ready to go on the air from our old bowl cam in the old network and he said what's happening? i said listen up. i left my phone in the lap. he could find out what happened. he was back in switzerland. brian, the communications and the panic, we talked about it earlier, we don't know what was happening an ensaw the smoke coming out of the pentagon and that was just so terrifying. >> the coms from the pentagon were not good. secretary rumsfeld talked about written about trying to be in touch with the president on air force one. not great and patched the call through and sounded terrible to be the most important thing and why rumsfeld didn't want to leave the building because he knew he needed to have the coms. they had somebody part of leadership off site but the national military command center at the pentagon filling with snoek. the air quality

back in washington, his top advisor karen hughes and says the white house has the situation under control. >> your federal government continues to function effectively. we have a federal emergency response plan and at president bush's direction, we are implementing it. >> by telephone, the president called new york mayor giuliani and pataki, he also speaks to first lady laura bush, the first lady and bush's two daughters are also rushed to secure, secret locations. mrs. bush on capitol hill when the attacks began, tries to offer words of reassurance. >> we need to reassure our children, everywhere in our country that they are safe. >> we have just learned that air force one has safely light ended, just outside of washington from our vantage point we can see sharp shooters on the roof of the white house tonight, secret service patrolling the ground, police cars driving up and down pennsylvania avenue, the white house in a lockdown as we wait to see what the president has to say to the nation. tom? >> thank you very much, nbc's campbell brown, and there are so many questions but a major que