Latest / Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning / Opening Segment 9/9/26

Transcript

Opening Segment 9/9/26 · Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: What a day yesterday was at City Hall as a
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: press conference took place. The mayor, his staff, others who
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: were involved in and around 9-11, and the keynote speaker
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: was John Stewart. His friend was also there, who you
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: know personally very well, Larry.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: John Field.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Right. And there were assorted people in the crowd who
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: were not really political. I could just tell by looking.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: But the information that was revealed was damning. Apparently, they
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: had found finally after many, many years of searching during
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the administrations of Giuliani, Bloomberg, de Blasio, and most recently Adams,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: about 68 boxes in the Department of Environmental Protection. that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: had to do with reports on the air quality in
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and around the 9-11 attack site. Very extensive, including what
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: could be a very damning report by a deputy mayor
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of Rudy Giuliani's administration, Robert Harding, who I've known pretty well,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: at least many, many years ago. It's called the Harding Memo.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And boy, if it's true, Larry... There's a lot of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: people who have to be able to answer the question,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: which right now nobody is answering. When did you know?
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: What did you know? And what, if anything, did you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: do about it?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: They never warned anybody, even that it might be dangerous.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: If you remember, Christy Todd Whitman, former governor, head of
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the EPA at the time, said that the air was fine.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: If there was anybody in the city that knew different
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: because they were doing testing right then. You can see
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: from the files they were doing testing at the time.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: They didn't see anything. They didn't see a thing that
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: made them realize this air might be dangerous. This gets
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: very personal for me because I think that anybody that
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: used to watch my commentaries on WPIX know that I
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: did them once or twice a week. On this very topic,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: and I went with busloads of first responders, many of
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: them wheelchairs, many of them with breathing apparatuses, down to
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Congress to beg them for money to help on the
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: illnesses they got on that day. The thing is, they
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: were the living proof. We all knew. We all knew
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: it was making people sick. How could you not know? Curtis,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: there was four buses that we went down there on.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: More than half of them are dead now. More than
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: half of them died. More than half of the people
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I got to know died from 9-11-related illnesses. All kinds
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: of weird illnesses that people don't get. And we just
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: kept looking the other way. Oh, sure, Congress passed money
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: to help them and get medical treatment, but they kept dying,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: over 9,000 of them. So look, where are we at
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: with this now? Evil has been done. That's pretty apparent.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: There was information that could have helped people that was
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: held back because nobody wanted culpability. Nobody wanted the lawsuits.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: And to me, and I think to the law, that's criminal.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Like it shouldn't end here. It shouldn't end with the
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: release of documents. There should be criminal charges. And I
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: know probably nobody in the city will take this case.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: So I look to the federal government.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: The U.S.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Attorney should be looking at this. And finding out when
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: people knew. Because let's just say, Curtis, it wasn't right away.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Let's just say it wasn't at that moment. Let's say
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: it was a few weeks later. Well, people were working
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: at that site for years and they were complaining the
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: entire time that there's something wrong with the air. And
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: they were told over and over again, no, no, no,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: you don't even need a mask. Oh, no, no, no.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: It's fine. It's fine. It wasn't fine. And people died.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: And people that I know died. And someone has to
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: be held accountable. It can't be the release of a document,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: and then you say, oh, guess what? Everything's okay now.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: We admitted to it. All right, let's move on. No, no, no, no.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And you pointed it out, Curtis. It's administration after administration
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: after administration, but it has to start with the first one.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: The hero of 9-11, Rudy Giuliani, the mayor that led
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: us out of 9-11, doesn't look so good right now.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: And anybody in his administration doesn't look so good right now.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And there has to be at least hearings. I would
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: hope that there's going to be congressional hearings and that
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: people are called in front of them and asked the
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: simple question, what did you know and when did you
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: know it? Because obviously there was testing going on. We
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: know now we have paperwork. There was testing going on
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: from the very beginning. And there was a sign at
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: the very least, although it's probably deeper than that, that
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: that air was dangerous. That air was dangerous to be in.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And did they give out gas masks?
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: No.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Did they make any accommodations for the people that had
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: to work on that pile? No.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: None.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Not a one.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: So people died. And in my opinion, at this point,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: there was culpability from the government. And this can't stop
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: after this. Let's remember 9-11. Let's take time this week.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: We don't want this to get in the way of
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: the remembrance. But in the back of your mind, This
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: can't be forgotten. As soon on Monday, next Monday, they
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: should announce hearings. Next Monday, there should be the U.S.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: attorney talking about an investigation. Next Monday, all that should start.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Because there has to be more than this. It can't be, oh, look,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: we all knew. Okay, let's move on. No, no, no.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: There's too many people. This was, at the very least, manslaughter.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: if you knew what was going on and you did
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: nothing and you could have saved lives and you did nothing,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: you killed people. People that came to this city's aid,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: people that tried to rebuild this city, you killed them.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: And so Curtis, you know, you can tell this is
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: pretty personal to me, but I want an accountability. I
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: want a commission. I want like a Warren commission almost.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I want a commission to look into this and figure
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: out what people know. And I need those that died
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: to know that we cared about them that much that
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: we fought to find out what happened to them. And
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: we held those that did this accountable.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: No doubt. In fact, John Stewart was very eloquent in
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: explaining the, To the world, really, what was in the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: first drop is 170,000 pages. There's many, many more to
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: come in those 68 boxes. But he had quite a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: bit to say.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: There was poison in the air and on the ground
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: and in the windowsills and in your air conditioners and
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: covering your pets and your clothes. And it stayed there
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: for months. Everyone knew.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: And it was in lungs. Yeah, everybody knew, but it
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: was in lungs as well. That was the worst part.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I didn't have the personal relationship that you
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: obviously did, Larry. What really brought my attention to this
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: were all the people who were told you could continue
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to live in the area. One of them was Donna Summers,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the great disco queen who died of lung cancer. She
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: had an apartment down there. She had never smoked, no
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: secondary smoke. probably attributable to the lung cancer from asbestosis,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: which could surface any time from 15 to 60 years,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you know, those fibers, those inhaled fibers. So you say
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: to yourself, in addition to all the men and women
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: who are down, you know, trying to find the last
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: remnants of those that have been crushed to death, people
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: removing the debris, the construction people, People had to work
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: in the area. People had to go to school in
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the area. People who lived in the area. It's a lot,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of people.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Do you know four out of five firefighters that were
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: there had some type of diagnosis of 9-11 conditions? Four
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: or five of those firefighters. And how was that ignored
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: all this time? Do you know that there are almost
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: 4,000 people right now as we speak battling cancer linked
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: to that toxic dust? So this is a current problem.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: This is a murder that's still happening. It's a mass
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: murder that's still happening, not knowing. Murders gets carried away
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: because there has to be intent. I don't think the
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: intent was on the people that covered it up. But
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: they're complicit. They're complicit in killing people.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: And they had to have known. You know it had
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: to have been discussed. We know, as you mentioned, Christine
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Todd Whitman immediately announced on behalf of the EPA the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: air is clean. it's clean, it will not be a
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: threat to you. She has since apologized. What are you
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: apologizing for if you were reading from a report that
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: said the air was clear, or did you just rush
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: that through? Was there... a predetermined attitude that you couldn't
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: just vacate the whole area, let's say south of 14th Street,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: that you had to have people actively working there, going
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to school there, and then obviously continuing with the extraction
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of materials and the search for any remnants of DNA
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: of those who had been crushed to death. So I
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: think you're right. There needs to be a commission. People
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: need to be issued warrants. They need to give public
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: testimony on this because, boy, this is pretty damning. And
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: this is just the start. One hundred and seventy thousand pages.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: And it's all going to be posted. It's being posted
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: now on a portal. We'll have an opportunity to see
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: for ourselves. But it's not looking good for Rudy or Bloomberg,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: especially because those were the main two mayors that came in.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: During the attack, and then obviously after the attack. But
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of people that ignored it down the road.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: You're right.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: They're the main culprits, but there's a lot of people
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: that ignored it. We want to hear what you have
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: to say. Go to the iHeartRadio app and leave us
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: a talkback. You could win a Curtis Lee, win Larry
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Mendte in the morning t-shirt, and if you're picked as
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: the best talkback of the day, and if you're picked
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: as the best talkback of the week, you can win
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: a C-Crane radio, and don't forget... The C-Crane radios work
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: when it matters most. Well, the 9-11 airport restrictions are
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: going to be lifted, and you're going to like what
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: they want to do, plus a chance to see Andrea
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Bocelli at 825.