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Mark's 10am Monologue. · The Mark Simone Show

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  Speaker 1: On 710WOR, The Mark Simone Show. Well, it's the 25th
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  Speaker 1: anniversary of 9-11 as we look back on it this morning. Now,
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  Speaker 1: at the World Trade Center now, you've got all the
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  Speaker 1: living presidents. You've got Bill Clinton. You've got George W. Bush.
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  Speaker 1: You've got Barack Obama. You've got Joe Biden there. They're
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  Speaker 1: counting him as a living president. president. He's sort of living.
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  Speaker 1: And you got Rudy Giuliani there. Rudy Giuliani is there.
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  Speaker 1: And Mayor Mamdani is there. There was a moment earlier
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  Speaker 1: where Mamdani and Rudy shook hands. You'll see the video later.
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  Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani shaking hands with Mamdani. Now, Rudy was one
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  Speaker 1: of those people saying Mamdani should not come, should not
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  Speaker 1: be there. So far, he's there without incident. As I say, Giuliani,
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  Speaker 1: pretty cordial, shook his hand. So it's an interesting story
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  Speaker 1: of the World Trade Center back then. 25 years ago,
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  Speaker 1: a guy named Larry Silverstein, big real estate developer in Manhattan,
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  Speaker 1: still going strong to this day. He was 70 25
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  Speaker 1: years ago. He's 95 now. Still works every day, goes
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  Speaker 1: to work every day. He's building, building, building, but Back then,
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  Speaker 1: he was a big real estate developer. Back then, he
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  Speaker 1: was 70 years old. And it was August of 2001,
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  Speaker 1: and he bought the World Trade Center. He bought the
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  Speaker 1: Twin Towers. $ 3 billion. Somehow, he borrowed the billions of dollars,
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  Speaker 1: and he bought the Twin Towers. Seven weeks later was 9-11.
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  Speaker 1: He just bought them, and seven weeks later, 9-11, his project.
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  Speaker 1: His lifetime achievement buying the World Trade Center suddenly became
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  Speaker 1: a nightmare. Well, he's 95 today. It's 25 years later.
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  Speaker 1: As I say, he's still working, still going strong, goes
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  Speaker 1: to the office every day. His office is at Seven
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  Speaker 1: World Trade Center, which is the first tower that they rebuilt.
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  Speaker 1: You know, when the towers came down, Silverstein had just
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  Speaker 1: bought them. This is an incredible nightmare. He doesn't know
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  Speaker 1: what to do. The insurance companies refused to pay the
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  Speaker 1: insurance companies. And nobody knew what to do when the
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  Speaker 1: towers were knocked down. Nobody had any idea what to
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  Speaker 1: do with the site once it was cleaned up. And
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  Speaker 1: by the way, the cleanup of that site is an
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  Speaker 1: amazing achievement for government. You know, usually it takes government
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  Speaker 1: years to do simple things that the private sector could
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  Speaker 1: do in a couple of months. You've seen when the
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  Speaker 1: government tries to build a building, it takes years. When
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  Speaker 1: it's private sector, building goes up in six months. So
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  Speaker 1: The fact that they got the cleanup done so quickly
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  Speaker 1: was an amazing thing, an amazing thing. But they got
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  Speaker 1: it done. But then the question is, what do you
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  Speaker 1: do on this site now? And it was Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: back then who kept saying, and Donald Trump had been
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  Speaker 1: to the site right after 9-11. He was there. He
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  Speaker 1: was on the ground. He's a builder. He was offering
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  Speaker 1: to help, offering his people to do whatever you needed.
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  Speaker 1: But he kept saying, just build it back exactly the
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  Speaker 1: way it was, just to show the terrorists you can't
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  Speaker 1: do that to us. We'll put it back exactly. He
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  Speaker 1: actually said, get the original blueprints. They were all on file.
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  Speaker 1: Get the original blueprints, the original plans, and build it
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  Speaker 1: back exactly the way it was. But the idea was
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  Speaker 1: to build something new, and Silverstein had to do it.
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  Speaker 1: But as I said, the insurance companies wouldn't pay the claim.
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  Speaker 1: It was such a bizarre, strange thing that happened. Nobody
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  Speaker 1: had ever anticipated anything like that happening. So it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: in the insurance policy. And it took the government, it took,
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  Speaker 1: I think Eliot Spitzer was the Attorney General at the time. Oh, no, actually,
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  Speaker 1: he had become governor. After Pataki left, Eliot Spitzer became governor,
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  Speaker 1: and Silverstein still couldn't get the insurance companies to pay
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  Speaker 1: the money for the World Trade Center. He couldn't rebuild
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  Speaker 1: until he got the money. So it was then-Governor Eliot
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  Speaker 1: Spitzer who had to go after the insurance companies. He
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  Speaker 1: threatened to bar them from ever doing business in New
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  Speaker 1: York if they didn't pay up and pay the claims
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  Speaker 1: for Silverstein. So eventually they paid it, and they were
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  Speaker 1: able to start building it back. And as you saw,
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  Speaker 1: they built one World Trade Center, then they built three
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  Speaker 1: and four. These buildings all slowly but surely got put back.
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  Speaker 1: There's only one building left, and they're working on that now.
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  Speaker 1: It's the final building. And it just started construction. It's
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  Speaker 1: going to take about a year or so, but they'll
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  Speaker 1: get it up and that'll be the final building. But
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  Speaker 1: here's the thing that everybody forgets. When they decided, Silverstein
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  Speaker 1: decided he would build back on the site, he would
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  Speaker 1: put a new World Trade Center there. You remember right
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  Speaker 1: after the attacks, as things started to calm down, they
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  Speaker 1: did calm down a bit, but everybody kept saying the
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  Speaker 1: same thing. Everybody said nobody will ever live downtown ever again.
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  Speaker 1: You heard that all the time. Nobody will ever live
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  Speaker 1: downtown again. You know the other thing you heard? Nobody
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  Speaker 1: will ever live on top of a big glass skyscraper.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody will ever live on the top of a skyscraper
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  Speaker 1: ever again. Well, two things happened after that. Downtown became
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  Speaker 1: the hottest residential area in New York. Hotter than it
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  Speaker 1: had ever been. And if you look out that window
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  Speaker 1: over there, the billionaire's row, there's a whole bunch of
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  Speaker 1: hundred-story skyscrapers with $ 300 million penthouses at the top of them.
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  Speaker 1: And they're all sold. So both those predictions were false.
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  Speaker 1: But the problem was when Silverstein got the money and
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  Speaker 1: was going to build back, it was still too scary
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  Speaker 1: back then. Who would ever go into the World Trade
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  Speaker 1: Center again knowing terrorists might come after it? It was
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  Speaker 1: a real problem. And you know who the hero was,
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  Speaker 1: the hero company? American Express. They were the first ones.
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  Speaker 1: American Express stepped up, took a huge, huge lease. They
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  Speaker 1: agreed to serve as the anchor tenant for the new building.
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  Speaker 1: And that gave Silverstein a guarantee he needed to get
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  Speaker 1: his financing. So he obviously got the financing. And, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the land belonged to the Port Authority. And they were
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  Speaker 1: able to do some stuff as long as the buildings
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  Speaker 1: were gone for a couple of years and the whole
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  Speaker 1: thing was a big empty lot, actually a hole at
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  Speaker 1: the time. They were able to go in there and
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  Speaker 1: rebuild the subways and put in new subway stations and
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  Speaker 1: fix everything under there. But it was a long time
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  Speaker 1: before they were able to get that going. But Silverstein
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  Speaker 1: still goes to work every day. And he's just started
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  Speaker 1: construction on the final building. And a year from now,
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  Speaker 1: the whole thing will be complete. Absolutely finished. Rudy Giuliani
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  Speaker 1: is there. Of course, he was the big hero of
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  Speaker 1: the day. And give a lot of credit to George Pataki,
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  Speaker 1: who helped lead things. And there was Tom Von Essen,
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  Speaker 1: great guy. He's still active. Tom Von Essen was the
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  Speaker 1: fire commissioner, one of our very best. And Bernie Carrick
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  Speaker 1: was the police commissioner at the time. Actually, I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to a dinner tonight, a big 9-11 gala with George
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  Speaker 1: Pataki and others. And it'll be quite an event tonight,
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  Speaker 1: 25 years later. George W. Bush is down there. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: he was president at the time. There were all these reports. Remember,
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  Speaker 1: he was speaking to school kids in the Florida classroom
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  Speaker 1: when the attack happened, and then they shuttled him out
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  Speaker 1: of there, grabbed him, put him on Air Force One.
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  Speaker 1: There were these reports. Why was he flying all over
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  Speaker 1: the place? Remember, he flew here, he flew there. They
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  Speaker 1: tried to make it look like something was chaotic or
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  Speaker 1: he was a coward. Actually, it was all very logical.
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  Speaker 1: In an attack like that, when the country is under attack,
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  Speaker 1: The plan is separate the president and the vice president.
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  Speaker 1: The president goes to the situation room, the command center
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  Speaker 1: in the White House, and the vice president is supposed
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  Speaker 1: to go to Nebraska, where they have an exact duplicate
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  Speaker 1: of the White House situation room and command center. And
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  Speaker 1: it's from those command centers that you can control everything,
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  Speaker 1: our military, our weapons, our nuclear weapons. So that's the plan.
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  Speaker 1: President in the White House command center. vice president in
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  Speaker 1: the Nebraska command center, which is deep underground. So when
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  Speaker 1: the attack happened, Cheney was already in the command center
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  Speaker 1: at the White House and the Secret Service decided it
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  Speaker 1: didn't make sense to move both of them because they
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  Speaker 1: didn't know what was going on. They didn't know what
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  Speaker 1: was under attack. They did know that there had been
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  Speaker 1: threats against Air Force One. It turned out later they
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  Speaker 1: were not real, but they didn't want to move Cheney
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  Speaker 1: and Bush. So they decided Bush would go to Nebraska. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this is the part they kept quiet. Air Force One
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  Speaker 1: is supposed to be fully equipped with fuel, with food,
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  Speaker 1: enough stuff to be able to stay in the air
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  Speaker 1: for weeks. When they went to this classroom in Florida,
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  Speaker 1: it was just a quick trip. It was going to
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  Speaker 1: be like a five-hour trip. They got lazy that day.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't bother to equip the plane with everything. They
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  Speaker 1: didn't stock it up. So he had to go to
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  Speaker 1: Nebraska to the command center, but the plane wasn't fully stocked.
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  Speaker 1: So that's why they had to land at that first base. Barksdale, Louisiana,
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  Speaker 1: which was a place where they could stock up the plane.
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  Speaker 1: And I've talked to reporters who were there. Everybody looked
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  Speaker 1: out the window. They didn't know why they were landing
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  Speaker 1: at this base in Barksdale, Louisiana, but they sat on
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  Speaker 1: the runway for a couple hours. And all they saw
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  Speaker 1: were trucks just coming up to the plane. And the
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  Speaker 1: trucks would load like hundreds of loaves of bread, hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of containers of food, hundreds of gallons. of milk. Fuel
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  Speaker 1: trucks kept coming. So they had the plane then prepared
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  Speaker 1: the way it should be. So if it had to,
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  Speaker 1: Air Force One could stay in the air for weeks
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  Speaker 1: on end. But then they got to Nebraska to that
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  Speaker 1: base and reporters looked out and they saw instead of
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  Speaker 1: a car picking up Bush, it was a very, very,
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  Speaker 1: very armored military vehicle that he got into. And it
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  Speaker 1: took him to a place where he went down an
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  Speaker 1: elevator shaft into the ground. And that's when he was
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  Speaker 1: in the command center. He then, uh, at some point,
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  Speaker 1: I think it was late in the day, very late
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  Speaker 1: that day demanded to come back to the white house. But, uh,
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  Speaker 1: it was a scary day. Nobody took their eyes off
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  Speaker 1: television or if they were out listening to the radio
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  Speaker 1: that day and keeping track of this. But, uh, Now,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting. President Trump is worried about classrooms.
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  Speaker 1: You know, our universities became crazy indoctrination centers. And that's
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  Speaker 1: where you get this new generation of crazy left-wing socialist
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  Speaker 1: nuts that will vote for a guy like Mamdani. The colleges,
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  Speaker 1: the universities, even the high schools filled with these woke,
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  Speaker 1: kooky left-wing teachers indoctrinating kids. And one of the problems
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  Speaker 1: is how they teach 9-11. It's a big problem. A
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  Speaker 1: lot of these classrooms, the kids are taught that might
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  Speaker 1: have been our fault and the terrorists had a legitimate grievance.
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  Speaker 1: That kind of stuff is actually slipping into college classrooms
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  Speaker 1: from these crazy professors. You know, this is the way
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  Speaker 1: guys like Mom Donnie feel, and this is the way
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  Speaker 1: his father is one of these professors. So the Trump
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  Speaker 1: administration now issuing guidance on how teaching 9-11 should be taught.
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  Speaker 1: Linda McMahon, Education Secretary. calling on American schools to educate
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  Speaker 1: the kids with moral clarity about 9-11 and the significance
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  Speaker 1: for the nation's history. He's asking educators to teach the
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  Speaker 1: real stories of great heroism and courage that day. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you think about that Shanksville flight. The plane had been hijacked.
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  Speaker 1: They knew some of them had cell phones or portable radios.
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  Speaker 1: They knew what was going on at the World Trade Center.
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  Speaker 1: They knew what was going on with the planes. These
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  Speaker 1: hijackers were actually terrorists. They were going to crash the
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  Speaker 1: plane into the White House. So those passengers, they knew
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  Speaker 1: they had to kill themselves, but they did it. They
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  Speaker 1: went and grabbed the terrorists. They just outnumbered the terrorists
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  Speaker 1: and crashed the plane so it never got to Washington, D.C.
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  Speaker 1: That kind of heroism that took place on that day.
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  Speaker 1: You know, one of our great hospital systems, Northwell, huge
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  Speaker 1: hospital systems, now reporting that... There's been a huge explosion
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  Speaker 1: in 9-11 cancer just over the last two or three years.
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  Speaker 1: For many people, it was a slow motion kind of thing.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of people, of course, got all kinds of
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  Speaker 1: illness from 9-11. But Northwell's saying there's been an explosion
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  Speaker 1: of it in the last couple of years. It took
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  Speaker 1: 25 years to show up in some people. But, hey,
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  Speaker 1: we've got a lot of people to talk to about 9-11,
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  Speaker 1: about that day. The day began early today. St. Patrick's
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  Speaker 1: Cathedral had a memorial service, special service. The ex-presidents were
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  Speaker 1: all there, Clinton, Obama, Bush. Mamdani was there, the new,
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  Speaker 1: he's not the cardinal yet, but the new archbishop, Ronald Hicks,
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  Speaker 1: invited Mamdani. Hicks, of course, a very left-wing guy, probably
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  Speaker 1: a Mamdani supporter, but a nice ceremony this morning. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: we'll take some calls next. 800-321-0710. A lot of people
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  Speaker 1: have memories of that day. 800-321-0710. Mark Simone here on
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  Speaker 1: the 25th anniversary of 9-11 at 710WOR.