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Sept. 11, 2024 - Rudy Giuliani
59:55
The Rudy Giuliani Show | 11 September 2024
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Hello, this is Rudy Giuliani and I'm back with Rudy's Common Sense.
The next two episodes of Common Sense are, of course, going to be exclusively devoted to September 11.
To remembering it and then assessing where we are now 20 years later.
I thought the best way to do that is to talk to the people who were intimately involved in having to react to it and deal with it.
And there was no one more involved than the chief of the department, Joe Esposito.
And Joe is here with me and I'll introduce you to him and he'll take you through probably the most harrowing day of his life.
It certainly was for me.
Joe?
Good morning, sir.
Thank you for having me on.
Appreciate it.
It's great to see you looking so good.
Good to see you.
So, Joe, you were in the police department 100 years, was it?
45.
45 years.
Yeah, I remember.
And tell us, just tell us a little about your background so people will understand who was there that day commanding the uniformed officers.
Right.
Well, at the time, I was the chief of the department, which is the highest ranking uniformed member in the NYPD.
And at that position, you're running the operational, basically all the operational stuff, patrol,
detectives, all the major bureaus, operational bureaus answer to the chief of the department.
So ultimately, I guess I was in charge of the operation that day.
Yeah.
So both the police department and the fire department are overseen by civilians, like
our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Secretary of Defense, Army, Navy.
So the police commissioner, the deputy police commissioner, the fire commissioner, the deputy fire commissioner, are not firefighters or police.
They may have been.
In fact, in the case of 9-11, they all were.
Bernie Carrick and Joe Dunn were police officers who Stop being police officers retired as police officers and the same thing in the fire department.
They both were firefighters That's unusual.
Actually, usually usually it's a A civilian.
But in any event, the actual head of the department, the person running the uniformed offices, like the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the general in charge of the Marines was Joe.
Right.
All the boots on the ground, basically, were answering to me.
So tell us about that day so that we can get a sense of what a shock it was and then how you reacted to it.
Well, as usual, I was on my way to work, and I was with Sergeant Mike McGovern, who was my morning security detail person, and we were driving up to the checkpoint.
We had a checkpoint at the time, right at one police headquarters.
Yeah, we should actually explain why.
We had a checkpoint.
We had to increase security, oh, maybe six, seven months earlier.
Because of the trial in the Southern District of New York of Islamic terrorists.
Correct.
And we already had a lot of security around the police department.
We had to increase it.
Then we had to secure the whole area around the federal courthouse, which is right next to the police department.
Correct.
To get in.
It was one barrier after another.
Correct.
It wasn't just for us.
It was for the state buildings, the prison.
They were all under threat.
I think a lot of people don't know that, but all of them were under threat.
The FBI had come to us and told us we had to do it.
And I had to close off City Hall.
And it really was because of the trial and the fear that Al-Qaeda, one of those groups, would come and attack us.
Correct, correct.
So we were at that checkpoint and as I just stopped the car to identify myself so I can go in, I hear an explosion.
I hear the explosion.
You're essentially less than a mile away at this point.
Yeah, the most.
Maybe three quarters of a mile?
Not even, not even.
So I look over my shoulder and I see a hole in the tower.
And the smoke is coming out.
And the officer at the gate, I can see he's yelling into the radio, that a 747 just crashed into the Twin Tower.
American 11, are you trying to call?
The cockpit is not answering the phone.
Our number one is in staff, and our five is in staff.
I am going to call from Washington.
I am in a situation where the American is on a possible hijack.
What's going on, Benny?
The aircraft is erratic again.
again. Call me. We're ready. Ready? Call me. Hey.
Eddie, are you there?
Eddie?
Eddie?
What?
What did you say?
It was?
Who are you talking to?
Oh, God.
I get out of my car.
I ran up to him.
I said, what did you just say?
What did you see?
He says, a plane just crashed into the Twin Tower.
I said, OK.
So I looked.
I realized that's what he was talking about.
Made a U-turn.
And I responded to, I was on my way there.
I went through the Battery Park underpass.
I had to run through most of it because there was no traffic, it was at a standstill.
When I got out of the battery park on the pass, I still couldn't go any further.
The debris was still coming down.
We had got there very quickly, as you know.
Yeah, you probably were ten minutes, five minutes after the plane.
Yeah, the debris was still coming down.
I couldn't go any further because the debris was still coming down.
That's how fast we got there.
I waited there for a minute or so.
So you're on the south side at this point?
I'm on the south side, correct.
Right at the battery park.
So you came around the island.
Correct.
And you were coming up north.
Heading right for the towers.
Correct.
I'm where the battery tunnel empties out.
heading right for the towers.
I give some instructions to the lieutenant who was on the scene about traffic control and things like that.
And again, at this point, we think it's an accident.
We're not thinking it's a terrorist attack.
Now, it's interesting that he told you it was 747 because most of the people were originally informed that it was a small plane.
Correct.
A twin engine.
When I was informed, which would have been probably about 10 minutes after this, uh, Patty Verone, who was on my detail, told Denny Young, my counsel, We've got to go down to the World Trade Center.
A twin-engine plane has hit the North Tower and there's a terrible fire there.
And then when I finally saw it, when I got out of the restaurant and saw it, it looked much worse than a twin-engine plane.
But still, I didn't know until later.
Yeah, it was unknown.
The reason he knew it was a 747, I went back to him a week or two later.
I said, how did you know it was a 747?
A lot of people identified it as a small plane, particularly since the building absorbed it.
One person I questioned said, I thought it was a small plane.
I only saw it go in.
I thought it was a small plane because if it was a big plane it would have come through the other side.
Right.
It never came out.
It just disintegrated in there.
But the reason he knew it was 747, believe it or not, he was a pilot.
So he knew his planes.
Right, right.
So we get there and I stop and I'm waiting for the debris to finish so I can get through.
I give some orders to the lieutenant and an emergency service truck pulled up.
It was Joe Vigiano and Vinnie Dance.
They were in the truck and they had to stop also.
We couldn't go any further.
So, what I did was I got on their running board.
Once the debris stopped, I got on... Were they the first ESU unit to get there?
Yeah.
It must have been, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We were probably the first uniforms on the scene.
Right, right.
I got on the running board, the outside of the truck.
I hang on to the outside of the truck, and we go down West Street, and we make a turn onto Vesey.
We make a turn onto Vesey, and I'm on the outside of the truck.
One of the two officers inside yells, another plane, another plane, and bam, the second plane hits them.
United 175, New York.
We have some problems over here right now.
We might have a hijack over here too.
Joel, this is Ryan.
I live on an airplane that's been hijacked.
If things don't go well and it's not looking good, I just want you to know I absolutely love you.
I want you to be good.
Go have some fun.
Same to my parents and everybody.
I just totally love you and I'll see you in December.
I did.
What are those people going to do?
All the elevators are blocked out.
Did you see that?
I'm not going to do that.
I didn't see it.
In my position, I couldn't see it.
They saw it.
I heard it.
They saw it because they were looking out the front windshield.
I'm on the side.
The truck is actually blocking my view, so I couldn't see it.
What did you hear?
I heard a big explosion.
Right.
And then I would look up.
And the debris is coming down again now, and now we're in the middle of it.
We're in the middle of it.
If we stay there, we're dead.
We're dead.
Right.
Fortunately for us, there was that walkway between the buildings, one tower to one of the other buildings, and I directed them to drive under there.
We drove under there, and we waited for all the debris to finish coming down, and then we pushed... That's where World Trade Center's on... and seven... Seven.
Seven World Trade Center's on the other side.
Correct, correct.
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So you went under that.
It's like a road between the World Trade Center.
We'll show some of this to people on a map.
On the south side is the World Trade Center, or one of the buildings of the World Trade Center.
Correct.
And then on the other side is 7 World Trade Centers.
Correct.
That may have connected the North Tower to 7.
I'm not 100% sure.
I'm pretty sure it did.
I think that's what it was.
So we stayed there until the debris stopped.
Then we pulled up to the corner and they started suiting up.
You know, they're emergency servicemen.
They're putting their gear on.
They're going to go in.
When that second plane hit, you know, now I knew it was an attack.
Of course.
Now I knew it was an attack.
So I got on the radio and I said, Central, we're under attack.
I said, New York City is under attack.
We have that tape.
We're under attack.
And I gave directions to all the borough commanders to evacuate your high-rise buildings.
You know, we have plans in each of the boroughs.
They know what their sensitive locations are.
They know what their high-profile locations are, court buildings.
This is a planned case of a terrorist attack.
Yeah, a terrorist attack, but also it could be an earthquake or something like that.
We have plans for different scenarios.
But this one, and I gave the order, evacuate your high-profile buildings, your signature buildings, court buildings.
I don't know where this next shoe is going to drop in this attack.
People forget or don't remember or maybe just didn't experience.
When you were in the middle of it, you didn't know when it was going to end.
Correct.
There was very, very strong evidence there could be more attacks.
Correct.
And either airplanes or it would trigger Ground attacks, you know, the kind of stuff that was going on in Israel.
Yeah.
Maybe they go into St.
Patrick's Cathedral and blow it up.
And there's a lot of information coming in like that.
And again, you know, something like that happens.
Everybody's trying to get information, but there's information about there's a half a dozen planes unaccounted for.
Right.
So are they attacking planes also?
You know, there were a lot of things going on there.
A lot of misinformation was coming in at the time, too.
So, but the order was, give me a level four mobilization.
That brings your vast amount of officers into play.
Again, evacuate high rise buildings, protect your signature locations.
That's what the order was.
And again, I told the SOD operator, the special operator, get on the phone to the White House and tell them we're under attack.
So I get out of the truck, while I do that, The two E-men, they go to the right, I go to the left because now Commissioner Carrick is reaching me.
He wants me to come and sit and meet me and you and him in that, I guess that was in Barclay?
Yeah, that was set up as a temporary center because when I heard about it, and I was at the Peninsula Hotel having breakfast, I got in the car And the cell phones were working sporadically.
I could reach Carrick, I could reach Joe Loder, but I couldn't reach Von Essen, who was the fire commissioner.
And I couldn't reach the White House.
The first thing I wanted to do was talk to the President.
From the moment it happened, I walked out, I saw a blue sky, I said, no accident, it is either a crazy person or a terrorist attack.
So let me assume it's a terrorist attack.
Yeah.
Assume the worst.
You assumed right.
So I started to call the White House, couldn't get through.
Couldn't get through to Von Essen.
So I got Bernie on the phone and he's the one who, so I was, he's the one who informed me about the second plane hitting because I saw a big, big explosion.
Yeah.
And I thought it was actually maybe just a secondary explosion from the first one.
And then he called immediately and said, boss, we're under attack.
That's another plane.
And they think this is a liner.
They think it's a big one.
And I said, OK.
We had already agreed to close down the bridges and tunnels, not let anybody in.
Like you were saying, we assumed maybe there were terrorists planted all over the city.
Correct.
Maybe this was a signal to go hit 10 targets.
And he told me that you were going to deploy people to the areas that were considered the number one, number two, number three, number four targets.
Correct.
And that's an original order about securing a sensitive location.
Every borough commander knows where his sensitive and important locations or high profile locations are.
And this comes from years of gathering intelligence.
From the Joint Terrorism Task Force, other places, about places they're interested in.
Correct.
When you arrest them, you always gather material and there'll be plans for the subways, plans for the bridges, plans for the stock exchange, whatever.
And you talk about intelligence.
I remember talking to John O'Neill from the FBI before the attack that summer.
And whenever I would see him, and I met him a lot because he would entertain a lot of
visiting dignitaries, and they would come to police headquarters and I would meet him
and them and we would show them the operation.
And whenever I would see John, I would say, what's going on?
What are you hearing?
And all summer he was telling me something big is brewing.
Something big is brewing.
And I said, where, John?
Where?
He's not in New York.
It's overseas.
Overseas.
Every time I saw him, I'd ask him the same thing.
What's new with that information?
And it was always something big, but overseas.
Unfortunately, he was wrong.
And you know, he died that day.
He retired.
Became, ironically, the head of security for World Trade Center.
Just a short while before, right?
Yeah.
And that morning, I saw him.
And he said, I'm going to go up and see what's going on.
He went into one of the towers after it was hit, and that's the last time I saw him.
Me and Joe Dunn, we actually were there when we recovered his body and took him out.
He had his body recovered?
He had a full body recovery, better shape than most.
What impressed me was the shock on his face.
It was sheer terror on his face.
Well, imagine this.
Let's tell them who O'Neal was.
O'Neal was the FBI boss in New York prior to his retiring and becoming head of security for the Twin Towers.
And he was for a long time.
I can't even remember how long.
At least since the attack in 93.
He was constantly warning of other attacks.
Yes.
Again, that's why I had that conversation.
Whenever I would see him, I would say, what's up?
And he would give me information on what's happening overseas.
But I remember distinctly that summer, something big is brewing, something big, but not in the country, not in the U.S.
He was wrong.
The information was wrong.
But after that, then, as you know, I meet up with yourself and Commissioner Carrick.
Gary McCarthy was with me, if you remember.
Yes, I do remember.
In fact, we must have been, when we went into the Barclays Street office, was a field office of Merrill Lynch, like a retail office of Merrill Lynch.
And I asked the police commissioner, I said, you better get us a building with hard lines.
We used to have hard lines then.
Right.
Because the cell phones are working sporadically.
Correct.
People think they went out completely.
They didn't.
Let's say they half went out.
Yeah.
It was very frustrating.
You could have a perfect conversation with one person, but you couldn't get to another person.
But of course, you can't have that.
So when I arrived, I stopped at Church and Barkley.
In fact, I couldn't go any further.
And Loda, Joe Loda, who is my deputy mayor and Bernie, ran up to me.
And Joe told me immediately, people are jumping from the building.
He said, boss, it's terrible.
This is the worst I've ever seen.
People are jumping from the building.
I looked up.
I didn't see anybody jump.
I saw Debrick coming down.
And I thought, oh, maybe he's exaggerating.
It sounded crazy to me that people would be jumping from the building.
And then I asked Bernie if we had set up the the sub office, whatever, and he pointed to a truck and the
guys were like taking people out and bringing wires in. And I said, the people from Merrill
Lynch, okay, he said, yeah, they were glad to get out. He said they were glad to get out of
the building. Time to take a short break.
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Hello, Mike Lindell here and I'm welcoming you to the world of precious metals.
Congratulations on taking that first step in getting your financial house in order.
I think you're making a very smart decision with this.
One that could protect not only you and your savings from an unstable world, but your family as well.
So go ahead and fill in the information form on this page.
And you're going to get a prompt phone call from one of Gold Coast precious metal specialists.
They're going to verify your information.
Then you're going to get a free 2024 gold and silver kit set directly to your doorstep.
There's no shipping, no hassle, no nothing.
Just a free information kit to help you learn more about the power of precious metals like gold and silver.
I want you to do your own research like I did.
You're going to be amazed about what precious metals can do for you.
I'm excited to be partnering with Gold Co.
They're an amazing company with an impressive track record.
And because you're a fan of mine, Gold Co.
is also going to fill you in on details on how you can qualify for a 10% instant match and bonus silver on qualified orders.
Plus, a one-half ounce silver Ronald Reagan coin, absolutely free for qualified callers.
That's right, absolutely free.
I mean, it's really a great offer.
So congratulations again on taking the first step to protecting and diversifying your savings.
Thanks for watching the show and I'll see you again soon.
God bless.
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You want to look in the mirror and see hydrated skin rather than fine lines and wrinkles?
I want you to discover Native Path Collagen.
It's made with only type 1 and type 3 collagen fibers, the two most important types that make up 90% of the collagen in your body.
It's found in your cartilage, your bones, your skin, your hair, your nails, and even your gut.
Type 1 and 3 provide maximum benefits without the need for unnecessary fillers.
Native Path Collagen is a single ingredient formula with no fillers, additives, artificial sweeteners.
Plus, it's third-party tested for heavy metals, ensuring purity and safety.
And here's the best part.
Native Path offers amazing bundle deals.
You can get three or six packs at a fraction of the price of other brands.
So join their private Facebook community and share your success stories, recipes, and support each other on this journey called life.
Visit getnativepath.com slash cd and start your transformation today.
That is getnativepath.com slash cd cancel culture welcome back uh
So that office we set up to make the phone calls.
Correct.
And then we went down to see Pete Gansey.
And then we met you coming back.
Yeah.
To the Barclay.
Right.
And we went to Barclay.
And while that happened, I met up with Mike Esposito, who was no relation.
He was the executive officer of the borough of Manhattan South at the time.
And I instructed him.
Manhattan South is the borough command for that area.
Correct.
Correct.
Everything south of 59th Street is Manhattan South.
So I said, I want you to set up a command post.
And I pointed to the post office.
I says, Get it going there, and we'll set it up there.
And thank God, he said, boss, maybe that's a little too close.
And I looked, I said, all right, you know what, get your staff here and then move it to the other side of the West Side Highway.
Let's get away.
And that was a life-saving decision.
That decision was life-saving.
We would have been there, The people would have been pulling up when the building came down.
We would have lost a vast amount of more offices and probably a lot of our executives if Mike didn't make that call, that suggestion, and I thank him for that.
He saved a lot of us by doing it.
You know, there are many decisions like that, either way, where, like O'Neal going to the building.
Yeah.
One person had a meeting up in the restaurant on top.
Yeah.
He forgot some of the material he had for the meeting.
He left his people in the meeting, came down, plane hit, he never got back, they're all dead.
Right.
Imagine the weight of that.
There's a lot of stories like that.
Obviously, it's not his fault at all.
No.
But you're alive and I'm alive because of the will of God.
Yeah.
Well, again, Vance and Vigiano both died that day.
They went right.
I went left.
Never heard from them again.
And Vigiano's brother was a firefighter who was lost that day.
And the family come from a long line of civil servants.
The father was a hero firefighter.
Yeah.
He, like many others, many other fathers, a lot of the firefighters and police officers have fathers who were firefighters and police officers, uncles.
It's sort of a It's kind of a little bit of an in-the-family job, right?
Yes, it is.
I think people pass along, a lot of people would say, why would I want to be a firefighter or a police officer?
If you're in a family of firefighters and police officers, you understand the benefits of it, the wonderful feeling you get.
Yeah, and you know what?
Saving people and helping people.
And kids see that growing up.
You know, firefighters, police officers, a lot of their friends are firefighters and police officers.
So you're hanging out together, you're spending holidays together.
The kids see that growing up, and they get attached to it.
They really do.
Yeah, and it is.
Very few people make that level of contribution, day in and day out.
In fact, I don't think anybody does.
Day in and day out.
And we're learning it more now, unfortunately.
When they put on the uniform or whatever, go to work, they can die.
Yep, without a doubt.
To save other people.
Who else but a police officer puts on a vest and a gun to go to their job, you know?
Right.
So now both buildings are burning, right?
Both buildings are hit.
Let me ask you this.
I've never asked you this question.
Did you think the buildings were going to come down the way they did?
No.
No.
That was a complete shock to, I think, everyone.
To everyone.
Me too.
When I spoke to Chief Gansi, so Gansi had the position in the fire department that you had in the police department.
He was the chief of the uniformed firefighters.
Bill Feehan was the deputy, but a 45-year firefighter before that.
Correct.
And Tom Van Essen was the commissioner, a 27-year firefighter.
Correct.
And they were the civilians who were in charge.
And he told me, we're going to be here.
I said, what do you need?
And he said, we're going to be here.
We're going to be here a long, much longer than they think.
So, I'm going to have to relieve these guys quickly.
So, just let the commissioner know.
I said I was going to meet up with the commissioner because he was on the other side.
And let the commissioner know we got to bring everybody back.
And then we'll figure out what we're going to do with them.
But we're going to be here a long time.
And he said, and clear this.
I said, what do you need from the police department?
So, he talked to Bernie.
He said, the first thing I need is you got to clear these people out.
Now, I don't know if you saw this part.
Some of the people that came out were standing there watching.
Yeah.
Like idiots, you know, but it happens.
They were standing there watching.
Meanwhile, somebody would get hit.
And he said, get these people out of here.
Correct.
Second, clear the whole thing out because you're going to have vehicles coming in day in and day out.
And then he talked about how many.
I said, what we want to do is you tell me the number of police you need here and then we're going to need the rest to guard the rest of the city.
So tell me what you need and then we'll figure out.
Then Bernie can figure out So they had a conversation.
I don't know, maybe Bernie will remember the number he said, but he said a certain number.
We need 500 police here.
And you can have the rest.
Well, that's why I had done that level four mobilization.
A level four mobilization gives you a sergeant and eight officers from every precinct, transit district, and housing command in the city.
That would have brought a lot of people in.
I also gave the order to the other borough commanders, you're on your own, folks.
You're in charge of your borough.
Don't expect any help from anybody.
So you get, you join up with, now it's a very large group of people, it's Police Commissioner, the Deputy Police Commissioner Joe Dunn, you, A number of other police officers.
We're there at the site.
Right.
Gary McCarthy's with me.
And we go into Barclay.
Correct.
I don't think Joe was into Barclay with us.
I think he arrived in his van.
Right.
He was still on the street.
He stayed on the street.
I don't think he had made it to that spot yet.
From the police department, it was myself, Gary McCarthy, and a few other officers.
Right.
You were on the phone trying to get through to the White House.
I was on the phone.
I got through to Chris Hennick at the White House, who told me that they had evacuated the president.
They were going to evacuate the vice president, but the vice president would call me back.
And I said to him, like what you were saying, all the rumors that were going on.
I was trying to check the rumors with him.
I said, has the Sears Tower been hit?
No.
Has the Pentagon been hit?
Affirmative, he said.
I said, anything else hit?
No, nothing hit yet, but there are, I think he said both.
I think he said seven to 12 planes.
Unaccounted for.
Unaccounted for.
Correct.
And we're, and we're, but I said, oh, we covered.
He said, oh yeah, yeah.
The vice president has dispatched planes specifically for New York.
And he said something like, don't worry.
He said something like, they'll be shot down.
Something very eerie.
The first thing that occurred to me was, first of all, I hope they're right.
And second, it better not be over the city.
Well, that's it.
Look, there was a lot of information that morning.
What are you going to do if you find another two or three planes that are not listening to the direction?
I mean, are you going to shoot them out of the air?
You know, I think that's been a little bit of a dispute, but my understanding from what he said was that they had the discretion, the military, the Vice President gave the military the discretion to make that decision.
Well, I'm glad I didn't have to make that decision.
Easily make it wrong, right?
Yeah, without a doubt.
He said you're going to be covered.
They'll be there.
The jet should be there right away.
But he said the real problem is there could be secondary attacks.
There's a lot of information about secondary attacks.
And what I thought he meant by that was smaller groups of terrorists who would bomb a building.
Sure. Somebody with a bomb vest to go into Macy's.
The way they have attempted to do before with us.
And then he said the vice president will call back.
The White House called back, said the vice president's on the phone.
And before he got on the phone, the building started to shake.
And I heard somebody yell out, the tower is down.
I could hear a noise on the phone. I looked around and I could see that the desk in front of me was shaking.
We didn't know what that was.
People going under the desks.
I heard the chief of the department yell, the tower has come down.
The tower has come down.
Oh, my God, the building's gone.
Yeah.
And who was that?
That was me.
So tell us... So what happened was, I was there with you, and then the building started rumbling.
I said, I gotta go find out what's going on.
I went to the front door, and as I... Was this before the debris started coming?
Yeah, this is, well... Before it got black?
Simultaneously, because now I'm walking out.
The building is okay.
We had, now the power had gone out in the building, if you remember, and went to auxiliary power.
Right.
So you only had a little bit of light in that Merrill Lynch building.
As I walked towards the front door to go see what's going on, an officer comes in.
He says, the building came down.
The building came down.
The building came down.
So I'm thinking, I think everybody was thinking that probably that top half of the building that was hit by the plane probably collapsed.
I walked out and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
There was so much dust, smoke, debris, you couldn't see anything.
You couldn't see anything.
So I really couldn't get a good look at what happened.
But I knew that part of that building, at least part of that building, came down.
But what you thought you were conveying was that the top of the building came down.
Correct.
Which is exactly what I thought.
Yeah, I never imagined... I interpreted it that way.
I never imagined that the entire building just melted.
It looked like A big candle melting in fast motion is what it looked like, if you think about it.
When I saw that second one, I saw the second one come down live, but I thought the top of the building came off.
So I came in and said, hey, the building came down.
We got to get out of here.
Time to take a short break.
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Welcome back.
So, then we spent about 20 minutes, would you say?
About 20-25 minutes trying to get out.
Trying to maneuver our way to get out of there, yeah.
To get downstairs to go out the other way.
Correct.
Because it looked too dangerous to go out the front way.
Correct, correct.
And finally, when we got out the bottom, We came into the lobby of Park.
We were separated at that time.
Myself and Gary went one direction.
You guys went out to, I think, the north end of that building.
Yes.
Me and Gary went back to the street.
I wanted to see what was going on.
Right.
So when we got to the lobby, it was almost like going from bad to worse.
The scene outside was terrible.
Yeah.
And people were sitting in the lobby.
They came in from outside bleeding.
And you could see people getting hit and knocked down outside.
Debris was still coming down.
It went on for... This is before the second building came down.
It went on almost continuously until the second building came down.
Yeah, it kept coming down because it's a high building.
It takes a long time for that stuff to come down.
It really did.
So now, tell us about the second building.
Well, now, you guys went north, I think.
We went north because we were going to go to...
A firehouse and then the police academy, I believe.
We went to the firehouse so that we could call the governor and the president.
But then we selected the police academy as the best choice.
The police department would have been the choice, but power was out at the police department.
So you couldn't use the police department.
We actually thought about using the first precinct or the firehouse in the village.
Too small.
And then someone came up with the idea of the police academy.
Well, those were the serious questions you had to make and you had to hold your breath and make a decision because we don't know if another plane is coming to the police headquarters.
So we thought the police academy was the best.
It was two miles away.
It was out of the scene.
But it wasn't too far that it would take a long time to get there, and a few people wanted us to go to the backup command center in Brooklyn, and I couldn't see us leaving Manhattan.
No.
It just seemed to me like it's a retreat.
Yeah, and that would have been a bad decision because getting back to Manhattan would have been almost impossible.
Absolutely, yeah, because of the bridge.
Yeah.
And I thought the police academy was a perfect choice.
Yeah, it worked out.
We're out of the main...
zone But close enough so you can get there very very quickly and
the place is gigantic So those are some of the decisions we had to make on the
fly and again I had to make those decisions and I would turn to Gary's
Gary. I just told him to evacuate police headquarters except for operations
Operations, folks, you gotta suck it up and you gotta stay.
We need you to run this.
But I said, okay, are we gonna go back to City Hall?
I said, maybe City Hall's the target.
I had to decide where we were gonna operate out of.
And ultimately, I took a deep breath, I looked at Gary, I said, Gary, we're going back to headquarters.
I can't just sit here and not make a decision.
Luckily, it wasn't a target, and we worked out of operations.
And that's what Joe Dunn did.
Joe Dunn came, I remember him pulling up in the van, jumping out on crutches.
He had torn his Achilles tendon, I believe it was, and he was recuperating.
Playing basketball with his son.
Yeah, and he was recuperating, and he jumps out, and I told the people, get him out of here, he's on crutches!
But he wouldn't leave, he wouldn't leave.
But ultimately, when I got back to headquarters, Joe Dunn wound up running, overseeing the operational unit.
Again, he couldn't be out there on crutches.
I went back out to the street, and it was a good setup.
Because, as you know, Joe was from the street, he was in the field.
He was the chief of the department before me.
He was the commander in Brooklyn.
He was the chief of the department.
Right.
So he was a perfect guy to oversee the operations.
Completely experienced police officer.
I mean, I don't think people realize, and going through this maybe illustrates, the amount of talent in the New York City Police Department.
We had a lot of qualified people at that time.
And if you know, without sounding like we're bragging, but it stands to reason they get the most experience.
Yeah.
I mean, you had gone through a terrible period of 2,000 murders a year.
Yeah.
So where are you going to get better homicide detectives than guys who investigate?
In some cities, it's 100 or 200.
Yeah.
So then... The bench was pretty deep at that time.
So then when did you... What did you...
What did you see of the second building?
Well Myself and Gary were on the street now We have my a lot of my folks from my office that I called my off They all there and we got to get we got to start evacuating people evacuate That was the mission get people get them away from the towers as much as possible get them away get them away get them north get them south and while I'm on the street I look up, and I see the second building is starting now to crumble, I guess the same way the first building crumbled.
Yeah, they look pretty much the same.
Yeah, and it just looked, again, I keep saying it, it looked like a big candle just melting in fast motion.
It just came down straight.
We've all seen it.
Yeah, but it's one thing to see it live, and you were less than a mile away.
I was a few blocks away, right there.
What we did was, We started seeing this dust cloud come again.
We got into a couple of hallways, and we just waited for all that debris to pass by.
And a lot of things went through people's minds.
I mean, one of the police officers in my office was there with me, Yolanda Acosta.
Her husband was there.
He's a detective.
He was at the site.
And now she's saying, my husband's dead.
My husband's dead.
Did he?
Thank God, no.
He survived and he's retired and he's doing very well.
But those are the things that will run through your mind.
Right.
And I remember looking up and saying, if we lose, if the NYPD loses less than 100 officers, it's a miracle.
Right.
And it was a miracle.
We lost 23.
Well, you lost basically the ESU people, right?
The vast majority were emergency service folks.
Because they were in the building.
Yeah, well that's their job, to go in and rescue.
And they went in immediately.
Yeah, a number of them were in the building.
The other officers, again, 6th Precinct, Transit, those fellas came, Moira Smith, You know, they were in the process of evacuating people.
We have many, many pictures of, we have Moira Smith, we have Suarez actually escorting people out and then going back in.
Right.
And so when did you come to the Police Academy?
I never, I hadn't come to the police department for a long time.
I went back to headquarters.
I went back to headquarters to make sure operations was doing what they had to do, that we were getting the things we needed, the personnel we needed, and I went to operations.
That's where I hooked up with Joe Dunn again, and then I went back to the street.
I went back to the street, and I was there for, you know, days and weeks.
One of the decisions, you talked about people looking up.
One of the decisions that night I had to make was when 7 was still burning.
Right.
Still burning.
And there were all people still around.
I went to the fire department.
I said, we've got to get away from this building.
Didn't we learn anything?
The other two came down.
This is going to come down.
I'm pulling all my cops away.
I'm getting all the civilians.
Please, get the firefighters.
Let's think this out logically and make sure we don't lose anybody else.
Within an hour or so, that building came down.
Right.
I'm glad I made that decision.
There were no casualties inside.
No, no.
Everybody was out of that building.
Correct, correct.
My corporation counsel and one other civilian were the last people out.
Mike got trapped there for about an hour because the exits started.
When we were trying the exits, some worked and some didn't.
The exits were barred.
And that's where we lost the Office of Emergency Management.
Their office was in 7th.
And the CIA.
And the CIA is in that building.
Yeah.
And a lot of things you can't mention.
A lot of things, yeah.
Because then we had to guard that building for two months because they were taking things out of their safes and out of the basement.
Yeah, well that was a lot of things too.
People will come and say we've got X amount of gold in the basement, X amount of CIA had a lot of secrets in the basement.
So Then it turned into 24 hours a day.
Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, yeah.
And then I left office three months later, three and a half months later.
Yeah.
Tell us what happened, what you did.
I want people to know how long your service is.
Well, I stayed until I reached the age of 63.
You cannot be a uniformed officer and be 63.
So I left on the eve of my 63rd birthday.
So I did almost 13 years as a chief of department.
So I went through a lot of the recovery, You also went through a lot of the rebuilding of the department into a really first-rate anti-terrorism.
Yeah.
Well, that was the first meeting I had with Ray Kelly.
When he was now being picked as the police commissioner, he called me up and we talked.
And I said, look, we've got to have a special We've got to build our counter-terrorism unit, we've got to build our intel unit, a couple of ideas, and he naturally had the same ideas.
And that's where it all came from.
It all came from the attack and building up counter-terrorism and intelligence.
Before we conclude, without telling me what you can't, which you won't anyway, over those years in which everyone is amazed that we weren't attacked again, There were many attempts.
Many attempts.
Some we know, some we don't know.
Correct.
Are you allowed to give me sort of an estimate of how many there were?
I mean, I know the public ones.
Oh, there's about two dozen.
Whoa!
I don't think people realize it was that many.
No, we put some out, and then we don't put some out because we're continuing the investigation.
We don't want to give up our source and things like that.
But, you know, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, so many things.
The one in Times Square, people.
Times Square.
We had the bomb.
That was a solo guy.
That was a lone wolf planting a bomb there.
I was on that scene with David Cohen from Intel at the time.
But, yeah, we thwarted a lot of attacks just last summer.
It was a guy who had a plan to get a gun and go to Times Square, go on the steps, and shoot a lot of people.
We publicized it to some degree, but we didn't put it out there because, again, we're continuing these investigations.
And now, today, 20 years later, how do you assess it all?
I'm worried.
I'm worried because We have short memories.
Americans generally have short memories.
We don't remember.
A lot of people don't even think about 9-11 anymore.
Our enemies never forget.
They are very patient.
They never forget.
They still curse us for the Crusades.
They still blame us for the Crusades, if you think about it.
And now we have just opened up Afghanistan We went to Afghanistan in the first place to stop these attacks.
We knew that that's where the base was.
And it worked.
Yeah, it worked.
I think the reason we were safe in New York was the extraordinary anti-terrorism operation that was built up.
It just grew and grew and grew.
And we had a basis for it because we had the Joint Terrorism Task Force for a long time.
So we had a lot of experienced people.
We didn't have enough.
So you added a lot more experienced people.
Plus, we had our military in the parts of the world where they want to come here and kill us.
Yeah, we kept them off balance.
And the military picks up intelligence that nobody else does.
Right.
Us being in Afghanistan kept our enemies off balance.
Were they still trying?
Yeah, they were still trying.
But they couldn't accomplish what they accomplished on that day.
I think, in part, because of our presence in Afghanistan and our putting the pressure on them.
And it's worked.
So I'm concerned.
I've always said another attack in New York City or in this country is inevitable.
When is it going to happen?
I think because of Afghanistan, it may be a little sooner than later.
And how do you see the day of September 11th?
You think we'll get through that?
We'll get through it, you know.
It's a very emotional day.
You know, our enemies, we think about this more than they do.
We don't, they don't really look at dates and say, oh, let's bomb them on New Year's Eve, let's bomb them on Christmas.
They'll do it when it's the best for them.
We worry about, oh, and we have to.
Symbolic dates.
Right, we have to.
But they don't look at it that much.
But we have to because we have big gatherings, Times Square, Thanksgiving Day Parade, big sporting events.
We have to.
Yeah, we do.
It's common sense.
I don't know what the word, there are no credible threats, means anymore.
Because before September 11th attack, there were no credible threats.
Before many of these attacks, there were no credible threats.
Which means we don't know about it.
We have to be on guard.
Yeah, we haven't heard about that credible threat.
Right, and it's a vast network, and if we're picking up 80-90% of it, I'm not sure we are, but that still leaves a big... We've only got to miss one.
Right.
That's all.
We can stop 99 of them, but if they get that one out of 100, we lose.
Well, Joe, I don't think the city would have gotten through it the way it did, not only that day, but for the next decade, without you.
Because the knowledge you carried over was invaluable.
Because a lot of people died, a lot of people retired.
It was very, very valuable, your being there.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you for saying that.
I'll never forget what your people called me when you left office.
I was the only one staying around.
Thank God Ray Kelly decided to keep me.
But you always referred to me.
All the people in your office called me poor Espo.
Poor Espo.
Because I was sticking around.
I refer to you as the most valuable chief of the department in history.
Oh, thank you so much.
MVP.
Thank you.
We're going to have an MVP award for you.
That's great.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
You did a great job, and I'm not exaggerating.
And God bless you for that day.
You were America's Mayor.
You led us those months.
Well, I didn't do it without your people, the fire department.
We had great people around us.
We all were on big, big shoulders.
Yep, we were.
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