Dh B7 Eop Produced Documents Vol Iv Fdr- White House Internal Transcript- 8-16-02 Card Interview 818

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary Internal Transcript -- August 16, 2002

ROUNDTABLE INTERVIEW WITH CHIEF OF STAFF ANDREW H. CARD, JR. Office of the Chief of Staff The West Wing

2:05 P.M. EOT

SECRETARY CARD: -- (in progress) -- and finds time to manage the very, very difficult task of winning a war, defending the homeland and a burden that also came on September llth of restarting our economy, because here we had just come out of a recession, and there was another shock to the economy. And the President understood that on September llth. He knew that it wasn't just a shock to democracy and civilized society, that it was also a shock to our economy. So he was sensitive to that. Q Could you take us back to that actual day, when you sort of whispered in the President's ear. But can you give a little more context about sort of what happened afterward, what the hours were like?

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I came back into the holding room, and that's when the President first learned -- I think Karl Rove was the first one who said that a plane hit the World Trade Center, and the President was informed of the situation. But the information that we got was that a twin engine prop plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. And that was literally just before the President was walking into the classroom. And the reaction was, oh, what a horrible accident. The pilot must have had a heart attack -- you know, it was, what a horrible accident. And the President went into the classroom. I then stepped back into the holding room, and I was told -- I got on the phone, and I was told that a second plane had hit, and it was a commercial jetliner, and that the first plane was a commercial jetliner. And then I wanted to tell the President. I usually try to do this: if I were President, would I want to know? And the test was, yes, I would want to know. So then I decided that I would tell the President. And I went over to the door, and I actually did give some thought as to what I would say to the President, because it's not an easy thing to interrupt a President during an event. First of all, you're watching, the cameras are on, and the audience is paying particular attention. And when it's a student audience, it's even a greater challenge. So I was very uncomfortable about interrupting the President during one of his events. But I felt if I were President, I would want to know. But I also did not want to have a discussion with the President in front of that audience, and in front of those cameras. So I wanted to think, how can I convey to the President the situation? And I made a conscious decision to state the facts and to offer editorial comment. And the facts, as I knew them, were -- since he knew about the first plane, I said, "a second plane hit the second tower." Those were the facts. And the editorial comment was, "America is under attack." I said those things into the President's right ear, and I stepped back, because I did not want to invite a discussion from the classroom. But I tried

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to be succinct in what I told him so that he understood the enormity of the problem. He looked up -- it was only a matter of seconds, but it seemed like minutes -- and I thought that he was outstanding in his ability not to scare either the American people that were paying attention to the cameras or, more importantly, the students that were in the classroom. And he just excused himself very politely, to the teacher and to the students, and he left and came into the holding room. Once he got in the holding room we could, again, tell him what the facts were. By then, we had brought a television into the holding room. So the television was on and they were obviously playing what was happening. The President got on the phone, spoke to the Situation Room, Dr. Rice. And I started working on the logistics, getting the motorcade lined up and ready to go, making sure the Secret Service were engaged in what they had to do, making sure that Air Force One was -- the crew wasn't off shopping or something like that. (Laughter.) You laugh about these things, but it doesn't just happen, you know. (Laughter.) And we also decided that the President -- the President was anxious to get back to Washington, D.C., very anxious to get back to Washington, D.C. But we also had, I don't know, 500, 600, or 700 people in the gymnasium and we were anxious to let them know that the President would not be going forward with the program. So I went into the other room, checked on the logistics, actually checked to make sure that the press pool that was in the classroom was moved out to the bigger room, because -- you know, the schedule fell apart. First I went up to make sure Secretary Paige knew and would be able to take over the event. We asked him to stay and handle the event; that the President would be coming out to make brief remarks. I then went around the other side to the back to check on the press pool. I fortuitously saw my sister. And she came up full of excitement, gave me a big hug. And I said, Sarah, there's been a terrible incident in New York City and we're going to have to leave. I just want you to know about it, I just can't get into it right now, but it's a terrible situation -- or something like that. I was pretty glum. I know my sister was -- she was very worried. Whatever I had said was not comforting. Sorry. Anyway, and then I went back and finished up the President's comments that he would make. And he went in, spoke to the community and then we left Secretary Paige. We got in the motorcade and drove off to Air Force One. I believe -don't hold me to every detail here, but I believe that it was -- we were both on the phones. I was in the limousine. We were both on the phones and calling back. And that's when we learned about the -- there was a whole bunch of information that came out and a lot of it was wrong. But that's when we learned about the attack on the Pentagon. I heard that there was a fire at the State Department. I heard there was a fire in the Old Executive Office Building. I heard all kinds of information. That's when we also heard Air Force One was a target.

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And now we all know a lot of that information was not accurate. But we didn't know that it wasn't accurate. I was anxious to get -- very, very anxious to get the President quickly to Air Force One because it is a very safe environment, and it has great communications. So my goal was to get him to Air Force One as quickly as possible and get Air Force One in the air. We got there and got the President on the plane. I was then worried about everybody else getting on the plane, not for safety but because we couldn't take off until everybody was on the plane. So I was getting on the plane and -- and I was surprised, somewhat disappointed but surprised that the guests that were scheduled to fly on Air Force One also had made it out to the motorcade and were going on the plane. You tend not to think about those things, but there they were. So we had to wait -- rush people to get on the plane so we could take off. We took off and flew very steep to altitude -- trying to get Air Force One out of harm's way because of the speculation that it was in harm's way. Q What was the President saying at that point? Or were you sitting with him? SECRETARY CARD: Yes. Q Tell us about that conversation and sort of -SECRETARY CARD: As soon as he got on the plane, he started -- he got on the phone back to the Situation Room, the PEOC, and we were trying to learn as much as we could about what was happening, so we were looking for the facts. And he wanted to make sure that he had the facts and was communicating with the right people -- the Vice President, Condi Rice, Secretary Rumsfeld. And he was very anxious to get back to Washington, D.C. And I kind of was the one that --.I think the exact words I said, "we've got to let the dust settle before we go back. We've got to find out what's going on, the dust has got to settle. " And he wanted to know where we were going. And I told him we were still working on where we were going. He was sitting in his office on Air Force One and I was for the first 15 -- 10-15 minutes of the flight -- maybe 5 or 10 minutes of the flight, I was up in the bedroom compartment and I was meeting with the Secret Service representative and the person that I had put in charge of making sure the communications worked on the plane, so that we dedicated the phones for the President's use. Because, you know, everybody on the plane wanted to pick up the phone and call. And I wanted to make sure it was all cleared with communications, for the suite was priority. So I sent pretty strict word up there. We had an open line all the time to the Situation Room -- we didn't want to have to wait for the call to go back and forth. So Captain Lauer* -- a female captain who is now an admiral -- was the NSC representative on the plane. And I can't even remember who the Secret Service guy I was working with, but I'll get those names. And I then focused on what does a safe environment look like. And we were trying to decide where we should land the plane. I had a goal of landing the plane within an hour-and-a-half. It was somewhat arbitrary, but I wanted to

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get the President down. The one thing that is lacking on Air Force One, from a technological point of view, is the President's ability to speak to the American people via satellite or whatever. He can talk by phone, but I didn't feel it was appropriate for the President to talk by phone to the American people. And we have outstanding communications on the plane, him talking to the Situation Room and the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense and whatever. But it's not that he can get on a satellite and be in everybody's living room. And so we started looking at potential Air Force bases or Navy bases where we could land the plane. We also didn't want to telegraph where we were going, because we didn't know if we were a bigger target. And so we identified Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. We told no one we were going there until we got there. Fortuitously, Barksdale was in the middle of an exercise, so they were already on the highest alert even before the Defense Department put them on the highest alert. They were in the middle of an exercise. We landed, they had great security. And we first went to a conference room, where we were planning to have a meeting back with the folks in Washington -but it wasn't as conducive as it could have been to bringing a pool of reporters in so the President could talk to a pool. So we moved from one building about a mile down the road to another building, which was the commandant's office. And we had secure telephone calls back to the Situation Room, the Vice President, whatever. And then we gathered the press and the President made a statement. We knew it wasn't going to be satellite, because we didn't have any satellite trucks there, but we did do video. And then we got back on the plane. It allowed us to that were on Air Force One, trim down on the staff. staff that didn't need to be there on Air Force One off the plane. And then we flew to Offutt Air Force stop there and let you ask questions.

get rid of the guests So we eliminated the and we took the guests Base in Nebraska and I'll

Q When you first came in that holding room at the school, what was his body language? What were any words he spoke? What was his immediate reaction -SECRETARY CARD: He wanted to know what was going on. It was dramatic because the television was in the room and it was the first time the President -those of us in the holding room had seen, you know, the reports. So we were watching it for two or three minutes or four minutes. The President walked in and didn't see the TV and he said, what's going on? And someone said, there it is, they're showing it. So the picture was right there. So he turned around and he saw it. And with that, we didn't need to describe it. It was: here it is, right there. It just happened to be the clip was running over again when he walked in. Q The second plane crashing into the building?

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SECRETARY CARD: It must have -- I can't remember. All I know is it showed the plane going into the building and a ball of smoke, so you could see it. And then -- and then the President got right on the phone and was talking back to Condi Rice in the Situation Room or the PEOC. And I checked on the evacuation of the White House. You know, I wanted to know, were people getting out of the White House and all this kind of stuff, because we didn't know. And I think that's when I was told that there was a fire in the Old Executive Office Building. But that preceded us even getting in the car. He did not say an awful lot. He listened on the phone. He told me he wanted to get back to Washington as quickly as possible. He also formulated what he wanted to say to the people that were in the gymnasium and some words were crafted and he edited them. And he wanted to make sure Secretary Paige was going to stay. But he was really focusing on dealing with the problem and getting to where we could have good communications. Q How quickly was bin Laden's name mentioned? What was the first time you remember hearing his name? SECRETARY CARD: I don't think I'm good at giving you that answer. I can tell you that there was an early -- I don't remember when, but it may have been on the plane or it may have been before we even got on the plane, but there was speculation that it was not another nation that had attacked us. And al Qaeda and bin Laden were not unknown to us, because early on in the administration, there was a lot of talk about the trial for the people who had bombed the World Trade Center. And lots of talk about the security around the courtroom or the courthouse where that trial was taking place. And so, you know, we knew about bin Laden and the blind sheik and the terrorist network. And there was an immediate recognition that this couldn't have been an accident or a coincidence, it had to have been an attack, and it had to have been well orchestrated and planned. People didn't wake up on the morning on September llth and say, hey, I think I'm going to go fly a plane into a building today. So it was pretty clear that this was an orchestrated attack. I bet -- I would say it was very early that we thought of this as a terrorist attack. And it was very early that, what terrorists have the capacity to do this? And it was kind of Osama bin Laden. But I can't remember the President saying, oh, that was UBL, or -Q UBL? SECRETARY CARD: UBL, Osama bin Laden. Q Along those lines, can you tell me, when did the President first learn of the Phoenix memo, and what would happen if a similar memo came out of Phoenix, or wherever, today? SECRETARY CARD: We didn't learn of the Phoenix memo until pretty late. Something that I think will end up being a standard, which was an exception,

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was the President getting an FBI briefing. I worked for President Reagan, I worked with former President Bush, and worked -- with President Reagan, I worked in that building, and a little bit in this building, where I had an office there for three years, and then an office here for two years. And then for former President Bush I was Deputy Chief of Staff, and my office was right there. So I can't speak with great knowledge about everything that happened with President Reagan. I can speak with pretty good knowledge about everything that happened with former President Bush. He did not get a regular FBI briefing. President Bush, prior to September 12th, did not get an FBI briefing. Now the President gets an FBI briefing every single day. So back to relating it to the so-called Phoenix memo, there wasn't a mechanism for that kind of memo to make it to the Oval Office, either in fact or in discussion. That doesn't mean that it couldn't have shown up someplace else, in the intelligence community, and then been condensed into something that might have been an intelligence report to the President, but -- Phoenix memo. The President -- by having an FBI briefing regularly, you do -- or the staff has a daily reminder that this war is different than any other war, because all other wars since -- the CIA and the FBI were created -- were kind of outside the United States. So you didn't worry about having an internal intelligence analysis, you focused on what does the CIA say, what are they doing over there? The President said, I want to know what's going on in here. If I can do a segue to -- September llth is a day that changed America and we'll never forget. You'll always remember where you were on September llth, and what happened in tragedy. A day that rivals that, in my mind, from my experience, was September 14th. And most of you would say, September 14th, it was a Friday. But that was a day that I saw the President, first of all, with Bob Mueller, the Director of the FBI, say: I don't want to hear about yesterday, I don't want to hear about building the case for prosecution; I want to know what the FBI is doing to prevent the next attack. Because the FBI briefing was really: well, they got on the plane in Portland, and they went to Boston, and they bought their tickets, and they did this, and it was building a case for prosecution, or a case of understanding. And the President really wanted to know: where else are they, how are we going to prevent them from attacking us, what are you hearing? And that was clearly not the primary mission of the FBI. And the President then made it the primary mission of the FBI. And I believe that Bob Mueller went back over to the FBI, and said, whoa, guess what, guys and gals, we now have to go out and prevent the next attack from happening. And so that was a culture change that was pushed down through a very significant bureaucracy of the federal government. And it was really, really important. So that happened on September 14th. The day began -- if you don't mind, I'll run through September 14th, because it is so significant to me. I get to the office very early in the morning. I got to the office kind of my normal time, which was about 5:45 a.m. The President showed up in the Oval Office at about 6:45 a.m., which is about 15 minutes earlier than he usually did. Now, you may not think of that as a big deal. It's a very big deal when you try to

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cram a whole bunch of work in before you go to the Oval Office. So I am like, oh my gosh, there he is, he's on the South Lawn already. (Laughter.) Because I have this little locator on my desk that tells me where the President is all the time. So I knew that he'd moved from the Residence to the South Lawn. So I go running down to the Oval Office, and I -- good morning, Mr. President, this is what your day is like. And I kind of tell him what the day is like. And he interrupted me, and started telling me what his day would be like. (Laughter.) And it was going to be CIA briefing, FBI briefing -- very unusual. Then he got into the part of the schedule that was pretty normal. He was going to do a Cabinet meeting. He told me that he was going to talk about the war council, the first time he'd used the term war council with me. And we walked through that day. I get in there, CIA briefing, FBI briefing, change of culture dictated to the FBI Director, pushed down to a bureaucracy, a real cultural shift that I think will have -- it is a lasting legacy. It's an unfortunate legacy, but a lasting legacy that we now have to have a President worried about attacks from within. Then the President goes to a Cabinet meeting. The Cabinet meeting was remarkable. Obviously, it was the first Cabinet meeting after September llth. And the President heard a report -- you know, we always begin the Cabinet meeting with a prayer. We began the Cabinet meeting with a prayer, and everyone in the room was prayerful. So this was not just, you know, this was a meaningful prayer and everyone listened. And then the President turned to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, and that's what you would expect. And the President talked about the war, hexcalled it a war. He talked about the war council. He talked about getting the people who were responsible for this. He talked about securing the homeland. And then he talked about, you know, that this was a shock to our economy, and I want to make sure that we understand that. He talked to Paul O'Neill, he talked to Elaine Chao, to Don Evans, about responsibilities for the economy. But then he went around the table and spoke about every Cabinet member's job. Rod Paige, I'm going to be focusing on the war, protecting the homeland and getting the economy going. Make sure no child is left behind. Mel Martinez, housing is really important. I've got a big housing agenda that I believe in. I want to make sure that that doesn't fall through the cracks. Christie Todd Whitman - - h e went to every single cabinet member and reminded them of their job and how it had to be done. And that showed that the President wasn't lost in the great responsibilities he had to win the war. He reminded us all that we had a job to do that went beyond, you know, the challenge of the moment. And it was -- it was a tour de force. He went around the table and challenged us.

And he was very efficient at this Cabinet meeting. It was not a Cabinet meeting where there was a lot of give and take, bantering and dialogue; it was all business. Then we left the Cabinet meeting and we went up to the National Cathedral. And the National Cathedral was packed -- congressman, senators, ambassadors, governors, admirals, generals, priests, rabbis, imams, ministers -- it was just, you know, nurses -- it was just filled with people. And we heard from an imam and a rabbi and an orthodox priest, a catholic priest. Billy Graham gave probably the last sermon that he will give seen by the world, type of thing. The President made very moving remarks. We sang hymns and we prayed. And even an atheist or an agnostic had to have been moved by what happened in that prayer session. And it was a prayer session not just for the United States; it was a prayer session for the world. And it showed how the President believes and knows that we have a higher responsibility and that we have the resolve to address it, but we had the responsibility to address it for all of the people. It wasn't for one people or one faith. And it was -- it was a very, very moving prayer service. And then we went from the prayer service to Andrews Air Force Base, got on the 747, flew to New Jersey, got on Marine One -- after having met George Pataki, Governor of New York, and Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of New York City - and we helicoptered over to Manhattan. And we're on the helicopter, we're looking out the windows and you see the smoke coming up from Manhattan. And it was kind of a dark, heavy day, the mist — it was misty. But the smoke, I mean, you couldn't help but notice it. I mean, it was like a pillar of smoke in the midst of gray; it was eerie. And as we helicoptered around the end of Manhattan, you looked down and you saw this huge hole that was filled — now, how do you have a hole that's filled? It looked like a hole in the city, but it was filled, it was filled with debris. And you could see people all around the edges, thousands of people. And we then landed at Wall Street landing zone, got in the motorcade, drove down to what we now called Ground Zero. And the streets were lined with people. And it was very dirty, soot and smoke was very thick and heavy. But the ground had an inch-and-a-half, two inches of soot and debris. And the President wanted to get out. I was in the control car, so I'm listening to all the radio communications back and forth -- one of the advantages to being in the control car. And so you hear the Secret Service talking, you hear the advance team, you hear the mil aids. And the President wanted to get out of the limousine. The Secret Service was a little uncomfortable, because nobody there had gone through a magnetometer. (Laughter.) And he gets out and he goes right over to the line of people that were behind barricades. And everybody runs up to be with him, and he is just shaking hands, people are patting him on the back. But the emotions ran the gamut. There were people who were cheering him, there were people who were crying when they saw him. There were people who were praying. There were people who were angry. There were people reaching for him, and there people

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that he reached for. It was different than a lot of other -- you know, I've seen him in thousands of rope lines. This was a little bit different. And then we got -- he went around the crowd. The crowd was pushing hard on him. And then he got up on what was a crushed fire engine, stood beside that firefighter, and he took a bullhorn and the crowd was chanting. And then all of a sudden, the crowd started chanting, "U-S-A, U-S-A." And it was like, it started a couple of people, and then it was this rumble, "U-S-A, U-S-A." And I remember looking over my left shoulder, to guys that were up on kind of the scaffolding, and they were waving a Japanese flag, and they're chanting, "US-A, U-S-A." And then there were a group of rescue workers, literally opposite the Japanese rescue workers, and they had banners on their -- they had patches on their shoulder, the Canadian flag, and they were chanting, "US-A, U-S-A." And goosebumps went -- it was unbelievable. It was just much more emotional than I thought it would be. And it was united. It was different people interested in the same thing. It was, like, complete unity. Complete unity. Then we went down to the Jacob Javits Center. And I've been to the Jacob Javits Center a hundred times in my life -- you know, to conventions or car shows or whatever. And we get in the Jacob Javits Center, and it's kind of blue pipe-and-drape booths. But what they were filled with were rescue teams. I think there were 38 states and 13 countries represented there, or something. But each little area had a rescue team, and they had all of their gear there, and their rescue dog, and they were lined up, getting ready to go down and replace -- be the next shift. And the President went to each group. He went to every single group, all the way down. And it was a long string of people. And he rallied them on and thanked them for what they were doing. And they were all volunteers, and they came from all over the country, all over the world. He'd pat the dogs, "Thank you very much for being here." And they were mission-oriented, you know, they wanted to get to work. And then the President went into another part of the Jacob Javits Center, where there was this huge cordoned-off area, blue pipe-and-drape. And the advance man came up and was standing with the President, and the advance guy says, "There is a microphone set up" -- this is a room where we have families of the policemen and firemen who are missing at the World Trade Center. "There's a microphone set up. The thought is that you go in there, make a few remarks, and then shake some hands and we'll leave. And the plan is we have to be out of here in 45 minutes." Before the instructions were finished, the President just went into the room, and said, "I'm not going to the microphone." And he just went in there and he went to each individual, and to each family. And he stood there and he listened, he talked, he cried, he hugged, he prayed -- until every single person had had a chance to talk and share the President's time. And, more importantly, the President was there for us. I mean, he was there for literally everybody in this country. And it was so unselfish, and it was so sharing, and it was so comforting, because he would not be rushed. He

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looked everyone in the eye. He hugged all who wanted to be hugged, and he allowed himself to be hugged. And he prayed. And it was -- he stayed there for over two hours. And it was just -- people would be with him and then leave and then come back. And there were tears, there was laughing. There was also a tremendous level of hope, because these people still thought their loved ones would be found alive. You know, this wasn't late, this was early, and there was tremendous hope. But there was also — I don't know, a recognition of sacrifice and service. And we came out of that room -- and you know, by this time the President is late, and you know how the President hates to be late, and the staff hates for the President to be late, because we're all used to being on time now, and we expect to be yelled at if we're late. And I remember talking with the advance people -- "Oh, oh, we're running way behind," and "We've got to get members of Congress over the airplane," and all this kind of stuff. We get in the motorcade, and very -- almost nothing was said in the motorcade. We go down to the landing zone, get in the helicopter, fly off to New Jersey. And then most of the staff, the congressmen, get on the 747. The President gets on the C-20, which is a small, little plane -- which takes on Air Force One, because Air Force One is whatever plane the President is on. And we fly to Hagerstown, Maryland, to go to Camp David. And the President -- on the plane, it's the President, the military aide, doctor, nurse, a couple Secret Service agents, pilot, co-pilot, and -- you know, a flight attendant-type person -- and me. And the President sits down in his chair and I'm sitting directly opposite him. And he is completely wiped out, exhausted. He's physically exhausted, mentally exhausted. He's emotionally exhausted, and he's spiritually exhausted. I mean, he is tired. And -- kind of like, sitting there like this. And I had no business saying this, but I said it. I said -- these aren't the exact words, because I can never remember. But it was something like, "Mr. President, it's not fair because history will make this judgment. But," I said, "you're a great President." "You did everything today that a President could be expected to do, and you did it in one day. You changed the culture of a bureaucracy" — the FBI -"you talked about convening a war council as Commander-in-Chief. You challenged your Cabinet to do its job for the American people with all of the disciplines that the American people expect. You prayed for a nation, and the world, and you showed the resolve to follow through. "You rallied the rescue workers. You told the world that they would hear us. You thanked the volunteers that were making huge sacrifices and a big difference. And you comforted Americans on behalf of America." It was a phenomenal day. — Q What did he say to that? Q What did he say? SECRETARY CARD: He just said, "Thank you."

Q Can I ask one kind of a large question on all of this. How could you not go through all that and not be dramatically changed? I mean, you have to -- it brought something different to the President. What was it? SECRETARY CARD: It brought new priorities, but it didn't change him. It brought new priorities. It brought new priorities for all of us. I mean, I guarantee on September llth at night, husbands and wives hugged, and parents told their children they loved them. That may not have happened with everybody on the night of September 10th. And we also know the stories after September llth, right after, where Christians went to their Muslim neighbors and said, "I love you and I want to work with you." I think it changed our communities. But it didn't change the President. It changed the priorities. Q Did it change how Americans view the Presidency? SECRETARY CARD: I think it did. I think it did. I think it changed how Americans view the Presidency, and this President. But, again, it was shining a spotlight on the President, so they could see what those of us who have known him for a long time have seen. I have confidence in that man, and I had confidence in him before he was President, not just after September llth. And

Q How did it change? Sorry to keep -SECRETARY CARD: How did it change? Q How did it change how the American people viewed him and the Presidency? SECRETARY CARD: Well, I don't think they had had a chance to see him without someone else's filter. The filter was taken away on September llth, and the American people were able to see him clearly in focus. He was in focus, and he was focused. And he spoke -- he spoke candidly to the American people. The words he used were not the words of diplomacy. They were his words. And when he says things like "We're going to get them," people know he's serious about it. He is going to get them. So, anyway, I thought it was remarkable. But that day -- and ramble; I got off of September llth, and I know your stories be on September llth, and I did September 14th. But, anyway, day that America was challenged and America passed the test. with the President.

I didn't mean to are supposed to the llth was a And it started

Q Are we safer today? SECRETARY CARD: I think we're safer today than we were on September llth, because there's more vigilance on the part of, literally, every American. Now, let's not forget what happened on Flight 93. I mean, Flight 93 also changed America, and it also sent one heck of a message to anyone who thinks that they could do to another plane what was done on September llth. I'm

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convinced there are lots of people that fly -- that are in planes literally as we speak -- that would have the courage to get up and say, "Don't even think about it, because I'm going to crash this plane into some cornfield if you try to go up in that cockpit."

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NON-RESPONSIVE MATERIAL I took an oath, and everybody who serves in this White House did. And the President took an oath, and every member of Congress did. And it's a pretty simply oath. We have to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Now, a lot of people, prior to September llth, didn't think about domestic enemies when they took that oath. The attack on September llth was planned away, but delivered at home. And so this President understands the oath he took, and "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," means that we all have to be vigilant. And there are policemen and firefighters and mayors and governors who take those same oaths. And they understand what it means. And it has a real meaning, and it came home to roost on September llth. And we've got to continue to do it. The attack on September llth was an attack of anarchy. It was not someone trying to introduce a different philosophy of government. It wasn't somebody trying to impose a different kind of leadership on this country. It wasn't someone trying to say, you know, communism is better than capitalism. It was an attack by people who want us to suffer through anarchy. So I view it as an attack on the civilized world, and it was an attack on our freedoms. And our civilized world and our freedoms are protected by our Constitution. And that's the President's job; the top job for the President is to protect the Constitution. Q How is he different now? Well, not "different." But, I mean, what does he do in a day that's different today, every day or most days, than he did September 10 and before? SECRETARY CARD: Well, he starts his days a little bit earlier. So the habit - the habit prior to September 10th was kind of 7:00 a.m.-7:15 a.m. Now it's 6:45 a.m., okay? He is -- he's always been a -- well, not always, since I knew him way back in — since he became Governor of Texas — (laughter) - - h e has been a very disciplined man. And he's disciplined about every aspect of his life. I would say that discipline has even more discipline to it since September llth. He -- you know, you cannot do the job of President well if you don't have discipline in your life. First of all, you can't get there, because it takes a lot of discipline to run. He has great discipline, and I have to make sure that he has time to eat, sleep, and be merry, so that he can make the tough decisions he has to make. He also has to have time to do all of the job that he needs to do as President. So foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy, war policy. And he does it.

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But he is very disciplined, and a little bit more disciplined today than he was even on September 10th, because his diet is disciplined, his exercise is disciplined, his sleep is disciplined. His "merry" is disciplined -- you know, he reads a book, sees a movie, takes a walk, hugs his kids, and enjoys his ranch. And that is very, very important. So he knows what he has to do eats well, he sleeps well, he he relaxes well, and he loves and he enjoys being away from

to be able to do the job. And he does it. He exercises well, he does his homework well, and his children well, and he loves his wife well, Washington, D.C.

Q Thank you. END 2 : 5 0 P . M . EOT

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