WATCH: Biden Spoke About Death of His Wife and Child in Message to Families Right After 9/11
As President Joe Biden commemorates the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, it’s worth taking a look at what he said at the time.
On Saturday, the president will mark the tragic anniversary by visiting all three of the sites that were attacked: Lower Manhattan, Shanksville, PA, and the Pentagon in Washington, DC.
But in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, many of Biden’s current instincts were on display then.
For example, on September 12th, then-Senator Joe Biden was the Democratic manager for a joint resolution condemning the attacks, and he delivered a fired-up speech that touched on the themes of bipartisanship that have been a throughline of his political life, pledging support for then-President George W. Bush.
He saw the attacks as a unifying event, both for the world and for the country:
Around the Nation, citizens of every age, every race, and every religion grieve for their fellow citizens. But they stand united. They stand united in support of our Nation, which has endured over two centuries against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They stand united in readiness to answer the call for their fellow neighbors. As Senator Clinton and Senator Schumer pointed out, they lined the blocks in New York City to give blood. I would be dumbfounded if you did not see black faces, Asian faces, Hispanic, every race, and every religion standing in that line. They stand united in support of the President of the United States, as do all of us here in the Senate.
He wound up the speech with a prediction: “I see in this cataclysmic tragedy the beginning of the end of organized and legitimized terrorist activities.”
Some critics of the president have recently slammed him for using his own personal grief over the loss of his son Beau Biden as a way to relate to family members grieving the loss of loved ones in the terrorist attack in Kabul.
Biden similarly related his own personal grief to that of victims’ families during an interview with Charlie Rose on September 12.
Speaking about the potential for positive developments following the attacks, Biden told Rose that “does not in any way give solace.”
“I know, I’ve lost a wife. I’ve lost a child. I have some small notion of what it’s like to get that phone call. I have some small notion of that. And so I know nothing, nothing good that comes from this… nothing… even if the best occurs and we really get our arms around the terrorist activities worldwide, will give any solace to any of the people who’ve lost loved ones here,” Biden said, referring to the loss of his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, and their infant daughter Naomi Biden in a car accident.
“But it is, my mom has an expression, ‘Out of every tragedy, something good may come if you look hard enough.’ This gives no solace to the people who have been injured. And right now, probably Americans are listening to me saying ‘Biden. Why aren’t you just talking about the anger you feel?’ I feel incredible anger about what’s happened, but I also feel that this is an opportunity if we do it correctly. And I like the way Powell’s going about this, that we may very well do something very, very good,” Biden said.
Watch above via PBS.
