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I'm Joe Matthew in Washington, where we are waiting for the return of President Biden. He's on his way now after his trip to India for the G twenty, of course, to stop along the way in Vietnam, where he played down claims in a news conference that the US wants to isolate China.
I met with his number two person here and excuse me in India today, So it's not like there's a crisis if I don't personally speak to me better if I did. But I think, look, this is not a criticism, it's an observation. He has his hands full right now.
So where are we in the relationship and what comes of this trip. We're joined in studio by miss jem Risco, my old colleague now with us in Washington, d C. It's great to see you carrying the title Bloomberg News White House Senior Reporter. So let's start with the takeaways here, and the messaging is the US learning, is the president learning new ways to counter China. It was widely noted that President She was not in the room for this confab.
That gave the president free reign to do what he needed to do.
Yeah, I mean, Joe, you know how these summits usually go. That's a lot on form and style over substance. And I think in terms of that first category, style and form, I think he's checking some boxes here. He saw the opening China and Russia absent from this summit. He wants to move in and kind of appeal to the so called Global South countries that have been asking for more from this US led coalition. And he did do that.
He spoke to them.
He spoke to them in a lot of their own language, and he was speaking to China's so called weakness right now. It's kind of weakness in its position economically as well as potentially politically. So I think that quote kind of says it all. He says he has his hands full right now talking about President She. That was a not so veiled swipe. Also, you know at what they're dealing with economically in China and what that means for potentially their position of power in the world.
Even seemed to indicate that it would keep China from invading Taiwan.
That's right.
So the headline that seems to be resonating here, the Communic KAE always comes with a certain amount of angst, not much more than this time, though official say they worked on this through three hundred hours of meetings. It does not single out Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, but it does say that there were different views and assessments of the situation. What do we take from the Communic k Whether you like the writing or not, I
could read it to you here. All states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition. But for many it just didn't go far enough.
Yeah, leaning on the UN language there was the safest way to go and in order to bring the representatives from China and Russia on board for some sort of G twenty agreement. Now, remember, over the past couple of years, and ever since the war started, really, there have been a lot of tie ups in communicate language because the US led coalition wanted to say Russia is the aggressor,
because they said something about sanctions. This time, those two components were removed they leaned on that un language, just the facts, and they could kind of focus on other things, so sort of a short term sacrifice. Of course, Ukraine and others not pleased, but the US saw an opening to kind of push forward on other issues, and in order to do that, they wanted to kind of leave the war language to the side for a bit.
We're spending time with Bloomberg White House reporter Michelle jam Risco, Senior reporter, I should say, and it's a perfect time for you to join us because you were way ahead on this idea of the Global South rising, which is something that is now a mainstream part of the conversation. It certainly was on display at this G twenty on the recent visit to the White House by Prime Minister Modi.
Now they've each had a visit here and it's really changed the conversation as the president in the US try to turn away from Russia in China. But it's a lot more complicated than that, isn't it.
Yeah, And in our teams, you know, we were looking at this before it was cool, Right, it's kind of become this big issue of talking about the Global South and this tagline what does it mean?
Actually?
Well, I mean this is years in the making, but you know, people are starting to wake up to the fact that powers like India, which is becoming an even bigger economic power and certainly a people power most populous nation now, powers like India and Vietnam and the others are so called swing states. So the US needs to
kind of convince them on certain issues. They're a bit bothered over the last few years, to say it lightly, about things like trying to get involved in the US China trade war, or sanctions on Russia, or the pandemic. You know, they don't see this US led global order from post World War two onwards working for them today, and they want changes. They want big changes MDB reform,
they want different trade and investment deals. They want the US to show up the table with money, not just you know, platitudes and.
Anything to change that.
I mean, I think he's talking to talk. Biden was seen to be kind of speaking the language, as we said earlier, about you know, what does the global South want to hear in terms of infrastructure investment deals, in terms of MDB reforms. So MDB reform has been one of one of the ones that the US has really been plugging as a response to these Global South requests.
And we heard from US Treasury Understructory J. Shamba last week leading into the G twenty summit talking about how, yes, the IMF and World Bank are going to be looking at member quotas giving shareholders more power, so in essence, giving Global South countries more say in how that those institutions are run and hopefully getting more money toward real crisis issues and not just these high fluting issues like climate which the MDB's are kind of ill positioned to tackle.
You can see why she's senior White House reporter for Blueberg News. I'm so glad that you're back in the Ta Tay to be vacuating. How many years were you there? Six years? Amazing and welcome back to you and your family. Don't be a stranger here on sound On. Many thanks for the insights, Michelle. Jim Risco with us here on Bloomberg sound On. I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington as we add another voice of the conversation. I've been looking forward to this as well because the op ed jumped off
the page in advance of this G twenty. The headline from Craig Singleton China's military is going global. He's with us now, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Craig is great to see you. Where to begin?
As we talked to Michelle about the emerging Global South, you seize in your story on what's happening in Cambodia at the real naval base, and you point this out as the example to start your piece on what China is doing from Africa all the way to the South China Sea, establishing strategic strong points as they're called, to protect trade routes. But is there a lot more to it? This is about projecting power, isn't it.
Craig absolutely, thanks for having me. I mean this impenting inauguration of China's what will be their first into Pacific military outposts in Cambodia. It just represents a major evolution in China's defense posture, you know. But I think beyond ream, China is employing all of these innovative asymmetric tactics to sort of undercut and offset American military might, and it has some pretty serious implications for I think the United
States and its allies. And you're right, it centers around this notion of establishing strategic strong points around key maritime choke points and along key trade routes around the world. And sometimes those strong points will look like military bases like Djibouti and the one that's coming online in Cambodia. Other times they might just be agreements that let the Chinese pull in their military for refueling. At the end of the day, the Chinese are not going to go
base for base with the United States. What we really have to understand as a country, right is the strategic intent behind a lot of these moves, and that really has to do with confounding and constraining US policy during short of war scenarios and even during a contingency over Taiwan.
How about that. You mentioned Djibouti another example in your column, and maybe this is what Cambodia is going to end up looking like. It started as a civilian multi purpose port, it has evolved into what you describe as a heavily fortified base more than two hundred and fifty thousand square feet of underground bunkers. What's all that for?
Who knows?
I mean, the Chinese have a long track record of relying on bunkers at their strategic locations and facilities inside of China to hide armaments and nuclear weapons and other ammunitions.
We just don't know what's really under the hood there, and I will probably never know, and a lot of that has to do with the lack of transparency that the Chinese have shrouded this broader expansion in What we really need to be concerned about, I think is that a lot of these initial what appeared to be civilian projects and places like Djibouti, places like the United Arab Emirates, the places like Guada and Pakistan are starting to be
sort of augmented with military might, you know, tangible military assets. And what happens is that the Chinese are going to be able to project and influence along these key choke points and frankly, I think, potentially prevent us from from shifting resources and personnel into China's near periphery in the.
Event of a contingency.
And so the Chinese are going to be able to build out this network over time that will be a lot cheaper, a lot less expensive, and a lot less you know, sort of cost prohibitive than our global footprint. But they're going to be able to do so in a way that actually undermines and undercuts our ability to project strength.
And that's sort of where I think the Chinese are heading right now.
Well, you're right that once commercial projects and the Belton Road initiative are now being retrofitted with military assets. Was this the purpose of Belt and Road all along? As we consider what the Biden administration is trying to pitch here at the G twenty as an alternative.
Michelle was right, it's time for the United States to offers alternatives some of these countries who I think are eager or perhaps concerned not just about the debt trap diplomacy aspect of Belton Road, but also whether some of these.
Projects could potentially be militarized.
I wouldn't go far so far as to say that a lot of these projects went in with a.
Strategic intent to militarize them.
But China is opportunistic, and China also recognizes, and they publish this in their military doctrine and their military strategy, the notion that they can leverage China's exceedingly growing global footprint, that commercial footprint for military purposes and to confound and
replace the United States. These aren't secrets, This isn't Kraig Singleton saying, this is what the Chinese openly say in their doc and in their commentary, and I just think taking them far out their word is probably an important element for US policymakers to proactively counter these moves.
So when you see Joe Biden in the case of this past weekend at the G twenty and also making the visit to Vietnam, when you squint your eyes, do you see a globe global South that could be friendlier to the US if the right investments are made in this case, or does China have such a head start that it's not possible potentially.
I mean, I think a lot of these countries have sort of been wisening up to the fact that not all of China's aid or these infrastructure projects are sort of without risk or without strings. They certainly are, they're looking for alternatives. There are moments when it makes sense for the United States to get involved, and there are other times when perhaps other partners like Japan are better
suited to support those types of projects. And while Chijingping obviously chose to not attend the G twenty summit for I think a host of different reasons, the reality is that next month he's going to be hosting the Belton Road Forum in China that I'll have more than eighty countries attending, and I think that's a clearer demonstration. Particularly It's Michelle mentioned across the Global South that China's message
is not falling on deaf years, it is resonating. The question is how does the United States, how does the partners work together? I think to come up with an alternative architecture that maybe a little more appealing to some of these countries.
Rita's column in The New York Times. I found it on the terminal.
By the way.
Guest essay from Craig Singleton, China's military is going global. Craig, Great to have you back. Let's keep this conversation going you, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Let's assemble our panel for their take. Rick Davis and Genie Shanzino back together again, Bloomberg Politics contributors coming off the weekend. Great to have you both here. Genie, I'll start with you. As this president makes his way home,
was it worth the journey and did he use his time? Well, I'm hearing more about how tired he was than initiatives that were brought forth at the G twenty. But the media is not fair that way.
What's your take, Yeah, it is a long trip, it was a whirlwind, you know, I too. I'm hearing a lot of disappointment. I think largely due to the language of the Communica in terms of Ukraine, also in terms of climate change. People think it wasn't tough enough. But I do have to say there were a couple of big proposals when it comes to confronting China, and you just mentioned one of them, this big global infrastructure proposal,
also reinvestment in the World Bank. Those are two big initiatives that, should they come to fruition, really do literally lend their sort of lend to the president's ability to confront China and the world's ability to confront China. So I think it's a little short sighted just to look at the language of the Communica because it was weak and it wasn't as strong as it was last year. But there were other things to come out of this meeting as well.
We'll have a lot more time to get into this rick, but in our minute that we have here, how concerned are you about the way that communicate was finalized.
Yeah. Look, I mean I think they knew going in it would be a challenge to try and get something as strong as it was a year ago, especially as it relates to the Ukraine and Russia.
You know.
But look, I think people are really missing the importance of Biden's trip to Vietnam. Yes, frontline of concern, trade, investment in military with China, and I think that trip alone probably was worth the price of admission.
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President Biden is making his way back to Washington from the trip over the weekend of the G twenty, the stop in Vietnam, and he's going to be stopping in Alaska on the way, where we do expect remarks from the potus on this anniversary of the nine to eleven attacks. We talked about this the end of last week. Some criticized the President for not being either at Ground zero in New York, Shanksville, Pennsylvania, or here in Washington across
the river at the Pentagon. But of course the administration was well represented in all of these areas. And we'll talk a little bit more about the anniversary later this hour in a special conversation with David Weston. As we mentioned though, he's on his way back following the mission to the G twenty and spoke in his news conference in Vietnam about the problems facing China, generating headlines on the terminal. The economic trouble in China may, in fact,
in his view, keep China from invading Taiwan. Here's what he said.
He has his hands full right now. He has overwhelming unemployment with his youth. One of the major economic tenets of his plan isn't working at all right now. I'm not happy for that, but it's not working. So he's trying to figure out I suspect I don't know, just like I would trying to figure out what to do about the particular crisis you're having now. But I don't think it's a crisis relating to conflict between China and
the United States. As a matter of fact, I think it's less likely to cause that kind of conflict.
Less likely to cause that kind of conflict. And of course Joe Biden knows a bit about what it's like to deal with economic strife, referring there to the possibility of him meeting with President She and exactly where our relationship stands. We reassembled our panel. Rick Davis and Genie
Shanzano joined Bloomberg Politics contributors. What's your thought on that, Rick, there was so much talk about who was not in the room in the case of President She, President Putin is Joe Biden corrects on this, The President She's got his hands full to the point where he's not so much of a threat.
Yeah, I don't think you can diminish the threat just by the fact that domestic economic circumstances and unemployment are running rampant in Beijing. If anything, I mean, frankly, I would worry more about that. I think domestic turmoil has always been one of the contributors to adventurism around the world. Try to take people's mind off of their own circumstance by creating this nationalistic fervor that you know, allows you to take an action. For instance, you know, an invasion
of Taiwan. So and by the way, I mean, I think we've seen she talking a lot like that lately. So I would be more concerned, not less concerned, by an unstable domestic economic situation in China, and frankly shocked that the president would think that China has taken its eye off the ball at a time when all we're talking about is their adventurism around the world.
What's your thought there, Genie. Does the economic trouble in China, God knows, they've been trying to stimulate the economy to come back to life here. Does it emboldened President She or does it make him feel cornered?
You know?
I have to say I agree with Rick on this. I think any time you're looking at a leader in the model world who is having trouble domestically in at home, there is always a concern that they look outward where they can have more influence and can potentially change the narrative at home. So I do think it is a real concern. I was also real concern to hear the Ministry of State Security say the other day that there's a prospect that Ji may not come to the bilateral
meeting in November in San Francisco. You know that I think is very troubling because you want there to be conversation between the United States President and Ji Jinping. You want that kind of high level diplomatic engagement, you know,
even if nothing comes of it. The fact that he stayed away from India and now potentially may stay away from the November meeting is I think another sign of trouble as the US continues to, despite what the President says, continues to befriend people right on his doorstep, something that upset who in in the last twenty years, and something that the US is now doing to China can have a backlash effect as well. Not that we shouldn't be doing it, but you've got to keep your eye on
how that's read in China. And so all of those things I think are a real concern, not a reason to say things are looking up from the perspective of the US and China's relationship.
Well, the President's approach to China certainly getting a lot of criticism from Republican presidential candidacies to soft on China. Case in point, Nikki Haley, who talked about it on Sunday morning on CNA.
How much more has to happen for Biden to realize you don't send cabinet members over to China to appease them. You start getting serious with China and say We're not going to put.
Up with it.
They keep sending different cabinet officials over, Jake, and it's embarrassing. You sent Ramondo right after she got hacked, her emails got hacked by the Chinese. You sent all of these cabinet officials over after Chinese spy Buloom went over our country. They are putting a Chinese fib up on Cuba, off the coast of Florida. And don't wait for the fact that they are going to be sending Chinese military troops there. What are we doing appeasing China?
Of course the White House Rick thinks it's avoiding conflict, not appeasing China, but trying to keep the train on the tracks here and not have a real cold war. Who's right?
Look, I mean, whether we like it or not, I mean China is acting very provocatively. Nikki Haley is absolutely right. You know, their relations with the Solomon Islands is pressing our Pacific presence. Their bases in Djibouti or military bases their spy locations in Cuba. I mean, I'd ask Genie, what the heck are we How can we get criticism for going to places like Ukraine and Vietnam if this is the actions of our chief competitor, China. Look, whether
we like it or not. And you can call it a cold war, you can call it something else, but we are in an active global competition for the favor of nations that are free versus those that are associating with with with dictators around the world. And and anybody who doesn't think that this is an active competition is misreading the tea leaves of the world movement right now. And and so I really think that Nikki Haley nailed it right. I mean, she knows that this competition exists.
She's seen it firsthand in the in the in the Trump administration. And I think, frankly, is one of the very few presidential candidates who's espousing a more robust and capable US foreign policy. And and frankly, I'd much rather see she standing next to Nicki Haley than to President Biden, who somehow thinks that he deserves a break because he's got a bad economy.
Well that look, that brings us to the issue of the way he comported himself some of the things that Joe Biden said on the visit. Genie, you can certainly weigh in on what Rick said. But you know, if you don't know whether it's morning or night, it is a little bit difficult to express authority or to project power. You might suggest you have this moment.
This around the world in five days is interesting.
It is evening, he said. He was even asked how he was doing by a couple of reporters who told him that it was in fact evening time.
Good evening, miss a president.
Are you thank you? These five day trips around the world are no problem.
I can imagine it is the evening. I'd like to.
Remind you, these five day trips around the world no problem, Genie, How did the president do? Did he just make his life more difficult here? Because when we're talking about the age issue, the cognitive issue, it's trips like these that people have in mind.
That's right, But you know, listen, if any of us went on a trip to India, to Vietnam and to back to Alaska, did what the president has done in five days, it's a long trip. I think he was making the kind of Biden offhanded comments that he usually makes, and it's no surprise for anybody who has followed him. And I also don't think anybody can accuse Joe Biden of not understanding the need to confront and contain China. He is a president who has done that, arguably more
than any president in the modern era. Has turned our attention from China. He's to China rather to the Asia Pacific.
He's gotten criticized today for not being here for nine to eleven, but let's not forget he is willing to take that hit because he is coming back from a very important trip to India and to Vietnam to really really make the case that we do have to focus our attention not on the Middle East, where it has been for the last twenty five years for good reason, but to China, where we come front a big threat
and we have a big competition. So I think it's shortsighted to say that he doesn't recognize that I do agree with Rick on this. Members of his own party are not clear about this. Let's just think back to what Nikki Haley had to say to the vek Ramaswani and others during the debate. So there is a debate to be had in the Republican Party where they're even debating today as they come back to the House whether to give Ukraine the money it needs to have this
confrontation with Russia. So those are things that the Republican Party does have to work out. There's a lot more unanimity on the side of the Democrats when it comes to that.
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We've been talking a lot about China and the Biden administration's relationship or a lack thereof, with that country. It was a very different look in Vietnam. After the President left the G twenty, he went to Vietnam for a brief set of meetings where they did announce a comprehensive strategic partnership and enhanced trade relationship that puts the US on par with China, which is something that the late
Senator John McCain spent years pushing for. As we reassemble our panel with Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzana Bloomberg Politics contributors, some pretty touching moments and pretty good optics. I would argue for the President in Vietnam as he visited the memorial to John McCain in Hanoi, he left a challenge coin at the memorial later wreath and spent some time
talking with the two service members who was there. We should note, by the way, that for Senator former Secretary of State John Kerry, also of course a Vietnam War veteran, was also with him at that moment. Rick, I suspect that memorial wouldn't be there if it weren't in part for your efforts. And I wonder your thoughts as you see the President actually get business done in Vietnam that John McCain would have loved to have seen himself.
First of all, I had nothing to do with that memorial strictly, the Vietnamese government put that up.
How about that?
Because I would not want to be held to blame for on that memorial. It refers to John McCain as an air Force air pirate, and he didn't mind being called an air pirate, but he did not like being called air force. That's a Navy pilot. It was proud of his wing and so look, I mean, John McCain always had a fond memory of that lake because he was his arms and knees were broken when he ejected from his aircraft after being hit by a rocket and
he landed in the middle of that lake. And he said, if not for the Vietnamese that pulled him out of that lake beating and stabbing him, he would have drowned. So, you know, he always had a kind of way of looking at things from an optimistic point of view. But I thought it was nice that the President stopped at
that memorial and showed his respect to John McCain. And I think that, you know, it just betrays what we need more of in foreign policy, which is we can debate all we want at home, but when it comes to what we think the overseas prior as of our country are, they should be together. And John McCain and President Biden had a lot of disagreements, but ultimately when they came together, they did good things. For the country abroad, and we're on the same page more than they weren't.
So kudos to the present for taking time out of his schedule to do that.
Genie, I'm struck by the name of Franklin Ford's book about Joe Biden, the Last Politician, the optics of this visit to the memorial Joe Biden coming to the aid of Mitch McConnell, at least optically speaking again, when he was asked by reporters about Mitch mcconnald's freezing up before the cameras, it does feel like it's the end of an era, or at least a generation in politics when you see these events unfold before your eyes.
It absolutely does. And you know, I talk to students every day between the ages of you know, seventeen to twenty two, twenty three, and for them, I know we're going to be talking about nine to eleven in a little bit. You know, they weren't even born, many of them when nine to eleven occurred, which is, you know,
hard to even wrap your head around. And as they look at politicians like Joe Biden or Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi, or think about people like the former Senator John McCain, these do seem like relics to a certain extent from a past generation. I have to say I really was thought it was very good visit to Hanoi. The President described this as a historic moment overcoming a
bitter past, and that is an apt description. And for Vietnam to put the US in its highest diplomatic category on par with China, that is a big advance as well. So everything from the discussion of semiconductors, the memoir of Ulizing rather John McCain, those are all important, as was the president's diplomatic outreach to Hanoi. These are a very big steps forward for the President and for the United States from a foreign policy and economic perspective.
We're going to bring in David Weston, as I promised in just a moment, to talk with us on this September eleventh. I'd love to hear from both of you on what the President is and is not doing today. Quickly, before we get to David Rick, is it a problem that Joe Biden is swinging through Alaska on his way back to mark this occasion instead of being at ground zero at the Pentagon or in Shanksville.
Yeah, I think that if the trade off was doing as Genie described, you know, the work that he did in Vietnam, I think it was well worth the trade off. Joe Biden's been making these visit's on on nine to eleven for twenty two years, and I don't think there's any criticism that should be sent his way. This is a day where, frankly, bipartisanship should reign supreme.
Yeah, he will be delivering remarks, Genie. He is, in fact paying tribute on this date. Does it matter where you are as the commander in chief?
You know, I think ideally you do want to be at one of the memorials, But he is one person. He can't be everywhere. He made the hard decision to do this very important foreign policy trip, and he sent the vice president in his way to New York, so you know, it's probably not exactly where he wants to be. But he had to make a tough choice, like all leaders, and he made it, and I think from everybody's perspective,
it is the right choice. But it is important that he's going to stop and take time to remember the victims.
Yeah. Great to have you both here. Great Conversations Today Genie Shanzano and Rick Davis, our signature panel on Sound on Bloomberg Politics contributors.
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The question you'll surely hear someone ask today, and maybe you've been asked already in the office or as you're going to the store or whatever your day includes here is where were you on nine to eleven? For many, the answer is at home, right. It was in the morning, watching TV, watching morning shows like Good Morning America GMA, where the anchors had no idea what was unfolding.
We want to tell you what we know as we know it. We just got a report in that there's been some sort of explosion at the World Trade Center in New York City. One report said, and we can't confirm any of this, that a plane may have hit one of the two towers of the World Trade Center. But again you're seeing the live pictures.
Here's David Weston was at work that morning, as we hear Diane Sawyer talking there on GMA. David was the president of ABC News, and he joins us right now from New York to recall the events of that day and what they would lead to. David, thank you for being here. I'm so glad that you could join us. You were watching GMA as the boss. What did you think? What went through your mind when you heard Diane Sawyer see this?
Well, it goes through my mind. Even as I listened to it again, I remember it terribly well. I mean I used to get in every morning before seven o'clock because that's when Good Morning America came on the air, and I watched like five or six monitors that I had in my office to see whatever he was doing. And I remember looking up when we were in commercial break actually at GMA and seeing on CNN sort of smoke coming out of a high level of one of the trade towers, and I turned down that volume to
figure out was going on. At that point, nobody had any idea what it was, but I called down to control room and said, something's gone to the World Trades and a get out of commercial, go to the full network. And we went to the full network. Really as you could hear from Diane, not fully where what had happened, but there were reports there was an aircraft that are going in and they went to full network mode, Special report, we called it, and as they watched it was Die
Answer and Charlie Gibson. We all watched together as that second airliner went crashing into the second tower, and Charlie said, you know, it looks like an airliner has just gone on the second tower.
What happens next in a situation like that? You know people are watching the anchors, but there are dozens, if not a couple of hundred folks behind them. What happened internally at ABC News? Do you pick up the phone? Who do you start calling?
Well, you get the desk is there, you get everybody in as fast as you can figure out where people are. Frankly, Joe, one of the first questions is where are people? Do we have any people who are at risk down at the World Trade Center? And where else could there be
an attack? I will say we were I'm not sure fortunate is the right word, but we were in a position to have an idea about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda because John Miller, who worked for US, had tricked into Afghanistan about eighteen months before, and we had aired what turned out to be the last Western interview with Osama and Laana from his camp in Afghanistan. We had covered that story, and I had talked frankly with some senior military people in the months before, saying what's
the biggest threat we have? And they said, to a person, it's a terrorist attack, And so we had I had a pretty good sense pretty early on that it was terrorism, and then it was al Qaeda, So in that sense, we had a little bit of a jump on it. But then you figure out, how can you cover the story as best you can? Who can you get down there? Close follow on to that is, can we send them down there safely? We had a whole discussion, not a long one, but a discussion do they have to have
hazmat suits on? Because we're not sure what this was and what the effects might be in the people in their surrounding areas? How can we get video out of there. We're a television organization, you got to get video audio. We were fortunate because we had Don Daylor, one of our orders, who actually lived near there, and he got on the telephone pretty quickly.
Also turned out that you had a reporter pretty close to the scene, but didn't realize following a series of emails from what appeared to be a stranger, that George Stephanopoulos was trying to get news to the news.
But you know, I'd forgotten about that, Joe, That's exactly right. Por George was down there trying to get through, and everybody thought he was it was a crank call. It took quite a while to figure out that actually, yes, George actually was nearby near ground zero, and he was trying to report, and we finally got him in the air and we got John Miller in the chair pretty quickly. We stuck with Diane and with Charlie for about forty
or forty five minutes. Peter Jennings was in the building and he was reluctant, frankly, to go on because he said, they're doing such a good job. And I said, Peter, I mean, you're a lead anchor. You got to get in the chair. And he sat there with John Miller and we covered. You know, we went on. We went on right through till Saturday morning, no NonStop, no commercial breaks,
no nothing. But we covered it in part that first day with John Miller tapping into police frequencies because he'd been in the police department and he had a bunch of buddies there and he was giving us a lot of the reporting.
You mentioned. You try to find out who you have, and you had a reporter on Air Force one. I don't know how long it was before you were able to make contact with Anne Compton David, but her story is iconic.
Well, Ann Compton happened to be the radio pool that day and wonderful radio longtime White House correspondent for ABC News and ABC News Radio. And we all remember President George W. Bush was in Floridas speaking actually to an elementary school class when this all happened. We've all seen that iconic video when they first told him what was going on, and then they hurried everybody onto Air Force one.
President Bush made a couple of brief remarks. They hurried him onto Air Force one because they wanted to get him to make sure he was safe. They weren't sure how to attack him, and so we just were told Ann's on the plane. She called in. She said, we're going wheels, but we don't know where we're going. I don't know when I can talk to you, I'll let you know. And so next time we heard from her,
they had put down actually in Louisiana. As I recall, the base was for refueling, and she gave us from the tarmac a quick report on what was going on on Air Force One. Then they took off again and they went to another air base, and again she talked to us from there. President Bush spoke from there because he didn't make it back to Washington Action until that evening, and then addressed the nation from the Oval Office.
That's incredible to think that you had people truly in all the right places. You couldn't have planned it better if you had been given a tip on this, David. But I'm talking to you now as someone who our viewers and listeners know as a journalist, as a broadcast journalist and anchor, the guy who asks the questions you were an executive at that point as the president of ABC News. To what extent did the events of that day in the following days inform your next career that you now enjoy Well?
I think, as you know, Joe as well or better than I do, everything you've ever experienced or known or done informs what you do when you're in these jobs on the air, it's a very different thing. One of the wonderful experiences of being on the air, having spent so much time I was there for fourteen years behind the camera, is you have to understand of what else is in the iceberg, the stuff below the surface. And
I'll give you a couple of examples. For example, one of the first things we did was we marshaled as much troops as we could get down to the hospitals in the area because we were convinced there would be all kinds of wounded coming in. And then as the day unfolded, we realized nobody was coming because they were all dead. And it was a terrible moment. Another moment, an hour into it, I got a call in the control room saying, there are people jumping from the towers.
Do we show it? And I said, no, you report they're jumping, but you do not show because that's somebody who loved one that they're seeing to commit suicide.
Essentially, just absolutely horrible to think that this happened, and that we watched it as it was happening. David, it was folks like you making those decisions, and I know that you held an event with some children. I heard you say about this school children, which was was a Saturday morning show that Peter Jennings used to conduct, and this was about telling them about what happened on nine
to eleven and showing them the actual video. They couldn't discern between what was happening then and whether it was real now. And I bring this to you because it's something that every television news network has to grapple with and some have annually shown the video of the towers being hit, of people jumping, of the towers falling. You made the decision not to do that, didn't you?
Now I did as a result of that townholl meeting with the children. Peter Jennings was I think the best breaking news anchor ever, but he was particularly gifted with children and he wanted to do and we wanted to do a special that Saturday to try to explain to kids what had happened. And we actually had a professor of tild psychology from Princeton there who said, one of the things you have understand small children don't understand it's not happening again. They think that every time they see it,
there's another building going down. And so from the car on the way home, I got on the phone to the desk and I said, Okay, we will never show moving video of that again on ABC News. We'll show us still, but never moving video. Because at that point, Joe, it had become almost like music. People were putting in their bumpers, they were putting their promos. I mean, you kept seeing these towers collapse and it wasn't telling anybody. I mean, it wasn't communicating. It was just pure emotion.
And I said, we'll never do it again. And we didn't. We never showed a moving image again because it wasn't informing anybody. It was just pushing the buttons that we didn't need to push.
I think that's incredible, and it's so important here while we look back twenty two years later, because some networks continue to show this in promotional framing. To your point, and I would say, this isn't just about kids, David. I don't think adults in many cases are helped by seeing that over again, are they?
No?
I don't think. So there's no information I'm getting. But again, I want to go back to the relatives, the loved ones of those people. They're watching their loved ones die, and you know, again and again, what are we getting out of that? But I'll just add one of the things that people may not understand. We spent hours that day not being able to get any information of the government.
And now, in fairness, they didn't know what was going on, but the President was in the air, the Vice President was on some protected location beneath the White House, and we kept trying to get anybody. If the government tell us what's going on, we got silence. With one exception, I'll give them great credit. George Pataki, the governor of New York, would actually get on the phone and say, this is what we know. Who we don't know because we had reports coming in of all kinds of bizarre
things happening we couldn't confirm or deny. And the question is do you report it?
Just the first thing you thought about when you woke up today?
Of course, yeah, always always. But by the way, your discussion about the President Biden not being in town. In some sense, you know, it's kind of sad because we're not making big deals. In some ways, it's healthy. We need to go on, we need to remember, but we need to recover. We need to go On. We couldn't live. I couldn't live at that level of emotional distress that we had in the days and the weeks and even
the months after nine to eleven. You have to get over it and go on with your life sometime.
I can't thank you enough for sharing that with us, David Weston, our dear friend at Bloomberg and of course, one of many lives that changed that thing. Thanks for listening to the sound On podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts, and you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at one pm Eastern Time at Bloomberg dot com.