Welcome to Call to Decision
Bush On Where He Was When He Heard About
911 Happening
ABC News reporter John Cochran told ABC's Peter Jennings, "He got
out of his hotel suite this morning, was about to leave, reporters saw
the White House chief of staff Andy Card whisper into his ear, then
reporters said to the President 'do you know what's going on in New
York'? - he said he did and would have something to say about it
later."
This contradicts Bush's statement that he made on two separate
occasions, that he first learned of what was going on in New York from
watching a television outside of the classroom as he prepared to talk
about education with a group of Florida schoolchildren.
President Bush Holds Town Hall Meeting
[CNN, Aired December 4, 2001]
QUESTION: One thing, Mr. President, is that you have no idea how much you've done for this country, and another thing is that how did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack?
BUSH: Well... (APPLAUSE)
Thank you, Jordan (ph).
Well, Jordan (ph), you're not going to believe what state I was in when I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida. And my chief of staff, Andy Card -- actually I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, "There's one terrible pilot." And I said, "It must have been a horrible accident."
But I was whisked off there -- I didn't have much time to think about it, and I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my chief who was sitting over here walked in and said, "A second plane has hit the tower. America's under attack."
Obviously, Bush could not have seen the first plane hit the tower because there was no TV footage broadcast of it until the next day.
Occasion 2:As has been well publicized, even after being told of the second plane hitting the south tower and that America was under attack, Bush sat reading a story about a pet goat for well over 5 minutes.
President Holds Town Hall Forum on Economy in California
[whitehouse.gov, January 5, 2002]
"I was sitting there, and my Chief of Staff -- well, first of all, when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on..."