U.S. marks 9/11 amid Iran war & political division

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0:30Hey, I'm running out to drop off a stack of letters and packages. Need anything shipped while I'm gone? Save the gas. Stamps.com lets you print postage and schedule pickups right from your desk. Sync your contacts into the address book, get detailed accounting insights, and get notified the moment your certified mail is delivered. All from my desk? All from your desk. Join the 4 million businesses using Stamps.com right now with code podcast and get your free welcome gift. Stamps.com code podcast. Taxes and fees apply. Welcome to The Beat, and thank you for joining us. It is a somber day, September 11th, and specifically America marking the 25th anniversary since the September 11th terror attacks.

1:13We can report that all living former presidents gathered at ground zero for the solemn occasion in New York City. There was a reading of the names of the many people killed in those attacks. There were prayers and moments of silence also observed in Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 was crashed to the ground. For his part, President Trump marked the day at the Pentagon, which was also, of course, a target that day. And he drew some parallels between those 9-11 attacks and the war that he started with Iran that remains ongoing. Today's ceremonies are for many people the kind of solemn marker of how much time has gone by.

1:56Anyone consciously alive on the original September 11th can tell you where they were and they can remember what it felt like in the days, months, and years after, the first anniversary, the later anniversaries, and for people in New York, people in the military community, people who paid any burden on that, well, it's all the more solemn. And yet at the same time, with all respect and honor for what's happened, 25 years is obviously a long time. And so where we are today and the problems we have today are different, which can make the distance from 9-11 even more stark. And yet the similarities also hang over us.

2:37We are back in a major war in the Middle East. And just as the responses to 9-11 were debated for many years over many presidential cycles in the country, this current war and a question of our democracy and our priorities and our foreign policy is very much before the American people right now. There were big divisions after 9-11. I'm sure you remember if you were alive, the debates and the dissent over the Patriot Act, over civil liberties, over Islamophobia. all of those things feel very fraught right now in our divided climate and with a president who everyone knows is very clear on where he stands and who he's against and where he wants to highlight his own divisions.

3:19And then there are issues that don't relate to 9-11 but of course are part of what we're living through and why for some people today's problems are more paramount than marking an important anniversary. We have a troubled economy. We have many Americans who are struggling with ballooning credit card debt, can't pay the bills, higher prices. These are the problems of today. We're monitoring that, of course, in the news because both things can be true and important in people's lives. Honoring and remembering what this day means in this country and learning from it and how governments and policy is made in response, as well as dealing with what we have in this country during what is, of course, now the homestretch to another election.

4:00I can report for you that new data out today shows inflation spiking across August, gas prices up, diesel hitting six dollars a gallon. That's the highest ever. Economists say that is part of the supply chain of where we get everything from. So you will be seeing higher prices as an off ramp or continuation of the cost of diesel, cost of shipping, the cost of the so-called supply chain. As for the president. Well, this is how he sounds. If we hadn't done Iran, you would be cruising to midterm victory, 225. Yeah, well, you don't know that. Any regrets? No, I think I think I don't believe in the word regret.

4:44You can always question yourself a little bit. And a few people have asked me that. If I had it to do again, I do exactly as I did. Are you going to campaign harder than you've ever campaigned in this month?

4:58What you hear there is the current pitch from the president. He would do it all exactly the same, which is the kind of thing that gets unpopular administrations in trouble. You may recall that there were issues around prices and inflation facing the Biden-Harris administration. And when Harris on the campaign trail could not identify a single thing she might do different, it was viewed as a problem for her. Well, if you want to call that a Harris problem or a common political problem, it's Trump's problem now because a lot of his supporters, Republicans, people who hope for something different, do want him to do things differently.

5:31He says he won't. As for the apparently honest admission that he's not going to work really hard because he's not personally on the ballot. Well, that's between him and the Republicans. There's been a lot of pressure and anger about that. Trump also had this pledge. quote, I don't care if I'm registered or not. I'm going to try to cheat like hell. This was part of his oath. As with many Trump things, you can say it's hyperbole or a joke, or you can say it's a sitting president encouraging people to cheat while he claims to be against voter fraud. But that was one of the highlights or lowlights or big moments that came out of the convention.

6:08Then you also have Republicans telling Politico straight up, no one thinks this is a serious proposal when he talks about money coming to you only after the election, it does reek of desperation. Over in the Wall Street Journal, quote, Trump has a$5 ,000 bridge to sell you. We have reached the open mockery stage of the News Corp empire, which of course includes Fox, dealing with what they view as not only Trump saying things that are bad, meaning illegal, unlawful, not a good idea, but also politically harmful to their favorite Republican party. on Trump's way back to Washington. He snapped an ABC News journalist who was raising very straightforward questions about this thing he said that he's going to maybe give you money if you vote for Republicans after the election.

6:59This is the image you see. This is the anger. This is the current president. This was the moment. What a period of time. It's almost a reward for the people having to put up with Biden's policy. Is that you? You also offered checks to rent and share a free fund to us. And that didn't happen with your president. That is a portrait of a president who quite literally cannot face the questions about the very things he is saying and offering going into these midterms. Our panel tonight, politics professor Jason Johnson, an analyst for us, and Michelle Goldberg, columnist of The New York Times, also one of our analysts.

7:39Michelle, I mentioned that all of this is on people's minds. You cannot say 9-11 in America as a date to any adult without remembering where we are and what we've been through. And we are reminded today there are still protocols and traditions. Those former presidents joining together, regardless of party, honoring this. The president did his version of that at the Pentagon, which is fine. But he didn't exactly keep it together sort of before and after that. And he is telling folks on the way to the election he would do it all exactly the same, nothing different. Your views tonight for us on all the above.

8:18I think there's something particularly sad and maybe a little bit eerie about this anniversary, because, you know, as you said, 25 years is a long time. But in some ways, we're right back there, if not in a worse place than we were right after 9-11. I mean, I think if you were around then, you can remember the unity of people in New York who strove to help each other. But you can also remember this explosion of braying nationalism, of assaults on the First Amendment, of assaults on immigrants. But really, none of it, even at its worst, I don't think it ever quite reached the fever. It's not even a fever pitch anymore, because I guess you can't have a fever pitch for two years.

8:58It's just like a long, long boil that we've endured under Donald Trump. You know, similarly, we had an Iraq war that was sold to us on lies, and now we have an Iran war that wasn't even sold to us at all. And so it's just such a strange thing to be sort of back in this place, or not back in this place, but it feels like the country has made very little progress for all the time has gone by. Jason?

9:29Jason Johnson:I feel like what we're experiencing now in this administration as a whole is the negative result of what happened after 9-11, the inability of many of our political leaders to learn the lessons. If we're complaining about the surveillance state today and flock cameras, where did that start? That started after 9-11 with this idea that surveilling the entire American public was going to make us safer. We can get upset about George Bush saying if you're with us, you know, either you're with us or against us 25 years ago. And now we have a president that basically says anyone who disagrees with him is an enemy.

10:01Jason Johnson:We can say 25 years ago that Bill Maher got kicked off the air for saying something not political and was told by people in the White House. Hey, watch what you say. And today we've got Jimmy Kimmel, you know, having to hide interviews on YouTube because he's afraid of the FCC. What we're experiencing now is the extreme version of what started 25 years ago. And it's very, very disappointing because I don't think that enough has been taught to young people. Somebody who teaches college students, I'm shocked by how little they know about how much our politics have changed because a lot of the oppression, a lot of the difficulty we're experiencing today has been normalized over the last 25 years.

10:37And the decision to hold this convention the way they did reflects that. And there are plenty of Republicans who are glad that it was up against NFL games. It was sandwiched right before 9-11, not competing with it, but right up days before. You could have done it next week. These are all things that campaigns have to decide on. But that was sort of what set the presidential tone going into this. And then that thing about Trump, and I'd love you to both respond to this, is he's been caught lying more than any other person in public life, politics or business. That's really saying something. And yet he blurts things that sound sometimes very true.

11:13Like, he's not going to work that hard in this election because he doesn't actually care about the party or the country in that way. And he's kind of tired of politics, Jason. This was a moment at the convention. I'm going to be a little bit brief because last night I spoke for two hours. And I don't feel like going over the same material again. We're going to have a good time listening to music because I'm getting a little bit tired of politics now.

11:46Jason and then Michelle.

11:48Jason Johnson:If I'm a Republican, I'm disgusted, right? I mean, first off, you had a lot of candidates who chose not to go. But if you think of it, they did this convention on Wednesday and Thursday, right? Well, Wednesday, there was football. Thursday, there was football. They didn't want it tonight because most of us will be watching Tiafay out the open, right? Like no one's going to watch no matter what night they were on. But it's indicative of how they're trying to squeeze in what little messaging they have at a time that they know the American public isn't paying attention. And it's highlighted by a president who's saying, I'm not going to work for you.

12:16Jason Johnson:I'm not going to put my pat to your advantage. I'm basically going to make this about me. And then when you get blamed for losing, nobody in America gets their fake$5 ,000 dividend. The whole thing was just an embarrassing example of where that party is right now. Michelle? I think it's too bad, frankly, that ratings were so poor for the convention. I mean, and they really, I think, has underperformed even an average Fox News program. Because that clip that you referred to earlier, having people raise their hand, pledge their allegiance to Donald Trump, promise to vote whether or not they're registered, promise to cheat.

12:55Right. You can say, as we often say with Donald Trump, it's hyperbole. It's, you know, he's just being kind of grandiose. He's just kidding. But the fact that this kind of obscene loyalty oath, this like cult like protestation of fealty, didn't barely even kind of made a ripple in the discourse is a sign of how like acculturated we've become to something that's really, really dark. and deranged. And, you know, that clip, I think, should be much more, should be a lot more widely seen than it has been. You make a great point. A lot of people don't want to face it and deal with it. Some people think that by calling out an incumbent president who did support what was a criminal sedition and then did free very violent, hardened thugs, proud boys, white nationalists who attack police, they think that by pointing that out, they risk their independence or their neutrality.

13:56Far from it. That's the country we're in. And someone with that record, as you point out, Michelle, who then tells people going to the next election to take a cheating oath, you got to take that very seriously because you're talking about not just the normalization, but the misuse of power to normalize the end of democracy. And I say that as evidence-based and fairly as I can. You mentioned the ratings. I'll quote from the paper you write for, Michelle. It was an interesting piece looking at the convention big picture in The New York Times, saying that overall it really lacked oomph. There were few celebrity guests other than the perennial GOP serenader Lee Greenwood, twice.

14:31The biggest non-Trump speaker the first night at the Times notes was arguably a Democrat, Senator Fetterman. And when the first night numbers were in, Trump, once a big draw for Fox News, brought the channel no higher ratings than on a typical weeknight, Jason. And we are sort of coming out of this experiment with a type of data in the conservative media ecosystem. Right.

14:56Jason Johnson:I mean, when basically you're failing to win against like reruns of Matlock and stuff like that, you're not doing a good job as a political leader. But but I want to take it even even closer to the home state. You're in Texas. Part of why you have this rally in Texas is because you're afraid that you might actually lose that seat and that might flip to Tallarico. So the fact that you couldn't get national attention, you can't even get a lot of local attention, is indicative of how nervous they are. And you would think that if you're going to put the convention there, you would at least have a president who was engaged enough to say, hey, we're serious about this, as opposed to telling people, please pledge to cheat for me.

15:30Jason Johnson:Because we know full well that if any Democrat had the audacity to say that, he would have the FBI and the DOJ at their offices investing everything they've ever done before the day was done. Yeah, and some of it comes back to what the conventional wisdom has become. On the right, Michelle, it has become conventional wisdom that Trump breaks all his campaign vows, that he's not serious about ending forever wars or lowering your prices, which is a dangerous place for Republicans. I want to show the latest edition of that, which is from none other than Aaron Rodgers, turning on Trump when we're back in 90 seconds.

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17:24We're back with Jason and Michelle. has promised. Here's a long-time MAGA ally, Aaron Rogers.

17:32Jason Johnson:There is no MAGA movement. There's no Make America Great Again movement. Because the guy you elected hasn't done any of his campaign promises. Michelle? Well, he was sort of, I think, a representative of this maybe outer rim of conservatism. I mean, I believe at one point he was considered to be RFK Jr.'s running mate when he was still considered himself a candidate. You know, so he was part of this kind of fringe of like, you know, you might even call them the coalition of the distrustful people who are deeply cynical, you know, maybe given to conspiracy theories, skeptical of things like vaccines.

18:15And so those people were sort of newcomers to the MAGA movement and the things that attracted them, you know, were these, you know, were kind of Donald Trump's, I think it should have been obvious to everyone that they were insincere, that Donald Trump had been an extremely militarily aggressive president, even before he launched this this ill-conceived war in Iran. But they believed, I think, that Donald Trump was going to maybe follow the path of like a Tulsi Gabbard. And they have now, you know, part of the reason that you see Donald Trump's ratings plunging and you see some of these podcast hosts turning on him is because what's left is just the hardcore MAGA faithful.

19:04Jason?

19:06Jason Johnson:I want to point out, not only is Aaron Rodgers obviously emblematic of a certain kind of ignorance. But it's also important to point out that he's not just a COVID skeptic. He's not just a 9-11 truther. He's engaged in those kinds of questions. But we just looked at the 10-year anniversary of Colin Kaepernick being kicked out of the NFL for silently expressing his politics. And yet Aaron Rodgers has been allowed for years to say all sorts of ridiculous conspiratorial things. And it seems to have no consequence for him. So on the one hand, I don't feel much empathy for those people who decided to become Trumpers and now they're disappointed.

19:40Jason Johnson:But on the other hand, it's a reminder of how people like him are privileged to continue to spout nonsense and then sit back and tell the rest of the country that they're frustrated as to how we got to a place that they helped us get to. But that's indicative of how Aaron Rodgers has been as a public figure and quite frankly, as a player ever since he left the Packers. And Michelle, you know, we often hear in politics about the old chestnut about the October surprise or something cooking. And I'm curious where you think we're headed, not that we're doing predictions, but we've now had the convention.

20:13We've seen some of the way that Trump folks are trying to use their actual governing power to juice things like they've done all these sugar highs in the bond market. And I'm not going to get into details, but the short version is finance people said it felt like a gimmick and the markets shrugged. It certainly didn't alleviate the problems. And so in that lane and in the messaging lane, it doesn't feel like they have a good argument or closing message. Is this it for their midterm message on the right? Well, I mean, I wouldn't. Obviously, I think that we should anticipate Donald Trump pulling some kind of stunt and, you know, perhaps some kind of attack on people's ability to vote in the election, although I don't think it will succeed.

20:55But I don't it's hard to imagine how the fundamentals change very much in the next whatever seven weeks, especially because given what's happening in the Middle East, given the escalation of the war with Iran, the Houthis taking over like a vital choke point that was used to transport some of the oil that couldn't go through the Strait of Hormuz. Prices are just going up. You know, we have like a kind of a warm inflation reading today. There is no indication that things are going to get better before the midterms. And I think a lot of signs that they're going to get worse. Fair, fairly put. Covered a lot of ground tonight.

21:39I appreciate it, Michelle and Jason. Thanks to both of you. Wishing you a good weekend. I'll tell folks that coming up, we talked about what Trump claimed he would do with the money if they win. But there are other plans afoot in Congress, and Democrats say they are actually going to change people's lives if they win. Senator Alstom Brooks will be here on the affordability agenda. By the end of the hour, we end the week with a very big name in culture and music. Busta Rhymes is here tonight. Stay with me for the end of the hour and tell all your Busta Rhymes friends out there if you need to get near the TV.

22:14But next, when we talk about broken Trump promises, we look at how Jimmy Kimmel is fighting back against the censorship. And Republicans absolutely panicked about the young man you see on your screen there who might actually turn Texas blue. Why are they so scared of you? Well, they're worried that we're going to win this race in Texas. They are.

22:42As the Trump administration and the Republicans have struggled with basically the midterm problems we mentioned earlier tonight and what they perceive as negative coverage of how Trump's doing, what a lot of Americans see as accurate stories about how things are going. We're seeing more and more pressure on the media and censorship, which is striking because some of these efforts by the Trump administration are backfiring. Earlier this week, we covered in detail how their attacks on Fox led to a MAGA ally being ousted. Now, late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel is saying that the Trump administration is threatening him and his network ABC because he planned to air an interview with Democratic Senate candidate James Tallarico, who has pulled even and in the lead in some of these Texas polls.