After 9/11: Words, Power, And War

A president’s first job after a national trauma is to lead the story people tell themselves about what just happened and what must happen next. After 9/11, George W. Bush had to name the enemy, promise action, and still convince Americans that daily life could continue without surrendering to fear. We talk with historian Dr. Stephen Knott about how Bush framed the attacks in his address to the nation, why that framing shaped public understanding of the conflict that followed, and how presidential rhetoric can steady a country even when the future feels unknowable.

From the bullhorn moment at Ground Zero to the World Series first pitch in an FDNY jacket, we dig into presidential communication as more than optics. These public signals helped project resolve and restore a sense of normalcy, but they also set expectations for what “justice” would look like. We explore why certain lines and images endure, and how leadership in a crisis often hinges on a few clear, memorable choices.

Then we follow the power. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and the USA PATRIOT Act dramatically expanded executive branch authority in the name of national security. We unpack how Congress delegated its constitutional war powers, why that deference is common in emergencies, and what the long-term constitutional implications look like when broad authorizations turn into long-running military engagements. We also hear about Knott’s new book, Conspirator in Chief, and what presidential rumor-mongering can cost the body politic.

Listen, share with a friend who cares about civics, and leave a review: Should Congress put real limits and sunsets on AUMFs?

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:46

Welcome back to Civics in a year. I'm very happy that we have Dr. Stephen Knott back with us. If you have not listened to his episode on Executive Order 9066 and the Koramatsu case, please do. It is again so interesting to look back at history and to look at things through different lenses. So, Dr. Knott, thank you so much for coming back. We today are talking about George W. Bush, his address to the nation after 9-11, and then the authorization for use of military force. So this is all in 2001. And we're starting to get into the history that I can vividly remember. I was a sophomore in college. I was getting

Setting The 9/11 Focus

SPEAKER_01 1:32

ready to go to class, you know, TV is turned on. This is before like the big use of cell phones and whatever else. And I just I very much remember this. I remember, you know, his address to the nation. So when we talk about the 9-11 address to the nation, how does President George W. Bush frame the attacks and define the nature of the enemy? And how did that framing kind of shape public understanding of the conflict that followed?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

I think President Bush, like all of us, Liz, you and I, was shocked by the events of that day. He has his critics who say he perhaps should have been, should not have been shocked, that should have known that this group, Al-Qaeda, based in the Middle East or at that time in Afghanistan, was determined to strike inside the United States. But nonetheless, I don't think anyone expected the kind of those images that have seared in all of our minds. And Bush had spent most of that day of 9-11 flying around in Air Force One. The Secret Service was determined to protect the president. There were reports that the president himself might be a target. When he finally returned to the White House on the evening of September

Framing The Attacks And Enemy

SPEAKER_00 2:52

11th, a couple of hours later, he quickly spoke to the American public and basically pledged to the American people that we would find out who these folks were who would pull this thing off and that they would be, they would pay a price. But I think we need to keep in mind he had a number of uh priorities that he had to address, one of which was to restore some semblance of normalcy as best one can in the midst of such a disaster. You know, you don't want the American economy to tank. You don't want people to be so gripped by fear that life just grinds to a halt. And I think he's trying to walk that fine line between promising some type of retaliation, but also urging people to go back to work, to take care of their families, to maintain a kind of normal lifestyle, recognizing that things had changed for good. And, you know, I think he struck a pretty good balance on that count. But where, if I could, Liz, just take it a little bit further. It was about three days later, so that was a Tuesday night. Uh, by Friday of that same week, he's up at the World Trade Center site. And this is when he picks up the famous bullhorn and tells the construction workers and the firemen and the policemen, while things are still smoldering at ground zero, that the folks who knock these buildings down will hear from all of us soon. And I actually think that's probably one of the more famous statements made by any American president. And that video of Bush with that bullhorn with his arm around a firefighter will be remembered for quite some time. And whatever one may think about

The Bullhorn Moment At Ground Zero

SPEAKER_00 4:45

George W. Bush, I think at that moment he understood that the eyes of the people were upon him. He needed to rise to the occasion. And I think with that one simple line, he did more in that speech than he had done three or four days earlier with his set speech from the White House.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

It is so interesting to talk about just like presidential communication styles, because you bring that up, and I can very vividly see that picture in my head. And then I can also remember watching the World Series and seeing him come out. And I know, you know, he had the FDNY jacket on, I know he had a bulletproof bust on underneath it. But throwing that, you know, first pitch, I think he's the only sitting president to throw a first pitch. But even that, I just I and I'm you know, not a huge baseball fan, but I will always watch the World Series. But I I just remember that being something that made me feel weirdly patriotic and and good,

The World Series First Pitch

SPEAKER_01 5:50

that that is something, you know, that that he did, and he's you know, wearing something to honor the firefighters. He's he's in New York at Yankee Stadium. So all of these things, you know, the bullhorn speech and just how he communicated during that time, for me again, being a college student is always something that I will remember from him. So we have 9-11. You know, he's giving these speeches, and the next thing that kind of happens is this authorization for use of military force. So, how does that expand presidential authority? And in what ways did Congress delegate delegate hit its constitutional war powers to the executive branch?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah, Liz, could I add something about that World Series pitch that you've got to do? Yes, yes, yes, yes, please do. Um, because I remember watching that as well. That was a game between the Yankees, as you mentioned, and your home state of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Yes. And Bush, as you said, was throwing out the first pitch. He there was a lot of talk that he could throw that pitch, you know, maybe like three-quarters of the way to home plate. And he was taunted by Derek Jeter, a shortstop for the New York Yankees, uh, who sort of challenged him and said, Mr. President, if you do that, you're gonna be booed by these fans here in Yankee Stadium. I don't know if Bush ever intended to do that, but he ended up throwing it from the pitcher's mound, from the the rubber on the pitcher's mound. And he threw basically a strike. And I think and I have to tell you, if I was in his position wearing a bulletproof vest underneath that FDNY jacket, I mean, I'd have thrown that thing into the third base dugout. So that cool under fire, I think, sent a lot of uh positive messages as part of this effort to restore some sense of normal normalcy. As far as the authorization to use force and Congress's sort of willingness to hand over fairly expansive authority to the president, the president makes another speech on September 20th, 2001, in which he asks for this type of support from Congress. He's looking for an authorization to use force against the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which had sheltered Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and they were refusing to hand bin Laden and these Al-Qaeda members over to the United States. So he gets this authorization to use military force. And on top of that, they passed something called the Patriot Act, which

AUMF, Patriot Act, Expanded Power

SPEAKER_00 8:39

gives broadened authority to the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement entities to pursue terrorists here in the United States and any American citizen who may well be working with Al Qaeda. It was an extraordinary delegation of power on the part of Congress. But I have to say, Liz, it fits with well over 200 years of American history, where Congress has delegated more and more of its war-making and foreign policy authorities to the commander-in-chief, particularly in times of crisis. And this fits within that broader historical tradition. I'm not necessarily defending that. I wish Congress would take more of an active role when it comes to the use of force as the most important decision that any government should make. But the tendency to rally behind the commander-in-chief is a strong one. President has all the cards. And any effort by Congress, perhaps, to be seen as so-called micromanaging the war, a president can push back and say, look, what you're doing is impacting the men and women on the field, in the field. And, you know, that's a powerful political statement for a commander-in-chief to make. And it has a tendency to force members of Congress to kind of back off for better or for worse. And I would argue at times it is somewhat for the worse. But what President Bush was given, I think fits within a much broader scheme of legislative deference to the commander-in-chief.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

So then what do you think the long-term constitutional and policy implications of this authorization are, particularly in terms of ongoing military engagements and again that balance of power between Congress and the presidency?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

The long-term implications were pretty clear. The authorization to use force was very broadly written, and it included not just nations, not just international organizations. It actually mentioned individuals, you know, people around the globe. And so there's a kind of open-ended language in that authorization that led folks five, 10, 15 years later, when we're still in Afghanistan, to say, where's

Long-Term War Powers Consequences

SPEAKER_00 11:03

the end? You know, what is the exit plan here? And who gets to make that call? The executive branch would argue we get to make that call. But I'd say 15 or so years after the initial authorization, when the war in Afghanistan began to be seen as something of a quagmire, you begin to see a growing chorus in Congress saying we need to put this thing somehow on the road to an end, to a final, you know, stage of this thing. And, you know, this in a way is also typical, Liz, in that Congress, in the midst of a crisis, has a tendency to be very generous and you know, give a broad gift to the executive branch. When things go a little bit tough, they begin to reconsider and uh pull, you know, pull back a bit or try to pull back on executive power. But arguably by that point, it's too late.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

So I do want to, because when this comes out, it'll be end of May, and you have a new book that would have just been released called Conspirator in Chief: The Long Tradition of Conspiracy Theories in the American Presidency. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about this book, please?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Sure. And thanks for bringing it up, Phys. So the book talks about various American presidents who, in my view, spread rumors, spread conspiracy conspiracy theories that were beneficial to them, politically speaking. So these these would usually be rumors about their opponents questioning their faithfulness to the law, perhaps even suggesting that they weren't truly American.

New Book On Presidential Conspiracies

SPEAKER_00 12:47

There was something un-American about them. Pretty harsh stuff. And I look at a series of presidents who I believe sort of routinely engaged in that practice. Believe it or not, I start with Thomas Jefferson, who ran a kind of hate campaign against Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists. I jump from there to Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, President Lincoln's immediate successor, arguably, and I don't use this term lightly or loosely, but arguably our most racist president, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump, I see as sort of elevating this constant rumor-mongering in order to stir the base, to fire up their supporters. But the cost of that, of course, is to the entire body politic, where both your opponents and your opponent's supporters are portrayed as un-American, disloyal, or corrupt. And that has a tendency to divide us as citizens. And I try to make the case that presidents should not do that. And there are presidents who have not done that, Lincoln perhaps being the most foremost example of that, but others as well: Dwight Eisenhower, John Quincy Adams, William Howard Taft, a few others who act in a very restrained fashion, who don't try to stir the pot, but try to appeal to what unites us as opposed to what divides us. So that's the core of the book, Liz.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

I love that because again, I loved your book, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, because studying these people, they're human beings, right? We're not, we're not looking to trash anybody, but really understanding the complications. And I'm so glad you start with Thomas Jefferson, because when I was teaching, there were things that my kids are like, how are people like, you know, the election of 1800s, how is this happening? And it's it is an interesting thing going from Jefferson coming up all the way to, you know, current president Trump, because even the way that media is spread is so different. And you know, the utilization of that. So I am very excited about this new book. Dr. Nott, thank you again so much for taking time for talking about George W. Bush and for talking about the first pitch with me. Because again, I I I I want, I wish I could do a whole podcast series on just presidential communications, because I think that, you know, little things like that really can unite us. And I one of the things I do remember after 9-11 is how united our country felt. And and I I hope that that that is a feeling that will continue to return, especially as we celebrate America 250. So thank you again.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Thank you, Liz. You could also sorry.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

No, you're good. I can cut this out. I do it all the time. I could also

Closing Reflections On National Unity

SPEAKER_01 15:48

butt.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

You could also talk about the long-term impact. I mean, that duel had long term repercussions for Burr, for Jefferson, and clearly for Hamilton.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yes. Okay.