00:00The nation's capital, it marks 25 years since a day that was etched forever into the memories
00:06of Americans. On 9-11, nearly 3,000 precious souls were stolen from us, killed by evil terrorists at
00:14the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on Flight 93. All of these years later, we gather
00:22on another Tuesday morning in September to reaffirm the sacred vow we made a quarter of a
00:28century ago. We will never forget, we say it and we mean it, we will never forget those
00:36we lost and we will never forget the immortal heroes of September 11, 2001. And I will tell
00:45you, we're right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon.
00:54They were very close to getting it. And now they have no chance at getting it. They will
00:59never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.
01:12And they've been punished greatly. In the course of history, there are a few moments that divide
01:17time into really what came before when you look at what took place that day. Nobody will ever
01:27even think of such a thing being able to happen again. And we're going to do everything in our power
01:33to make sure it doesn't. That was a day like no other. September 11th was one of those moments in
01:42time
01:42we always everybody knows exactly where they were. I know exactly where I was. I was watching and
01:48looking and it was a beautiful, beautiful morning. And I looked out and then all of a sudden I saw
01:55an
01:55alert on television. I looked out my window and I saw things that I never want to see again. We're
02:00never going to see them again. But in just over 100 minutes, 175,000 tons of steel and concrete were
02:08reduced
02:08to ruin and 3000 lives were extinguished, immediately extinguished. The world we knew and the nation
02:15that we loved have had changed. I said it to myself and I looked and I said, wow, the world
02:22has changed
02:23forever. So many things have changed because of that day. Yet this battered piece of steel here today
02:30on the ellipse is a reminder that America is blessed with a strength no fire can consume, no evil can
02:36conquer
02:36and no terror can destroy. For three months after September 11th, the flames raged in the rubble of
02:44ground zero. For nine months, rescue and recovery crews worked day and night on the site. I want to
02:52just thank my people. I took a lot of my I was building a big building in New York and
02:57I took the
02:57whole crew down there right after this happened. And they were they had no hesitation. Everybody went down
03:03with me. We went down as a big group of people. Wasn't too much we could do. I'll be honest.
03:08It was it was raw.
03:10Nobody's seen anything like it ever. We had other buildings. United States steel building was creaking, really
03:17creaking. And we thought it was going to fall down. The truth is it creaked a lot. It creaked. It
03:22still creaks, but it never
03:26came down. And I'll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us and two
03:32firemen
03:33big, strong guys. And I'm not the smallest guy in the world. They grabbed me under the arms. They got
03:39to get
03:39out of here. And they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I'm big. They lifted me
03:46up and they
03:46started running with me. I said, fellas, I can run myself. But they were amazing. But they thought it was
03:52coming
03:52down. It didn't come down. U.S. Steel. The 16,000 pound beam lifted from the records of the South
03:59Tower will forever testify to the courage and resilience and spirit of a city and a nation that
04:06saw our homeland struck, our towers knocked down and stood back up stronger, more determined and more
04:12united than ever before. And I'll tell you, I have to give New York a whole lot of praise because
04:19they
04:19started that you call it demolition. The demolition had taken place, but you call it demolition.
04:25They had the best demolition contractors anywhere in the world. I know all of them
04:30from being in the business. And I've never seen such an unbelievable mass of steel and,
04:36unfortunately, bodies and everything you can imagine. The job they did on cleaning up the site,
04:43they wanted to do it fast. They wanted to get it done. And I don't think there's any other
04:49place in the world that could have done the job that was done by the people, the construction workers,
04:54demolition experts, the police, the military. Nobody could have done the job that was done
05:00on getting it started. And the first thing to get it started, they had to clean it up. And this
05:04was a
05:05it looked like it was a mile high. The rubble looked like it was a mile high.
05:11That's a piece of it. When we see this deal, we're reminded that no matter
05:16what threat or challenge comes our way, America will fight, America will endure,
05:21and America will prevail. And nothing can keep our country down. And our country is stronger today
05:27that it's ever been before.
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