Pete Buttigieg was in his Harvard dorm room. Joni Ernst was planning her toddler’s birthday party in their new home in Red Oak, Iowa. Asa Hutchinson was scheduled to board a commercial flight to Washington, D.C. — and ended up on a military jet instead.
Through different vantage points, they saw the same indelible images: the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, the smoldering Pentagon, the crater of wreckage in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
They, like much of the nation, can easily summon their memories of Sept. 11, 2001, a collective freeze frame of the moment that seemed to transform everything.
After a presidential impeachment and a fiercely contested presidential election that was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling, the terrorist attacks offered a flash of national unity. The bipartisan cooperation was fleeting.
But in other ways, the impact of 9/11 has endured for decades, including the lasting influence on politicians who are today at the highest reaches of American power.
For some, that day changed their careers entirely, like that of Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who was soon launched into a new, unplanned chapter of public service. The attacks set first-year Rep. Adam B. Schiff on a course that, two decades later, made him one of the most visible Democrats in Congress. Lessons learned in the aftermath of Sept. 11 still resonate with officials navigating our current crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, civic unrest and withdrawal from Afghanistan.
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, eight politicians shared their reflections on how the cataclysm of Sept. 11 shaped their own lives and guided their approach to politics.
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Rep. Adam B. Schiff: 'Maybe this is where I can add value'
The nation was under attack, and Rep. Adam B. Schiff had no idea where he should be. He spent most of Sept. 11 wandering the streets of Washington in search of a clear answer of where Congress would convene after the Capitol complex had been evacuated.
"It was just chaos," Schiff, 61, recalled, who was only nine months into his first term as congressman at the time.
After hours of confusion, one moment offered clarity: standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol with members of both houses to sing a shaken but determined rendition of "God Bless America."
"We were setting aside all of our differences," Schiff said. "We were all expressing our love of country and our commitment to protecting it, and a resilience in the face of this attack."
The events of that day immediately reoriented Schiff's plans for his nascent congressional career. The California Democrat had spent the first months of his term reflecting on where he fit in as one of 435 members of the House, where he could add the most value. He was inclined to work on criminal justice reform or environmental issues or perhaps the economy.
After 9/11, he saw a new role for himself: a leading voice on national security, a topic that had put Democrats on the defense since the Vietnam War, he said.
"So I thought that there aren't that many people in the caucus, compared to other areas, who are focused on this," he said. "Maybe this is where I can add value."
His national profile has been shaped by those issues ever since, particularly from his post on the House Intelligence Committee, from which he was a central figure in the first impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.
Now, he's among the lawmakers investigating another security threat to the Capitol: the unprecedented breach by Trump supporters on Jan. 6 in an attempt to block the formal recognition of Trump's loss to Joe Biden.
Schiff acknowledges that his 9/11 experience influenced how he processed the more recent incursion, finding parallels between the two events that may not have occurred to those colleagues who had not been in office back then.
"The Congress is a very different place than it was 20 years ago. It's a far more partisan place. ... There are more members there to tear it down than there used to be," he said.
In the moment of Jan. 6, he felt the same uncertainty and anxiety from two decades ago. But he knew right away not to expect a bipartisan reprise of "God Bless America."
"There's no way that it could have the same unifying impact," Schiff said. "In particular, because the former president and many in his party were pushing out a big lie that was a large part of the motivation of the attack."
— Melanie Mason
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Sen. Joni Ernst: Sept. 11 set her on a path of intensified commitment to the military
Joni Ernst's military experience — an echo of the whole country's escalating investment in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — helped launch her into an unexpected career in politics.
On Sept. 10, 2001, Ernst was planning her daughter's second birthday party and settling into a house she and her husband recently bought in her hometown of Red Oak, Iowa. Ernst was looking forward to getting back to full-time employment and had plans to pursue work in counseling and job training, while serving in the Iowa Army National Guard.
The next day Ernst was home with her daughter when the terrorists attacked the U.S. She was told to stay by the phone in case her Guard unit was activated.
Ernst was not needed that day; she was soon put to work as a temporary technician for the National Guard. She later commanded a National Guard transportation company, and in 2003 her unit was deployed to Kuwait, where they drove supply convoys into Iraq.
That elevated her profile among Republican leaders in her hometown who recruited her to run for Montgomery County auditor in 2004 — mostly, she believes, because she demonstrated leadership abroad.
"That's not something I ever would have seen in my future," said Ernst, now 51.
Ten years later, she successfully ran for the U.S. Senate. With her military background, she has served on the Senate Armed Services Committee and emerged as a vocal critic of President Biden. She has been especially unhappy about how Biden ended U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, calling the withdrawal "haphazard" and "shameful."
But Ernst says it is particularly important to express gratitude to people who served in the two-decade-long war on terrorism. "I just want those men and women to know that we will never forget," she said.
Another legacy of the day: The daughter who was a toddler on 9/11 is now a senior at West Point, carrying on her mother's commitment to the military.
— Janet Hook
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Rep. Val Demings: She witnessed 9/11 from the perspective of a police officer
Val Demings was the Orlando, Florida, Police Department's captain in charge of the division stationed at the city's airport — a magnet for family tourism because it serves Disney's theme parks — when word of the terrorist attacks landed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Uncertainty and fear swept the airport as officials scrambled to follow the Federal Aviation Administration order to ground all airplanes nationwide.
Suddenly the airport's long-standing security protocols against attacks — checking bags for bombs and weapons — seemed worthless against the unthinkable threat of terrorists using the planes themselves as weapons.
Demings, in the middle of what would be a 27-year career in law enforcement before she ran for Congress in 2016 in an Orlando-based district, sat glued to the television listening to the words of President George W. Bush. A Democrat, she had voted for Bush's rival, Al Gore, in the contested 2000 presidential race that ended in Florida's famously cumbersome recount. But that was ancient history as Demings found herself inspired and reassured by Bush's words.
"I didn't sit in front of my television set ... thinking, 'That's a Republican president; I'm not going to listen to what he says,'" said Demings, who is now 64.
But she regrets the growing polarization of politics since then. Although forces of hyperpartisanship had been building for years, she blames Donald Trump for making it far worse.
"The former president made it OK to make everything a political weapon, even moments of crisis," said Demings, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Florida. "And I think that's shameful. That's not who we are as a nation."
Demings, who served as Orlando's police chief from 2007 to 2011, said that the calamity of Sept. 11 did not change her sense of professional mission — she remained committed to keeping people safe — but that the nature of the threat changed. She welcomed the formation of the Department of Homeland Security. New tools of law enforcement were developed to deal with terrorist threats; some were useful years later when the department she formerly led handled the mass shooting that killed 49 at Orlando's Pulse nightclub.
— Janet Hook
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Transportation chief Pete Buttigieg: 9/11 awoke millennials to a dangerous world
For Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who was a college sophomore at Harvard on Sept. 11, 2001, the attacks were a perspective-rattling event for his entire generation — millennials whose post-Cold War American lives had been largely untouched by war.
"Growing up in the '90s, it was easy to think that things like war happened in other time periods or other countries," said Buttigieg, now 39.
"This was sending a message: That was not true, that our generation too would be impacted by matters of war and peace, physical security."
Buttigieg, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, had long planned a career in public service or politics. In the summer of 2001, he worked as an intern in the office of Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
But on Sept. 11, as fighter jets flew overhead during an outdoor prayer service in Harvard Yard, Buttigieg recalls, he thought for the first time that he might carry his commitment to public service into the military. He joined the Navy Reserve in 2009, and in 2014, after he became mayor of South Bend, Ind., he took a seven-month leave to be deployed to Afghanistan. His military record was part of his appeal and campaign pitch as a presidential candidate.
The day also shaped his generation's attitude toward politics and public service, he believes. He remembers a national poll of young people by Harvard's Institute of Politics in fall 2001 that found a huge spike in their confidence in government: 60% trusted the federal government to do the right thing all or most of the time, compared with 36% in 2000.
But that did not last long. Trust in the government dropped in subsequent polls. The war in Iraq brought back deep partisan divisions over foreign policy.
Buttigieg saw a more enduring change of mood among millennials.
"It definitely felt like it was not cool to be very committed or earnest about political things, in my pre-9/11 generation," the Transportation secretary said. "Afterwards, it was hard not to be."
— Janet Hook
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Gov. Asa Hutchinson: Debate on liberty vs. safety endures from 9/11 to present
Asa Hutchinson's travel plan on Sept. 11, 2001, was unremarkable: a commercial flight from New Mexico back to Washington, D.C., where he was one month into his post as the nation's top drug czar.
Instead, he found himself on a military aircraft, flying through eerily empty skies. All air traffic had been grounded, and the National Guard had been sent to retrieve him, as part of the Bush administration's all-hands effort to respond to the morning's terrorist attacks.
On a refueling stop in Little Rock, Arkansas, Hutchinson learned how close to home the attacks had hit. His Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters faced the Pentagon, and staff in his office watched the crash unfold. One of the passengers on that plane was Barbara Olson, whose husband, Theodore B. Olson, was a colleague and close friend. He had been at their home just two days before.
There was little time to dwell on the personal tragedies. Immediately, the DEA was pumping their informants for clues into potential follow-up attacks and soliciting volunteers from the agency to serve as air marshals.
Within days, then-Attorney General John Aschroft had called an emergency meeting for Department of Justice leadership with a new mandate: Ensure another breach would not happen. The message, Hutchinson recalled, was blunt: "If you're not ready for this, you need to resign now."
Hutchinson, now 70, stayed, first at the DEA and then as an undersecretary at the newly formed Department of Homeland Security, overseeing border security. The job gave him insights into how other countries followed America's lead in responding to threats of terrorism. It instilled in him "an increased faith in the American people," who were insistent about living their lives normally even in the face of a new security threat.
Now the Republican governor of Arkansas, Hutchinson sees echoes of that resilience in the nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with people determined not to let a virus derail their lives.
Just as it was 20 years ago, Americans and their leaders are wrestling with the balance between safety and personal freedom. In both cases, Hutchinson acknowledged, that question defied easy solutions.
"That debate was alive and well then, and that is the same, in essence, debate we're having now," he said, "as to where that balance is between public health and both commerce and civil liberties."
That debate may never be neatly resolved, he said; it's "the nature of democracy."
Hutchinson's recent months have been consumed with the latest surge in coronavirus cases and resistance in his state to getting vaccinated. He sees one fundamental difference in how Americans responded to 9/11 versus the current pandemic approach.
"The only thing that's disappointing is that to me, it seems that for 9/11 when we're trying to strike the right balance ... we had the same agreed data points," he said. "But today, the willful disregard of scientific information and the proliferation of myths makes it much more difficult to have a rational debate on where that balance is."
— Melanie Mason
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Rep. Tom Cole: 'I don't know if I would have run if I hadn't seen that event'
Tom Cole had a bird's-eye view of the chaos in Washington after the Sept. 11 attacks. The experience redirected his career trajectory.
At the time, after several years in the Oklahoma Legislature, the Republican was doing fine in the private sector as a well-paid political consultant, including a post advising the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
News of the Sept. 11 attacks interrupted a 9 a.m. meeting of the chamber's senior staff, which had gathered on the fourth floor of a building looking across Lafayette Square toward the White House. Cole could see White House personnel fleeing the building as smoke rose in the distance from the Pentagon. Secret Service and FBI agents poured into the chamber building to take up position on its roof.
Cole, now 72, knew he was watching history. He did not realize it would steer him back into elective office.
"I was in my early 50s, at the top of my game as a political consultant," he recalled in an interview. "I envisioned making ever more amounts of money. I thought I'd put elected office ... in the rearview mirror."
An unexpected invitation to return to office came in July 2002 when one of his clients, Republican Rep. J.C. Watts Jr., announced his retirement. GOP leaders urged Cole to run for the district in south-central Oklahoma, which at the time was more politically competitive than it is today.
Cole was close to President George W. Bush — his mother had been co-chair of the Bush campaign in Oklahoma in 2000, when Cole was a national GOP official. With the country enmeshed in a war in Afghanistan, Cole feared the GOP would lose the seat to a Democrat who would not support the president and the war effort.
"I thought, George Bush deserves better. And I thought, you know, sometimes God opens the door for a reason," Cole said. "You should walk through it. I ran a 17-week campaign. If I didn't win, great, I'd go back to making money."
He won. He took an 80% pay cut.
The unforgettable image of 9/11 never left him. "I don't know if I would have run if I hadn't seen that event," he said.
— Janet Hook
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Attorney General Keith Ellison: His Muslim faith was attacked in his run for Congress after 9/11
For Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress and now Minnesota's attorney general, the aftermath of Sept. 11 was not all feel-good flag waving and national unity. The attacks also set off a wave of Islamophobia that he believes affects politics and law enforcement to this day.
Ellison, an African American who was raised Catholic and converted to Islam as a young man, was a trial lawyer in 2001. He did not personally bear the brunt of anti-Muslim hostility immediately after the 9/11 attacks, he said, because he was not "visually identifiable" as Muslim. It was not an issue while he served in the Minnesota Legislature starting in 2003.
Ellison ran for the Legislature for the first time in 2002 because he "felt an urgency of service" after 9/11.
When the Democrat ran for Congress in 2006 — a campaign driven largely by his opposition to the Iraq war — Ellison's faith became central to his public persona, for better and worse. He received wide attention for being the first Muslim in Congress, hailed by some as a barrier breaker, targeted by others with hate mail and attacks, mostly by Republicans for whom hostility toward Muslims became a central post-Sept. 11 campaign theme.
"Every single Republican opponent I had tried to make my religion an issue," said Ellison, now 58.
He believes an anti-Muslim war on terrorism has skewed law enforcement away from other priorities. "We see the rise of white supremacist groups. Why? Because they're always looking at the Muslims," he said.
For all the Islamophobia that ensued, Ellison said, 9/11 also increased the visibility and level of political engagement of the Muslim community.
"There were a lot of Muslims who were in a very defensive crouch, scared to come up to the mosque, didn't want to engage anybody," he said. "There is now a Muslim political presence in America; there's a Muslim donor base, a Muslim voter base. There are a lot of places in America where if you ignore the Muslim vote, you only do it at your peril."
— Janet Hook
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Supervisor Hilda Solis: ‘There but for the grace of God go I’
For weeks after 9/11, the U.S. Capitol was a terrifying place to work. Alarm bells rang periodically, signaling yet another evacuation of office buildings and reminding Hilda Solis that her job could be a risk to her life.
Solis, then a first-year member of the House representing California's San Gabriel Valley, said working in a complex that had been targeted by terrorists was deeply humbling, a daily reminder that “there but for the grace of God go I.”
But paradoxically, the attacks made Solis feel more at home in her relatively new workplace. Inspired by singing “God Bless America” with her colleagues on the Capitol steps after the attacks, she joined the Congressional Prayer Group. The crisis gave her reason to work with lawmakers she hadn’t known before, even those in the other party.
Twenty years out, Solis, 63, still sees complexity and contradictions in the impact of that day.
She was moved by the show of unity in the country, but distressed by hostilities toward Muslims, people of color and immigrants. She felt particular empathy for those whose patriotic loyalties were questioned solely because of the color of their skin.
“I’ve had people do that to me,” said Solis, the daughter of immigrants from Mexico and Nicaragua.
She noted that it was Latinos, mainly Salvadorans, who rebuilt the Pentagon after the attacks, and that many of those lost in the World Trade Center were immigrants — restaurant workers, housekeepers and others who kept the buildings operating.
The terrorist attacks immediately shuffled her list of priorities; earlier causes such as environmental justice had to take a back seat to a focus on security or women’s rights abroad. But over time, 9/11 has become less of a focal point in her career.
“It’s one part of my life, but it’s not all of it,” said Solis, now a Los Angeles County supervisor. “You move on, and you try to correct things ... through policies to make them better.”
But she recognizes that for many — the families who lost loved ones that day or members of the military who were injured or killed in the two wars that followed — moving on is impossible. It brings her back to the emotion she felt 20 years ago: “It humbles you.”
— Melanie Mason
