Transcript - America This Week, September 13, 2024: "Goodbye, My Rights"

Remembering 9/11, the architects of the War on Terror, and the state of emergency just renewed this week. Plus, "Goodbye, My Brother" by John Cheever

Matt Taibbi: All right. Welcome to America This Week. I’m Matt Taibbi.

Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn.

Matt Taibbi: Walter, how’s it going after that extravaganza the other night?

Walter Kirn: Well, we had a pregame on Monday, then Tuesday we had the debate, the drinking game in which I didn’t participate, but used coffee instead, you became different as time went on, I became hyper manic, over-focused. All I can think about for the last two days as I sit out in the wilderness, because I’m still way, way out. I’m basically at the edge of the wilderness that comprises Yellowstone Park, all I can think about is that damn debate and the election and so on, and it’s just gotten absolutely toxic in my head. That’s where I’m at psychologically.

Matt Taibbi: Right, right. It’s hard not to obsess over it, but we also had an anniversary this week and that there’s a weird coincidence. I guess it’s not really a coincidence, but there’s a place where these two items converge. This was the anniversary of 9/11. This show is probably going to come out on the 13th, which is two days after the anniversary.

Walter Kirn: Friday the 13th.

Matt Taibbi: Friday the 13th. But why does this matter? Well, just after the debate, the Kamala Harris campaign put out a tweet, which was interesting, that described 200 officials from various Republican administrations, but mainly from those of George W. Bush who expressed support for the Harris campaign. This continues the trend of being proud of the support of George W. Bush officials, including most notably Dick Cheney, who even came up in the debate. Oddly enough, Donald Trump didn’t pounce on that. That was one of his many errors, I thought, in the debate, but I don’t know, Walter, about you, but I thought that this would be an appropriate time to review how drastically our country changed in those days after 9/11 and in the time period since and why the continuity between then and now is so important. We don’t really think about it that much.

Walter Kirn: Well, we don’t think about it because it was a continuity that wasn’t disrupted until 2016. No matter who was president, there was one or seemingly organic consensus in America, which is that the War on Terror and the new version of the National Security State and all the laws and customs that went with it were normal. There was a disruption to that with Trump. Now, you see the Deep State wants just to heal, Matt. It wants to heal. Once Cheney came out in her favor, you realize that everybody who worked for Cheney was going to have to do it, too, right?

Matt Taibbi: Right. I would say conspicuously, the people who signed that declaration were somewhat different from some previous letters that were written in 2020, 2019 where there were a lot of national security figures. This one had a few, Christopher Barton who was Chief Counsel for the House Intel Committee. He also was in the National Security Council. He’s in there. But there are a lot of people from other parts of the government. But previous letter writing campaigns are often largely intelligence people. But there’s some other things that have happened. Just the idea that we should be excited about the endorsement of the Bush administration. We just have to go back in time and remember how crazy this whole thing was.

This show’s going to come out on the 13th, on the 14th of September in 2001, people don’t remember this, George W. Bush signed a Declaration of National Emergency by reason of certain terrorist attacks. This happened on September 14th. Now, the Declaration of National Security, there had been a National Emergencies Act passed in 19... I’m sorry, 1974. But basically you can see him referencing a bunch of executive orders there. This declaration of national emergencies, it activated about 160 legal provisions that can be set in motion by any emergency. It’s a wide range of stuff that nobody ever thinks about. You can prosecute and punish people who make defective war material. You can waive the application requirements for radio stations, you can release national defense stockpile materials, you can control vessels and territorial waters, prohibit foreign exchange transactions, bank transfers, credit payments. There’s just a whole smorgasbord of stuff.

“So what,” you think, right, because hey, it was 9/11, who knew what powers the president was going to need back then? This matters because just this week, Joe Biden re-signed it.

Walter Kirn: Do they have to do it every year?

Matt Taibbi: They have to do it every year. We have been in a continual state of emergency since that day, three days after 9/11. You can see at the end, “The terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14th, 2001 of a national emergency continues. For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to continue in effect after September 14th, 2024, the national emergency with respect to the terrorist threat.” That does mean that it was resigned all through all throughout the Trump years, but it kind of frames the entire history of our post 9/11 period, an interesting wave just people don’t remember how many things-

Walter Kirn: Also known as the 21st century, thus far.

Matt Taibbi: Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There are people in college now who are about to graduate who’ve never not been under a state of emergency. They don’t know what that is.

Walter Kirn: They don’t even know they’re under one, most of them.