Former President George W. Bush decried homegrown violent extremism in a tribute to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Saturday, saying domestic terrorism poses a threat to the United States akin to that of foreign terrorists.
Bush’s speech during a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, warned of a “malign force” responsible for violence and anger in America 20 years after the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives.
“Many Americans have struggled to understand why an enemy would hate us with such zeal,” said Bush, who was president during the 9/11 attacks and oversaw the subsequent U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
SEPT. 11 CRASH SITES REMEMBER THE FALLEN 20 YEARS ON
“We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within,” he said. “There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home, but in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.”
Bush went on recall the unifying effect that the Sept. 11 attacks had on the country, saying such days of unity “seem distant from our own.”
“Malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument and every argument into a clash of cultures,” Bush said. “So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment.”
Bush’s comments followed months of warnings from many lawmakers and the White House about the threat of domestic extremism. Democrats have pointed to the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill as a manifestation of that threat and formed the Select Committee on Jan. 6, a special congressional commission formed in June to investigate the riot specifically styled after the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.
President Joe Biden and his predecessors marked the somber anniversary, with Biden, like Bush, speaking of national unity in his own 9/11 address on Friday, calling it the country’s “greatest strength.”
“In places expected and unexpected, we also saw something all too rare: a true sense of national unity. Unity and resilience, the capacity to recover and repair in the face of trauma … unity is what makes us who we are,” Biden said in the Friday remarks.
Saturday morning, Biden attended a ground zero ceremony in New York alongside former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton before joining Bush in Pennsylvania. While visiting the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department Saturday afternoon, Biden praised Bush’s remarks, adding a display of national unity was instrumental in showing autocrats that “democracies can work.”
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Former President Donald Trump released a video message Saturday hailing the bravery of the Sept. 11 first responders and sharply criticizing Biden, who “was made to look like a fool” after the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15. Trump said he plans to make his own trip to ground zero in New York to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Trump was the only living former president aside from former President Jimmy Carter not to appear alongside Biden on Saturday. Carter, 96, has made few public appearances in recent years due to declining health.
