Hillary Clinton said Sunday that the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks serves as a sobering reminder that the United States must "deal with extremism of any kind."
During an appearance on CNN’s "State of the Union," the former secretary of state told anchor Dana Bash that there are still lessons to be learned from 9/11.
"We have also, I think, been reminded about how important it is to try to deal with extremism of any kind, especially when it uses violence to try to achieve political and ideological goals," Clinton said. "So I'm one who thinks that there are lessons still to be learned from what happened to us on 9/11 that we should be very aware of during this time in our country and the world's history."
Clinton recalled what it was like to be a senator from New York at the time of the attacks and how Republicans and Democrats were able to rally behind President George W. Bush in a way the country hasn’t seen since.
Bash asked Clinton, "All of America's elected officials really genuinely put party aside and came together after those attacks. Would that be possible today?"
"Well, I hope that it will be, and I give President Biden a lot of credit for trying to continue to reach out to people while still sounding the alarm about the threats to our democracy," Clinton responded.
"I remember very well, two days after I gave that interview, being in the Oval Office with then-President Bush, who asked me what we needed, and I told him we needed $20 billion to rebuild New York and he said, ‘You got it.’ And he was good to his word, and there were all kinds of political conversations about that, but he never wavered," she continued. "And I wish now that people would come together behind President Biden, who is doing an amazing job trying to rebuild our manufacturing sector, trying to deal with climate change, expand health care, all the other things, including trying to do something about gun violence that the vast majority of Americans approve of."
"So we are in a funny position, Dana, because there's a small, but very vocal, very powerful, very determined minority who wants to impose their views on all the rest of us," she added. "And it's time for everybody, regardless of party to say, ‘No, that's not who we are as America.’"
Clinton’s comments on the 21st anniversary of 9/11 come amid a new messaging strategy from President Biden and the White House characterizing so-called "MAGA Republicans," or conservative members of Congress aligned with former President Donald Trump, as a threat to the country.
"They refuse to accept the will of the people," Biden said a Democratic National Committee meeting in Maryland Thursday night. "They threaten our very democracy."
