On September 11, 2001, Hillary Clinton was the junior United States Senator from the state of New York.
She was handed the responsibility of helping New York City recover from the greatest tragedy in American history, and she recalled the horrors she witnessed upon first visiting Ground Zero in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“We went the next day, Chuck Schumer and I,” she told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “We were one of the few planes in the sky that day, September 12th.”
Hillary Clinton places a flag during a ceremony at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center site during a ceremony in New York, 06 September 2002. (Getty Images)
After landing at Laguardia Airport, Clinton “took a helicopter and we went over, circled the burning pile.”
“When we landed, we met up with the governor and the mayor and went walking toward Ground Zero.”
Clinton recalled that as they “moved further south, we saw this curtain of black smoke that was stretched across the island, basically.”
“Occasionally, it would be broken by a firefighter that would come out,” she continued. “I remember one specifically was dragging his axe.”
“It was the closest depiction of hell that I’ve ever personally seen.”
WATCH (EXTREMELY GRAPHIC):
“There’s a lot that I remember form those early days,” Clinton emotionally explained. “As an elected official I felt so much responsibility for this terrible attack.”
“Those who did survive were egregiously inured. The loss of life was overwhelming. I went like so many others to the armory and pier to see how people were reacting, but it was my job and the job of other elected officials to get our city and our state and our country what we needed.”