THE PRESIDENT: Hi, Patricia; how are you? How old is Patricia?
Q Five, and Jordan is in 3rd grade. And Jordan has a question, if I could give him the microphone.
THE PRESIDENT: You bet. Your mother is relaying the Mike to you, Jordan.
Q One thing, Mr. President, is that you have no idea how much you've done for this country. And another thing is that, how did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack? (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Jordan. Well, Jordan, you're not going to believe what state I was in when I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida. And my Chief of Staff, Andy Card -- actually, I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident.
But I was whisked off there, I didn't have much time to think about it. And I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my Chief of Staff, who is sitting over here, walked in and said, "A second plane has hit the tower, America is under attack."
And, Jordan, I wasn't sure what to think at first. You know, I grew up in a period of time where the idea of America being under attack never entered my mind -- just like your Daddy's and Mother's mind probably. And I started thinking hard in that very brief period of time about what it meant to be under attack. I knew that when I got all of the facts that we were under attack, there would be hell to pay for attacking America. (Applause.)
I tried to get as many facts as I could, Jordan, to make sure I knew as I was making decisions that I knew exactly what I was basing my decisions on. I've got a fabulous team. A President can't possibly be President without a good team. It starts with having a great wife, by the way. (Applause.)
And so, I got on the phone from Air Force One, asking to find out the facts. You've got to understand, Jordan, during this period of time, there were all kinds of rumors floating around. Some of them were erroneous. Obviously -- for example, there was a news report saying that the State Department had been attacked. I needed to know what the facts were. But I knew I needed to act. I knew that if the nation's under attack, the role of the Commander-In-Chief is to respond forcefully to prevent other attacks from happening. And so, I've talked to the Secretary of Defense; one of the first acts I did was to put our military on alert.
An interesting thing happened shortly thereafter. Condoleezza Rice -- who was not with me but was with the Vice President because they were in the White House compound -- called me on Air Force One after that, and said that she had gotten a call from Russia, from Vladimir Putin, who understood why we were putting our troops on alert, and, therefore, wasn't going to respond. That was an important phone call. Because when I was coming up, and a lot of other older-looking people here who were coming up with me -- (laughter) -- that would never have happened in the past. An alert by the United States would have caused Russia to go on alert, which would have created a complicated situation. But that wasn't the case.
By the way, we're heading into a new era. One of the positive things that comes out of the evil was, we're reassessing relationships in order to make the world more peaceful. I believe it's important for us to have positive relations with our former enemy and to rethink the defenses of the United States of America. (Applause.)
At any rate, I knew I had a job to do. And I was quoted in the press the other day as saying I haven't regretted one thing I've decided. And that's the truth. Every decision I made, I stand by. And I'm proud of the decisions I've made. (Applause.)