9/11: "We Can Never Forget…We Can Never Let This Happen Again"

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning, 9-11 weekend. Well, we spoke to the Italian community, we spoke to the black community, we spoke to many others, and now let’s speak to the Greek community. And I lost a lot of friends on 9-11, and with us today is George Venizelos, and 26 years with the FBI, before that with the DEA, and four years in charge

0:24 in New York, which is almost like a record. George Venizelos, you are Greek, You were at one of the highest levels of the FBI in New York. And also, you are still involved with the, you run the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation, which all the three-letter words are members of.

0:46 And besides that, you’re with us, the Red Apple Group, and you’re my chief of staff. Give us your pulse of the situation. You served the FBI for such a long time. You see some of the problems that are going on. You tell us.

1:03 Speaker 2 Yeah, I think the big challenge now is we cannot forget 9-11. And we have a lot of the agents now, for example, it’s 25 years later. A lot of the agents weren’t FBI agents during 9-11. A lot of people were born since 9-11. 9-11 is a day that could never be forgotten because if you forget it, it’s going

1:28 to happen again. And... I think about 9-11 all the time, growing up in a Sierra and seeing these buildings being built. And it affected all communities. You know, I represent the Greek community, but every community. Terrorists know no communities. They just want to stop America from being America. They want to affect our way of life. And it’s dangerous if

1:55 you forget 9-11.

1:56 Speaker 1 Now... You were just starting at the FBI at the beginning of 9-11, and you served in, I know, Pennsylvania, you served in Washington, you served in Boston, Harrisburg. When did it start to get bad? It seems like it happened in the last 10 years where we’re under attack in so many ways.

2:24 Speaker 2 Yeah, John, it’s scary nowadays. I credit This country is very split right now. And I credit the foreign influence in causing that split. Our enemies, you know, it could be Iran, Russia, China, our enemies in general, they want to destroy our way of life. And what they do, you know, systematically, they’re pitting us against each other. And

2:52 right now, I don’t think the country has ever been so divided as it is now. Nobody is doing... More on the Democratic side. People aren’t doing things for the right of the country. They’re doing for the right of the party and power. We’ve got to start thinking about country first at some point. And it’s scary that we’re

3:14 getting away from that.

3:14 Speaker 1 Well, it was always like that. Newt Gingrich worked with Bill Clinton, country first, and they sat down and made a deal. And going back to Ronald Reagan days, him and Tip O’Neill, country first. And they sat together and they made a deal.

3:31 Speaker 2 Exactly. And how do we get back to that? How do we get back to talking to each other? How do we get back to having civilized conversations and coming together and compromise for the good of the country? That’s what’s scaring me. It’s scaring me because if we don’t do that, then we’re playing into their hands that they’re

3:54 going to divide this country. We’ve got to get this country together. back together somehow.

3:59 Speaker 1 I agree 110%. Anything else you want to get off your mind on this Sunday morning?

4:04 Speaker 2 Yeah, I just want to make. I want everyone to really... This is a weekend of reflection of what happened during 9-11 and all the people we lost and all the people we lost since 9-11. There’s like 9,000 people who have died from 9-11 cancers.

4:24 And I think We can never forget these people. We can never forget the attack that happened on us because we can never let this happen again.

4:33 Speaker 1 George Venizelos, thank you so much for coming on this Sunday morning and getting it off your chest.

4:38 Speaker 2 Thank you for having me. Thank you.