Ex-Attorney General Ashcroft reflects on 9/11 and Trump’s victory in session with Vanguard students
Samantha Vazquez remembers Sept. 11, 2001.
The Vanguard University junior, who was 5 years old at the time, stayed home from school and watched the news of the terrorist attacks with her family.
She remembers her mother trying to assure her that everything would be all right.
Fifteen years later, Vazquez and 12 of her peers at the Christian university in Costa Mesa met the man who led the U.S. Justice Department’s response to the attacks.
John Ashcroft, who at the time was attorney general in the administration of then-President George W. Bush, visited the campus Thursday to meet with select students in the morning and speak for the school’s second annual Bill & Jo Anne Larson Lectureship of Ethics & Business during the evening.
“It’s really valuable,” Vazquez said of the opportunity to meet Ashcroft. “We got to hear about someone’s firsthand experience and perspective of being a U.S. attorney general.”
Leaders of Vanguard’s business and political science programs chose the students who met with Ashcroft at the university’s Scott Academic Center.
During the short Q&A session, senior Jordyn Salter asked Ashcroft, who also is a former Missouri governor and U.S. senator, to describe his day as the 9/11 attacks unfolded.
Ashcroft said he was on a plane to Milwaukee when he learned that two commercial airliners had hit the World Trade Center towers in New York.
“I just turned and said ‘The world will never be the same,’ and the world has not been the same,” Ashcroft told the students. “We used to think that we were insulated by oceans. But this struck us.”
The group also briefly discussed this week’s presidential election. Ashcroft noted the robust evangelical vote for winner Donald Trump, which according to exit polls was 81% in his favor.
“I think there has been more talk about religion in this most recent campaign than I’ve ever seen in any campaign in history,” Ashcroft said. “And if I had to guess for any reason why, I think people feel that they’re threatened in their ability to sustain a lifestyle based on their spiritual understanding.”
Junior Amanda Enzenauer ended the session by asking Ashcroft for advice for any student interested in entering politics.
Ashcroft urged the students to study hard and to not fear failure. He referred to his Senate reelection bid in Missouri in 2000 in which he lost to Mel Carnahan, who had died in a plane crash two weeks before Election Day but was still on the ballot. After the election, Carnahan was replaced by his widow, Jean.
“If you want to adjust your ego, run for office and get beat by a dead guy,” Ashcroft said.
“You have to be willing to have the living daylights beaten out of you,” he told the students. “You have to have a compass that reflects that you know who you are and what you believe in.”
Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
