Team —

Today marks the eighteenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, one of the darkest moments in our nation’s history. Grief and loss never entirely fade, and today is a day we keep in our thoughts all those who lost loved ones to that terrible atrocity. We will never forget them.

As we remember that terrible day, let us reflect — just for a moment — on the kind of country that our enemies attacked, and the way of life that we, when we've responded, have found worth fighting for.

We're a country of laws, where everyone, even those who make and enforce the laws, is bound by the law. 

We're also a country of free people who make our own way. We take advantage of the simple opportunity to work hard to try to become whatever we want to make ourselves, taking our chances along the way. 

Since our country was founded, through all the changes, we've been proud to be a nation of strivers, of survivors, of risk-takers, of entrepreneurs, of inventors, of trailblazers.

We welcome anybody who wants to live by those laws, take those chances and forge those trails, as our brothers and sisters in freedom. We stand alongside those on other shores who aspire to that same freedom. That freedom creates many differences among us — that's what freedom does.

And oftentimes we get it wrong, sometimes for ourselves, sometimes for other people — but we fix what's broken and try to do better, because that's what you do when you have a promise to keep and a standard to live up to. And we take a common pride in our democracy, our free elections, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our promise of a better future.

We stand against anybody — from outside or within — who seeks to shatter those things.

We stood together that way on that day eighteen years ago, and we still can today. And those who want to destroy us must know now, as they learned then: we're coming for them, and we're coming for them together.

— Bill