The Associated Press | Jeenah Moon

A quarter of a century after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the four living ex-presidents are looking back on the day that reshaped the nation — and the lives of the nearly 3,000 people killed in New York City, Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

Former President Clinton said the country can’t erase the pain of 9/11, but it can honor those who were lost by remembering what brought Americans together in the aftermath. 

“We can’t erase the nightmare that so many have lived through and are still living with today,” Clinton wrote. “But we can support the people who have given and lost so much by treating one another with respect, in person and online, and recognizing that what we have in common is far more important than what divides us.” 

Former President Obama echoed the sentiment while honoring those who put their lives on the line in the wars that followed. 

“Today Michelle and I are remembering those we lost that day, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the wars that followed,” Obama said in a statement. 

He urged Americans to remember that even “the darkest days” can be overcome “as long as we move forward as one nation and one people.” 

Former President George W. Bush, who was in office when the attacks happened, gave remarks earlier this week reflecting on the day and his response as the nation’s leader. 

Bush recalled the moment he learned the second World Trade Center tower had been struck while he was visiting an elementary school in Florida. 

“I didn’t have much time to process that, but it was pretty clear to me that if we were under attack, that my job was to defend the child that was reading to me and her family and her country,” he said Wednesday. “And so, it was a moment of clarity.” 

Clinton, Obama, Bush and former President Biden participated in the memorial ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City on Friday. They were joined by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Vice President Vance and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, among others.  Watch here. 

President Trump opted to stay in Washington on Friday, commemorating the day from the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and first lady Melania Trump also attended the memorial ceremony. Check it out here. 

For many Americans, 9/11 isn’t just a chapter in a history book.  

A new Ipsos poll found that 47 percent of adults consider the attacks one of the five most important historic events they’ve lived through. And 75 percent said they personally remember where they were when they learned about the tragedy. 

Twenty-five years later, the effects are still visible in everyday life — perhaps nowhere more than at the airport. The attacks ushered in a new era of security screenings, from removing shoes to limits on liquids and tighter restrictions on what travelers can bring through checkpoints.  

Some of those rules are now being rolled back under the Trump administration. The Department of Homeland Security, created after the attacks, has eliminated the requirement to remove shoes at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints and launched a pilot program allowing non-ticketed passengers through to the gate at some airports. Officials are also considering changes to liquid restrictions for TSA PreCheck passengers. 

Those updates reflect advances in screening tech, national security experts say, but also raise questions about how much security is enough. 

At the same time, the threat facing the U.S. has changed. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan launched after 9/11 have ended, while concerns about lone-wolf attacks and other forms of terrorism remain. Insiders can read more from The Hill’s Bill Sammon here. 

And the anniversary comes as the Trump administration has again put the U.S. at the center of conflict in the Middle East, including through the ongoing strikes against Iran. 

“We salute the service members working right now to ensure the world's No. 1 sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never ever have a nuclear weapon," Trump told the crowd at the Pentagon ceremony on Friday. 

For a generation of Americans, 9/11 remains a dividing line: the moment the world they knew changed and the beginning of an era whose consequences are still being felt.  

For Generation Z, 9/11 isn’t something they remember — it’s something they inherited.  

They grew up with airport security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ever-present threat of terrorism as the backdrop to their childhoods. 

That may help explain why only 16 percent of Gen Zers say the attacks permanently changed their way of life, compared with 36 percent of millennials. For younger Americans, there may not be one defining tragedy that stands apart from the rest — just a steady stream of crises that have become part of growing up. 

 Read The Feed here. 

Bonus: The Hill’s Sarah Fortinsky shares a first-person account of living near Ground Zero.