When he heard that the second plane had hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, George W. Bush was determined to fly to the White House immediately—or at least, immediately after he finished reading The Pet Goat. That determination got him into a shouting match with Condoleezza Rice, who insisted he instead stay in Florida, a much less likely target for a terrorist attack, the Independent reports. Rice revealed the incident in an interview for a new 9/11 documentary that airs Thursday on the History Channel.
“The president got on the phone and said, ‘I’m coming back,’” says Rice, who had hunkered down with Dick Cheney in the bunker under the White House. “I said, ‘You can’t.’ I said to him in a raised voice, and I never raised my voice to the president before, ‘You cannot come back here!’" Then she hung up on him. "The president was quite annoyed with me to say the least.” (More Condoleezza Rice stories.)