Fox News: Tearful Steve Doocy Recalls How His Daughter Thought He Died in 9/11 Attacks

Fox News reporter Steve Doocy became choked up on Friday morning (September 11) as he recalled where he was during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Doocy reported live from New York City on Friday’s edition of Fox & Friends, just as he had back in 2001. At the time, the veteran journalist said he’d just finished interviewing a Mr. Peanut mascot when a producer told him to return to the studio because a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers.

“All we knew was that a plane had hit the World Trade Center,” Doocy remembered. “We didn’t know what it looked like, but because Fox News had just started, we didn’t have a lot of the assets we have now with all the live cameras”

He said that the crew wheeled monitors into the studio so they could watch what was unfolding. “It was like something out of a movie,” Doocy recalled.

.@SteveDoocy was live on air as the world changed, and 25 years later, the emotions are just as raw.

He reflects on the morning that cost 2,977 lives and altered millions forever. pic.twitter.com/ZrGcrsmGeD

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) September 11, 2026

“It was election day. It was also my son Peter Doocy’s first day of high school. And he watched it on TV, and so did my daughter Sally, who was in first grade,” he continued.

Doocy noted that he couldn’t return home to New Jersey because all the bridges and tunnels in New York were closed. “So I wound up staying in New York City for two days,” he said. “My daughter Sally, who was just in kindergarten or first grade, she saw… in New Jersey they turned all the TVs on and every kid, regardless of age, saw what happened. And she saw the plane fly into a skyscraper.”

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He then fought back tears as he shared, “My daughter Sally thought, ‘You know, my dad works near that skyscraper.’ That night when she went home, my wife, Kathy, said, ‘You know, Dad is not coming home tonight because he can’t get home.’ And I didn’t come home the next night; Sally thought I was dead.”

Doocy took a moment to pause as he described the feelings as still “raw” 25 years later. He then paid respects to all those who lost their lives in the attacks, including 12 of his neighbors from Wyckoff, New Jersey.

“It’s raw for me, and Brian [Kilmeade], I’m sure it’s the same for you, because we went through the same thing as a town, as Americans… and for us, we’ll never forget. But I think one of the things we’ve got to do is we have got to remember the people who died that day.”

He added, “And we’ve got to remember one of the most important and impactful things was, I don’t think in my entire life I ever felt so many Americans were on the same page with me. We were united.”