Most Americans sat in front of a TV/radio. Of which was likely the only one in the house. It could be a foggy memory for people in the thick of it.

My memory of 9/11 is a bit foggy as an example. I know I was working, at a hospital at the time. I remember that morning dragged on and I was moving all around the hospital. Poking my head in patients rooms to get a glimpse of the TV. I was in different locations doing different things when 1) overhear someone repeat a headline from the radio (plane crash into building in NYC, probably light aircraft) then a bit later 2) found a TV somewhere and sighed, wow that’s a lot of smoke/crazy accident ... then somewhere else I think in a patients room watching their TV when 3) oh no a second plane! it just hit the other tower!! this is no accident!!! Rest of day complete blur, no memory at all. I assume I went home after my shift, but I couldn't even tell you what my home was during 9/11/2021. I was in college and lived in a different apartment every year, I have no idea what apartment my 2001 apartment was. If I really dug through my memories, thought about timelines, I could probably tell you with confidence but if you randomly asked me where I lived I might mistakenly give you a wrong answer just to appease you or I might say I don't remember which people have a habit of calling politicians "suspicious" when they don't recall things, so that's not a good answer. I'd probably just guess and do damage control later if I guessed wrong and you went on a fact finding mission to prove me wrong.

I was 21 at the time and my memory would be crystal clear if I was at home watching it on my TV but I had a lot of chaos going on as a part of my job and so the events of the day are blurry. That's also a very easy memory to hold, sitting at home all day, when you're moving around talking to people things get mixed up and as time goes on you forget most of it because it was many tiny memories where as sitting at home was one large memory.

I was even younger but , my memories of OJ in the bronco and princess Diana were like this. I can tell you definitely I was sitting at home at the dining room table with my Dad glued to the TV eating junk food. It's simple and was the same activity for multiple hours. These events were blips of history compared to 9/11 but my memory of them is better because it was simple to remember.

For the challenger explosion, another large event, I was in K/1st grade (can never remember which) but I was watching it on tv in my class. It was a big deal because TV in the classroom and teacher on the shuttle, it was the future man! Oh and I grew up near NASA in Clear Lake so there was some hometown pride built in. But then it went bad. Nobody understood. Kids started crying. That's my memory. Except, is it really? That's what I think my memory was. I don't really remember if that happened TO ME. I've seen videos and heard stories of that happening. I may have conflated these into my own personal memory. I don't really know. I feel like 80% confident I actually experienced that. But I wouldn't be shocked if it was all a crossing of my neural wires. Sometimes my early childhood memories are like this. I remember some thing, or think I do, but maybe I'm just remembering a picture I saw of that thing. Or the images I conjured while hearing the story of the thing multiple times through my childhood. Memories are weird like that.

The fact he was checking out of a hotel is a minuscule detail for someone that is constantly checking out of hotels. He probably remembers more about the conversations he had that day with other politicians, CIA, etc. but he wouldn’t discuss that.