Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Carol Costello 20160628

Entering the United States. Theres no equivocation there. In the months since, every once in a while youve heard donald trump walk away from it a little bit. Now thats officially happening. What the advisors are working on right now is a policy memo that will tailor the idea towards just individuals coming from terror states. Now the definition of terror states and the specifics are still to be determined. But there is no question at all it is a shift. Its raising questions as to what was the original rationale for the plan and why the shift. One take a listen to what Katrina Pierson told our Brianna Keilar last night. What is the vetting process . Thats a great question. That is a question for the fbi and the cia who have told us they do not have a vetting process. That is something that as president mr. Trump wants to get with congress to filter that out because we do not have one yet. Can you sort of flesh that out a little bit for me . Because youre talking about donald trump getting together with congress. So this isnt actually his vetting process. This is something he wants to work out with entities that he currently believes are failing as vetting. Donald trump isnt talking about the vetting process. Donald trump is talking about individuals coming into this country, period. Thats it. Okay. Youre talking about whether or not they can be vetted. Until our politicians can figure out whats going on, the vetting process needs to take place. The fbi and the cia we have departments and agencies that are supposed to be doing this and theyre not. But hes said he doesnt trust the vetting process. So what is his proposal to address that process . We dont have a vetting process. Donald trump doesnt have a vetting process . No. The fbi and the cia do not have a vetting process. Now, thats not exactly true. Refugees coming into the United States do go through a process and refugees coming from syria do go through an expanded process. Law enforcement and National Security agencies all working together through that process. But the Trump Campaign has maintained and they have been backed up by National Security officials in the Obama Administration that there are a lot of gaps when it comes to Syrian Refugees. It is difficult to track people. That is where a lot of the concerns have come from. Still some of those concerns beings s assuaged inside the campaign. A lot of the republicans have been opposed to this. Now donald trump appears to be shifting their way. That term Political Correctness comes to mind. Is mr. Trump bowing to the very thing he says is ruining this country . Lets talk about this with larry sabado. Patrick, mr. Trump is definitely changing his tune. Hes shifting. He went from a total ban on muslims to to what exactly . Now hes looking at this sort of country by country policy that hes not telling us yet what thats going to be. When i was out in iowa and New Hampshire earlier this year with donald trump, what he would say is that when he was at his rallies, the most important thing to connect with with his voters, that he would sometimes feel like he was losing them, that they might be drifting away and that he always knew he could say im going to build a wall and its going to be great or im going to ban muslims from the country. And the crowd would erupt and get so excited. Donald trump knew what he was doing by talking specifically about muslims. What happens now since its sort of like a shift although im not very clear on what exactly it means . No. I think theyre still to some extent making things up as they go along. The Campaign Organization is just now growing. Theyve had seven weeks where after he sealed up the nomination theyve been going through a lot of internal changes back and forth. I think theyre trying to make peace with paul ryan and Mitch Mcconnell and the elites in the party. His base liked the muslim ban. The idea that now were going to talk about terror countries sounds more politically correct. Whos he appealing to . His base may not be happy. Other voters may have lots of other problems with him. This is really designed to tell the elites what they want to hear. Lets talk about these countries that are supposedly involved in mr. Trumps ban. Is he talking about iraq, syria, saudi arabia, france . This is what eric trump said on fox news. Lets listen. Eric, has his thoughts about muslim and immigration and his ban, has it been somewhat massaged . Is it somewhat refined or narrowed . When it pertains to a muslim coming from scotland, the difference difference between somebody of muslim faith coming from scotland is you can actually vet them. If you have 200,000 Syrian Refugees coming to this country, they dont have filfiles. Theres no records on these people. The korree cia and fbi cant ve those people. Hes concerned about muslims coming from terrorist seeking nations, places that want to do harm to americans that want to have another orlando or San Bernardino or brussels. Does that make sense to you . Youre just bringing up all these specific details that are so critical and important but not necessary for a campaign. Look, im kidding, of course. If youre looking for details, precise details from the Trump Campaign youll look forever. And they change day by day. The reason he is changing his policy, three reasons. One, his original policy was unconstitutional. Thats a big problem in our system when you try to ban 1. 6 billion muslims from entering the United States. Number two, his friends in the Republican Party who really arent his friends, all the leaders w dont like him, they did not agree with his muslim ban. And number three, the public in general is opposed to what he proposed. His base loves it, but the public as a whole otherwise we refer to them as the voters. They did not support what donald trump was proposing. So he is moving away from the original proposal because he has to. But he doesnt know what hes moving to. No surprise there. I was just going to ask you about that, because clearly Katrina Pierson did not know any details of this shift in Donald Trumps i dont know, partial muslim ban. So why send her out there to talk publicly about it . Well, youre making a critical assumption that isnt true, that they have a very organized campaign and Communications Program she clearly didnt know what she was talking about, with all due respect to her. Then others in the campaign have been freelancing too. Even eric trump didnt make any sense. Donald trump has talked at banning people with bad thoughts. Well, boy, if only we knew precisely who had bad thoughts. If they dont leave a record on the internet, its kind of difficult to figure out who has bad thoughts and who has good thoughts. So final question to you, patrick. Will this work for donald trump . Lets say he comes out and lays out a very specific plan. It makes perfect sense. Will that work for him Going Forward . I mean, in terms of the details, its sort of like brexit. Were going to have to wait down the line to see if he got elected, what congress was willing to work with him. In the shortterm, his goal is to create some kind of peace and unity within the Republican Party. So three weeks from now their convention is not a hot mess. So there are people showing up, leaders who are showing up. This kind of language helps get the republican governors and senators who right now are keeping their distance, to a place where theyre more comfortable. So shortterm, maybe helps with the elite. With voters, i think theyre going to be like, we liked the old donald trump. What about this guy . Well see what happens. Thanks to both of you. It is an awkward day for Outgoing British Prime Minister david cameron. Hes in brussels for the first face to face meetings with the eu since u. K. Voters chose to leave the group, rattling markets world wide. He had some harsh words for its members. What i would like to see is a grown up and sensible attitude to how we negotiate a different relationship. Now, i know that virtually none of you have ever done a prp epr job in your lives. Or worked. Or worked in business, or worked in trade, or indeed ever created a job. But listen, just listen. Cnns Nick Robertson joins us live from brussels to talk about this and more. Good morning. Reporter yeah. Good morning. Its had its lively moments here today. You know, right at that moment where we just cut away the president of the European Parliament cut in and chastised nigel. And weve even had the president of the European Commission today telling him, hey, you voted to leave. Why are you still here . Theres no love lost between these europoliticians, nigel farage and those who voted for the press conferenbrexit. David cameron spoke a little while ago between meetings here. He said, look, ive come to tell them britain is definitely leaving but we want to do this in a constructive way. Well, weve leaving the european union. We mustnt been turning our backs on europe. I very much hope well seek the closest possible relationship in terms of trade and cooperation and security. Thats good for us and for them. Reporter youve had a lot of the different european leaders making their comments. One Prime Minister here quipped on the way in. He said, look, its not like facebook where a relationship or a status is complicated. He said its a marriage. Youre either in it or out of it. Theres a feeling here among the european politicians, britains got to send this clear message of when its actually going to negotiate to leaf. Still to come, the horrors of benghazi and the questions that still burn there more than three years later. Glad forceflex. Extra strong to avoid rips and tears. Be happy, its glad. Less than five months before the president ial election Hillary Clinton faces new criticism for her handling of benghazi. Before and after the terror attack that killed four americans. House republican who is led the investigation releasing their findings last hour. Now, there is no smoking gun implicating clinton directly. As you know, she was secretary of state at the time. But the report says a perfect storm had been building for months and clinton should have recognized the grave danger the americans faced in libya. Were covering all of the angles with dana bash, Barbara Starr and then were going to interview a republican congressman. Dana, i do want to start with you. As i said, theres no smoking gun in this report. But its still damning . Reporter absolutely. The fact of the matter is four americans including the u. S. Ambassador at the time to libya were killed. And there were lots of reasons for that laid out in this report. Starting with the obvious, which is they diplomdnt have the pro security. One of the questions that has been posed for several years now is, why was Chris Stevens, the ambassador, even in benghazi that was kind of an out post still and didnt have proper security. One of the things thats come to light in this report are some of the potential reasons he went. First and foremost, he was very committed to benghazi and making a u. S. Consulate permanent there. And he found out there was a pot of money that could be available to make that happen, money as you learn reading this was very hard to come by for them in creating the balance that they needed there. So he went potentially to try to make the fiscal year deadline of september 30th when that money would disappear. The other interesting note is Hillary Clinton herself was planning to potentially go to libya the next month, october of 2012. And emails and other documents in this report, it says that her aides were thinking this could be a, quote, unquote, deliverable for her. This certainly weaves lots of information and narratives about how this came to be, what happened on the night when this attack was going on, the kind of response and of course the controversial talking points that susan rice, the National Security advisor used talking about the fact that it was a video which turns out to be not the case. I should tell you that the chairman trare going to be hereo formally unveil their report. He believes that was important to not trdraw conclusions whiche insists his 800 page report does not do. It just lays out the narrative. He says that its to make sure this doesnt happen again. Hes kind of caught with people not happy with him on both sides of this. Democrats are saying that they were not involved in this, that they didnt have a chance to participate in the report, that they only got the report maybe about an hour ago and they were shut out of the process of making these conclusions. And then you have republicans who want to be much more sharp when it comes to Hillary Clinton. So two republicans on the committee, they released their own findings that do draw conclusions, very sharp ones as you can imagine, saying that the administration was much more interested in politics, the fact that it was 56 days before 2012 election and that they didnt want to highlight the fact that there was a terror attack. And so thats why there was messaging that was focused on the political instead of what republicans said they needed to do. With me now is a member of the House Select Committee on benghazi. A couple of questions for you. This report was released kind of in dribs. Like part of the report was released earlier this morning. And then between 8 00 a. M. And 9 00 a. M. Eastern time, the whole report was dumped. Why was it done that way . I dont know. I think there was a larger effort to get the information out in ways that were sequential and made sense and there were some prearrangements with some news outlets. America asks its citizens to go to dangerous places and do difficult things. And they do that willingly. And that happens with members of the military and the Clandestine Services and diplomats and they go understanding that its dangerous. And the deal that we make with them is if the wheels come off the cart and theyre at risk, everything will be deployed to save them. And the point of the Benghazi Committee is, that didnt happen. And it is drawing a very stark contrast between the heroism on the ground. And these stories are just unbelievable, the eyewitness accounts of the severity of the attack, the thickness of the smoke, the confusion of the event in its totality and the seeming lack of urgency that took place in washington, d. C. And moving forward, weve got to make sure that never happens again. And youre right, this is a very important investigation. But i think that people are confused about it. And ill give you an example of why. So actually two reports on benghazi are going to be released today and also an addendum. And this is on the same investigation. The addendum is written by conservatives on the Benghazi Committee who dont think the report is critical enough of Hillary Clinton. A separate report was released by the democrats on benghazi on that Benghazi Committee because they say they were left out of the process. That report clears clinton of all wrongdoing. The whole report is going to release by the republicans on the Benghazi Committee at the top of the next hour. Which report should voters believe . Heres the larger point. Its not unlike a Supreme Court opinion. You have a majority opinion, sometimes you have concurring opinions, you have a minority opinion. For democrats to claim they were not a part of this process is a conclusion theyre coming to of their own choosing. Remember, this is the group of people who said we shouldnt have this report. Every question has been requested, they said. Every question has been answered. Every witness has been interviewed we were told by the democrats on the committee. They agree with the report. Theyre not objecting to the report. You can ask them specifically about their essentially a concurring opinion. But as dana pointed out a minute ago, what theyre trying to do is highlight and bring into contrast some of the political issue that is the main report doesnt do. It doesnt mitigate any does a part of you wish that those conservative republicans wouldnt do that and talk about the politics . Not for a second. Whashington failed. Washington completely was acting as if that was somebody elses family that was under attack. The officials in washington from the state department to the white house to you name it, the department of defense, were slowmoving. There was never a force that was going to be deployed to benghazi. Thats what the report finds. Never. Isnt that shocking . Isnt that jarring . The notion that these people were basically told possibly somebodys coming to rescue you and nobody was ever coming to rescue them. Thats the scandal we need to focus on. There was an accountability review board. It made 29 recommendations to the state department. The state department adopted 28 recommendations. Now that the report is out, whats the end game . What should happen . What needs to happen . Should there be more recommendatio recommendations . Should the state Department Institute more changes . Whats the end game here . The end game here is, number one, to have a thorough understanding of what actually happened. And it means spending several hours. The reading this report, the totality of the report is about the same time as our soldiers were sitting on a tarmac waiting for aircraft to take them to do the rescue mission. Its not too much to ask people to read the entire report. Secondly weve got to recognize there has to be an immediate urgency. The president of the United States issues an order at 5 00 p. M. Its followed up by a subsequent order by the secretary of defense at 7 00 p. M. And that information is not transmitted for hours. We learn there was a white house meeting where they spent the lions share of their discussion talking about a video which was never part of the point in the first time. Should there be consequences . Should somebody be charged for something . What consequences should there be for this . The consequences of a tragedy are unfortunately borne by the people in the families of those who lost their lives. Who should be punished, for lack of a word, because of all of these mistakes that were made . Look, the entire system failed them. Chris stevens goes into benghazi without any diplomatic cover when he first goes in. Hes not covered by the vienna convention. Hes just going in basically on his own. The state department is fully aware of the nature of the danger. The Diplomatic Security officers say, we need a more aggressive machine gun to defend ourselves. They make these repeat eed requests time and time again. And you have bureaucrats in washington who say were not going to do this. The people in washington were more concerned about the disposition of the libyans. The rescue forces were forced to change clothes four different times. Should they go in civilian clothes . Should they go in military clothes . They wasted three hours. Those types of things are absurd. Theyre candidate lous eere sc. The people who bear the burden are the one who s who lost thei lives. Thats the shame of this. Still to come, u. S. Markets down nearly 900 points after two days of drastic losses. Will there be a rebound today . Good morning. I am seeing green arrows. But the question is will they really last . Whether youll be able to look at your 401 k today, thats coming up after the break. And good morning. Thank you so much for joining me. A brexit breather . The opening bell just moments ago u. S. Stocks actually rebounding after closing in negative territory alison kosik, i didnt expect this. Reporter good morning again. What a difference a day makes. The dow rebounding right now 150 points. Globally were also watching exchanges in europe. Theyre bouncing back. Asian markets, they closed mostly higher as well. What a brutal couple of days its been for the markets. In just two sessions the dow lost almost 900 points. The brexit vote slashing 3 trillion from the pockets of investors. It was the worst twoday period ever. Investors are ready to scoop up beaten down stocks. Traders are telling me theyre expecting some sort of coordinated central bank. If that happens it could put confidence back into the market by putting out a safety net. Keep in mind, this is just an expectation. If that support doesnt come, dont be surprised to see more selloffs. In either case, volatility will be the new normal, meaning big swings up and big swings down because the uncertainty about the brexit, thats going to continue hanging over the market. But for today lets just kind of enjoy the ride. You know, shares have really gotten hit hard. Youll also see a lot of bar gau bargain hunters out. Donald trump is gearing up to deliver a Major Economic speech in blue collar country just outside of pittsburgh, pennsylvania. Pennsylvania a state that will be key in november. Trump hoping his plan to reenergize American Manufacturing is enough to steer the blue collar vote away from Hillary Clinton. This a day after Hillary Clinton used trumps own words against him at a rally in ohio. Best i can tell he has no credible strategy for creating jobs and maybe we shouldnt expect better from someone whose most famous words are, youre fired. With me now is chris potter. Hes with the pittsburgh post gazet gazette. Welcome. Are people excited about mr. Trump coming to pennsylvania . Yeah. I mean, this is his second visit in just two and a half weeks. He was here prior to the primary. So theres a fan base there thats very fired up, especially outside the city of pittsburgh itself in communities where hell be visiting today. Im sure that voters there will want to hear his plan on the economy to get manufacturing moving again. What does he need to say . You know, thats a really good question. When ive talked to people out in communities, these are folks who are not necessarily so hung up on the ins and out of policy. They want to feel like theyve got somebody in the oval office whos in thehere slugin insluggr behalf. Theres just a lot of communities like this all throughout western pennsylvania, formerly industrial towns that are never recovered from the steel collapse of the 1980s. Trade is a big conversation. A lot of people blame china for the Steel Industries woes and japan. A lot of it ended up moving up south to the Southern State where is ths where they dont have unions. Building the wall is always very popular here in western pennsylvania even though we dont have that many immigrants. Lets go back to trade for just a second before we get into the wall and immigration. Hillary clinton years ago, she was talking about the latest trade deal negotiated by the Obama Administration and she came out and said it was great. I want to play that for you now. This tpp sets the Gold Standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law in a level playing field. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 of the worlds total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment. So as you know, chris, now Hillary Clinton is against tpp, right . Right. Trump is way against tpp. How might this affect voters who might be thinking about Hillary Clinton in pennsylvania . Yeah. I mean, i think this is something i hear a lot out here in the west. Theres a trust issue with respect to ms. Clinton, the benghazi issue youve been talking about is another case in point. I think theres just a lot of questions about Hillary Clinton and sort of the position shes taken over the years. A lot of folks still remember nafta, which was inaugurated under her husband in the 90s. Theres a certain irony here. Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas, when the Steel Industry got crunched it was in the 80s. There are a lot of factors that played into that. But i dont think you can say that nafta was to blame. It is something that people can kind of grab hold of. There is some truth to it. There are facilities here in the pittsburgh area that have moved to mexico or to china over the years. Its a subject of considerable concern for folks. Even though and this is interesting too a lot of the folks who are strong lly for trp are older, people whose working days with behind them. Theres a sense among a lot of tease fo these folks that american has gotten away from them. I want to ask you briefly about mr. Trumps muslim ban. Hes shifted from that stance and now says he will not allow people in from countries that sponsor terrorism. How will that play with those voters who love donald trump in pennsylvania . Im very interested in the answer to that question myself. One of the things you always hear about donald trump is he tells it like he it is. Hes going to have a very difficult time kind of straddling that line between adjusting, pivoting for a general election and maintaining his connection with the voters who respected him for his blunt, plain spoken, politically incorrect way of addressing issues. All right. I cant wait to hear either. Thank you so much for joining me this morn zblo this morning. No coach in College Basketball history has won more games than pat summit. The legendary coach lost her battle the alzheimers. A look back at her storied career, next. Through. Cause sealys support is perfect for you. Only the sealy hybrid has Posturepedic Technology to support you where you need it most. Sealy. Proud supporter of you. One of the greatest basketball coaches of all time has died. Pat summit, the alltime winningest coach in College Basketball history died this morning after battling alzheimers for several years. Summit led the tennessee Womens Basketball team to eight national titles. You know, bob knight said if he was going to pick three or four of the greatest teachers of basketball of his time, pat summit would definitely be one of them. Summit one more than a thousand games in her career. What shell be remembered most for is the huge impact that she had on thousands of student athletes both on and off the court. Every possession matters. Take pride in every possession. Its a game of possessions. Its also a game of wills. See how tough we are. Pat summits legendary coaching career started when she was just 22 years old when she was named the head coach of the Womens Basketball team at tennessee. She would go onto coach the l y ladies for 38 years, making her the all time winningest basketball coach, male or female. You win in life with people. Its all about the people you surround yourself with and what they bring to the court, to the game. Known for her intense glare on the sidelines, summit led the lady balls to eight Ncaa National championships. She had an amazing 100 Graduation Rate for all student athletes who completed their eligibility. This is the time we had just won a championship. She loved to win. She was just like i dont care if you ever play ball again, but youre going to get your degree. For me, that meant a lot. Summit was also an olympic champion, winning a silver medal as a player and gold as a coach. She was inducted into the Basketball Hall of fame in 2000. 11 years later the Basketball Community was shocked when she revealed she was diagnosed with early onset dementia. She remained as coach for one more season before stepping down. After being diagnosed summit played a leading role in the fight against alzheimers. It is time to fight as i ask all of you to join me together so we will win. Im going to keep on keeping on. I promise you that. The pat summit alzheimers clinic is scheduled to open at the university of Tennessee Medical Center in december. The arena where the basketball teams play is already named the summit, a tribute to a woman who impacted thousands of student athletes both on and off the court. Pat summit was 64 years old. Now Payton Manning who went to tennessee and became friends with summit over the years said in a statement this morning she could have coached any team, any sport, mens or womens. It wouldnt matter because pat should plat out coach. We also have some sad news in the nfl. Buddy ryan as died at the age of 82. Ryan coached some of the best defenses in the nfl. Both of his sons rex and rob have continued his legacy, both coaching in the nfl as well. Ive got a pretty cool buddy ryan story. My first ever nfl game to go to in person was oilers jets. I was 10 years old. I was sitting behind the oilers bench. And buddy ryan who coached the defense was upset because the oilers offense kept going three and out and his defense had to keep going back on the field. So he went over and confronted oilers offensive coordinator and ended up punching him in the face. You never see that in the nfl these days. I still remember it. That just sh shows what kind ofy buddy ryan was, never afraid to speak his mind. And we still see that in his sons right now. The state Department Says u. S. Diplomats in russia are getting harassed. And it has gotten so bad that secretary of state john kerry brought it up to president putin. According to the washington post, some u. S. Embassy personnel have even had their moscow homes broken into and the contents moved around. Senate democrats blocked a key vote this morning to provide more than 1 billion to fight the zika virus. Democrats cant support the measure because republicans inserted a socalled poison pill including denying funding to planned parenthood. The legislation needs 60 votes to pass. It might be the oddest of first dates. Elizabeth warren and Hillary Clinton sharing the stage acting like the best of friends. Jeanne moos has more. This is my fight song reporter arms around each other, an affectionate squeeze, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren were practically dancing together. They hugged offstage to say goodbye and hugged on stage for the introduction. We havent seen a political public display of affection like this since, okay, maybe hillary and Elizabeth Warren didnt get that carried away. Sure, there were a few awkward moments as everyone watched to see if the two had vp chemistry. Holding hands upraised in victory is always hard to pull off. Just ask ted cruz and carly fiorina. But ted and carly didnt get accused of coordinating their outfits. Did you see the matching pantsuits . There they are. Reporter it is twins day on the campaign trail read one tweet. But it only looked that way on tv. Hillary was wearing purple, elizabeth in blue. They are thelma and louise. They will drive the country off a cliff. Reporter maybe senator warren will drive donald trump nuts. After she called him goofy, he went after her in that hat. He discussed his search for vp. Elizabeth warren is like a cheerleader on steroids. Lets give these two a hand for all the time they gave each other a hand. Im with her. Yes, her. Reporter like the energizer bunny, just when you thought she was winding down, she sped up. Is it possible to clap your way to the vice presidency . Jeanne moos, cnn, new york. The next hour of cnn newsroom after a break. Fight heartburn fast. With tums chewy delights. The mouthwatering soft chew that goes to work in seconds to conquer heartburn fast. Tum tum tum tum. Chewy delights. Only from tums. And good morning. Im carol costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Two years after the benghazi investigation was first launched, we are Just Moments Away from hearing what the investigation has revealed. The House Republicans led the investigation and are about to hold a News Conference on the terror attack that killed four americans. The full report coming out just two hours ago. It does not provide a smoking gun to directly implicate Hillary Clinton who was secretary of state at the time. But it does say clinton should have recognized the grave danger the americans faced in libya. This investigation and the results of the investigation comes just over four months before the president ial election. Chief Political Correspondent dana bash is covering this for us this morning. Good morning. Reporter good morning. Because of what you just said, the timing of this, the context in which this is coming out, just a few months before the election, understandably a large focus has been on Hillary Clinton who, of course, was secretary of state during this deadly attack in benghazi. And so the question has been, how much of a focus is this report going to have on her . The answer largely is what you said in the leadin, carol, that there certainly does not appear to be a smoking gun. Nothing that is new that reveals that Hillary Clinton had culpability here. And trey gowdy who is the chair of this select Committee Working for two years at the cost of about 7 million, taxpayer dollars, is going to argue that it was not his plan. That he intended all along to deliver a narrative with witness interviews, we mails that people have not yet seen, with all kinds of information. He will insist that needs to be out there for the public to see, just broadly to make sure this kind of attack doesnt happen again. And in reading some of this, this is 800 pages, so we are still going through the parts that we hadnt been given exclusively before, it really does just tell a tale of a bureaucratic mess that is the state department and the defense department, intelligent agencies, that allowed this to happen. That allowed a u. S. Ambassador to be in a place as dangerous as benghazi without the proper funding and more importantly the proper security to be there. Now there, of course, are a lot of other discussions in this report, political question that is have been asked since pretty much after this happened, very close to the 2012 president ial election about whether or not the administration was trying to coverup the fact that it was a terror attack because it was bad politics for the president in his reelection. The republicans who trey gowdy who put this together, does not make this conclusion. But there are a lot of republicans pressuring him to be more political. Because two of the gop congressmen well see here have their own report making those conclusions and have a very sharp determination that Hillary Clinton and the broader administration tried to sweep this under the rug because of politics. Carol . Dana bash, ill let you get back to it. Thank you so much, dana bash reporting live for us this morning. Of course, the clinton camp is getting ready to respond to this report. So i want to bring in cnn National Politics reporter m. J. Lee in denver where clinton is going to hold an event later this morning. Good morning, m. J. Reporter good morning, carol. This is a report that Hillary Clinton has been anticipating for more than two years now. And the timing of the release of this report, of course, has a potentially enormous consequence for Hillary Clinton and her Political Campaign this year. The Clinton Campaign is forcefully pushing back on this report. We got a statement from spokesperson brian fallon a few minutes ago, and i want to read the statement in its entirety. The statement says, the republicans on the house Benghazi Committee are finishing their work in the same partisan way that we have seen from them since the beginning. In refusing to issue its report on a bipartisan basis, the committee is breaking from the president set by other congressional inquiries into the benghazi attacks. And in leaking out select portions from their report in the middle of the might without even allowing some of the committees own members to see it, the republican members are clearly seeking to avoid any factchecking of their discredited conspiracy theories. And the statement continues, after more than two years and more than 7 million in taxpayer funds, the Committee Report has not found anything to contradict the conclusions of the multiple earlier investigations. This report just confirms what Majority Leader Kevin Mccarthy and even one of trey gowdys own former staffers admitted months ago. This committees chief goal is to politicize the deaths of four brave americans in order to try to attack the Obama Administration and hurt Hillary Clintons campaign. What the statement means is that the Clinton Campaign is determined to make this, paint this report, rather as a political witchhunt. This is not about really a truthseeking report and this is more about really trying to cast clinton and the Obama Administrations role in the aftermath of the benghazi attack into essentially a political witchhunt. Now, Hillary Clinton is campaigning reporter im going to interrupt you, mj, i want to bring the viewers back to washington. This is congressman trey gowdy, the chair of the Benghazi Committee. I want to thank their families and loved ones for their service and the sacrifice they made on behalf of our country. And i want to express my collection and appreciation for the americans who fell so valiantly that night and saved other lives. This service and sacrifice and desire to protect and defend fellow americans in our interest abroad truly represents the best of what our country has to offer. After more than 100 witness interviews including more than 80 with witnesses no other committee of congress talked to, and tens of thousands of pages of documents, that is the single greatest impression that we are left with, that there are men and women who love this country enough and what it stands for and how it can inspire others to serve in dangerous places under dangerous circumstances. So i will respectfully ask my citizens to simply do this, read the report. Read the report. And if you do read the report, i think what will become manifest to you is what has become manifest to us, which are two different images. The image on the one hand of what was happening in benghazi during the relevant time period. And the image on the other hand are the decisions made and not made in washington during that same time period. You will see the urgency shown by the grs agents at the annex as they went to the Mission Compound to try to save american Diplomatic Security agents lives. You will see the franticness with which they entered and reentered burning buildings in an attempt to locate and save shawn smith and ambassador stevens. You will see the ingenuity of the team in tripoli who got their own aircraft and deployed themselves from tripoli to benghazi because fellow americans needed their help. You will see the firefights at the compound. You will learn about the ambush at the compound and the annex. And you will learn about the firefights before the final lethal border attacks. There are only three assets that ever made it to benghazi. Two unarmed drones and the team from tripoli who flied themselves, deployed themselves. They werent ordered to go, they deployed themselves. Glenn daugherty was on that plane from tripoli to benghazi and Glenn Daugherty not only flew from tripoli to benghazi but he negotiated at the airport with libyans that were supposed to be our friends to get to the annex to help facilitate the facility and he got there just in time to join his fellow navy s. E. A. L. Tyrone woods minutes before they both died. It has been said that nothing could have reached benghazi before the lethal border attacks. And i suppose what is meant by that is nothing other than the two unarmed drones and the team from tripoli that deployed itself. What is missing in that analysis but is Pretty Simple and straightforward to those of us investigating for the last two years is nothing could have reached benghazi because nothing was ever headed to benghazi. No u. S. Military asset was ever deployed to benghazi despite the order of the secretary of defense at 7 00 that night. So washington had access to realtime information but yet somehow they thought the fighting had subsided. Washington had access to realtime information but somehow they thought these fighters were going to evacuate. Even without the remains of the ambassador. And without asking how is that evacuation supposed to be efactuated . How are you supposed to get from the benghazi airport to the annex, because it took you three hours, who was supposed to take you . Those are the discussions being contemplated and talked about in washington. And the evacuation imminent without asking the fundamental question, how do you expect us to efactuate this evacuation . Washington had access to realtime information, but that realtime information did not inform and instruct the decisions made in washington. After secretary panetta ordered assets deployed to help our mean, the white house convened a twohour meeting and perhaps nothing shows the contrasts between what was happening in benghazi and what was happening in washington than that twohour sitin white house meeting. And for some reason the readouts that came from it. So it is true, nothing could have reached Glenn Daugherty and ty woods before they were killed because nothing was ever going toward Glenn Daugherty and ty woods. And it is worth noting that that statement would be true had the mortar attacks taken place at 7 15 a. M. Or 9 15 a. M. Or even at lunchtime on the 12th. Because at the time those two americans were killed, not a single wheel of a single u. S. Military asset had even turned toward libya. Our report starts with the attack and there is a section on the post attack communication between government and the american citizenry. And there is a section on preattack decisions made and not made that led to the environment which made our facility vulnerable. It is always better to be the First Committee to investigate. And it is always better to investigate as contemporaneously to an incident or to an event as can be done. Our committee did not have the luxury of either one of those. We began a year and a half after the incident. But collectively and individually all seven of us believed that there were more questions to ask, that there were more answers to acquire, more witnesses to interview, more documents to access. And this report validates that belief. There is new information on what happened in benghazi. And that information should fundamentally change the way you view what happened in benghazi. And there are recommendations made to make sure it does not happen again. So in conclusion, with respect to my remarks, i want to thank the house of representatives for giving us the honor of investiga investigating of what happened to our courageous and fellow citizens. And i want to thank the six members who are standing up here with me on this assignment, not in lieu of their other committee assignments, but in addition to the men and women on our staff who took on what proved to be an incredibly difficult challenge. And they did so out of a singular motivation of honoring four people whose political ideations none of us know about and gave their lives in benghazi. Lastly, i want to thank our fellow citizens for bearing with our committee as we went through the process of uncovering new information and accessing witnesses and documents. I hope my fellow citizens will read this report, not for me, but for those who sacrificed and those nameless, faceless americans who saved other american lives that night. I hope you will read the report with them in mind. And i would hasten to add, you can read this report from pillar to post in less time than our fellow americans were under attack in benghazi. So what im asking you to do is a fairly small investment given what others were willing to do on our behalf. And with that, i would recognize the gentleman from georgia. Thank you, chairman. And i, too, want to thank the Committee Members here for participating in this. It has been a lot of hard work. But i think we also need to recognize the staff that we had. Its not easy working for Seven Members of Congress Much less one. So i want to thank all of our personal staff for doing that, but especially the staff with benghazi. And i think what weve done is we produced new evidence that will allow the citizens of this country to take all the different pieces that have come out through the other investigations and tie those things all together. One of the problems we had and the reason this committee was formed is that in the house of representatives each committee has a lane, and the lanes were continually getting confused back and forth about who had the authority to interview who. This committee was put together so we could bridge all those gaps and get new information out. And thats what weve done. And i think that if you will read the report, that you will see as the chairman mentioned, that what was going on in washington at 10 08 when the secretary made her first comments, we hadnt been on the roof at the annex trying to protect their lives and the lives of the other americans in benghazi. And so what weve done is and the new facts we have discovered, and there are many of them, is that we have allowed people to take those new facts with the old facts that came out, and some of those old facts have been reevaluated and determined that they were not actually good. And so weve corroborated some of those Different Things in this report. But to take this new information that weve got and been able to put it together, and the American People, if our fellow citizens will read this, they are going to come up with their own opinion of what happened. Because theres enough new evidence that i think that the people will be able to put together for theirself exactly what led up to this attack, what went on during this attack and then the post attack when there was so much misinformation that was being repeated about this administration. So with that, ill turn it back over to the chairman. The chairman mentioned that before the attack ended, no military assets were headed toward benghazi. But what did start before the attack was over was the political spin. At 10 08 that night with tyrone woods still on the roof of the annex fighting for his life, secretary clinton issues this statement. The official statement on benghazi, the official statement of our government that evening. Some have sought to justify this suspicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material on the internet. An hour later she told her daughter, terrorists killed two of our people today. The next day she tells the egyptian Prime Minister that we know that it was a planned attack, not a protest. And this Public Private contrast continues for days publicly telling the American People it was a videoinspired protest, privately telling the truth that it was a terrorist attack. And maybe the best example is from the 14th, same day mr. R e rhodes issued this statement, no information to suggest benghazi was a preplanned attack. No information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack. That same day the state Department Official in libya says this, benghazi was a wellplanned attack. You couldnt have a starker contrast than those two statements. And i think it is important to remember this, dont forget the context. Libya was supposed to be the crowning jewel of the Clinton State Department Foreign Policy and the Obama Administration Foreign Policy. There was their example of how it works, no boots on the ground, oust the dictator, help the arab spring, this is supposed to be how it works. In fact, Jake Sullivan sent an email to one of the things we discover in our investigation, where he talks about stewardship, legal from start to finish. A few days after gadhafi has been removed. He sent an email to the secretary and said, this is a big moment. You should do a press statement, even from the driveway of your home. This is a big moment. You are vindicated. Dont wait. Help cleo now. Cleo is the goddess of history. So they were committed to this, this is how its supposed to work in their administration and their state department. And they were so committed it didnt matter there were 200 security incidents between the time blumenthal sent the email and when the terrorist attack happened. It didnt matter that one diplomatic agent went to benghazi, did his service and came back and said this, its a suicide mission. Quote, everybody there is going to die. It didnt matter that on august 17, 2012, threeandahalf weeks before the attack, beth jones sends a memo to secretary clinton and uses terms to talk about the uptick in violence about eastern libya, talking about urgency, widespread violence. They didnt matter because they were committed to this policy. And then it happens. Then it happens. The terrorist attack and its a terrorist attack on september 11, 2012. Days before Vice President biden said gms alive, ben ladin is dead. They had a narrative al qaeda is on the run but now they have aer the terrorist attack. They have to mislead the people because she had the goddess of history looking over her shoulder. So they mislead the American People. Mr. Pompei and i put together a report that we think supplements the good work and the full report. And we did that because we felt its important to know what happened but also the why. Why did it happen . And you look at every step of this, and i am convinced just as sure as im standing here, it happened because of political concerns this administration had. Why did we stay in benghazi when almost every one else was leaving . When the security position was so dangerous . Why did they mislead the American People . Why were they talking about making sure military went in in civilian clothes and not uniforms . And then it was political concerns that drove this. The evidence strongly shows that. Thats what we outline in our report. And as the chairman said, i would encourage you to read both because i think it tells that story and that is something that shouldnt happen in a country as great as ours, where political concerns dominate instead of telling people the truth in a straightforward fashion. America asks its citizens to go to dangerous places and to do difficult things. These are people who are in the military, who are diplomats, and they go willingly and they go acknowledging that there is a risk. But the understanding that they carry with them is if they end up in harms way. Historically they have rest assured that their country will do everything it can do to rescue them. Thats not a guarantee. And the people that go and they accept these assignments voluntarily, they know that there is an inherent risk, but the understanding is that their nation will move heaven and earth to save them. And that didnt happen. And four people were murdered. Thats the scandal of benghazi. The thing that i take away and its been mentioned by previous speakers is this jarring contrast between the ingenuity and the heroism and the initiative that was taking place at benghazi. You can read the communications, you can understand the urgency of what they were dealing with and this overwhelming sense of responsibility to rescue other americans, meanwhile across the ocean almost a disposition of near fectlessness. The summary of the meeting that the white house took place at 7 30, half of the discussion, half of the readouts according to the information we were privy to suggested they were talking about a video. When you read this information, you come to the conclusion, at least i did, that there is concern, actually more concern about whether they are going to be offended the Libyan Government by how it is that there is rescue proposed to take place and whether the rescue is actually successful. Marinate in that for a second. They are worried about approvals, they are worried about how this will come off. Its very clear they were very worried previous to that about the notion of pulling back from benghazi, thats what the testimony shows, because an early exit from benghazi would have done what . It would have upset the libyans. Thats outrageous. Ambassador Chris Stevens before he was the ambassador when hes the envoy, he goes and he lands with no diplomatic immunity. Hes on his own. It was a white house policy of no boots on the ground that deprived him of military support, military support that was previously going to accompany him. Yet he goes in alone. Its a foreshadowing of things to come. So i think weve got to also look at this notion of responsibility. Theres been a lot of discussion, obviously, about secretary clinton. At tend of august we learned, before the attack, secretary clinton approved a 20 million grant Global Security Contingency Fund to who . To the libyans. But this was the same state department that basically stood on one request after another request, cascading requests, cumulative requests, requests for security and more support that were essentially rejected, ignored and put somewhere else. So heres what is in it for us. Heres what we have to recognize. If we are going to ask americans to put themselves at risk in the future, weve got to remedy this, all of us. America needs to have a reputation with people who are serving america, that america will follow its end of the bargain. That is the bureaucrats in washington failed this miserably. 56 days. You cannot begin to understand and place all the facts that this committee has worked diligently for a year and a half to present to the American People. While that understanding that this took place 56 days before a contested political election for president of the United States. Whether it was the failure to put Adequate Security on the ground. Whether it was the dithering while americans were at risk that night. Or whether it is the continued story in spite of enormous evidence to the contrary about a Youtube Video. It all takes place against the political backdrop. And you dont have to take my word for that. You can read the emails themselves. Before the last border falls, they are talking about politics. As theyre debating whether or not to send additional security to libya, the concerns are about the Libyan Government, not about the american who is are on the ground that night. I sit on the Intelligence Committee and come at it from that perspective. When you read what the intelligence was the night of the the attack from benghazi, libya, it is uncontroverted. There was no fog of war, there was no dispute saying for a few stray news reports the evidence was very clear. So read what secretary clinton herself said. Go read the words from other officials who were on the ground that night communicating back to the most senior levels of government what has transpired that night. It was not about a Youtube Video or a bunch of folks out for a walk. And when secretary clinton said, what difference does it make . We can now, as a result of our work over the last year and a half, tell you exactly what difference it makes. It makes a difference in how you respond to an attack. Whether you think this was just a bunch of folks Walking Around or it continues, five days assault on america that took place in benghazi, libya, that night. Washington, d. C. Somehow viewed this as having ended once our men and women were evacuated to the annex in benghazi. When you read the timeline of events, the men on the ground that night understood this wasnt over. They understood that terror was still upon them. The risk on their lives continued. And in washington, d. C. We debated things that had nothing to do with whether or not we had representatives in benghazi, libya. Thats what difference it begins to make. You cant begin to exercise the leadership that you need to exercise if you dont understand what is happening on the ground. And if you choose to put political expediency and politics ahead of the men and women on the ground for that, youll have to answer for yourself. I find it morally reprehensible and a behavior that if it was your son or your daughter or one of your family members or friends on the ground, you watch the actions in washington, d. C. , you would have every right to be disgusting with the response from the senior american leaders. This was a failure at the most senior levels of our government and one that i hope the recommendations that this Committee Presents will help make sure that Something Like this never happens again. Let me start by saying i am so proud of this report. I am so proud of the work that this committee has done as a whole, the majority. I want to thank our chairman gowdy and the rest of the members of this committee for the way in which this investigation was handled and for his leadership as our chairman. This investigation has uncovered a ton of new information which leads to our much greater understanding about what happened before, during and after the attack in benghazi. While our guys were on the ground taking gunfire and mortar attacks, washington was moving at a snails pace. In washington the administration was more concerned about diplomatic sensitivities with the libyans and promoting its policy as successful than it was about the americans safety that they sent to benghazi. At the end of the day, no military assets were ever moving toward benghazi. The bottom line is that washington failed to have our guys backs when they needed it. And from my perspective, this represents an incompetence or indifference or both. As we know now but for the bravery of a few americans and the unexpected response of gadhafis underground militia, gadhafis underground militia, there would have been an even greater loss of life that night. In this case, i believe that the government failed its people and lied to the public in the aftermath. This is unacceptable. And i hope and know that this report shines light on that. And godwilling will prevent this from ever happening again. I, too, want to join martha in thanking our chairman. This has been an incredible task to undertake. And we have worked day in and day out, particularly the staff to come up with the truth to bring facts to the American People that we did not know before. Ive been particularly focused on issues prior to the attack. And the things that we learned about benghazi, there were many new things we learned about benghazi. And we have all admitted and its been known for some time that the security was inadequate, but what we didnt know until this investigation was that the state department made a conscious decision to keep the benghazi compound off the radar. And not provide it the security that it needed. In fact, none of the facilities in libya met any of the security requirements required by the state department and required by law. And so when Chris Stevens was sent into benghazi, he was essentialy going in with the military. But because of the president s policy of no boots on the ground, at the last minute the military support was pulled. So we know he didnt have and the mission didnt have enough security, whether it was people or whether it was physical security tools, but he had a missi mission. And he had a mission to ensure that benghazi became a permanent post at some point. Because it was the individuals in benghazi that helped lead the mission to topple gadhafi. And so the administration and the Clinton Administration and secretary of state, they wanted to show benghazi how important they were. They wanted to show benghazi that they would be there for them, the americans would not leave. And we learned during this investigation that it was in october of 2012 that the secretary had a planned trip to benghazi. She planned a trip to show the libyans that the americans has been there for them and the americans under her leadership had led the charge. Well, i will tell you this was failed american Foreign Policy. It was failed american Foreign Policy from the beginning. And that is because we learned and trusted what was said, not planning for what happened the day after gadhafi fell. So we sent american diplomats to benghazi, to libya, to a failed state. And what they were most concerned about at the beginning of going into libya was making sure that it wasnt a failed statement, that it wasnt a terrorist safehaven. What is it today . A terrorist safehaven, isis is there controlling their Natural Resources of oil and other places in libya. It is failed policy. We failed these American People. But i want to close by making sure people realize we said that we were going to try to make sure this didnt happen in the future. So not only did this Committee Work hard to uncover the facts and to uncover the truth and to put light on it, but we have pages of recommendations, many pages of recommendations. And i would encourage you to please look at those recommendations. And just a couple of the recommendations so critical is that our Government Agencies and the leaders of those Government Agencies had not planned for an attack like this. The cia, defense department, state department had not been prepared and had really no plans in place to execute Something Like this that could happen on of all days september 11th. Even though the president had called a meeting of top government officials asking if we were ready for september 11th. And while leaders said we were ready, we were not ready. We were not prepared to respond. We also learned that political operatives were involved in messaging after this incident occurred. This should not be happening. Internal and public Government Communications about terrorist attacks should not be taking place. Governments should be telling the American People the truth, not trying to put political spin. So we have many recommendations that we hope and will encourage our members of congress as well as administrations to look at, to change their policies, to change their laws, to find more funding mechanisms to make sure that our people are protected in the future. And with that, i yield back to the chairman. If you have questions, please yield to the entity within you work. Yes, maam . Reporter the democrats on your Committee Say you have put out a lot of new details but that they dont really change the fundamental understanding of what happened. And a lot of the broad themes you have discussed have been known for years. So at the end of the day, was this the best use of taxpayer dollars . And of your time . It is difficult for me to begin with where i disagree with the foundation of your question. So let me just start at the end of it. Who says that stuff is new . Nobody has ever reported that nothing was headed to benghazi . Nobody has ever reported that not a single wheel was turning to libya . God knows no one ever reported who actually evacuated our folks. You may have reported that secretary clinton was headed back to libya in october. But you didnt have the corroboration of the emails and you didnt know why she was going back. You didnt know about the 20 million memo. First of all, you didnt know about any of the emails from ambassador stevens or any of the emails from senior blumenthal. You didnt know a senior u. S. Military met a single timeline. The worlds most powerful government did not meet a single timeline. All of that is new. As for the democrats, color me shocked, they are critical of our report. All five of them voted not to form the committee. They threatened not to participate. And for the most part, they did not. They have been serial leakers of information and they missed a really good opportunity. I dont know if you have had a chance to read the report or not, but if you read the report, you will see their report mentions her name far more times than our report does. Our report doesnt mention the Presumptive Republican nominee for president because hes got nothing to do with benghazi. So you can direct those questions to elijah and the rest of them. Im actually proud of what we found and think its new. Reporter youre saying the military could have saved those four people if they did more . Clearly they couldnt save two of them, they were dead within 15 minutes of the fire being started. With respect to Glenn Daugherty and ty woods, there were three assets that made it there. The group from tripoli that flooded itself, and unarmed drone that was elsewhere and positioned over the facility. And then another unarmed drone that the lets just say the evidence is split on whether or not it could have been armed. In time it got there before the mortar attack. So im not going to make a reckless allegation that lives could have been saved. If the mortar attack happened at 9 15 or 11 15, the result was the same. Nothing was ever coming to benghazi. So that is a fundamentally important question to ask, is there is an email that sticks out in my mind right now that is a takeout from the white house meeting, which by the way, if you know about it, nobody reported on it. So to the democrats claim theres no new information, i have not heard much about the white house meeting until the report was issued. One of the takeouts from that to our white house meeting, in addition to the five action items on the video, consider this, the video had been out for a while. It wasnt new. Cairo had happened. Cairo happened before benghazi. So if you are concerned about this video, you have done absolutely nothing after you received notice that the video would be disseminated, you have done absolutely nothing after cairo happened, okay . You with me . Cairo was happening and you have changed not one iota of the military posture. But yet, but yet when the attack in benghazi happens, which is unconnected with the video, 50 of your action items coming out of a sitin relate to the video. Reporter mr. Chairman . Yes. Reporter mr. Pompeo mentioned 56 days before the election, when we have talked to members of the committee and read through the report here, there are different lanes to deal with secretary clinton, the defense, so on and so forth, but there are folks who are going to read this and say this is just a part to go get Hillary Clinton 130 days before the election and not 27 days before the convention. How do you, regardless of what is in the report, that is going to be the criticism, how do you deflect that when people say this. Some of you said this demonstrated incompetence at the highest level. How do you not get that perceived as something that read the report for yourself, chad. If you can read this report and you believe on the last page of the report that it is about one person instead of about four people, then there is nothing i can say that is going to diffuse you of that. Theres no amount of facts or evidence that is going to dissuade you from the previously held conviction. Nancy asked about the democrats, the democrats mantra all along is there is no new information. But it doesnt fundamentally change the way we view benghazi. If who evacuated your folks does not fundamentally change the way you view benghazi, if the fact that no asset was ever headed towards the place that actually had a crisis, this email that we need to plan in case a crisis emerges, this is what came out of the sitins. We need to have a plan in place in case the crisis expands and a real threat emerges. What the hell was going on in benghazi . Was that not a real crisis . Was that not a real threat that emerged . I cant diffuse what elijah thinks. Hes not my audience. My audience are fairminded americans who want to know what happened to their fellow citizens and they can draw their own conclusion. Reporter you said pompeo quoted Hillary Clinton saying, what difference does it make, you cant be a leader if you dont know what is going on on the ground and saying she was morally irreprehensible for what was going on the ground how is that not political . How will not see that in the report . Youre going to write your story about your takeaway from the report. I stand on our report. How my fellow citizens including my Committee Members read the report, how you read the report, what story you do on the report, the report you read the report, you will not see any of those quotes in the report. Reporter Hillary Clintons leadership is morally irreprehensible. Yes. Let me be clear on what we are doing and what we did. I remember the day, none of us volunteered for this assignment, i can assure you. The mission was clear, we is aed in the room, i remember it like it was yesterday. And we all looked each other in the eye and said, the day we are standing here will come. And what we want to tell each other is that we worked our our tails off, i got the polite word out, we worked our tails off to develop every fact we could. To tell the American People everything we could possibly glean. And we have been instructed every effort along the way. Including the democrats calling us political, go read the transcripts, go look who asked the questions, this is not the first congressional inquiry in the history of america. I dare you to go find another congressional inquiry where one party behaved in a way that was so deeply on strucktive of getting the American People the facts they needed. With respect to my statements about secretary clinton, i believe them in my heart. The reason representative jordan and i chose to write a separate report is we felt we had delivered an important work in the committees tally of the information that was available. We also are asking every one of you to develop your conclusions about what took place. Ive been kneedeep in this for over two years, so has representative jordan on previous committees as well. And we feel like its incredibly important to highlight the conclusions that represented jordan and i draw about the facts. Read the facts, read the reports. I think youll see that the conclusions that we draw are real and accurate and fair. Reporter can i go to the flip side of that . The flip side of that could be that because you chose not to draw conclusions, does that suggest that you dont have the goods on placing any blame on the administration, specifically the woman who wants to be the president of the United States . Dana, shockingly, that was not what the house asked me to do. Look at the resolution. The resolution doesnt mention secretary clinton. Speaker boehner nor speaker ryan have asked me to do anything about 2016 president ial politics. Speaker boehner asked me to find out what happened to four of our fellow citizens and i believe that is what i have done. You are welcome to read the report, i hope you will, i know you will. If you at the end of reading that report can conclude that it is about one person instead of four people, i will be shocked. Im asking the opposite question, do you believe after doing this for two years, spending all of your time and millions of dollars, do you believe that based on this, that the American People should look at this and see that the woman who wants to be president as culpability . I was with you until the last clause of your statement. I think the American People aught to look at it. They aught to look at it because fellow americans died and fellow americans were injured and fellow americans went to heroic lengths to save americans. What they conclude is up to them. Reporter do you disagree with mr. Pompeo or mr. Jordan . I have a background of who, what, when, where. I dont have a background in the why. You all may have a background in the why. I dont. My job is to report facts. Thats what i have done. You can draw whatever conclusions you want to draw. Reporter who is tapping the brakes on this . And my second question is what did you learn about the covert we asked questions about covert weapons operations. We made some progress. The lawyers intervened when we were beginning to make a lot of progress. And among the questions i asked the president included that one specifically. I have not heard back from him yet. I have heard from his lawyer and not holding my breathe that im going to get an answer to that. I think it is important that the house asked us to analyze this in response to the attack. But that is not the focus of our committee. Reporter what about tapping the brakes on the military . Tapping the brakes is a majority phrase. I remember when we said we were going to interview carter hamm again, i remember a lot of raised eyebrows as if all the right questions were asked the first time. I think the military leaders will tell you exactly what i said in my opening, they believe an evacuation was imminent. When you request on what they believe in the evacuation was imminent, the answers do not withstand even the mildest level of scrutiny. You have real live witnesses that can tell you what is going on. If you think the fighting has subsided, talk to the real live witnesses being shot at. If you really believe the evacuation is imminent, at some level, you are going to have to ask, how is that evacuation going to be efactuated . Because you dont have the proper vehicles to take them from the benghazi airport, and the only plane you have is one privately commissioned that is not a u. S. Aircraft and have no idea whether or not its going to hold everybody, so how are you going to evacuate in the midst of a firefight . General hamm did not know our guys were ambushed from the compound to the annex. He didnt know about it. So to everyone who wanted to know why we wanted to talk to general hamm again, i thought it would be nice for general hamm to have access to all the facts because he did not have them the night he made the decisions. Yes. Reporter someone described this as a perfect storm bureaucratic inertia, obviously your report allegations blame on in levels, is there one person on whom you blame in the analysis . Thats in the eyes of my fellow citizens. Im not going to blame the culpability. Theres enough to go around just like theres enough urgency, ingenuity and valor. That really is my takeaway. And maybe its because i have talked to the families the of the four, some of the families of the four in the last couple of days. But when you do what i used to do for a living, you ask the families, what is it you would like to see done . And i am at peace that we did exactly for the families what we said we would do. It just took longer. But we did what we said we would do. I wanted to tell ty woods widow the truth about the military response. I wanted to be able to tell shawn smiths mother the truth about the security leading up to it. And i am at peace that we have more information than the other committees had and we could have had more had we had just a tiny bit of cooperation from the other side. Reporter mr. Chairman. Yes. Reporter put aside the attack itself and what happened that fateful night. Have you been able to, in some way, get into ambassador stevens mind regarding the u. S. Presence in libya, how he wanted that consulate and the facility there in benghazi, how much he wanted the american presence to not appear militarized . Lets be very clear about something, Chris Stevens loved the people of libya. And in particular he loved the people of benghazi. And the heroism he showed going in as the envoy and what he had to deal with the envoy well before he was ever the ambassador is a level of valor and heroism and commitment to this country, that if you dont read the report for any other reason, read what Christopher Stevens endure in 2011. Do we have an insight to his mindset . Yeah. He got there on september 10th and started meeting with intelligence officials about the state of security in libya. It began to postpone his subsequent meetings because what he was hearing. He knew it wasnt great. He had no idea how bad it was. So he began to postpone the next meeting as ready, the next meeting is ready, here our ambassador saying im not through my debriefing yet. And then he moves the off campus meetings and engagements on campus. And then you see his diary entry. You see his diary entry on september 11th. Read his diary entry. Read the email that he sent to the british diplomat. No, we dont know exactly what was on Chris Stevens mind. Benghazi deteriorate in a way he did not expect and security was on his mind. Reporter what appearance did it have that the u. S. Military was not solidified i think he wanted to stay alive more than anything else, with all due respect, i think he wanted to stay alive. If that means a slightly higher footprint, then there needed to be experts or supervisors in your life to say we appreciate your valor, but we are going to give you the security that you asked for originally. Yes. Reporter so people have kind of asked a version of this question in different ways they must not like my answer. Reporter but americans have viewed these events and all of these investigations through certain lenses and they are probably going to continue after today despite your pleas that they read 800 pages in the report. There are Bumper Stickers and tshirts all over this country that say Hillary Clinton lied, people died. Mr. Pompeo would answer this, is that true . You have never seen that tshirt on me or seen that Bumper Sticker on my vehicles or never heard me comment on that. Reporter does your report shed light on that . Have you read it . Reporter im asking you. I have not had time. Im asking you to read it. Im asking you to read it. Im not going to tell you what to be on the lookout for. Im going to tell you theres new information. And it fundamentally changes the way i view what happened before, during and after. But i who was it, ben rhodes said reporters dont know nothing. I dont believe that. I trust you to read the report for yourself and draw your own conclusion. Youre going to write your report. Reporter youre the expert, what do you think . Do you think she lied . Im not going to assign. Thats a word you cant use in a courtroom. I know this, i want you to contrast the information and the evidence that was available on the evening of september 11th. Look at the full body of evidence that was available. And then look at what was said. And then you draw your own conclusion as to whether or not you made the best use of the evidence and the information that was available. It is one thing to say the evidence didnt exist. It existed. We found them. We found the dsa agents and the grs agents. Their conversations ongoing throughout the night. She actually talked to greg hicks. So that argument actually works both ways. If theres a fayer of information, she was fairly firm in other statements made privately. There was no am bbiguity. Shes pretty definitive. In the public statements to us there was less definitiveness. You have to decide that for yourself. Reporter im going to pick up where the chairman was, look at this statement made privately. You decide for yourself. What she said privately, what others in the administration said privately, what they said publicly. Some have said, well, the intelligence analysis changed over time. Thats true. But their statements didnt. They were consistent. Publicly its a videoinspired protest. Privately, terrorist attack. That continued. So look for yourself. You can decide. But when you look after the the private statements compared to what they told the American People, a stark contrast, a dramatic difference. And look for yourself. Let me just say that we have this report has never been about one person. Its been about the four americans and what the other americans inside libya did to save their colleagues. The media has made this, wants to make this about one person. The democrats want to make this about one person. Thats never been my intention. But we have enough facts in the report that i think every american can make their own mind up. If you talk to ty woods dad, hes going to have a different opinion from reading the report of what the secretary told him and what the facts say in the report. Shawn smiths mother is probably going to have that same different way of looking at the report. So i think each american needs to read this report. Its lengthy. But it had to be lengthy so we could spell out what the truth is and what these new facts have given light to. But this report, and i promise you, the chairman has made it very clear to each and every one of us, this was not about one single person. And, in fact, the report, i think, we reached our goal when we came up with a different recommendation that needed to be done to prevent this from happening again. And i think the detail that went into makes these recommendations all the more important. And hopefully the speaker and other people will take them and do something with them. Because i do think they lay out a means of us not getting in this same situation. I would like to comment, too, that when these americans arrived from tripoli to the airport in benghazi, they were there for about three hours. So i dont think we knew if we had another hostage situation at the airport or not, but as has been said by the other members, not one wheel had been up, not one person headed to benghazi. And we didnt really know how those guys, if they were going to even be allowed to leave the airport. So there were many other situations that should have been talked about at different times in washington that were never talked about. Do we have another hostage situation . Is the ambassador hostage . Are these military guys and other grs being held hostage . We didnt see any evidence of that ever being talked about while these guys are standing there trying to talk their way off that airport to get to help their friends. I havent gotten the question yet, although the last one may be about the latter part of what i call section two, which is the post attack communication. I want to get a second away from the person youre asking me about to the person the administration actually put on the five sunday talk shows. We talked to her. And i appreciate making her available. I found that interview to be informative. She was the third choice. I thought she was inadequately prepared. And thats what happens when you are inadequately prepared. You say a series of demonstrative false things on national television. Including about the fbi, including the video with the demonstration, including saying that a handful of extremists hijacked and otherwise, this is just stuff made up. It would be one thing if it were in the talking points, multiple sets of talking points, it would be one thing if it were in there and they got it wrong, therefore she got it wrong. Its not even in there. Its just made up. So i get thats not the person ive been asked about, but this is the person who made most of the public pronouncements on that sunday, at least after the attacks. I was told one more question. Yes, sir. Reporter do you actually name in the report the officers who told