captions by vitac www.vitac.com major new backing and a brewing new controversy for the republican presidential candidate mitt romney. he s picked up one of the most sought-after endorsements of the campaign, but a remark by one of his top aides is now threatening to overshadow it. our national political correspondent jim acosta is with romney who is holding a town hall meeting outside baltimore. jim, what happened? reporter: wolf, as you just mentioned mitt romney is about to hold a town hall meeting just outside of baltimore. the maryland primary is coming up in about a week and a half, but mitt romney can take comfort in the fact that rick santorum s path to the nomination looks sketchy today, but as the romney campaign knows, this race for the gop nomination is not etched in stone. thank you. reporter: it was as if one of the biggest names in republican party politics was listening to mitt romney s call for unity after the illinois primary. join us. join us.
good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. an unprecedented moment in american history this morning. president obama appeared on camera in a surprise address to announce the stunning news that two al qaeda hostages, warren weinstein, an american, and giovanni lo porto, an italian, were accidentally killed in a u.s. drone strike. based on information and intelligence we have obtained we believe that a u.s. counter terrorism operation targeting an al qaeda compound in the afghanistan-pakistan border region accidentally killed warren and giovanni this past january. as president and as commander in chief, i take full responsibility for all our counter terrorism operations, including the one that inadvertently took the lives of warren and giovanni. i profoundly regret what happened. on behalf of the united states government i offer our deepest apologies to the families. both of the hostages had been
there were lots of drone strikes, each of which at least we were told through the cia program were signed off by the president. now they seem to be fewer but they do not rise to the level of actually getting a presidential signature in the oval office. well, that s because in the early part of this program they went after very specific individuals who would have once you use a drone weapon system on them, would give you a very specific chain of events downstream from the death of that particular senior commander. now, as we degrade the organization, you still get very large numbers of people who would be coming together, training camps. we have a lot of criticism over the last few years that we weren t striking very large gatherings of al qaeda members in yemen and afghanistan. and so that seems to have usurped the going after very
based on information and intelligence we have obtained we believe that a u.s. counter terrorism operation targeting an al qaeda compound in the afghanistan-pakistan border region accidentally killed warren and giovanni this past january. as president and as commander in chief, i take full responsibility for all our counter terrorism operations, including the one that inadvertently took the lives of warren and giovanni. i profoundly regret what happened. on behalf of the united states government i offer our deepest apologies to the families. both of the hostages had been working as aid workers in pakistan when al qaeda abducted them, weinstein in 2011, lo porto in 2012. weinstein s wife elaine stayed in a statement on behalf of the family, quote, we are devastated by this news and the knowledge that my husband will never safely return home. we were so hopeful that those in the u.s. and pakistani governments with the power to take action and secure his