To give him a pep talk, to have conversations with him about how he might be more respectful to the president. And thats according to a white house official, and other sources have said the same. You know, he didnt deny calling the president a moron. He essentially gave a series of different Policy Issues in which hes saying the president has been successful on, he really backed the president , he supports the president. He also said he doesnt intend to go anywhere, that hes just getting started. It was very much, as our own chuck todd tweeted earlier, it very much seemed like a statement that was serving an audience of one, and that is the president. I think the question all of us has now is what happens to Rex Tillerson . Is this enough for the president . And kristen, we know that President Trump was paying attention to this because we can read his twitter and hes been talking about this. Very clear that the Vice President wasnt among those who specifically talked him out of resigni
by isis, but they re known to be there. so if they were able to get it, there is not a u.s. presence there. it would have had to have been some sort of intelligence gathering like signals intercepts, overhearing conversations, possibly human intelligence sources on the ground although that may be a little bit less likely. but they can take that kind of information, put it together, use other assets like drones, overhead surveillance, satellites and whatnot, and they can figure out with a certain level of confidence whether, in fact, they think he might be in an area and then launch the raid based off of that. what i think is going to be really fascinating that we re going to learn not only the details of exactly how this went down, how quickly when they got the information and how quickly they were able to act on it, but what they may be able to tell us about how baghdadi has been living in recent days, weeks, and even months. we know very little about him. he s been on the run becau
out exactly what they were, and u.s. drones. that would of course be overhead for surveillance to help out and provide intelligence throughout the course of the raid. we know that there was fire from the air and that at least one or more of the helicopters landed. we re trying to figure out exactly what happened once they were on the ground. we know they gathered some intelligence, likely biometrics on the target, who in this case was baghdadi. but we aren t sure if there was actually a gunfight that occurred while they were on the ground as well or whether they just touched down to grab anything they could to find out if he was killed. one of the big things we re trying to figure out as well is exactly how did the u.s. locate baghdadi? he s been the number one target of the u.s. and coalition for u.s. now. were they able to get him through some sort of human intelligence sources, through intercepts? did they have exactly how was it they figured out where he might be?
still inhabited by isis. it s not necessarily held by them as, like, a caliphate or as a land that they own and they govern, but there is still an isis presence in that area. so we know that there were a number of u.s. special operations forces. we think these are the most elite of the task force. they went in on helicopters. there was also fixed-wing jets and some u.s. drones that came in across the border from turkey into syria and launched this raid. we know that there was some fire from the air to the ground, but we don t have a really good sense of exactly whether the mission was to target a convoy, whether baghdadi was in some static area when they went after him. we do know there was fire from the air. at least one or more helicopters landed, and they were able to gather some intelligence. now, the u.s. officials i spoke with said that the intelligence included some sort of forensic evidence on the target, abu bakr al baghdadi.
courtney? reporter: so we know very little so far about this raid, what exactly happened. but we do know that it was targeting the isis leader abu bakr al baghdadi, a wanted the number one terrorist wanted in the world for several years now. we know that there was u.s. special operations, the most elite of the special operations forces were involved in this raid. they went in on helicopters. there were fixed wings jet and drones in the area for surveillance and overhead watch. there was some kind of fire from the air. it s not quite clear what that was, whether it was actual air strikes from the jets or fire from the helicopters. but several of the helicopters came in and landed during this raid. they were able to gather some intelligence, and that is what u.s. officials are telling us will be able to prove whether it was, in fact, baghdadi who was among those killed in this raid. so, courtney, how will u.s. officials go about proving that is in, in fact, al baghdadi?