congressional intelligence committees. the justice department did not immediately respond to nbc news s request for a comment about the watchdog s statement. and republican lawmakers are using the impeachment inquiry as an attempt to gather information on the whistle-blower who filed a complaint against president trump. the washington post reports that republican members and their staffers have attempted to repeatedly raise the name of the suspected whistle-blower based on interviews with ten people involved in the depositions. officials told the post that republicans have quote refrained during hearings from explicitly accusing the individual of filing the explosive complaint with the intelligence community. however, according to several officials with direct knowledge of those depositions, the questions have been interpreted as an attempt by lawmakers to unmask the whistle-blower whose identity is shielded under federal law. the line of questioning is the most direct insight into
country. and in a tweet, the kurdish syrian democratic forces call it a five-month, quote, joint operation. i want to thank the nations of russia, turkey, syria, and iraq, and i also want to thank the syrian kurds for certain support they were able to give us. can you tell us what role the kurds played in this generally? they gave us not a military role at all but they gave us some information that turned out to be helpful. the kurds. the kurds have worked along incredibly with us, but in all fairness, it was much easier dealing with the kurds after they went through three days of fighting because that was a brutal three days. let s head overseas now and bring in nbc news national security and military correspondent courtney live for us in northern iraq in the city of irbil. great to have you with us. so let s begin with this announcement from the president, because one of the interesting things he talked about, and that news conference really made a lot of headlines, but he al
came out and said he believes they were there to try and, he was there to re-establish his caliphate, probably means that he heard that in some sort of intelligence briefing, and that may be really one of the reasons the u.s. thinks he was there. and one of the things that the president has been criticized for is being a lot of the operational detail. classified information. . so classified information involved in this operation. courtney kube as always, thank you very much for the great reporting. stay safe out there. speak to you soon. at a political conference hosted by the washington examine ther weekend, president trump s former chief of staff john kelly said before leaving the white house, he had warned president trump against hiring a quote yes man. i said whatever you do, don t hire a yes man. someone that is going to tell you, won t tell you the truth. don t do that. because if you do, i believe you will be impeached. and someone has got to be the guy that tells you
bin laden had to be killed before he knocked down the world trade center. it s true. i made a prediction. and let s put it this way, if they would have listened to me, a lot of things would have been different. of course, bin laden was not unknown before the 9/11 attacks and quite well known, especially within the intelligence and military communities, in fact, he was widely responsible for the 1998 bombings against u.s. embassies, the uss cole, many other terrorist attacks on the world and the a. p. noted in a fact check, trump s book did not forshadow a bin laden attack and they wrote in part quote there was nothing original or clairvoyant in the reference to bin laden nor did it call for further u.s. action against bin laden and al qaeda. president trump s foreign signature achievement did not
dependability as an ally, and he said that it is not just him, but many of the allies are worried that the u.s. will repeat the mistakes of the past, declare mission accomplished, with isis, when in fact, mission is not accomplished. the physical caliphate may be wiped out. but they could re-emerge. do you think that was a surprising sign of just how much the president s policies, especially in the middle east, are impacting our allies there? i was surprised he was so candid. this is a leader who has relied on american friendship for a long time. and it just, it really reinforced how shaken he and others are in the region about this decision. the iraqi president told you, a quote, that the staying power of the u.s. has been questioned in very serious ways, and that allies are worried about the dependability of the united states, was that a surprising sign do you think, of how much president trump s decisions are potentially impacting our allies