stuff and making incredible statements. what came out because the same day he testified we had outgoing secretary of defense panetta, went to testify on benghazi and told us what we learned. two weeks ago, we talked last week about the difference between what panetta and clinton said about iran versus hagel, and two weeks ago when they went on 60 minutes we called it the biggest pay off in history. in that show, i remember suggesting one of the reasons that came out of hillary clinton s testimony was interesting to pursue, what was the president doing? we now know the president wasn t engaged. they had a 5:15 minute meeting that was preplanned and he did not talk to secretary of defense, clinton, and according to panetta, talked to no one. what we have a foreign policy that is coming apart.
distance. a lot of this is about trying to make changes for the future and you ve got secretary panetta talking about how they are going to try to reposition some things. in north africa they say they have gaps in intelligence. it was really exposing those flaws. what was new and i think very compelling today was this focus on what did the president know and why did he apparently not show more interest and certainly secretary panetta fought back to say he was confident the president was very concerned, but there was not that communication during the attack. steve, that does seem to be a political point that the republicans have been making. they tried very early on to say why wasn t the white house more involved in this, and what panetta was saying was that that s what you have a national security advisor and chief of staff and having been a chief of
used to refuel those french jets and intelligence from spy satellites and drones from the u.s. in that region right now. it is already being shared with france. here is some of what panetta had to say about the u.s. role and the operation to rid mali of al qaeda, in the islamic maghreb or aqim. take a listen. we have commended the french for this effort to try to go into mali to stop the aqim. these terrorists and members of al qaeda from being able to develop a base of operations in mali. reporter: he was very clear, jon, no u.s. boots on the ground. there is another reason for that by the way. the government of mali right now is a product of a military coup which was staged last year which got
dropping out of sight. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. we begin with today s damming new report on penn state s university s cover-up of coach jerry sandusky s sexual attacks on young boys. it says the top people at the university including the legendary football coach, joe paterno, hid what they knew and had no regard for the young victims. just now university officials are promising it will never, never happen again. you should know that our hearts remain heavy. and we are deeply ashamed. we re in no way lessening our focus on our own failings. we also are committed to helping to build greater awareness of the societal issue of child abuse. cnn s susan candiotti is joining us now. louis freeh led this study. it was very, very bitter and damming. reporter: it was, wolf. right out of the gate, louis freeh made it clear that children were victimized because four top penn state officials did nothing to stop jerry sandusky. and named names including a
permission from them, and the defense secretary seemed to be doubling down on that a couple of times. you re right, megyn. by the way, i serve on an international advisory board for the secretary of state, but my views are my own, and i don t represent the u.s. government in any way, so i can be very frank. the secretary of defense made a mistake. he used the wrong word. i bet he doesn t use that word again. megyn: permission. using that word, permission. that isn t what he meant and, clearly, that s not the policy of the united states. this secretary of defense didn t ask anybody s permission before they sent trouped in to kill bin laden. clearly, the policy of the united states is guided by what s in the u.s. best interests. what panetta was trying to say is that when we want, when we engage in a war like we might engage in with syria, we want to build an international coalition, we want help doing it. i agree with senator sessions, by the way, in his concern that he was voici