independently. al awalaki was a top member of al qaedaing and personally declared war on the u.s. a missile from the u.s. drone hit his car in yemen. president obama makes no apology and calls his death a major blow to al qaeda. he directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on christmas day. in 200 he directed the failed attempt to blow up cargo planes. and he repeatedly called on individuals in the united states and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda. in an interview with cnn s erin burnett today, leon panetta defended the rational for killing al awalki without giving him a trial. this individual was a terrorist. yes, he was a citizen, but if you re a terrorist, you re a terrorist. and that means we have the ability to go after those who would threaten to attack the united states and kill americans. there s no question that the authority and the ability to go after a terrorist is there. barbara star has bee
Came, most of us did. two other republicans senators, maine s susan collins, and alaska s lisa murkowski, they joined mccain, crossing party lines to vote against the repeal bill. so how did this go down behind the scenes and where do gop leaders go from here? let s go live to phil mattingly, still on the capitol hill still at the capitol for us this morning on capitol hill. good morning. reporter: good morning. look, as you note, seven years of campaign promises all came down to one man. it was senator john mccain. it was hours of behind-the-scenes al qaedaing. mitch mcconnell, vice president mike pence, and at one moment, even the president putting a call in to senator mccain trying to sway his vote. guys, it didn t work. becoming the third republican to vote no, essentially sinking the repeal effort entirely. again, we ve talked about this throughout the last couple of weeks, how the process has gone