environment that was hostile to isis. keep in mind that the groups operating in idlib are no friends of isis. but the president in that press conference clarifying that saying that he believed that baghdadi was in idlib province to try and strengthen isis, to try and get isis to have a stronghold in the province but nevertheless, again, three miles from the turkish border, lots of questions. yeah, a lot of questions. it s interesting that you bring that part up. i also want to mention senator lindsey graham will be appearing in the white house briefing room so we re going to bring you that as soon as he comes up. but, erin, you bring up the point of the fact that isis or that baghdadi was in northwest syria where he was captured. the president mentioning he was there to try and rebuild isis. but we had our own richard engel saying, no, he was in that region possibly to try and escape to turkey to flee the area. what are you hearing with regard to this discrepancy and what our
with you. i don t know exactly the details of the operation. but i think the president is focusing on the resources that made isis so strong for so long. the caliphate was funded basically by many sources of revenue, but one of the chief sources of revenue was syrian oil. so if you take that off the table, the terrorists in the region in the world are hurt and iran containment makes sense. the iranians would love to get this oil. the russians have shown some desire to go down here and i can t say this now, but i was in the situation room and i ll talk to you later. the president made some firm statements to people in the region that you come into this area at your own peril. senator, you very recently said you thought the president s decision to withdraw could be the biggest mistake of his presidency. today you re affirming it as a positive one. what i m saying today is that the killing of baghdadi is a game changer in the war on
baghdadi right now is we don t know how it is going to may out. evelin, your former guest mentioned the founder of isis of al-qaida in europe. he was assassinated during the bush s administration in 2006. on my way on the studio, i lo looked up what bush did during the time. 13 years later, we are still fighting on the war in terror. there is a worry now that you may see a merger between isis and al-qaida. these two groups had been in each other s throats since 2013 and 2014. we don t know how it is going to fly out. they say when a terrorist leader is killed, it could setback a group over the long-term. in the long-term, it could make the group more deadly as they plan a revenge attack.
changed dramatically into something else that is just a terrorist organization now. it was as a result of the decision to become a caliphate. and, therefore, to defend terrain which they couldn t possibly do. let s talk there s a couple of things i want to cover with you. i want to talk about the significance of the killing of baghdadi. what that does to an organization like isis that has already been weakened, and we have reported over and over again, it is not completely obliterated despite the fact the president says it is. so i want to talk about that. i also want to talk about some of the details of the raid and what the president laid out for us. let s first touch on the significance of the killing here of baghdadi and what that does to isis. well, we don t know what his plans were. it s strongly suggests he was trying to escape because he was doing other things that would be elsewhere if he was trying to rebuild it. so his assertion earlier,
my worry is that we take out these terrorist leaders and good riddance to them as i said, we don t deal of the under lining conditions, the political conditions that creates these vacuums and the rise of such groups, we don t deal with the ideology and we allow political leaders whether it is trump or obama or bush to come out and make these statements. we think it is a big deal and we carry on as business as usual. this is the cushion. this should be happening you know when we have a nine-hour show to do. how do you deal with the anol y ideology. he already been equalized that isis had already been weaken to the point where which he could not do as much harm as he once did. killing baghdadi has those