WASHINGTON — President Trump got the news that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was dead Saturday night with the message: “100% confidence, jackpot.”
National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, who sat to Trump’s right in the White House situation room to watch the raid unfold in northwest Syria, recalled to NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday how the commander of the mission called in and announced that US forces had bagged al-Baghdadi.
“Got him, 100 percent confidence, jackpot, over,” O’Brien recounted.
“And that was great news for us. It was great news for the American people. But it was great news for everyone in the world, in the region.”
O’Brien, Trump’s latest security adviser, was also joined in the situation room by Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army General Mark A. Milley, and Brig. Gen. Marcus Evans, Deputy Director for Special Operations on the Joint Staff, according to a White House photo tweeted out.
They were monitoring the mission Trump authorized last week to capture or kill the ISIS leader when the call came in.
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