Weeks. A top general says the u. S. Did not call for air support until an hour after the firefight began. Many questions remain. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general joseph dunford, said the pentagon owes victims of the family answers. Meanwhile, President Trump cant seem to let go of this condolence controversy with a gold star widow. The president disputing the widows account of his condolence call, which she says left her in tears. We have it all covered. Lets begin with cnns michelle kosinski, live in washington. Michelle . This is remark to believe see the chairman of the joint chiefs feel as though he had to get out and answer these dozens of questions, repeatedly saying that the public is owed more information. But there is still in basic questions that he cant answer yet. Things like where exactly were these troops when they came under attack . Were they wearing body armor . How many u. S. Troops searched for Sergeant La David Johnson . And we are now three weeks after it happened. Americas top general providing some answers, but not many. Detailing a revised timeline of the ambush in niger that killed four american troops. We owe you more information. More importantly, we owe the families of the fallen more information. Reporter october 3rd, 12 members of a u. S. Special Operations Task force leave the capital of niger with 30 nigerian troops. Their goal, a Reconnaissance Mission in a village about 53 miles north. The assessment by our leaders on the ground at that time was that contact with the enemy was unlikely. Reporter but the next day, on their way back to the capital, midmorning, they came under fire by around 50 local fighters with ties to isis, carrying small arms, machine guns, and rocketpropelled grenades. Nbc reports u. S. Officials are looking into whether the militants were tipped off by someone in the village. The special forces team engaged in a firefight for about an hour before requesting help. Within minutes, a u. S. Drone was overhead. French jets were scrambled, but took another hour to arrive to the remote location. I dont know that they thought they needed support prior to that time. I dont know how this attack unfolded. I dont know what their initial assessment was, of what they were confronted with. Reporter the french did not drop bombs. U. S. Officials said friday the pilots had the authority, but could not readily identify enemy forces and did not want to risk hitting u. S. Or nigerian allies. It was evening by the time the french could evacuate the injure and bodies of the dead americans. But it remains unclear how Sergeant La David Johnson became separated from the group and why it took two days to locate his body about a mile away. Did the mission of u. S. Forces change during the operation . Did our forces have adequate intelligence, equipment, and training . Was there a premission assessment of the threat in the area accurate . Reporter this as a white house official confirms to cnn that the administration expedited condolence letters to families of Fallen Soldiers after President Trump made this remark last week. Ive written them personal letters. Theyve been sent or theyre going out tonight, but they were written during the weekend. Reporter the following day, the president going a step further, making this false claim. I have called, i believe, everybody, but certainly, ill use the word, virtually everybody, where during the last nine months something has happened to a soldier. Ive called virtually everybody. Reporter an email exchange between the wohite house and th pentagon, first reported by roll call, shows that the president s aides knew these remarks were not true. The aides rushing to learn the identities and Contact Information from the defense department. Among those who have been calling for more information and concerned about the lack of it is senator john mccain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee. And now we know the pentagon will give his committee a classified briefing this thursday. Chris and alisyn . Michelle, thank you very much. Joining us now are cnn political analyst and White House Correspondent for the New York Times, maggie haberman, and her alone. She has so many sources, we speak about her in the collective. You are a panel in and of yourself. Thats what it said, thats what you are. Ill put my glasses on and ill run to that side. An apple is an apple, you are a panel. Wow. So let me ask you this question, this beguiling question that only you can answer. This is a situation where the president could have instant high ground and say, what just happened in niger, were going to find out what happened and then you in congress, you better own your duty and start debating whats happening militarily. Im not a big fan of getting involved all over the world. Thats what i campaigned on. Weve got people all over the place, advise and assist missions, where they could die like this. Do your duty. Instead, he wont let go of the feud with wilson. Why . What is the calculation . I think we have asked that version of that question every three weeks or so for the last two years. And the answer is, this is who he is. He has consistently since taking office, we saw this during the campaign, there was an open question of, is this going to change when he becomes president . But it hasnt. He confuses himself with the institutions he serves repeatedly. Youre seeing that now. He is taking the criticisms of how he handled this phone call with this military widow very i understand why hes taking it personally, because the criticism from the congresswoman was personal. However, most politicians, most president s would say, this is not a fight im going to engage in. It is not just the president , however. And you talked about this earlier on the show. It is also his chief of staff, john kelly, who has engaged pretty wholeheartedly in this fight. So the president is not backing down, because hes getting some sense of support from his own staff. I think its really important to remember, when you look at how this white house functions, you have a lot of people working there who all feel under siege. They go to work every day not feeling entirely safe because they never know what version of the presidency theyre going to be dealing with. And because of that, they tend to view attacks, however legitimate, however legitimate the criticism, as attacks on all of them. And i think that you have a white house that is a little split on this. There is more sympathy for the president internally than you might imagine. And so on the larger issue of niger, not just the back and forth with the congresswoman and sergeant johnsons widow, are they focused on this at the white house . Do they think that what happened in niger is a big problem . I mean, theres no collective they, again, as we know. Its a bunch of different fiefdoms. They do recognize this is a huge issue and something that they need to contend with. Its also a separate issue from the question of the president calling relatives of those who died in the line of fire. That is what this issue has morphed into publicly. There is a separate and really significant questions, equally significant, if not more, as to what exactly happened, how quickly answers can be gleaned, and were seeing and is not uncommon with an incident like this, not that quickly. Well, it must be said that the president created this first issue about condolences. Sure. That did not exist. Thats right. The timing existed. And the president s i dont know if this is conscious, but his not mentioning isis as who did this that, i think, is conscious. It is conscious. Why . Because, look, for the same reason and this comes up repeatedly, where we wonder and many people have wondered why it is that the president doesnt do more to acknowledge those who have died in military service during the course of his tenure, because i think that he sees it as, a, an elevation of an enemy. And i think that there is you can have a longer argument about that or conversation about that. But i think that he also sees it as some acknowledgement of weakness or failure on his part. So you dont think hes saying, isis did this, not because they dont believe that, in fact, because everybody seems to agree that these are isis affiliates, but that theres a perception of weakness in the president s mind . I think that there is a danger in acknowledging this. And again, i think that depending on who you talk to in that white house, youll get different answer as the to why it is that he is not saying it, but i think that that is certainly a component. So that moment, where general john kelly, chief of staff, went to the podium and talked about his son, as well as talked about sort of ginned up, frankly, the continuing back and forth with congresswoman wilson, was he john avalon was on earlier, and he was saying how unfortunate it was that john kelly was pushed out. I heard you disagree with him. I dont think he was pushed out. And to be clear, what john kelly gave up in service of country is enormous. His pain is unfathomable. It is impossible for me as a parent to imagine losing a child. So i cannot imagine what he went through. And i think that all of us found or many of us found his description of what families go through to be very moving. But i think but thats separate from what he said about the congresswoman, which included some things that were not accurate. About something she had say in 2015, for instance. My understanding, from what happened, is he was frustrated and surprised by the president for invoking his son. I think the president look, john kelly is the one who has prepped the president , right . So the president is, as we know, he used to be called on the campaign a parrot. Hes not always a tremendously skillful parrot. So sometimes he will repeat half of something. Thats what we found. The words that john kelly shared were the words that he told the president. Right. And to be fair to the president , in a different context, i could hear other president s saying, look, he knew what this job demands. Essentially, thats what he was saying. Its just that it sort of spiraled out of control in this case. But i dont think that john kelly was acting against his will at all. I think we see ample proof of that. The intrigue about what he knew about whether his son was going to be used or not, there is almost no percentage or analysis of that, because its just pain. And he has 100 right to deal with that any way he wants personally. Correct. I completely agree. What he doesnt get the same cover on is what he did in that press conference. Thats right. Which was create alternative facts about the nature of wilsons presence on the call, this was demonstrably false, we know it, because the widow says it, and she cannot be questioned about whether or not wilson was allowed to be on the call and the empty barrel stuff was factually inaccurate in terms of how it had happened and revealed an animus of his own towards wilson that doesnt need any pushing by the president. That was all kelly. Number one, in terms of what he said about wilson listening in on the call, he was listening in on the call, too. If he wanted to criticize her about talking about the call, thats a different issue. The second that somebody who has been in the partisan fray does Start Talking about this, it does give it a different patina. By the way, that would have been a fair criticism. Because she did talk about a private call. And thats a different criticism. Thats not what he said, number one. The second issue is in terms of him going after her. We heard Sarah Huckabee sanders say from the podium, i think from the next day, if you want to challenge a fourstar general, thats up to you. Thats not what this country is about. Generals fight for the right of citizens in this country to question their military. And when john kelly went out, he was acting as a chief of staff. So what i would say to the second point is that there is a desire, i think on the part of critics of the president to act as if everybody who does who works for him or who does something in the service of this white house, is doing it essentially at gunpoint. John kelly is a lot more conservative than i think a lot of people realize. He was very supportive of the president S Immigration policies when he was at dhs. I think there are aspects of this president that he supports. And i think that life is complicated. So i think everybody turns these things into a binary. Theyre really not. Well, i appreciate that. And there was another bit of kn nuance im interested if you have any perspective on. When he said, i used to believe that some things were held sacred. Women in this country used to be sacred. Look where we are now. And then he said, gold star families used to be sacred, but then look at what happened at the convention. Was that a was he i do not a jab at the president or overlooking what the president has done on those two fronts . I think john kelly has a choice every day which is essentially, how do i figure out how to contain Donald Trumps tweets, for a lack of a better way of putting it. And he went out and said things that the president himself feels, because the president does not cast an internal eye at what he has done. I think that was entirely about the democrats. And look, there has been a fair amount of criticism for the way that democrats used khizr khan as essentially a surrogate going into the fall. We have heard that before. The bit about women, i wasnt really sure what they was referring to, but i dont think that was trying to jab the president. Thats helpful. Maggie, thank you. The big concern coming out of it is what they were wrong about. Especially if youre going to go at the brwidow of a service meb who just died in service, you better get your facts right. Maggie, thank you so much. You are a great panel. Thank you. President trump is heading to capitol hill today. Hes trying to sell his tax plan. But more importantly, hes trying to get on the same page with gop senators and remind them, theyre supposed to be on the same team. Can he get it done . Cnns joe johns live at the white house with more. Joe . Reporter good morning, chris. The president headed to capitol hill to participate in the Traditional Senate tuesday policy luncheons. He has a clear message for republicans in the senate, as well as the house, pass a tax bill or go down to likely defeat in next years midterm elections. Hes also indicated that he wants to fast track the bill and get it on his desk by thanksgiving, which would be an extremely heavy lift. In part because all of the ways to pay for at least part of this bill seem to keep coming off of the table. The president has indicated he wants to protect 401 k plans. He said that in a tweet just about 24 hours ago. Heres the tweet. There will be no change to your 401 k . This has always been a great and popular middle class tax break that works and it stays. Now, there had been talk around the hill of reducing the pretax amount of money workers can save in their 401 k s as a way to pay for this bill, as required by senate rules. But it doesnt seem the case, at least according to the president. Theres also heartburn on capitol hill about getting rid of other deductions, iluding the mortgage interest deduction, which is so popular around the country. Alisyn, back to you. Okay, joe, thank you very much. So members of congress say they want answers about what went wrong in niger, but what did they know about the mission . Well ask two of them, next. Tal . What kind of sorcery is that . Its not the magicwand kind. Its the rfidcollarand internet of thingskind we created with chitale dairy. So every cow can let farmers know how she feels and what she needs to be healthier phone vibrates all with a simple text. Tahdah. Magic cant make Digital Transformation happen. But we can. Thats the power of vmware, part of dell technologies. 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Relief and remission within reach. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff providing new details and an updated timeline on the ambush that killed four u. S. Soldiers in niger. New revelations raise a lot of new questions and lawmakers want answers. So joining us now is congressman will herd of texas. Hes a member of the intelligence and Homeland Security committees. Thanks for being here. Always a pleasure. Because you were undercover in the cia for almost ten years, you bring a very unique perspective. Did you know what was happening in niger . Did you feel you knew what the mission was and you had enough information . I didnt know what happened beforehand, but i shouldnt have. Im not an operational or a tactical planner. And tii think this focus, individual members of congress shouldnt know about individual