Was 9871. Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That is it for this special report. Fair, balanced and unafraid. Greta goes trord right now, special report online in two seconds. Did president obama just confuse you . So which is it . Destroy isis or manage isis . Cant be both. In his first comment since the beheading of a second american journalist. President obama contradicting himself, changing his message halfway through todays speech. Our objective is clear. And that is to degrade and destroy isil and those who make the mistake of harming americans learn that we will not forget and that our reach is long and that justice will be served. We know that if we are joined by the International Community, we can continue to shrink isils sphere of
influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem. Joining us our Political Panel the National Review jim garety the hill review a. B. Stoddard and byron york. Are we nitpicking or did he change . Whats the story . No we are not nitpicking. The president has caught himself in a cycle of statements and clarifications. First came the we dont have a strategy. Then age tried to clarify and then the president s Statement Today was a clarification of that statement. Now, mark my words, is he going to have to clarify what he said today. And i think what you are seeing in washington is there is r. Are a number of people, democrats included who are kind of looking past the president and saying we need to get a strategy in place. There are democrats now who are introducing legislation that would authorize the use
of military force in syria, not covered by the authorization for iraq right now. I think they are just going to go ahead, regardless of what the president says right now. You know, a. B. , there is a big difference between degrade and destroy. And lets face it, they are trying they are not just trying to killing people, they are killing people. Manage the home depot or walmart. You kill and destroy people who are killers. It seems pretty plain to me what we should be doing. And so i wonder if its i dont think his stomach is in it yet because he is allowing officials throughout his administration, jen socket, state department actually used the phrase yesterday the goal is to destroy isil but and she interrupts. She you see the defense secretary, the chairman of the joint chiefs, the pentagon spokesman everybody say words to this effect this is unprecedented threat. Something we have never seen before. Of course america is a target and there is a threat to the homeland, this can
cannot be contained. It can only it must be destroyed and byron is right. The democrats who come back to town next week and are facing a panicked electorate, what is isis . What is isil . What is going on here . Are looking for not only a strategy but a goal. There is nothing coming out of president obamas mouth about what he sees this threat what it represents are and what has to be done. He doesnt have to give the details of the strategy, but he is not engaging the public on the poo tensey of the threat. If you combined what president obama said today with what Vice President joe biden was saying elsewhere in the country, you end one a philosophy which we are going to manage them to the gates of hell. If you are a war time president , you are seeing americans getting beheaded, i dont want the commander and chief to sound like espn dan patrick saying we cant stop them but we are going to hope to contain them. Is there a certain level of beheadings that would be acceptable to this administration . You bring up Vice President biden i think we had the sound bite just to
show the contrast for the viewers. This is Vice President biden on what he had to say about oh oh oh we dont have it yet. Im told we dont have it. Anyway, its joe biden yelling basically. Is it yell or yelling or conviction by killers . We will follow terrorists to the gates of hell. Isnt that the American People want to hear . Probably so from the president. We have heard red line comments from the president in the past and he didnt stick with those. I think what the president needs to do is come up with a plan were going to our goal is this and to achieve that goal we are going to do this, this, and this, and im going to congress and talk about that and i think the president could impress the American People a lot more by actually having a plan. He doesnt have to give a big speech. I think though at least for me, i want some sort of passion or fire in the belly or clarity or direction. But we do have Vice President biden right now. Here is how Vice President biden said it. They should know we will follow them to the gates of
hell until they are brought to justice. Because hell is where they will reside. A. B. , if thats not sort of were going to shrink and manage passionate and the president pacific. I dont think the details need to be made public yet. I know they dont have a strategy but when they do they can take their time. The problem is you need to tell america is this a threat to the homeland righthand we containing or destroying . But Vice President biden gave away no strategy. What i sort of got like he is going to protect at least he has got some fire in his belly on this. We have a war time Vice President and a peace time president right now. What we need at least biden has the passion. The strategy can come from it. Look, we are going to do high feel more secure with the fact that biden is going to get the job done or do
you think president obama is just listening to those two today . When you see biden is he pissed as hell that americans is getting tv language. They are tikd ticked as hell. I am writing a check to the fcc right now. Something to be passionate about. We are managing. The only person who can make the case is the president. And so he has got to sign on to a plan and then he has to sell it. And to the American People because they want to hear from him. I think he just has to tell us that he is going to do something. You know, and really convince us. He doesnt have to give us the details, anyway. All right. Panel, thank you. And president obama is sending those conflicting signals as he begins that european trip to attend the nato summit. Fox news chief White House Correspondent ed henry is traveling with the president. He joins us live from whales. Ed, nice to see you and notice the bar behind you. Is that yours . Henrys . It says henrys. I have no ownership but i might be there after this live shot, greta. We will see how it goes. Whats going on, ed . Bottom line is as you lay that out the white house is pushing back against this saying you dont have to have either or you can have both. What the president meant was this is a two step process. In the shortterm he wants to degrade isis to the point that they are less of a Terror Threat and then long term destroy them meaning that you are not going to destroy them overnight. This is going to take time. We ever dealing with them in iraq right now and is he still obviously, based on the beating he took at the News Conference last week figuring out a strategy to deal with them in syria. Problem of course is he is under pressure now not just from republicans but democrats as well. You heard dianne feinstein, the democratic chair of the Intelligence Committee over the weekend saying he is perhaps too cautious on all of this. Now we have got a little pressure today from Democratic Senators bill nelson as well as mark warner of virginia. Both democrats saying, look, you have got to come to congress with a strategy to
actually eliminate isis and, in fact, nelson is now saying he is going to push legislation to authorize u. S. Air strikes in syria, something the president is not ready for yet. He has left the door open to that but is he not quite ready for it yet. Bottom line is bill nell sob the democratic senator from florida says you have got to go after the head of the snake and thats in syria right now, not iraq. So you see pressure not just from the right but the left as well with folks saying what is the strategy. So the more the president sort of tries today was almost a doover, greta from last weeks News Conference and he was trying to clarify what he said last week about the no strategy. But then he left it so that white house aides it was so muddled they were clarifying the clarification. Thats not any place a president wants to be. It shows that his message is a bit stuck right now as well as the actual substance of the strategy, greta. Ed, thank you. And first president obama says he didnt have a strategy for syria and now he seems to have a very confusing goal. Critics are outraged by what
the president said today. Our objective is clear. That is to degrade and destroy isil. The president at some point used fuzzy words. To the point where it is a manageable problem. Are we going to contain isis or are we going to crush isis and the president has not answered that. The lack of having goal and objective unequivocal clear one continues to chase him. Justice will be served. Isis, what are we going to do about it . Kill them. And representative Jason Chaffets joins us. Good evening, sir. Hey, greta. Is it possible to destroy isis and also simultaneously manage the problem . I mean, i put the question to the panel. We sort of nitpicking or is the president have a confusing message . No. Its very confusing. The president seems to be a definite maybe. That is not what we need in the commander and chief of the United States of
america. I think history will show that the president failed to deal with this about a year too late. We should have been dealing with this a year ago. Nevertheless we are here today. We need a goal and an objective and then we need a strategy. It does not feel that the president of the United States has his heart into it because the moment he gets off the teleprompter we get this different answer saying its manageable. Manageable . Thats when you are closing a lane on the freeway and you have got to go down the freeway with three lanes instead of four then you manage it this is isis they want death and destruction to the United States of america. What happens when Congress Comes back to town and president obama returns from the nato summit . Well, i think you will see an increasing number of people from both sides of the aisle demanding that the president of the United States put forward an objective it and be candid with the American People as to what was going on. Why didnt he deal with this when it was a little bit more contained when it spread into iraq and spread into other places. And now when we hear these
beheadings which are just the most horrific things you see or can hear of. Then he is thinking that maybe he ought to get a strategy . Come on, mr. President. You have to do better than that. On the issues of war we always hope that members of house and the senate and the president rise above politics. And politics has no role in when it comes to war. But im curious to what extent we are rapidly approaching the mid terms. Are people going to i mean, to what extent are members of the house, the senate, and even the president going to be making decisions based on not whats right, necessarily or what is their conviction but on politics. If there is a clear and present danger to the United States of america, the president has all the authority he needs right now to deal with it immediately. Now, i do think there is strength in the United States of america in a bipartisan way standing up strong the way we do consistently in support of israel, for instance. But we have got to come together as a nation. Set this aside. This is not political theater here. What does that mean
though . Because, look, we cant get isis unless we go into syria. Lets face it thats where isis is starting. Nobody wants to admit that. And all the generals say we cant get them from the air. And so thats code for we have got to have boots on the ground. Nobody wants to put boots on the ground. Everybody is war weary. No wants to do that where are we right now if we want to kill isis, what are we going to do . We have to have the human intelligence. We have to have the signals intelligence. We have to act upon that intelligence in an immediate way. We have to form an International Coalition of people. Not listening to the u. N. But actually leading people. Joining together with the saudi arabia and the United Arab Emirates and others and convincing them we are on the right side of this. I know there is some nefarious actors in that place. Look whats going on. We have problems and chaos in libya. We have problems in egypt. We just have a Foreign Policy that over the last four and a half, five years has just fallen off. And we have to deal with it
seriously. The problem is fundamentally, the president of the United States is not believed by the rest of the country. They dont trust him. They dont believe him. We have to get that credibility back. And how does he do that . We only have 30 seconds left but how do you get that . Look. When the president puts out a red line, you have to act upon it. We are the United States of america. When our United States military is given a task, they will get it done. I have no doubt about their capability. But when its ambiguous, when its politically correct. When its trying to be something thats just all these different nuances, then it doesnt work. And thats the fundamental problem. We started to have that problem. We had that problem in iraq and having that problem with isis. We are having that problem with president obama. Thats the fundamental problem. Elections have consequences and this is one of the consequences. Congressman, thank you and we look forward to having you on the set when you get back to town. Thank you, sir. Thanks, greta. Now to disturbing and maybe even terrifying new
information about one of the americans who went to syria to fight for isis and got killed in battle. Turns out before he left to join isis in syria, he worked at Minneapolis Saint Paul International airport. Now, reporter tom wyden broke that story. He joins us with the very latest. Thank you for joining us. Tell me who is this man . Where did he work . You know, all great questions, greta. Late this afternoon the airport confirmed our reporting from last night and also filled in the details of that work history you are talking about and some of the items on the resume quite frankly are going to cause real concern the airport knew muhammad by his real name ahmed. Law enforcement sources confirm we are dealing with the same man. He worked at the airport 2001 and may 2011 and had access to the tarmac and planes. For most of that time he worked fueling up the planes themselves most recently though 2010, 2011 he worked cleaning planes. Part of that job also was securing the planes. That was for Delta Global Services which is owned by delta airlines. For both jobs he held security clearance secure identification display area you need an fbi back ground check to get that clearance but allows you to skip the metal detectors to get right on to the airport tarmac. The checkpoints involve a fairly cursory inspection of the vehicles going through. We dont know under what circumstances he left his job in may of 2011. The airport says it doesnt know. Delta wont comment except to say it is aware of our reporting and working with local Law Enforcement. Greta, can i tell to you some extent the chronology is going to come as a relief to Law Enforcement because it appears from social media accounts he was radicalized later than 2011 after he left the airport. Around 2013, socialed me a count shifted from talking about women and dating. He was a bit of a player four wives, nine kids to talking about fighting and dying for a lie. Last year he made that shift. Maybe fbi feels better
about that. I dont feel better somebody gets fbi check. Works on a tarmac a reporter who exposed this. We didnt hear this from the airport or delta. The fact that he has changed what his content of social media doesnt make me feel a whole lot better. But what i do want to know do we know how he got into isis . That is stills a mystery what the recruiting level on the ground. Obviously i was reporting back in 2007, we broke the story about the 20 minnesota some mall i didnts who went to fight for al shabaab. We believe that this a whole different recruiting apparatus than what we are talking about today there were indictments for that case. We dont know how the recruiting was going down. People on the ground here recruiting or done mostly through social media at internet. You mention not feeling so great about this we didnt know about it . I will throw one other wrinkle. We didnt know about this alias until two hours ago. With the somali community
here in minneapolis of them come toifficult this country not knowing their exact date of birth. Their date of birth lists january 1st, 1972 because they dont know their birthday and also many of these clan names are very very similar. We have done stories where you can have two different individuals same name, same date of birth it gets very very confusing and appears to be confusing in this case as well. American people big thanks to you for breaking this story. They will look a lot closer at a lot of people. If people hadnt been broking locking our seat so the person in front of us couldnt recline, thank you. Sure. While president obama sends mixed message the first arab country to condemn isis making a statement that is bold and is certain. Ambassador john