Theres more to know™. Hello, everyone. Announcer Head Quarters in new york city on this saturday. Thanks for being with us. This hour for you, President Trump decides to allow the release of thousand offense classified fbi documents on the assassination of jfk back in 1963. What could those files ultimately reveal . Mplus, the controversy surveillance rounding the deaths of four u. S. Soldiers in niger. Right now, whats being called a massive tension failure is to blame. Later, what the north koreans are saying about President Trump, the United States and war. Plus, steve bannon war against the Republican Party and how it may affect the upcoming election. Now a story that changes our nation nearly 50 years ago. In downtown dallas, president kennedy was shot. Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and grabbed mr. Kennedy and cried oh, no. Today, President Trump announced this that he may release some 3,000 classified government files on the investigation into the assassination. Lets go kelly odonnell. Shes at the white house for us on a saturday. Kelly, this brings back a lot of thoughts, memories for folks. Why now are we expecting anything that could rewrite history . Is. Reporter it goes back 25 years when president george w. Bush signed into law whats knowns the jfk records actment at the Time Congress set into motion a release of the final several thousands of pages of records belonging to the investigation. Government files, cia, fbi, investigative documents roadwaylatroadwaelated to the kennedy assassination. This put into law the final release, subject to the National Security concerns. If a future president had any reason not to make those records public. Thats why it falls in the lap of the President Trump, who is the custodian of this law today, who says he will allow the release. So far, the National Archives has not indicated there is any pushback from any of the agencies saying specific documents should not be released. At the same time, there are sensitive documents that were the property of the kennedy family. Those are not included in this. Those are things like the autopsy photos. This is really the kinds of documents that investigators used. Maybe it has more do with Lee Harvey Oswald or other figures. Will there be any big secrets revealed . Many believe the biggest information has already come out over the years, but this is thousands of pages that will be made available for researchers and historians to examine to see if there are details that will shed new light. President trump says its his intention to make those public as congress along ago said it should be. Historians hoping to maybe find a nugget and all of that. Lets move on to something you have been reporting on. Thats the president s call to the gold star wife, then the president s feud with frederica wilson. As you know here today, the president again slamming wilson on twitter, once more calling her wacky. The white house isnt making any concessions despite the desired tone at least we understand they want to have coming out of the white house, especially with john kelly coming forward and trying to tamp things down. The white house said they thought john kelly coming forward would bring it to an end, but that was not the case. They made inaccurate statements ott congressman wilson. The president tweeted about it. He put those statements out again, calling her a wacky congresswoman. This morning he went to misgolf club in virginia. He has been spending time at the golf course today. The issue has been very sensitive because of understood lying of fallen american soldiers and how should a commander in chief try to its Sergeant Johnson whos being laid to rest today. His family grieving his loss. This politically and almost separate parallel line has gone out today after several days. Now, we saw Sarah Sanders, who is the press secretary, push back when reporters point out that he made misstatements about senator wilson, saying she bragged about getting a bill passed. She did not talk habit that claim. She talked about her role in getting the building named for the fallen agents. Details that have nothing do with Sergeant Johnson but added to this mixment Sarah Sanders then got in a bit of trouble herself by pushing back on the questions about kelly. Heres a clip from the press briefing. If you want to go after general kelly, thats up to you, but if you want to get into a debate with a furstar marine general, i think thats something hisly inappropriate. Reporter now, the issue there is that Sarah Sanders said, of course, anyone can be questioned. John kelly is now a civil servant, a chief of staff to the president. Hes a retired fourstar general and he himself is a gold star father. His son robert was killed in afghanistan. Was he getting the information right . When reporters asked about that, the white house pushed back. Its been one it ration after another that has put a nasty pall over an aspect that took the lives of these service members. I want to bring in a National Political reporter and correspondent for the New York Times. Shes also a. Announcer contributor. We have eugene scott and franco ordonez. This is a solemn day. This is a day when family and friends will be remembering the a lost soldier. He was serving the United States and lost his life. On the very same day, we are seeing the president go out and tweet again, reminding people of this back and forth that we have been talking about all week. Some were hoping today would not be that day. Why do you think the president is continuing here to throw another log on the fire . I think its because its part of his personality. This is a president , and when he feels attacked will really not back down at any point. Now because you have general kelly also in some ways being criticized for what is essentially him not telling the truth or being wrong in how he described the speech with representative wilson i interviewed her several time this is week. My last conversation with her, she was doubling down, saying general kelly is a liar, saying the white house is full of white strum cysts but shesi trying t move past this, getting ready for the funeral, because she knew him since he was in middle school. You have her saying that, and you have the family in the midst of trying to bury this soldier and have to endure this. His widows Facebook Page was besieged with people criticizing her. This pregnant grieving widow. Eugene, part of this is should the chief of staff should general kelly apologize for getting those facts incorrectly . That would be the ethical thing do. The chief of staff accused the congresswoman of saying something she did not say, and we have documentation proving she do in the say it. I think the unfortunate thing of all this is that this story of wilson in miami had nothing do with the loss of lives in the niger. The purpose of bringing it up was to show that representative wilson had questionable character. What ended up happening is that general kelly got fact checked, leading people to question his character. The right thing to do would be to apologize. The president was also fact checked, saying he did call virtually all of those who die in the service. Even the staff having to back fill that very statement. Yeah, it shows kind of like what kind of a hard job that the Communications Staff has had. Not only the Communications Staff, but also the pentagon. Its a disappointing story. This president , its clear theres no question the president has been reaching out to military families, but he also has a very clear problem with exaggerating the truth. This is a perfect example of this. He obviously has not called all the gold star families that he said he has. John donnelly was just on the show on msnbc earlier today talking about how, look, this shows that staffers knew as the president was making these comments that it was not necessarily true. And its a problem when you have the president of the United States saying things that are not factually accurate. It undermines his credibility. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Next were going to dive into what led to the ambush attack in niger. What lies ahead as the Trump Administration faces tough questions about exactly what happened. I dont want to sound paranoid, but dya think our recent online sales success seems a little. Strange . Na. Ever since we switched to fedex ground business has been great. Theyre affordable and fast. Maybe too affordable and fast. What if. People arent buying these books online, but they are buying them to protect their secrets . . hi bill. If that is your real name. Its william actually. Hmph affordable, fast fedex ground. I love you, droolius caesar, but sometimes you stink. Febreze car vent clip cleans away odors for up to 30 days. Because the things you love can stink. Our guests can earn a free night when they book at choicehotels. Com and stay with us just two times . Fall time. Badda book. Badda boom. Pumpkin spice cookie . Im good. Book now at choicehotels. Com welcome back. There is still a lot of confusion as pentagon officials try to figure out why a supposedly routine patrol in niger ended in a deadly ambush there. The New York Times giving two very different accounts of what happened there. Theyre saying nigerian Officials Say they went on an unapproved mission. Americans insist that never happened. How did they get caught up in this attack . A congressional aide telling msnbc news a massive intelligence failure played a role in there. Courtney, always great to talk with you here. We are getting information from a lot of different sources now. What do we know at this hour . You hit the nail on the head in the intro when you said theres a lot of confusion. Thats been the case since the attack occurred on october 4th one of those reasons is the nature of the mission there. These are largely special forces soldiers. They do what is atraining mission, but they also do an advising and an accompany mission when theyre there. So much of what they do is classified. They cant talk about it necessarily. Its also something that they do these kinds op engagements every day. Special forces sole judges often do what they call a key leader engagement. They meet the locals, trying to get in with them so they can gather human intelligence with them. When theyre working with the niger military, theyre helping them with terrorists moving through the area, stopping the smuggling of good, which funds the terrorists and even human rights to help them with the across that live in the area. In this case, what we do know is this group of american soldiers, they were engaged in a meeting with some locals. Whether there was more to the mission or not we dont know. After they finish third down meeting, they were ambushed the numbers we are hearing is between 40 and 50 militants testimony latest intelligence says its an isis offshoot. Defense and intelligence officials believe its called isis greater sahel, but thats also still under investigation. Of course, they were attacked by small arms, rpgs and it led to the death of four soldiers and two more were wounded. Whats ongoing right now in terms of investigation into what happened . When might we expect here another release of information . I would think it would be weeks to even months before we actually have the full investigation completed. So theres several different ones that are under way right now. One is the very standard line of duty investigation. Any time an American Military member is killed overseas or here, they do these line of duties. That looks at everything from how did the mission start, what happened, what went wrong. Theres also another investigation, which is u. S. Military called for informal. Thats looking at everything. What are they doing . Where were they . Who was there at the time . How was Sergeant Johnson, how was he not taken out in the immediate aftermath when the other americans were evacuated out . Good question on this day as funerals are ongoing. That, of course, a thought for many. Courtney, always good turnover you here. Thank you. Most americans are aware of the u. S. Troop presence in the middle east. We often report on that. But Many Americans dont know about the militaries growing footprint in africa. U. S. Forces established african command. That was to fight the grows threat of extremism. In 2013, they landed in niger to combat a group with links to ices and other triable groups that had taken over the north. About 800 soldiers are stationed in niger right now to help counter not only isis but also boko haram and al qaeda. Joining us now, joe reuben, former assistant secretary of state. Joel, what Many Americans also do not know, understandably because many of these operations as courtney was describing to us are not going to be on the headlines. Theyre not going open up the paper and see these ongoing. But we have operations in 20plus countries in africa. Thats half of the countries there. What we are seeing in niger meeb part of that everyday op race. Can you put that in context for snus. Thats right, richard. There are significant numbers of operations for counterterrorism purposes that we are executing the have been for some time. Theyre operating under the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, originally designed to combat al qaeda. It is a big issue. Theres a large american footprint. I think this incident its critical to understand the strategy behind what we are doing in niger to understand this incident in this context. Theres in the a lot of congressional hearing about this, not a lot of public discussion about how our forces are on the edge in this fight. Theyre beyond where most americans think theyre going. Then went incidents like we just saw with the ambush and the killi killing of our four brave soldiers it send a shock through the system in america and washington and really shakes up peoples thinking. A lot of Unanswered Questions are at play. We roadway really need to get a better grip on what it is we are trying to achieve in africa and other places with Counterterrorism Operations are undercover. You bring up the great point in your comments, joel. I want to go to you, nabeed. As a former double agent, you understand what the law has allowed the United States to do and to operate in key theaters. The thought now is should it be reevaluated, that 2001 decision that allowed certain military action without congressional approval here. Chairman bob corker with tennessee saying yeah, they need to relook at it now. It needs to be reevaluated based on current deadlines. I think the authorization to use military force should always be looked at and the deployment of troops should continuously be approved. Thats a nobrainer. That being said, theres nothing wrong with deploying our forces. Libya, somalia, we have a very high presence. Theres a wide range of mission that is these people support. That aumf, its important to distinguish between iraq and afghanistan and what happens here. Both in terms of legal and practical how the boots on the ground operate. This is not in many cases an active combat zone. I think its important to understand that it sounds on the tactical level drill down at the bottom part this was an ambush. This was not something that happened before. This is not something we generally tend to see with American Forces here. This is not considered an active combat zone with the dpepgs of libya, and that is clearly causing a problem here. Yeah, this is something we should continue to evaluate. Joel, based on the two scenarios we are looking at, that we were just discussing the courtney and the varying opinions about what has happened so far, what does it tell you about the way the government is working right now to find the truth . Well, to me, theres a bit of a stunning dichotomy now in terms of how congress and the administration is handling this. There has not been a lot of public discussion. It took the press to paul out the public discussion a couple of weeks ago when asking the president about the ambush. Thats troubling. These are troops in harms way. Theyre not in active combat, but theyre in the line of fire. Their questions about the presence there, the support theyd, the use of contractors as opposed to official u. S. Military, these are significant questions. The concern i have is that when we are not having acknowledgment by the administration of these deaths, it leaves open a lot of questions about the management of this process. Even senator mccain, the chairman of the Armed ServicesCommittee Said we are not getting answers. What happened several years ago, compared to benghazi, where they were significant reviews, going over all the data as they should have although it was politicized and should not have been. If i were a troop in the field and the a commander, i would be wondering if management and oversight is being looked into in a way that would share the safety of the troops. The troops on the ground and the leaders in these 20plus countries conducting these operations, analysts will say, do they have enough folks . You know, that is a good question. I want to push back a little bit on this great msnbc reporting on the intelligence failure. When i wore the uniform, i had the unfortunate duty of being involved in the notety communication of next of kin of the fallen. Its a respectful process. Thats done with dignity. Its done in a way that you tell the next of kin answers definitively. What im concerned with some of this reports and to the fact that the president didnt come out on day one, it creates am by ambiguity. We have a duty to them to give them definite i have answers. That there is not unknown facts that can add to their pain testimony tro. The troops in the field we owe it to the families to let them know they they