lives. i was asked by somebody how do you absorb news like that we received the other day? and i told the truth, it's hard. we don't take this work lightly. and i know that each and every one of you understand the magnitude of what we do and stakes involved. >> it's been ten years since the office of the director of national intelligence first bridged more than a dozen u.s. agencies under one guard. the goal of the post 9/11 reorganization was to prevent another attack through better information sharing. so far it seems to be working. there hasn't been a major terror attack on u.s. soil since then but the white house's admission on thursday that ci axt doen strikes inadvertently killed an american hostage and italian hostage and two terrorists is raising questions about the program. kristen, we just heard the president at the dni offices, what were the big takeaways for you? >>. >> reporter: first you heard president obama praise the work they've done over the past ten years, and fact that the intelligence helped lead to osama bin laden and helped confirm that the syrian government used weapons against its own people and became enkridably emotional when he talked about the tragedy, two hostages killed in the recent drone strike president obama vowing to review what had happened and saying that we all bleed when there is a loss of american life. these are some of the most emotional comments we have heard him make about this tragedy to date. in terms of those reviews under way, i can tell you there are two, one is the internal administration review. this happens whenever there's a counterterrorism operation, the other is a second one that president obama has asked for. he asked the inspector general to investigate what happened. and among the key questions, can you united states government do a better job of communicating and helping the families of hostages. we know in this case dr. weinstein's family was disappointed to some extent to the u.s. government. today during the white house press briefing josh earnest talked about the possibility of a fusion cell a way to stream line the communications between the united states government and the families of hostages. right now a number of different agencies communicate with those families and it can be confusing and not all together helpful. the other key questions that need to be answered why didn't the united states know there were two hostages there? does the obama administration and administrations moving forward need to overhaul this counterterrorism policy? if you speak with intelligence officials and lawmakers on capitol hill, they will tell you this counterterrorism operation was carried out to the book by the book i should say. that raises the question do they need to change the fundamental protocols in place, those are among the key questions that need to be answered. the drone program has expanded significantly under president obama and started under george w. bush but drone strikes have expanded by about ten times in some of these places like pakistan syria, and also somalia and yemen. so those are going to be among the big questions that need to be answered and the focus, does this drone program need to be overhauled. >> thank you very much for that. let's bring in senior daily beast correspondent shane harris at the new america foundation and author of "at war the rise the internet military conflict" when the government admits its using drones and don't know for certain who's on the other end. we know we're using them without a sufficient amount of sir couple inspection. >> this is something that the administration has not really had to contend with publicly, the signature strikes which most people are becoming more familiar with now. many of the strikes the cia conducts are targeted at people they don't know precisely who they are they just fit a pattern makes them seem like al qaeda members or senior leaders. i'm not at all confident that's going to answer the questions asked in these reviews that are going on right now. these might be reviews about protocols and communications but fund amountly i'm not asking them change the nature of the program to suspend signature strikes in the future. >> you write about this in your new article, the cia was tracking someone they thought was important, a senior al qaeda member at the compound. but precisely who he was, the cia says it didn't know. that may be and yet the who would seem to be very distinct from the problem in this instance, which was the where, even if they knew exactly who they were going after, there isn't any indication that intelligence would know that these hostages were deliberately secretly held at these facilities, this compound right? >> that's right. that's probably one of the most important questions this review is going to have to answer. why is it that the cia did not know these two men, italian and american hostage were being held in this facility when by the administration's own admission, it had hundreds of hours of footage before the site and near real time around the clock surveillance. why is it they only thought there were four al qaeda terrorists at the site and not the two men inside? that's a huge question and points to a real gap in the collection the cia has been conducting when it comes to finding and locating hostages but keeping track of where they might be held by terrorists. >> the cia and pentagon in theory operate under the same intel, but president obama trialed to move the drone program from the cia to the department of defense. does this january drone mistake, does that only add more fuel to the goal? if that were to happen what difference would that make? >> it might. the cia has been pretty good about resisting that transition and hanging onto the authorities that it has to operate the drones. we should remember that president obama has embraced this program as a central pillar of his counterterrorism operations but whether they are being flown by the cia or flown by the military you still face the same issues of how do you know for sure who you are aiming at. do you know the identities of people you're targeting and what did the intelligence tell you? those problems are true with regardless of whether it's a guy in a uniform or cia officer? >> right, that's the piece. how can you be sure and how sure do you need to be before you go in? the president has said that the bar is near certainty that there won't be civilian casualties and obviously we're looking to see what we can do to make sure something like this never happens again. you've been writing about other hostages out there at risk including an american mom and her baby it's hard to know how many civilian casualties we've had from drone strikes, one zpert quoted in the "new york times," averaged the number of studies and said one reasonable estimate is 522 strikes have killed close to 4,000 people and 476 of them have been civilians. that seems a long way from near certainty but the question is is there any way we could reform this program to have near certainty that there wouldn't be civilian collateral damage? >> i think you would have to severely restrict how the cia reconducts it. if that is accurate gives a sense of how collateral damage is more common than the idea of near certainty might actually suggest. there's a question also of who is a civilian and who is not. there is debate whether people not targeted perhaps still associated with the target. regardless, this is a very messy business, and i think the idea of near certainty is a prepost rouse notion. we thought we had near certainty there weren't innocent hostages in the building and there were. if you can put restrictions tighter around the targeting that you had to have zero people standing by except the individual target then you would have to suspend the program. it would be impossible to target senior al qaeda leaders without any risk of hitting people around them who were not also precisely targeted. >> shane harris thanks for your time today. >> an update on breaking news out of new york city it's all clear after the bomb squad searched the statue of liberty out of an abundance of caution. hundreds of tourists were evacuated offer the island after a bomb threat was received and police dog detected something of possible concern in the locker area where visitors leave items before entering statue. after further investigation, nothing suspicious was found and things are slowly returning to normal. ahead this hour growing pressure on hillary clinton and today her campaign is firing back. also coming up more than 40 million americans are bracing for severe weather this weekend. hard at work figuring out to tell us what's going on. why are we here in washington? well because it's time for nerd prom. guest of honor, of course ari melber. >> you shouldn't have. we all enter this world with a shout and we see no reason to stop. so cvs health is creating industry-leading programs and tools that help people stay on medicines as their doctors prescribed. it could help save tens of thousands of lives every year. and that w ould be something worth shouting about. cvs health, because health is everything. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ when the moment's spontaneous, why pause to take a pill? or stop to find a bathroom? cialis for daily use is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision or any symptoms of an allergic reaction stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a free 30-tablet trial. [♪] there is an ancient rhythm... [♪] that flows through all things... [♪] through rocky spires... [♪] and ocean's swell... [♪] the endless... stillness of green... [♪] [♪] and in the restless depths of human hearts... [♪] the voice of the wild within. [♪] benghazi private e-mail servers, scandals seem to keep piling up for hillary clinton and we're 564 days away from the election. >> that's all? >> yeah the latest allegations are that decisions made when he was secretary of state may have been influenced by donations made to her family's foundation. the clinton team is fighting back claiming that there is quote no shred of evidence of any quid pro quo when she was secretary of state and isn't seem to be any smoking gun so far. what seems crystal clear as chuck todd pointed out, the clintons actions were politically dumb. >> how many more warnings did the clintons need to have and yet they ended up doing these things? look i hear what david is saying and there's clearly -- he's right, there's not proof, it's sort of circumstantial scandal. the question i have is that's it politically though just dumb and inept. what is he doing hanging out with the president of kazakhstan. i understand he may rationize it, we're going to use this money for good i don't care. the but boy, the appearance of it is terrible. >> mrs. clinton has agreed to testify before republican congressman tray gowdy's house committee about her private e-mail server but even that is enough enough. not enough. he wants her to testify twice, once on the e-mails and once on benghazi. dana milbank, political columnist not only about the clintons and go there and see what they are doing, all of these non-profits from all over the world, that money being locked in with speeches and greed, a lot of that money goes out to deal with the world's problems and a lot of events the bulk of the summit, people gathering and making forward looking commitments around the world, it's hard to look as the only political g1u and on the other hand we have groups like common cause not the right wing echo chamber. put a statement out from them today, saying there's potential!u conflicts of interest here. what do you make of that conflict i'm(putting forward. >> i'm not sure it's a tie breaker there. i'm sure that's the sort of rational going through bill clinton's head while doing this saying i am doing this for a good purpose. i have to think at least now in retrospect, why didn't we say as of the time she became secretary of state we're not going to accept foreign contributions, it may have limited the growthçó of the clinton global initiative but they wouldn't be in this mess that they are in right now. so you know i think it can be defended but when you have to go through such great lengths to defend it it's a tricky xdissue. when you add in the questions are they getting personally enriched by the people making contributions to the foundation it has a whole other layer and can be explained, just clinton supporters will have a real headache trying to explain it. >> dana since ari covered every possible issue relating toçó hillary, i guess of the other side marco rubio. >> that must be hard to pick another topic. >> at this point it's completely insignificant that he has a margin of error lead over jeb bush. but what is significant, he's making serious headway in the race for big donor support. jeb hoped to raise $100 million in the first quarter and end this whole thing. that is not going to happen is it? >> no tour'e unfortunately for marco rubio speaking too soon there's three dozen republican candidates and you each getxd your week. the thing that happened with jeb, he didn't lockdown the money and in part this is republicans are being hoisted because of citizens united and massive flow of darkçó money into politics it's not just -- one guy can't lockup the money atl anymore, there's plenty to go around to keep all in the race for a long period of time. this is sort of a byproduct of having touch money in the political system no longer went about the field at all. >> i would ask you another question, but tour'e took the last topic i could think about. >> we have to close up tp because tour'e said we're out of time. >> dana thank you so çómuch. coming up, holding down the fort back in new york andñr trapping very rough weather for the weekend. your storm cycle forecast is next. building aircraft, the likes of which the world has never seen. this is what we do. ♪ that's the value of performance. northrop grumman. ♪ ♪ ♪ you're only young once. unless you have a subaru. (announcer) the subaru xv crosstrek. symmetrical all-wheel drive plus 34 mpg. love. it's what makes a subaru a subaru. when it comes to good nutrition...i'm no expert. that would be my daughter -- hi dad. she's a dietitian. and back when i wasn't eating right, she got me drinking boost. it's got a great taste and it helps give me the nutrition i was missing. helping me stay more like me. [ female announcer ] boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d to support strong bones and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. all with a delicious taste. grandpa! [ female announcer ] stay strong, stay active with boost. welcome back everyone tracking severe weather across the south, especially texas on this friday afvjx9==99ñ two tornado watch boxes in effect through the afternoon and evening, one including the city of dallas watching storms rolling throughout over the nextjf few hours. tomorrow for saturday. the severe threat shifts east. atlanta, pa duke ka and knoxville, you can see the southeast you'll be the focus of the severe weather threat for saturday especially in the afternoon. otherwise we're dealing with chilly weather here in the northeast, in fact it's 50 degrees right now in new york city, it's been very cold and blustery. we are going to warm things up tomorrow. you can see this is your saturday forecast back to the 60s, a decent day in the northeast, lots of sunshine and more storms across the southeast. 90 in san antonio andw3 los angeles looking good 68 degrees and sunny. for sunday a couple more scattered storms possible across the east but= 77 in los angeles and here in the northeast, holding on to 60s, which is a good thing. today is so chilly we're going to gradually warm up over next few days and i think we stay dry throughout the entire weekend through dó5sñ up toçr=y> boston. enjoy that weekend and make time outside. back to you in d.c. >> it is chilly but it is beautiful and sunny here. thank you so much for that. we turn back now to the growing drone debate but not necessarily in a way we've been discussing in the past day or so in regards to the tragedy overseas when a man crashed a drone on the white house lawn in january it sparked grave security concerns and the government is trying to create new rules to catch up ever q since. a new article entitled drone on articles thehcórden is hindering theñi commercial use of drone and costing the economy billions of dollars. gretchen west is a contributor to foreign affairs, thanks for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> when people think of drones, they thing of ones used by the military, it could actually benefit our economy, how are those being used? >>óv#ç so who are the companies and corporations who are the leaders in private drone technology? obviously we've all see the amazon drones on every network but what other companies besides them are making strides? >> well the united states two of the leader manufactures or cgi, chinese owned company and in europe and france they are all making drones to be used both for consumer uses but commercial use as well. >> so gretchen you are arguing that the faa needs to loosen up restrictions and regulations so this commercial application of drones can really flourish and benefit our economy which you made a strong argument but aren't there security concerns here? abby was talking about the drone thatñr crashed in the white house lawn and a man fly basically a flying bicycle on the lawn. aren't there legitimate concerns here we need to be worried about? >> i think so but there's technology being developed that can make them fly safer. for example, most "át manufacturers and software companies such as drone deploy are creating technologies that can do geo sense and keep drones in -- come out of restricted air space but in a restricted pre-planned route. there are technologies that are being developed that can do that. the faa has not been relying on technology advances to enable the regulations in the right way, which is unfortunate, but i do believe there's technology that exists that can actually help mitigate those security risks. >> well, you are saying they are not doing it the right way. what do you mean? >> the faa has been fairly slow to respond to this growing industry and trying to regulate it over the last decade. they've recently come out with proposed rules which are very much in favor of commercial and consumer use, not requiring a commercial or pilot's licensor air worthiness certification on aircraft. they are limiting how the systems can be used. they cannot be flown beyond theñi visual line of flight of the operator operatingt( the drone and also one drone can beñr operated per person. so there's a lot of technology that exists that can make drones do those things in a very safe manner but the ñifaa is not looking at those technologies to be the solution providers. >> very interesting stuff, gretchen west thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you very much. >> it's friday it'ád been a long week and frankly we are ready to take a breather. the rest of the show will be focused on t