Speaker 1: Pushkin previously on fiasco.
Speaker 2: It was a high risk venture.
Speaker 3: I was very worried about a security.
Speaker 4: Six months after the uprising, Libya is flooded with weapons
Speaker 4: and places at the tend power vacuums.
Speaker 5: For the people who you're dealing with are not your friends.
Speaker 6: The scene is quiet. A relatively small but already armed
Speaker 6: group shows up at the gates.
Speaker 7: Find out what exactly is going on.
Speaker 1: What they had when they walked out was all the
Speaker 1: information they needed to conduct a precision more to attack
Speaker 1: at night, and so the next ones are right on target.
Speaker 1: The eleventh anniversary of September eleventh was kind of like
Speaker 1: thirty first birthday one year after a major milestone. It
Speaker 1: just didn't land with as much fanfare.
Speaker 8: It's expected to be.
Speaker 9: As quiet day as both candidates commemorate the nine to
Speaker 9: eleven attacks, both President Obama.
Speaker 1: Still, it was a somber enough occasion that both candidates
Speaker 1: in the twenty twelve presidential race, the incumbent Barack Obama
Speaker 1: and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, agreed to suspend all
Speaker 1: negative campaigning for the day.
Speaker 10: Yeah you will hear no negative campaigning, not to take tell.
Speaker 11: One day we won't have that, by the way, this is.
Speaker 7: Around the nine to eleven attacks. You know, we would
Speaker 7: see it not as an opportunity necessarily for politics. I mean,
Speaker 7: we were going to keep making our case, but we're
Speaker 7: going to make our case affirmatively.
Speaker 1: This is longhe Chen. He was Mitt Romney's chief policy
Speaker 1: advisor during the twenty twelve campaign.
Speaker 7: Our hope and our intention was to go into it
Speaker 7: focused on what we needed to do looking ahead, rather
Speaker 7: than spending the day on September eleventh talking about some
Speaker 7: of the challenges created by the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: Chen is being polite here. What he means is the
Speaker 1: two campaigns were going to take a day off from
Speaker 1: beating up on each other, and one of the challenges
Speaker 1: the Romney team would not be talking about was Obama's
Speaker 1: policy in the Middle East, his approach to the war
Speaker 1: on terror that had started more than a decade earlier
Speaker 1: under George W. Bush. Romney had been calling Obama soft
Speaker 1: on terrorism since the start of his campaign, but on
Speaker 1: this day he would hold his fire out of respect.
Speaker 1: But then, at around one o'clock in the afternoon DC time,
Speaker 1: some concerning news started filtering in from Egypt. A large
Speaker 1: group of angry protesters had gathered in front of the
Speaker 1: American Embassy in Cairo.
Speaker 12: Protesters are outside the US Embassy. There are there about
Speaker 12: a thousand of them and protests.
Speaker 1: As you heard in our last episode, the crowd was
Speaker 1: protesting a video called The Innocence of Muslims that had
Speaker 1: recently been uploaded to YouTube by a man in California.
Speaker 13: They are protesting a video they say to fames the
Speaker 13: prophet Muhammad.
Speaker 1: Earlier in the day, the US Embassy in Cairo had
Speaker 1: denounce the anti Muslim video in a written statement.
Speaker 13: Saying, quote the Embassy of the United States and Cairo
Speaker 13: condemns the continuing efforts misguided individuals to hurt the religious
Speaker 13: feelings of Muslims.
Speaker 1: As The statement was intended to diffuse the situation to
Speaker 1: distance the US government from the islamophobic video, but it
Speaker 1: did not prevent the protests in front of the Embassy
Speaker 1: in Cairo from turning violent.
Speaker 12: Protesters have stormed the walls of the embassy and pulled
Speaker 12: down US flags. Now they have replaced them with black
Speaker 12: flags with Islamic emblems Now America.
Speaker 1: As footage of the chaos aired on American television. The
Speaker 1: US Embassy's statement from earlier in the day got the
Speaker 1: attention of conservative commentators like lou Dobbs.
Speaker 14: Obamba administration, the State Department actually apologized to the very
Speaker 14: radical Islamis who were demonstrating in hurting the feelings of Muslims.
Speaker 14: It's just disgusting.
Speaker 1: Then that evening, at around seven pm Eastern time, the
Speaker 1: news out of Cairo was compounded with reports of a
Speaker 1: second incident nearby, this one in Libya. It appeared that
Speaker 1: the protests in Cairo had spread to Benghazi, Libya's second
Speaker 1: biggest city. A mob had set fire to a diplomatic
Speaker 1: compound and killed an American.
Speaker 15: As you can imagine, there is a degree of conflicting
Speaker 15: information coming out of nighttime Libya amid the chaos of
Speaker 15: an attack on the US consulate.
Speaker 16: The Libyan government has now informed the State Department that
Speaker 16: an American consulate official has been killed in an attack
Speaker 16: on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. We're just getting
Speaker 16: this information.
Speaker 1: From his apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lanhi Chen watched the
Speaker 1: news and fielded requests from media outlets that wanted Romney's
Speaker 1: take on the day's events.
Speaker 7: The media inquiries did start to pick up as the
Speaker 7: early evening war into late evening Eastern Time, and a
Speaker 7: number of conservative media outlets, some online, some radio, some television,
Speaker 7: and they were particularly up. They were very concerned about
Speaker 7: why the Romney campaign hadn't yet used this as something
Speaker 7: with which to attack President Obama.
Speaker 1: Between the breaking news of the attack and Benghazi, the
Speaker 1: protest in Cairo, and the embassy statement about the religious
Speaker 1: feelings of Muslims, the Romney campaign saw an opportunity. Here
Speaker 1: was a perfect example of the Obama administration bending over
Speaker 1: backwards to show respect to the Muslim world at the
Speaker 1: expense of American power and security. It didn't matter that
Speaker 1: the Cairo Embassy's statement had been issued hours before the
Speaker 1: Benghazi attack. It all just fit together.
Speaker 7: The statement that was issued by US station in Cairo,
Speaker 7: I think accounted for essentially the quote hurt feelings that
Speaker 7: resulted because of the video, and then as the Benghazi
Speaker 7: news came in, it sort of added to this notion
Speaker 7: that we were under attack and the response from the
Speaker 7: Obama administration was an apology to the Islamic world.
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney was delivering a speech in Reno, Nevada at
Speaker 1: a conference of the National Guard when the gears of
Speaker 1: his campaign back in Boston started the turn.
Speaker 7: I recall our communications director calling me at some point
Speaker 7: around dinner time basically saying, I think it's not going
Speaker 7: to be possible for us to end this day without
Speaker 7: saying something.
Speaker 1: As night fell, Lanhi Chen initiated a conference call with
Speaker 1: other campaign operatives to discuss whether their candidate should weigh in.
Speaker 7: We had a small closet that you could kind of
Speaker 7: walk into in our apartment, and I remember going into
Speaker 7: that closet and shutting the door and doing the call
Speaker 7: in there amidst all of our clothes and shoes and
Speaker 7: everything else, because I didn't want to disturb my wife,
Speaker 7: didn't want to disturb our son, And a lot of
Speaker 7: the evening transpired with me in that closet trying to
Speaker 7: work all this out.
Speaker 1: The consensus among the Romney staffers was that they would
Speaker 1: draft a statement that night and run it by the candidate,
Speaker 1: but hold the final product in an embargo from the
Speaker 1: press until after midnight, at which point it would be
Speaker 1: September twelfth. That way, they could skirt any backlash about
Speaker 1: negative campaigning on the anniversary of nine to eleven, but
Speaker 1: still be seen as responding quickly to events on the ground.
Speaker 7: We ended up with a statement that was aggressive. We
Speaker 7: knew it was aggressive. We debated the aggressiveness of it.
Speaker 7: I will say that I was not one hundred percent convinced,
Speaker 7: but by the end of that call, I was that
Speaker 7: the more aggressive posture was the right one.
Speaker 1: Once the campaign team had their wording down, Chen called
Speaker 1: Romney and read the statement aloud to him, it's disgraceful.
Speaker 1: It said that the Obama administration's first response to the
Speaker 1: violence in Egypt and Libya was not to condemn attacks
Speaker 1: on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who
Speaker 1: wage them.
Speaker 7: And he sort of paused and said, okay, that that
Speaker 7: sounds about right to me. Has there been any other
Speaker 7: news that we should account for? I said no, I
Speaker 7: think that's it, and he said, okay, sounds good. Let
Speaker 7: a rip. Let's do it, And I thought, okay, case closed.
Speaker 7: We're going to put out the statement. I'm going to
Speaker 7: get to bed, and we're going to see kind of
Speaker 7: where things develop, and I'll wake up the next day
Speaker 7: to fight again.
Speaker 1: A decision was made to lift the nine to eleven
Speaker 1: embargo early after all, and at ten twenty four pm,
Speaker 1: the Romney campaign sent the statement out to the media.
Speaker 7: I think Romney certainly went to bed feeling pretty good
Speaker 7: about the statement. I know I did, and a number
Speaker 7: of us did as well, because we'd spend so much
Speaker 7: time thinking about that evening. You know, I think we
Speaker 7: all really felt like this was the right approach and
Speaker 7: this was an evidence of exactly what we had been
Speaker 7: talking about.
Speaker 10: Mitt Romney responded in a statement saying, it's disgraceful that
Speaker 10: the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks
Speaker 10: on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who
Speaker 10: wage the attacks, published reports playing the unbasays estate.
Speaker 1: Romney's statement was the first volley in what would become
Speaker 1: the long political war over Benghazi, and calling Obama disgraceful
Speaker 1: mere hours after the attack was first reported, and in
Speaker 1: doing so, as it turned out, while the attack was
Speaker 1: still unfolding, Romney was taking a risk, maybe even crossing
Speaker 1: a line.
Speaker 7: If you'd said to me that night, when we were
Speaker 7: getting together to put together that first statement that we
Speaker 7: would still be talking about that night and the events
Speaker 7: that transpired years later, I would have said, Yeah, maybe
Speaker 7: maybe it's a blip in history.
Speaker 1: I'm Leon Nafok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. This
Speaker 1: is fiasco BEng Ghazi.
Speaker 17: This is a political cover up of something kind what's
Speaker 17: being called Benghazi Gate.
Speaker 18: Intelligence officials acknowledged they originally got it wrong.
Speaker 2: We got the classified cable that was chilling.
Speaker 19: Why should anybody have any credibility in what the administration
Speaker 19: says giving its shifting narrative.
Speaker 4: It was a fucking mess, man, there's a fucking mess.
Speaker 4: It's really hard to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 1: Episode four Feckless, in which the attack in Benghazi collides
Speaker 1: with an American election. We'll be right.
Speaker 6: Back, And this really is what New Hampshire is all about.
Speaker 6: Isn't it a day like this at a farm like this?
Speaker 6: Doug and Stella, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney announced his candidacy for president on a New
Speaker 1: Hampshire farm in twenty eleven. He was wearing slacks and
Speaker 1: a checkered button down shirt, and he spoke from a
Speaker 1: podium with a picturesque barn behind him. It was the
Speaker 1: perfect setting for Romney to make his case that Barack
Speaker 1: Obama didn't understand everyday Americans.
Speaker 6: And this is what America is about as well, don't
Speaker 6: you think, Oh, Gosh.
Speaker 1: The kickoff was mostly focused on the economy, but Romney
Speaker 1: also took the opportunity to distinguish himself from the president
Speaker 1: on foreign policy.
Speaker 6: At a time of historic change and great opportunity in
Speaker 6: the Arab world, He's hesitant and uncertain. A few mens
Speaker 6: into officey he traveled around the globe to apologize for America.
Speaker 1: Romney was referencing a trip that Obama had taken to
Speaker 1: the Middle East in two thousand and nine at the
Speaker 1: start of his presidency. It included a high profile appearance
Speaker 1: in Egypt, during which the President called for a new
Speaker 1: era of mutual respect between the Muslim world and the West.
Speaker 3: I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning
Speaker 3: between the United States and Muslims around the world one based.
Speaker 1: In his speech, Obama recalled growing up in Indonesia surrounded
Speaker 1: by practicing Muslims. He spoke reverently of Islamic contributions to
Speaker 1: Western civilization, like algebra in the treatment of infectious disease.
Speaker 1: He even quoted from the Quran, as the.
Speaker 3: Holy Quran tells us be conscious of God and speak
Speaker 3: always the truth.
Speaker 1: Six years after the start of the Iraq War, Obama's
Speaker 1: speech was an implicit critique of the Bush administration. The
Speaker 1: new president seemed to be saying that the American government
Speaker 1: would no longer hold an antagonistic attitude towards the Middle
Speaker 1: East or tolerate the Islamophobia and jingoism that had been
Speaker 1: awakened under his predeces.
Speaker 3: And I considered part of my responsibility as president of
Speaker 3: the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam
Speaker 3: wherever they appear.
Speaker 1: Back home, Republicans framed Obama's posture as weak and naive.
Speaker 1: They called it an apology for America.
Speaker 17: As we investigate the Obama apology tour and now it
Speaker 17: has systematically dismantled America's credibility around the world.
Speaker 1: But first, the apology narrative took hold on Fox News
Speaker 1: and other conservative media outlets. Obama was undermining the United
Speaker 1: States by acting like Americans had something to be sorry for.
Speaker 14: There you heard the president's apology tour.
Speaker 6: The apology tour, This apology tour, apology tour.
Speaker 13: The president who apologizes to Muslim religious fanatics.
Speaker 20: Can we stop apologizing?
Speaker 1: I'm tired of the apologies. When it came time for
Speaker 1: Romney to put out a campaign book, he even named
Speaker 1: it after this idea that.
Speaker 6: Colmit Romney his book No Apology, The Case for American Greatness.
Speaker 7: The Obama argument was that they were looking for a
Speaker 7: more nuanced view of the Islamic world.
Speaker 1: Again, Romney advisor Lanhi Chen.
Speaker 7: They took pains, for example, to distinguish between Islamic fundamentalism
Speaker 7: or Islamic terrorism. And they were very careful about how
Speaker 7: they approached the region and what they wanted to do,
Speaker 7: in part because I think President Obama felt that there
Speaker 7: could be common cause made with parts of the Islamic world.
Speaker 1: Obama's insistence on making common cause with the Muslim world
Speaker 1: gave Romney an opening during the twenty twelve race, an
Speaker 1: easy way to communicate to voters how he and the
Speaker 1: incumbent were different.
Speaker 6: Think about this internationally, President Obama has adopted an appeasement strategy.
Speaker 6: In Barack Obama's profoundly mistaken view, there's nothing unique about
Speaker 6: the United States.
Speaker 1: Obama did have one massive advantage when it came to
Speaker 1: his record on fighting terrorism.
Speaker 3: Tonight, I can report to the American people and to
Speaker 3: the world, the United States has conducted an operation that
Speaker 3: killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaida.
Speaker 1: A little over a year before the attack in Benghazi,
Speaker 1: Obama had ordered the raid that killed Osamam bin Laden.
Speaker 1: He had eliminated the leader of al Qaida and dealt
Speaker 1: the organization in existential blow. Naturally, Obama's reelection campaign placed
Speaker 1: this achievement at the center of his foreign policy record.
Speaker 3: I said, we go after al Qaeda and Bin Laden.
Speaker 7: We did.
Speaker 1: Obama's vice president made hay of it as well, Osama
Speaker 1: bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. By
Speaker 1: the end of the summer, polling showed that Obama was
Speaker 1: leading Romney on foreign policy, and the race was widely
Speaker 1: seen as his to lose. On September twelfth, the morning
Speaker 1: after the attack in Benghazi, Lanhi Chen started his day
Speaker 1: the same way he always did, by pouring through news
Speaker 1: coverage to see what people were saying about his candidate.
Speaker 7: On an ordinary day. By the time I'd wake up,
Speaker 7: you know, there might be twenty five thirty thirty five
Speaker 7: five articles on that morning. I recall waking up and
Speaker 7: clips were coming fast and furious.
Speaker 1: Chen was curious to see whether the aggressive stance Romney
Speaker 1: had taken the night before was having its desired effect.
Speaker 1: The statement did seem to be getting a lot of attention,
Speaker 1: but not in the way the Romney campaign had hoped.
Speaker 11: Whether you agree or don't agree with the Romney statement,
Speaker 11: it just sounds cynical and gross.
Speaker 13: And I have to say I'm stun they put out
Speaker 13: this release when they did, before we knew all the
Speaker 13: facts before daybreak.
Speaker 14: Just so patently political.
Speaker 20: It really gives you.
Speaker 16: Pause a political handgrad and I think shame on that
Speaker 16: campaign personally.
Speaker 1: Normally, when a campaign is under this kind of heavy criticism,
Speaker 1: the candidate can marshal a battalion of loyal, credentialed partisans
Speaker 1: to get on TV and mounted defense. They're called surrogates,
Speaker 1: and typically the Romney campaign had a deep bench of
Speaker 1: surrogates at their disposal. In this case, though support was
Speaker 1: slow to come. It appeared that even Romney's fellow Republicans
Speaker 1: thought the campaign had gone too far.
Speaker 7: We found a reticence amongst a number of our key
Speaker 7: national security surrogates who would have been forceful voices on
Speaker 7: the outside. They were either not on board, or they
Speaker 7: wanted to speak to me or someone on the campaign
Speaker 7: to give them some sense of our thinking before they
Speaker 7: were willing to get out there and say something.
Speaker 1: That morning, Chen dialed into a conference call with other
Speaker 1: top campaign officials and Romney himself, who was not happy.
Speaker 1: According to one account, he gripped the armrest of his
Speaker 1: chair as he spoke.
Speaker 7: He expressed his sense that perhaps we had been too
Speaker 7: quick with the statement and that there was a brewing
Speaker 7: controversy over it. It was something to the effect of, guys,
Speaker 7: I think we may have made a mistake here, or
Speaker 7: we may have misfired.
Speaker 1: Romney knew it didn't look good. Four Americans, including an ambassador,
Speaker 1: were dead, and here he was pouncing on it to
Speaker 1: try to win an election. It wasn't just Obama partisan
Speaker 1: who were outraged. Establishment Republicans also seemed to agree that
Speaker 1: Romney campaign had improperly politicized a national security crisis.
Speaker 8: I'm a hawk, but you do not want to have
Speaker 8: this become a political election issue right now. We should
Speaker 8: have one president of the United States at a time
Speaker 8: when it comes to foreign policy. I don't think he
Speaker 8: should be a second force of foreign policy now.
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell and John Bayner, the two highest ranking Republicans
Speaker 1: in Congress, offered statements condemning the Bengazi attack, but neither
Speaker 1: took the opportunity to criticize Obama or come to Romney's defense.
Speaker 1: John McCain also declined to address Romney's statement, saying only
Speaker 1: that Ambassador Chris Stevens was one of his dear friends,
Speaker 1: but not everyone in the conservative movement had the same qualms.
Speaker 20: But what really is going on right there is a
Speaker 20: coordinated effort by the media in coordination with the White House.
Speaker 1: On talk radio, Rush Limbaugh gave a full throated defense
Speaker 1: of Roma and suggested that the outrage of the campaign
Speaker 1: statement was a distraction from Obama's mishandling of the attack.
Speaker 20: We're in the middle of an absolute disaster, a foreign
Speaker 20: policy disaster, and there's a coordinated effort to make it
Speaker 20: about Romney, whether or not it's presidential for Romney.
Speaker 1: One commentator on the website Breitbart dot Com dismissed the
Speaker 1: notion that Romney had done anything wrong and called on
Speaker 1: the Obama campaign to direct their outrage at the murderers
Speaker 1: instead of Romney. And so the Romney campaign faced a choice.
Speaker 1: Were they going to give in to the criticism they
Speaker 1: were hearing from more moderate Republicans or would they stay
Speaker 1: on message and hope the rest of the party fell
Speaker 1: in line.
Speaker 7: How do we address this now going forward? That was
Speaker 7: really more the focus of that call and the tone
Speaker 7: that Romney took that morning, And it was really a
Speaker 7: division between do we walk it back or do we
Speaker 7: double down on it.
Speaker 1: After some debate, the Romney campaign decided not to backtrack.
Speaker 1: The guy who wrote a book called No Apology simply
Speaker 1: could not apologize.
Speaker 7: It would have been seen as a sign of weakness.
Speaker 7: It would have been seen as a rebuke of our
Speaker 7: own line of thinking about not just this event, but
Speaker 7: perhaps more broadly about Obama.
Speaker 1: So the Romney campaign was going to stay the course. Yes,
Speaker 1: what happened to Benghazi was a tragedy, but it was
Speaker 1: an avoidable one that illustrated the failures of Obama's foreign policy.
Speaker 1: As lnhi Chen told a reporter at the time, the
Speaker 1: attack was a direct result of the Obama administration conducting
Speaker 1: its foreign policy in effeckless manner. That word feckless was
Speaker 1: a callback to a critique that Romney had been leveling
Speaker 1: against Obama for the better part of a year.
Speaker 6: The very real dangers that America faces if we continue
Speaker 6: the effeckless policies of the past three years.
Speaker 12: Knit Romney said, that you are America's most chectless president
Speaker 12: since Carter.
Speaker 15: What would you like to say to mister Romney.
Speaker 20: I tell him to go feck himself. That's an.
Speaker 7: And I think that word feckless describes a timidity. And
Speaker 7: that's the reason why that critique stuck.
Speaker 1: Whatever had happened in Benghazi, it was proof of Obama's fecklessness,
Speaker 1: particularly when viewed alongside the conciliatory statement issued by the
Speaker 1: US Embassy in Cairo. It was true that making this
Speaker 1: point required Romney to conflate the Benghazi attack with the
Speaker 1: administration's response to the Innocence of Muslims video, But the
Speaker 1: point here was to level a general critique of the president,
Speaker 1: not get into specifics.
Speaker 17: Back to our breaking news in a matter of moments,
Speaker 17: live in Jacksonville.
Speaker 10: Governorment Romney is prepared to make a statement.
Speaker 6: And we understand he may take questions now.
Speaker 1: As criticism continued to pour in the day after the attack,
Speaker 1: the Romney campaign pulled together a press conc in which
Speaker 1: Romney would address reporters directly. Hillary Clinton had just done
Speaker 1: the same thing at State Department headquarters, and Obama was
Speaker 1: getting ready to deliver his own statement in the White
Speaker 1: House Rose Garden. The setting for Romney's press conference was
Speaker 1: less official. It took place at a strip mall in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 6: Good morning, Americans woke up this morning with tragic news
Speaker 6: and felt heavy hearts.
Speaker 7: So he was having a press conference in a strip
Speaker 7: mall where there was a reptile store of some kind.
Speaker 7: And I don't know why that sticks with me, but
Speaker 7: it does. It was sort of fitting for the time.
Speaker 7: I guess that we were in a pit of vipers
Speaker 7: and there was a reptile store nearby.
Speaker 6: I think it's a terrible course for America to stand
Speaker 6: in apology for our values, that the first response to
Speaker 6: the United States must be outrage at the breach of
Speaker 6: the sovereignty of our nation.
Speaker 1: Reporters echoed the questions lanhi Chen had seen in the
Speaker 1: press clippings that morning. Why had the Romney campaign weighed
Speaker 1: in so early? It was the anniversary of nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't they at least wait until after the attack was over?
Speaker 3: Watching this basin itself a mixed signal when you've criticized
Speaker 3: the administration.
Speaker 1: At a time that Americans are being you know, shouldn't
Speaker 1: politics offer for this?
Speaker 6: We have a campaign for presidency of the United States,
Speaker 6: and are speaking about the different courses we would each
Speaker 6: take with regards to the challenges that the world faces.
Speaker 11: If you had known last night, if the investor had
Speaker 11: gotten obviously, I'm.
Speaker 6: Gathering you did not know, I'm I'm not gonna take
Speaker 6: hypotheticals about what would have been known on and so forth.
Speaker 14: We respotted last night.
Speaker 1: It was a rough press conference and a rough morning
Speaker 1: for the candidate overall, but it was still possible that
Speaker 1: Romney's fellow Republicans would get behind him.
Speaker 7: I really didn't have a great sense of what that
Speaker 7: day and what the next few days we're going to
Speaker 7: look like.
Speaker 1: In the first few days after the attack and been god,
Speaker 1: a wave of anti American uprising started to crop up
Speaker 1: across the Arab world in response to the Innocence of
Speaker 1: Muslims video. The Obama administration was concerned about the risk
Speaker 1: of another attack.
Speaker 21: Pictures here from protests and anti American demonstrations in more
Speaker 21: than a dozen countries.
Speaker 4: The Bengazi attack happened on a Tuesday. The day we
Speaker 4: were all watching was Friday, because of Friday prayers.
Speaker 1: This is Tommy Vitor. He's best known today as a
Speaker 1: co host of Pod Save America. Back in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: he was the thirty two year old spokesperson for the
Speaker 1: National Security Council, a panel of advisors responsible for helping
Speaker 1: the president make decisions on foreign policy and terrorism.
Speaker 4: Because what happened in a lot of places was everyone
Speaker 4: would go to the mosque, if you had any mom
Speaker 4: who was giving a sermon about the innocence of Muzzlim videos,
Speaker 4: you could see more protests and more violence and more
Speaker 4: attacks on the US facilities.
Speaker 13: American diplomatic missions across the globe are on high alert.
Speaker 12: They are expecting and desion of anti American protests.
Speaker 1: After Friday prayers, protesters demonstrated outside US diplomatic outposts in Morocco, Mauritania, Pakistan, Indonesia, Kuwait,
Speaker 1: even Australia and the Philippines. You know, a dominus fact.
Speaker 1: The chain reaction with being more protests in Arab capitals.
Speaker 22: There were small demonstrations in front of Tunisia, there were
Speaker 22: other ones in the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 21: The unrest came to Sudan.
Speaker 3: Protesters shouting with our soul, our blood, we defend you,
Speaker 3: Prophet Mohammed.
Speaker 4: And so that led to a whole series of meetings
Speaker 4: and conversations about how to harden various facilities all around
Speaker 4: the globe and to really review like whether US personnel
Speaker 4: were safe. I mean, that was the real focus.
Speaker 1: Some of the demonstrations were peaceful, others turned violent. In Yemen,
Speaker 1: protesters breached the gates of the US embassy. In Tunisia,
Speaker 1: they set vehicles on fire. In Sudan, they climbed over
Speaker 1: the walls of the US embassy and raised a black
Speaker 1: Islamic flag.
Speaker 22: Wherever there is weak security for seeing some radicals take
Speaker 22: advantage of that and using this opportunity to attack the embassidy.
Speaker 4: In truth, like, we didn't really have time to immediately
Speaker 4: mourn and focus on the Benghazi attacks and do an
Speaker 4: after action report because we were so worried about whether
Speaker 4: there could be another Benghazi someplace else.
Speaker 7: We were worried.
Speaker 4: About personnel all over the world, diplomatic personnel, intelligence personnel,
Speaker 4: military personnel. It was a total rethinking of our security
Speaker 4: situation all over the globe.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the US intelligence community was trying to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of who was responsible for the attack in
Speaker 1: Benghazi and how they had managed to kill four people.
Speaker 4: Even with the entire intelligence capability of the United States government,
Speaker 4: you are still scrambling to figure out what happened in
Speaker 4: situations like this.
Speaker 1: From the start, a central question was how the Benghazi
Speaker 1: attack began. Did it grow spontaneously out of peaceful protests
Speaker 1: inspired by the video or was it a terrorist attack
Speaker 1: that had been planned separately. At stake was whether the
Speaker 1: tragedy had been preventable, whether someone in the US government
Speaker 1: had screwed up by not thwarting the attack or better
Speaker 1: preparing the compound to withstand it.
Speaker 4: That's just the nature of diplomacy. It's nature of like
Speaker 4: the fog of war like there was no way to
Speaker 4: quickly vet and get people on the ground to sort
Speaker 4: through the aftermath. Even with enormous intelligence capability, it still
Speaker 4: took hours and hours and hours to figure out what
Speaker 4: exactly happened.
Speaker 1: As investigators sought witnesses and made contact with Libyan authorities,
Speaker 1: President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton delivered public speeches
Speaker 1: and met with the victims' families. Obama also visited the
Speaker 1: State Department, where grief over losing two of their own
Speaker 1: was still just setting in A sitting American ambassador had
Speaker 1: not been killed in the line of duty since nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine.
Speaker 3: To you, their families and colleagues, to all Americans know this,
Speaker 3: their sacrifice will never be forgotten.
Speaker 1: On Friday afternoon, Obama and Clinton presided over a solemn
Speaker 1: ceremony as the victims' bodies were returned from Libya. Family
Speaker 1: members stood by for a military salute as servicemen loaded
Speaker 1: flag draped caskets into hearses. The event was carried live
Speaker 1: on National TV.
Speaker 2: We bring home for Americans who gave their lives for
Speaker 2: our country and our values to the families.
Speaker 1: The ceremony took place in the midst of a fevered
Speaker 1: rush in the media to get clarity on whether the
Speaker 1: attack and Benghazi had been pre planned or linked to
Speaker 1: a protest. Reporters initially had a hard time getting a
Speaker 1: definitive picture. The Washington Post cited a Libyan journalist who
Speaker 1: described the attackers as racing towards a protest. The New
Speaker 1: York Times seemed to back that up, citing a Libyan
Speaker 1: official who said the first part of the attack had
Speaker 1: evolved from protests, while the second on the CIA base
Speaker 1: had been coordinated. However, the same article also cited two
Speaker 1: Libyan guards who had been wounded in the attack, who
Speaker 1: said there had been no indication of a protest outside
Speaker 1: the compound before the shooting started. Separately, the President of
Speaker 1: Libya described the attack as highly organized.
Speaker 11: The President of Libya says that this was something that
Speaker 11: had been in.
Speaker 20: The works for two months.
Speaker 11: This attack, he blames it on al Qaeda.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of scrambling in the initial days.
Speaker 1: This is Pamela K. Brown in twenty twelve. She was
Speaker 1: an executive producer at Fox News. Before that, she had
Speaker 1: spent time building an international roodex at NBC, ABC and
Speaker 1: CBS News while reporting on conflicts like the First Gulf
Speaker 1: War and the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Speaker 2: I had good contexts I made in Saudi Arabia. I
Speaker 2: had friends in Egypt. I had friends in a UAE,
Speaker 2: and I say friends people that would take my phone
Speaker 2: call and do their very best to answer my question
Speaker 2: or help me in my quest.
Speaker 1: The evening after the attack in Benghazi, anchors at Fox
Speaker 1: News were running with a definitive claim that the attack
Speaker 1: was pre planned and likely linked to al Qaida. It
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with the innocence of Muslim's video.
Speaker 17: Fox News has obtained information that those killings were apparently planned,
Speaker 17: not a spontaneous demonstration.
Speaker 2: One thread that I developed from a source on the
Speaker 2: ground that there was no protest and the attacks were
Speaker 2: not spontaneous. The attack was planned and had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with the movie. I was confident, highly confident. That's
Speaker 2: something you just have to lock and load on when
Speaker 2: you really have it.
Speaker 15: There is growing consensus tonight among the intelligence community that
Speaker 15: the attack in Libya had little or nothing to do
Speaker 15: with Muslim protests against an anti Islamic film.
Speaker 1: In addition to Brown's source on the ground, top Republicans
Speaker 1: on the House Intelligence Committee were arguing that the weapons
Speaker 1: used in the attack were proof of premeditation. Specifically, they
Speaker 1: noted that the CIA facility in Benghazi had been hit
Speaker 1: with mortars, meaning the attackers would have needed exact coordinates
Speaker 1: for the building in order to target it.
Speaker 2: It was such an area that they knew the way
Speaker 2: the mortar rounds were coming in people we spoke to
Speaker 2: it showed that there had been pre planning.
Speaker 1: The FBI later theorized that the assailants may have gotten
Speaker 1: the coordinates needed to launch the mortars when they raided
Speaker 1: the Benghazi compound. In other words, the attack on the
Speaker 1: CIA base may have been planned, but planned in one night.
Speaker 1: In the days after the attack, there was a lot
Speaker 1: riding on this point for Republicans. If the attack in
Speaker 1: Benghazi was pre planned, it meant that the Obama administration
Speaker 1: was exactly as weak on terror as mitt Romney had
Speaker 1: been saying. The potential link to al Qaeda meant that
Speaker 1: Obama hadn't conquered the terrorist organization after all, and that
Speaker 1: while he was out running his victory lab over bin
Speaker 1: Laden's death, the group had managed to murder an American ambassador.
Speaker 1: On Thursday, September thirteenth, the intelligence community provided a classified
Speaker 1: briefing to the President and to Congress. Their assessment reiterated
Speaker 1: that the attack had begun spontaneously following the protests in Cairo,
Speaker 1: but that extremists with ties to al Qaida were involved.
Speaker 23: All right, good afternoon, ladies, and gentlemen, thanks for being here.
Speaker 1: At a press conference the next day, ABC's Jake Tapper
Speaker 1: pushed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney to square the
Speaker 1: idea of a spontaneous protest with emerging evidence about the
Speaker 1: weapons used in the attack.
Speaker 3: The group around, but the Benghazi post was well armed.
Speaker 3: It was a well coordinated attack.
Speaker 15: Do you think it was a spontaneous protest against a movie?
Speaker 23: Look, this is obviously under investigation. We do not at
Speaker 23: this moment have information to suggest or to tell you
Speaker 23: that would indicate that any of this unrest was prel
Speaker 23: What is true about?
Speaker 1: On the Sunday news shows that weekend, un Ambassador Susan
Speaker 1: Rice further amplified the government's official assessment by appearing on
Speaker 1: every major network CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, and Fox News.
Speaker 1: This was a feat known as the full Ginsburg, named
Speaker 1: after Monica Lewinski's lawyer, who's the first to ever do
Speaker 1: it in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3: Madam Ambassador, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 16: Good to be with you.
Speaker 14: Candy, Doctor Rice, thank you so much for coming here
Speaker 14: today and answering our question.
Speaker 1: Good to be with you in each interview. When the
Speaker 1: Bengazi attack came up, Rice crafted her answers based on
Speaker 1: the intelligence briefing submitted to the president three days earlier.
Speaker 24: What happened in Benghazi was in fact, initially a spontaneous
Speaker 24: reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo,
Speaker 24: almost a copycat of the demonstrat.
Speaker 1: Rice made it clear that the investigation was still underway
Speaker 1: and cautioned that there was a lot the administration didn't know.
Speaker 24: We'll wait to see exactly what the investigation finally confirms,
Speaker 24: but that's the best information we have at present.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long for more solid intelligence to come in.
Speaker 1: Within a week of Susan Rice's tour of the Sunday Shows,
Speaker 1: it was clear the Obama White House had been wrong
Speaker 1: to suggest the Benghazi attack grew out of a protest
Speaker 1: against the Innocence of Muslim's video. There had been no
Speaker 1: protest against the video in Benghazi. Security camera footage obtained
Speaker 1: by the CIA showed that the diplomatic compound was quiet
Speaker 1: that night, and to an organized group of armed assailants
Speaker 1: broke in.
Speaker 18: Intelligence officials acknowledged they originally got it wrong.
Speaker 1: On September nineteenth, a counter terrorism official from the Obama
Speaker 1: administration testified that the assault was in fact a coordinated
Speaker 1: terrorist attack.
Speaker 11: The intelligence community now believes it was a deliberate and
Speaker 11: organized attack. Some of those involved, it says, were linked
Speaker 11: to groups affiliated with or sympathetic to Al Qaida, to.
Speaker 1: The Romney campaign and their fellow Republicans. It looked like
Speaker 1: the administration was dramatically changing its story on Benghazi.
Speaker 21: Last week, the administration insisted the attack was a spontaneous
Speaker 21: reaction to a YouTube video, but today Secretary Clinton has
Speaker 21: said it was indeed terrorism.
Speaker 11: Mitt Romney said today it raises questions about how those
Speaker 11: first statements could be so wrong.
Speaker 6: There was a great deal of confusion about that from
Speaker 6: the very beginning on the part of the administration.
Speaker 19: Why should anybody have any credibility in what the administration
Speaker 19: says giving its shifting narrative.
Speaker 1: Tommy Vitor, Obama's National Security Council spokesman, acknowledges that the
Speaker 1: administration's narrative did shift, but all these years later, the
Speaker 1: notion that there was anything nefarious about it still exasperates him.
Speaker 4: It was a fucking mess, man, It was a fucking mess.
Speaker 4: It's really hard to figure out what's going on. You know,
Speaker 4: when something happens thousands of miles away in the dead
Speaker 4: of night, in complicated circumstances, you have to allow for
Speaker 4: shifting explanations. It takes time to figure out what happened.
Speaker 4: I promise you when I would walk into the situation
Speaker 4: room meetings, there was not some conversation about how do
Speaker 4: we spin this. The conversation was, Hey, intelligence guys, what
Speaker 4: do we know?
Speaker 1: The messy reality is that there was disagreement among intelligence
Speaker 1: officials as information about the Bengazi attack rolled in. At
Speaker 1: one point, the executive coordinator of the Presidential Daily brief
Speaker 1: had written that the presence of armed assailants on the
Speaker 1: ground suggested that this was an intentional assault and not
Speaker 1: an escalation of a peaceful protest, but that statement was
Speaker 1: removed from the initial briefing because other analysts didn't think
Speaker 1: there was enough evidence to support it.
Speaker 4: There was clearly a difference of opinion among various parts
Speaker 4: of the government about what happened, and so those dissenting
Speaker 4: views would start to leak out, which would cause reporting
Speaker 4: that was just off or confused or wrong.
Speaker 1: But Pamela Brown, the producer at Fox News, saw something
Speaker 1: suspicious in the Obama White House's insistence on bringing up
Speaker 1: the innocence of Muslims video. The fact that the administration
Speaker 1: had been so attached to the spontaneous uprising theory to
Speaker 1: Brown that they were trying to get away with something.
Speaker 2: It was a very big deal for them to pin
Speaker 2: all of this on the video. When somebody goes out
Speaker 2: and sticks to a story like that and it's just
Speaker 2: not true.
Speaker 1: This sense that Obama was hiding the truth pervaded Fox News.
Speaker 1: Soon the network was calling it a cover up.
Speaker 17: More on the Benghazi cover off, what's being called Benghazi Gate,
Speaker 17: probably more serious than Watergate.
Speaker 1: To what was your theory at the time of like
Speaker 1: why the Obama people wanted to blame it on the video?
Speaker 1: What was what was in it for them to blame
Speaker 1: it on the video?
Speaker 2: I have no idea. This is a larger question for
Speaker 2: someone in mess in foreign policy. So the question is
Speaker 2: why were we there, Why was this so important to
Speaker 2: have Ambassador Stevens in this position and temporary mission compound?
Speaker 2: And what was the hope That I cannot answer.
Speaker 1: Fox's primetime hosts were less circumspect. In the weeks after
Speaker 1: the attack, Sean Hannity was mapping out a vast conspiracy
Speaker 1: designed to cover up what really happened to Ambassador Stevens.
Speaker 17: It's clear to me that either they are totally stupid,
Speaker 17: or they have the worst intelligence, or that this is
Speaker 17: a political cover up of some kind because they didn't
Speaker 17: want to admit. What is hobbyist to everybody that on
Speaker 17: the anniversary of nine to eleven they should have had
Speaker 17: some protection for our embassies, and they didn't.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. As Pamela Brown reported the Benghazi story,
Speaker 1: she filed several freedom of information requests with the State
Speaker 1: Department to see if there was anything that didn't match
Speaker 1: up to the official narrative. For instance, the administration had
Speaker 1: said that there was no indication to the attack in
Speaker 1: Benghazi that the diplomatic compound was under imminent threat, but
Speaker 1: Brown's Foyer requests turned up State Department cables indicating that
Speaker 1: some alarms had been sounded in the weeks leading up
Speaker 1: to the attack.
Speaker 2: We got the classified cable which said that the compound
Speaker 2: could not withstand a coordinating attack. That was chilling.
Speaker 1: That cable was sent in August of twenty twelve, and
Speaker 1: it indicated that the State Department knew that there were
Speaker 1: Al Qaeda cells in Benghazi. The message was approved by
Speaker 1: Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Speaker 9: I really believe, having read it, that it is this
Speaker 9: smoking gun warning.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: You've got this now. It's worth saying that the cable
Speaker 1: Brown received in response to her Foyer request did not
Speaker 1: say an attack in Benghazi was imminent, but it did
Speaker 1: suggest that if one did occur, the compound would be
Speaker 1: vulnerable in any event. Brown and her colleagues at Fox
Speaker 1: News thought the cable spoke pretty loudly. Catherine Herridge, the
Speaker 1: reporter Brown worked with most closely on Benghazi coverage, characterized
Speaker 1: it on the air as proof if the Obama administration
Speaker 1: should have done more and was now knowingly trying to
Speaker 1: deflect blame.
Speaker 9: I can't think of anything that would be more specific
Speaker 9: than if these groups had emailed the Stage Department and
Speaker 9: said here's the time, here's the place, and here's the
Speaker 9: method of the attack that.
Speaker 1: Fall, Fox News continued to put out stories about the
Speaker 1: attack that sounded extremely damning. For instance, they reported that
Speaker 1: the administration knew within twenty four hours of the attack
Speaker 1: that groups associated with al Qaida were involved. They also
Speaker 1: ran segments suggesting that the president could have stopped the
Speaker 1: attack but chose not to.
Speaker 18: Lawmakers demanded to know how lack security may have been
Speaker 18: and whether warning signs were simply ignored.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Congress questioned State Department personnel who confirmed that a
Speaker 1: request for more security in Benghazi had been denied.
Speaker 2: So there wasn't sufficient resources provided.
Speaker 7: That was one of the main reasons I continued to
Speaker 7: ask for those resources.
Speaker 1: Yes, those statements prompted Republican lawmakers to hit Fox's airway
Speaker 1: and call for more investigations.
Speaker 2: This is why we need an independent council, and we
Speaker 2: need the investigations to began immediately.
Speaker 1: These questions about what the Obama White House knew and
Speaker 1: when they knew it dovetailed perfectly with the administration's evolving
Speaker 1: account of how the attack had started, and when the
Speaker 1: intelligence community's assessment was revised to reflect the fact that
Speaker 1: there had been no protest in Benghazi, it looked like
Speaker 1: even more evidence that the administration was hiding behind the
Speaker 1: Innocence of Muslims video.
Speaker 6: There was Jay Carney, There were several Obama officials going
Speaker 6: out saying it was a response to the movie, is
Speaker 6: this is this a cover up?
Speaker 20: Well, they lie, I mean, there's no question about it.
Speaker 22: And by the way, if the Republicans did that, it
Speaker 22: be hell to pay.
Speaker 12: Everybody would.
Speaker 1: About a month before the twenty twelve election, the Romney
Speaker 1: campaigns saw a change of fortune in their pull numbers.
Speaker 1: This was in part due to Romney's stellar performance in
Speaker 1: the first presidential debate.
Speaker 6: Under the president's policies, middle income Americans had been buried.
Speaker 6: They're just been crushed.
Speaker 3: Now that may not seem like a big deal when
Speaker 3: it just is numbers on a sheet of paper, but
Speaker 3: if we're talking about.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say exactly what role the ben Ghazi
Speaker 1: controversy played in Romney's surge, but ongoing questions over the
Speaker 1: administration's handling of the attack had seemingly validated the Romney
Speaker 1: campaigns aggressive posture from the night of It wasn't just
Speaker 1: Breitbart in Fox News either. Even the mainstream media didn't
Speaker 1: seem to completely trust Obama.
Speaker 18: Patients is starting to wear sin with shifting explanations from
Speaker 18: the administration.
Speaker 13: The president also facing a lot of questions about the
Speaker 13: death of American Ambassador Stevens.
Speaker 11: But getting answers to exactly what did happen has not
Speaker 11: been easy.
Speaker 1: Lonhi Chen saw victory in sight.
Speaker 7: There definitely was a point where it turned. We saw
Speaker 7: an appreciable shift in public opinion in our own internal
Speaker 7: pulling in all of the key states, and Romney was
Speaker 7: very competitive, if not ahead, in all the states he
Speaker 7: needed to to be ahead in at least according to
Speaker 7: our polling, and by the way, a number of public
Speaker 7: polls as well, that he was really closing in on
Speaker 7: the possibility of winning the presidency.
Speaker 1: A new poll shows Governor Romney surging and closing the gap,
Speaker 1: especially in some key swing states.
Speaker 15: I think the race is very close.
Speaker 4: I think the wind is that Governor Romney's back, and
Speaker 4: they're clearly a momentum.
Speaker 3: You can see it on the trail, you can see
Speaker 3: it in the data.
Speaker 24: But I believe in minimum is clearly.
Speaker 1: The second presidential debate was set for October sixteenth. The
Speaker 1: first one had been focused on domestic policy, so ben
Speaker 1: Ghazi had not come up. This time it was bound to.
Speaker 7: We were in the driver's seat, so in some ways
Speaker 7: the second debate took on additional importance in our minds
Speaker 7: because we felt that it was important to continue momentum,
Speaker 7: but also to open up some lines of attack, potentially
Speaker 7: on Obama areas where we felt he could be weak.
Speaker 1: But Romney was squeamish about continuing to beat the ben
Speaker 1: Ghazi drum. It was an issue that the Republican base
Speaker 1: cared about, but one that swing voters who could decide
Speaker 1: the election didn't want to dwell on.
Speaker 7: We knew it was a topic that had to be
Speaker 7: delicately navigated and traversed because of the initial reaction and
Speaker 7: because of how hot the event had become.
Speaker 1: As Romney took the stage, he looked cautious but confident.
Speaker 16: This is Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. This site
Speaker 16: of tonight's debate, This second.
Speaker 1: Go the Benghazi attack came up about halfway through the debate.
Speaker 1: The President addressed the question with a pointed jab at
Speaker 1: his opponent, emphasizing that the attack was still going on
Speaker 1: when the Romney campaign put out its statement, while.
Speaker 3: We were still dealing with our diplomats being threatened. Governor
Speaker 3: Romney put out a press release trying to make political points,
Speaker 3: and that's not how a commander in chief operates.
Speaker 1: Romney responded with an argument that had been made repeatedly
Speaker 1: on Fox News that it had taken the administration two
Speaker 1: whole weeks to call the storming of the compound in
Speaker 1: Benghazi a terrorist attack.
Speaker 6: There were many days that passed before we knew whether
Speaker 6: this was a spontaneous demonstration or actually whether it was
Speaker 6: a terrorist attack. And there was no demonstration involved. It
Speaker 6: was a terrorist attack, and it took a long time
Speaker 6: for that to be told to the American people.
Speaker 1: Romney's implication was that the administration had tried to hide
Speaker 1: the fact that, on Obama's watch, America had suffered a
Speaker 1: deadly blow in the war on terror. Obama was ready
Speaker 1: with a response.
Speaker 3: The day after the attack, Governor I stood in the
Speaker 3: Rose Garden and I told the American people in the
Speaker 3: world that we are going to find out exactly what happened,
Speaker 3: that this was an act of terror. And I also
Speaker 3: said that we're going to hunt down bows who committed
Speaker 3: this crime.
Speaker 6: I think it's interesting the President just said something, which
Speaker 6: is that on the day after the attack, he went
Speaker 6: to the Rose Garden and said that this was an
Speaker 6: active terror. I want to make sure we get that
Speaker 6: for the record, because it took the president fourteen days
Speaker 6: before he called the attack in Benghazi an active terror.
Speaker 3: Get the transfer he.
Speaker 2: Did, in fact, sir, so let me call it an act.
Speaker 1: He did call it an active terror.
Speaker 21: It did as well.
Speaker 1: Romney fumbled for words.
Speaker 6: The administration indicated that this was a reaction to a video.
Speaker 6: Am I incorrect in that regard.
Speaker 1: Lannie Chen was watching the debate from the green room.
Speaker 7: I do recall at the time thinking he's going to
Speaker 7: want to know after the debate, what did Obama say
Speaker 7: and was I right or wrong? I knew he was
Speaker 7: going to ask me that right afterwards, because it was
Speaker 7: one of those things that was like a factual question, right.
Speaker 7: It wasn't like, hey, what do you think I did?
Speaker 7: It was like, tell me what he said.
Speaker 1: Chen called back to Romney headquarters to make sure he
Speaker 1: knew the exact words the President had used in the
Speaker 1: Rose Garden the day after the attack, and he braced
Speaker 1: himself for Romney to step off the debate stage.
Speaker 7: After the debate, he comes off the stage, he comes
Speaker 7: into the green room, he makes a bee line for me,
Speaker 7: and he says, you know, was I Was it accurate?
Speaker 7: And I told him it was that that I thought
Speaker 7: he had not misrepresented what had happened.
Speaker 1: The truth was, it had taken Obama about two weeks
Speaker 1: to characterize the Bengazi attack as more than just a
Speaker 1: mob action, But it was also true. On the morning
Speaker 1: of September twelfth, the President had stood in the Rose
Speaker 1: Garden and said.
Speaker 3: No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of
Speaker 3: this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light
Speaker 3: of the values that we stand for.
Speaker 1: Chen says he still thinks active terror and terrorism are different.
Speaker 7: There was a distinction between terror and terrorism. That in
Speaker 7: fact Obama had not called it terrorism. He taught that
Speaker 7: he called it an act of terror, but not an
Speaker 7: act of terrorism or terrorism. That was the distinction.
Speaker 3: Why is that?
Speaker 1: Why was that a meaningful distinction?
Speaker 7: We felt it took on a different tone when you
Speaker 7: were willing to call it terrorism versus an act of terror.
Speaker 7: An act of terror in some ways, almost disassociates it
Speaker 7: a little bit from the emotion of it being a
Speaker 7: terrorist attack, a terrorist attack, an active terrorism versus an
Speaker 7: act of terror, which we thought it was Obama's effort
Speaker 7: to disassociate it from the severity or the degree to
Speaker 7: which it was an attack on the United States.
Speaker 1: More than a month had passed since four Americans died
Speaker 1: in Benghazi. The administration and Congress had begun investigations to
Speaker 1: understand how and why it happened, But the debate between
Speaker 1: the sitting president and the man who wanted to replace him,
Speaker 1: it just came down to semantics. By now you can
Speaker 1: tell there were multiple threads to the Benghazi story that
Speaker 1: wound together to form the outline of a scandal. Whether
Speaker 1: the attack was pre planned or spontaneous, whether there had
Speaker 1: been a protest, in Benghazi, over the innocence of Muslims
Speaker 1: video or not, why the compound out in Benghazi had
Speaker 1: not been better protected, whether the Obama administration initially downplayed
Speaker 1: the terrorism angle for political purposes. Each of these threads
Speaker 1: became fodder for debate and speculation. Together, they created an
Speaker 1: air of intrigue. Soon the attack in Benghazi became simply Benghazi,
Speaker 1: All right, let's.
Speaker 3: Turn to Benghazi, misleading America on ben Gaza, all.
Speaker 9: Of the emails relating to Benghazi.
Speaker 1: Benghazi was a place most Americans had never heard of
Speaker 1: before Ambassador Stevens and his colleagues died there, but within
Speaker 1: weeks the word alone was enough to conjure any number
Speaker 1: of questions and theories. On the night of the attack,
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney looked uncouth and opportunistic for trying to score
Speaker 1: political points over Stevens's death. By the time the election ended,
Speaker 1: those days were long gone, and Benghazi had become a
Speaker 1: political event first and foremost.
Speaker 13: Fox News Election Alert. Fox News can now project that
Speaker 13: President Obama will win the state of Pennsylvania and its
Speaker 13: twenty electoral votes.
Speaker 1: As election results rolled in on the night of November sixth,
Speaker 1: the Romney team was stunned their internal polling had been
Speaker 1: showing Romney with a lead, instead.
Speaker 16: Seeing a projectsment. Barack Obama will be re elected President
Speaker 16: of the United States. He will remain in the White House.
Speaker 16: They're excited in Chicago, they're excited at Times.
Speaker 1: Square on Fox News. It took some time for reality
Speaker 1: to set in.
Speaker 14: Yes, I think this is prettymature.
Speaker 13: We got seventy We got a quarter of the vote.
Speaker 12: Now, remember, here's.
Speaker 1: One of their analysts. Former Bush strategist Carl Rove objected
Speaker 1: to the call, prompting anchor Megan Kelly to question the
Speaker 1: statisticians in the election unit live on TV.
Speaker 21: Now here are the guys. This is the decision desk.
Speaker 21: You tell me whether you stand by your call in Ohio.
Speaker 21: Given the doubts, Karl Rove just race.
Speaker 3: We're actually quite comfortable with the call in Ohio. Basically
Speaker 3: right now, there's just too much Obama vote that's outstanding
Speaker 3: there that we.
Speaker 1: But Benghazi was not going away. Now that Obama had
Speaker 1: secured his second term, all eyes turned to Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: whose intention to run for president in twenty sixteen was
Speaker 1: considered a foregone conclusion. As Secretary of State, Clinton had
Speaker 1: appointed an independent review Board to investigate the State Department's
Speaker 1: failure to protect the compound and the ambassador. Meanwhile, congressional
Speaker 1: oversight committees were continuing to ask their own questions.
Speaker 18: The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Benghazi kicks off at
Speaker 18: the top of the hour.
Speaker 8: Focusing on what happened before, during, and after the attack.
Speaker 1: In December, Clinton was set to testify a by Benghazi
Speaker 1: before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but her testimony was
Speaker 1: delayed after she fainted and sustained a concussion.
Speaker 5: She became dehydrated, fainted, apparently hit her head, and had
Speaker 5: that concussion. She did not go to the hospital. Doctors
Speaker 5: are said to be monitoring her. But this means that
Speaker 5: she will not testify this week about the attack on
Speaker 5: the mission in Benghazi and the killing of Hearth.
Speaker 1: The Fox News something was up.
Speaker 16: This is a duck and cover.
Speaker 20: Let's be honest, and the cleansings are great at this.
Speaker 1: Apparently she's suffering from a cute be Ghazi allergy.
Speaker 13: We can't verify this because she's barricaded in her Rock
Speaker 13: Creek Park mansion here in Washington.
Speaker 1: He doesn' want to answer the question.
Speaker 10: I bet that we might never hear her testimony on.
Speaker 1: This On the next episode of Fiasco, Benghazi gets a whistleblower.
Speaker 4: I remember his words so clearly.
Speaker 19: He said, the government is lying to what they're saying.
Speaker 2: Happened, did not happen.
Speaker 1: For a list of books, articles, and documentaries we used
Speaker 1: in our research, follow the link in our show notes.
Speaker 1: Fiasco is a production of Prologue Projects, and it's distributed
Speaker 1: by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced by Andrew Parsons,
Speaker 1: Ulla Kulpa, Sam Lee and me Leon Mayfock, with editorial
Speaker 1: support from Sam Graham Felsen and Madeline Kaplan. Our researcher
Speaker 1: was Frances Carr. Our score was composed by Dan English,
Speaker 1: Joe Valley and Noah Hecht. Additional music by Nick Sylvester,
Speaker 1: Joel Saint, Julian Billy Libby and Little Cheddar Studios. Our
Speaker 1: theme song is by Spatial Relations audio mixed by Rob Buyers,
Speaker 1: Michael Raphael and Johnny Vince Evans. Our artwork is by
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