Trump Returns To WH After Paying Respects To Navy SEAL; Trump Attends Return Of Navy SEAL's Remains; Trump Visits Air Base To Honor Fallen Navy SEAL; Spicer On Deadly Yemen Raid:  Not A 100 Percent Success
BURNETT: Breaking news. President Trump honoring fallen hero tonight. These are new pictures right now just coming in of the president returning to the White House with his daughter Ivanka. He made an unannounced visit to Dover Air Force Base early this evening to pay his respect. The Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens, Owens was a decorated Navy SEAL, he was killed during a deadly counterterror raid in Yemen this weekend. This operation was the first mission approve by president Trump. Jim Acosta is OutFront with more.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A solemn day for the new commander-in chief-making his first trip to as president to Dover, Delaware, to meet with the family of Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens who was killed in Yemen during the weekend raid targeting Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula. President Trump called Owen's family Tuesday, the White House said, to recognize his sacrifice and years of dedicated service to his country.</s>SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He went back, deployed 12 times because he loved his country and he believed in the mission. And knowing that we killed an estimated 14 AQAP members and that we gathered an unbelievable amount of intelligence that will prevent the potential deaths or attacks on American soil is something that I think most service members understand that that's why they join the service.</s>ACOSTA: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer appear to clarify a White House statement on the raid issue Sunday, said in a successful raid against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula headquarters brave U.S. forces were instrumental in killing an estimated 14 AQWP members and capturing important intelligence. Today Spicer sought to qualify the definition of success.</s>SPICER: It's hard to ever say something was successful when you lose a life. You never want to call something a success 100 percent when someone is hurt or killed.</s>ACOSTA: It was the first covert operation under President Trump. CNN has learned planning for the operation began months ago during the Obama administration. But for operational reasons, including the schedule of moonless nights needed to obscure the approaching missions, it could not be done before Obama left office. According to a diplomatic source familiar with the operation, President Trump authorized the mission fairly quickly.</s>MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: In order for an operation like this to be planned as thoroughly as you need to plan it. You often create a cell of contrarians who are poking holes in every one of your steps along the way.</s>ACOSTA: But the team ran in trouble almost immediately with drones overhead the whole time, navy SEALs working together with UAE Special Ops approached the sight with the special ops team was spotted and a fire fight ensued. The terrorists which included female fighters took cover in a nearby building. An air strike was called in against the building. Yemeni officials say 13 civilians were killed in the raid including eight-year-old Nora al-Awlaki. Her father was Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born cleric who directed attacks against the U.S. and was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. Three U.S. service members were wounded and navy SEAL Owens was killed. Ospreys were launched from the U.S. as make and to retreat the wounded. One of the osprey made a hard landing due to technical problems. The aircraft was deliberately destroyed by the U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis left a gala dinner in Washington Saturday evening to address the mission that was fraught with risks.</s>MARKS: Those kinds of things will happen in operations like this. So there is a clearly a risk assessment. You mitigate the risk as best as you can. There will often be casualties. That's just the nature of this business.</s>ACOSTA: Still, administration officials stress U.S. commanders were able to gather computer hard drives and other reams of intelligence that may provide crucial details on terrorist operations. And the White House kept this visit under wraps in private for much of the day at the request of Ryan Owen's family and out respect to the family's wishes, there were no pictures of that dignified transfer of remains at Dover earlier today. And Erin, and just the last few minutes, President Trump did comment on his visit to Dover. He called it very sad and very beautiful during the swearing in ceremony for his new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Erin.</s>BURNETT: Thank you very much, Jim Acosta. And as Jim said, the president has just arrived back at the White House from his visit to Dover Air Force Base with the Owens family. You see him there getting off Marine One. And as Jim said, he said it was a very sad, very beautiful visit with Mr. Owens' family. OutFront now, John McGuire, former Navy SEAL retired U.S. Army Major General Spider Marks, you just heard from and Alex Berenson, former New York Times Reporter, best-selling author. His latest book, The Prisoner just hit bookshelves this week, yesterday in, fact. Let me just start with you, Alex. President trump said the raid was a success. Of course, he is getting a lot of criticism for using that word because an American Commander, navy SEAL lost his life lives and there were civilians who lost their lives as well. Is the criticism warranted?</s>ALEX BERENSON, FORMER NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER: I don't think we know what they got. It certainly seems tactically they ran into some serious problems they weren't expecting. And one of the things we were talking about just a minute ago was why they went in with ospreys which are loud rather than, you know, the special forces have silence Blackhawks. I don't know it was a tactical decision because of distance. You know, they aren't in the middle of the desert. But they clearly ran into some issues they weren't expecting.</s>BURNETT: And their approach obviously would have been heard using the much louder aircraft. General Marks?</s>MARKS: Yes. I was going to say, I'm not going to second-guess any decision that was made by a combatant commander or the commander on the ground who's got the responsibility to execute this mission as to what type of aircraft or what type of personal protection the detailed planning for every one of the missions is exhaustive and they go through scenarios upon scenarios to ensure they get it right. And guess what, war has costs. And things will go wrong.</s>BURNETT: So,John, one of the things when Alex said it depends, you know, we don't know what they got was I think how you put it exactly. John, we know the U.S. Special Forces were searching for intelligence specifically. Obviously this is the second major raid in Yemen in more than two years putting U.S. lives on the line, right? It's not something they're doing every night. They go in, they have something very specific, something significant. Do you have any sense of what intelligence we could be talking about?</s>JOHN MCGUIRE, NAVY SEAL(RET.): Well, first, my heart goes out to the family of fallen and the wounded. I'll tell you, Ryan was a fearless warrior who did everything for his brothers. He puts his brothers first. But the intelligence could be in any locations and any movements, anything can help us get an edge on the war on terror.</s>BURNETT: And Alex, what you are learning in your reporting as to why, you know, we do know they were planning for this for a long time. They were waiting for a moonless night. But of course, something happened they did not expect. There is no question about that.</s>BERENSON: Well, they're not going to have strategic surprise. These people know that we want them.</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>BERENSON: And they know that we're targeting them. So the best thing, you know, for is some kind of a tactical surprise. And why they didn't have that, I suspect there is a lot of smart people asking that question right now. In Tampa, you know, in the -- in the Pentagon.</s>BURNETT: And trying to understand. General Marks, I mean, here's one of the things we know. We know at least 40 people were killed, 14 of them at least were Al-Qaeda fighters, at least 13 of them were civilians, six of those children, seven of them women and, of course, the navy SEAL. We know they spent weeks doing this. Planning this raid. How could all these civilians though have ended up in the line of fire?</s>MARKS: Well, you know, Erin, that's what will be uncovered over the course of the next couple of days through a very, very thorough after- action review on every aspect of this operation from planning execution, withdrawal, you know, actions on the objective, et cetera. The thing that's important to realize is decisions -- the decision point for execution has a certain time line associated it with it based on how fast it takes to get to the objective, how much time do you have on the objective, what are you trying achieve? And then how do you expel away from that? And while you're en route, intelligence is being updated. You have these amazing intelligence capabilities. So that the men and women that are about to execute this operation of getting the very latest so they get a better sense so that they hopefully can overpower the objective, be as deadly and as accurate and precise as they can be. How civilians in the collateral damage assessment always goes to what is on the objective that we don't want in the object. Those assessments take place. So clearly, the arrival of civilians on the objective was identified once they got in contact because I can tell you, if they had known that in advance that, would have been an abort mission. They would have tried to clear that away at some point.</s>BURNETT: John, let me give you a chance to make that clear. If they had known that in advance, right? They would not have gone ahead with this mission. You know, forget whether these were the children of Al- Qaeda or whatever. They were children.</s>MCGUIRE: Well, just like the general said, there is so much detail planning contingencies that goes into these type of missions. And that's because thing do go wrong. And good intelligence saves lives is not going to fall in our lap. So we need to risk our lives to go in and protect our country. But had we had Intel like this we probably would have aborted.</s>BURNETT: Does this chase him, Donald Trump? This is his first mission of route.</s>BERENSON: No, no, absolutely not. As we can see, Donald Trump has his opinions and he does not change them in response to a sing le attack going wrong. I don't think this chases him at all. And I -- so, in my books, it's easy. But in the real world, it's hard.</s>BURNETT: And, of course, you do you write about a lot of these things happening as you reported on them over the years. Thank you so much all three of you. And next, go nuclear. That's what Trump is telling republicans to do about his Supreme Court pick. We're live on Capitol Hill tonight. Plus, fashion forward or Fashion Faux Pas. Jon Stewart sounds off on Trump's presidential style.</s>JON STEWART, THE DAILY SHOW HOST: The president sets men's fashion and this is -- I saw the inauguration. Super long tie. Dead animal on head, boom.