Washington (CNN)There are good dogs — and then there are hero dogs who chase down the world’s top terrorist to his fatal demise.
President Donald Trump said that a dog, part of the US operation that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend, was injured while chasing Baghdadi down a dead-end tunnel.
Trump declassified a photo of the dog on Monday afternoon, tweeting, “We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!”
The dog is believed to have been sent down the tunnel after it was feared that Baghdadi was wearing a suicide vest. Baghdadi was indeed wearing a suicide vest and detonated it in the tunnel, killing himself and three children.
The President said that the tunnel collapsed during the explosion. He also appeared to refer to more than one dog on the scene of the chase, saying Sunday morning that Baghdadi “reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down.”
The dog, part of the Army Delta force, which executed the raid, was believed to have been injured from an electrocution and is recovering, a US defense official said.
The President called the dog “beautiful” and “talented,” but so far its name and handler remain a mystery. Additionally, a description of the breed has not been released.
“It’s a Delta operation, we can’t tell you the name of the dog,” one defense official told CNN.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley also declined to name the K-9, saying that the dog is still “in theater” and returned to duty with its handler “so we are not going to release just yet photos or names of dogs or anything else.”
“We’re not releasing the name of the dog right now. The dog is still in theater. The dog, the K-9, the military working dog, performed a tremendous service as they all do in a variety of situations,” he said at a Pentagon news conference Monday.
The US military typically relies on German shepherds and Belgian Malinois.
This isn’t the first time American armed forces have relied on a dog for backup in operations targeting terrorists. In 2011, a dog named Cairo took part in the raid that led to Osama bin Laden’s death. Cairo secured the area around the bin Laden compound while Navy SEALs went in.
CNN’s Barbara Starr and Jamie Crawford contributed to this report.
This combination photo shows MSNBC television anchor Rachel Maddow, host of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” moderating a panel at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass. on Oct. 16, 2017 , left, and Sean Hannity of Fox News at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md. on March 4, …AP Photo
While Fox News grew its audience last week, CNN and MSNBC saw their audience flee by double digits.
Compared to this same week last year, the Fox News primetime audience grew by four percent, while MSNBC lost 15 percent of its audience, and the far-left CNN collapsed by a whopping 21 percent.
In total day viewers, Fox News grew by one percent, while MSNBC lost 15 percent of its viewers and CNNLOL lost a quarter of its viewers — a quarter! — a full 25 percent.
Here is the primetime total viewers breakdown for the week of July 15…
FOX: 2.55 million
MSNBC: 1.66 million
CNNLOL: 873,000
Fox News is not only attracting more primetime viewers than MSNBC and CNNLOL combined, even though Fox is already number one and appears to have no place to go but down, but is still growing its audience.
Meanwhile, CNNLOL, which has nowhere to go but up, still manages to go down. This fake news outlet is determined to prove there is a viewer number lower than zero.
CNNLOL, which has been in far-last place for years and has still lost viewers for years, is a five-alarm disaster, an unreliable conspiracy theory outlet that takes enormous pride in sinking its own ship — you know, if that’s what it takes to continue to deceive the public and encourage political violence.
Sidney Lumet’s classic movie Network (1976) revolves around a last-place network that brushes aside things like ethics, truth, morality, and decency as a means to increase its audience. No one could have ever imagined a news outlet like CNNLOL would someday come along and do the same even as its ratings hit all new lows week after week after week…
I’m starting to believe CNN chief Jeff Zucker is a brilliant right-wing plant hired by the late Roger Ailes to destroy CNNLOL in the most humiliating and permanent way imaginable.
As far as MSNBC, that network’s fall can be solely attributed to one thing: the debunking of the media’s Russia Collusion Hoax, which MSNBC, and most especially Russia Hoax Queen Rachel Maddow, went all-in on.
Once the Mueller Report proved there was no collusion and no obstruction, a whole lot of leftists felt betrayed and demoralized by a network that promised and promised and promised that Drumpf’s impeachment and arrest were right around the corner.
Here is the total day total viewers breakdown…
FOX: 1.385 million
MSNBC: 921,000
CNNLOL: 575,000
In primetime and in total day and in all of cable TV, Fox and MSNBC rank number one and two, respectively.
CNNLOL, however, was 11th in primetime and 7th in total day.
Things are so bad at CNN that a Discovery Channel spin-off network, Investigative Discovery, is attracting more primetime viewers.
In the all-important 25-54 age demo that sets advertising rates, everyone was down, but once again, MSNBC and CNNLOL were way, way down.
During primetime, Fox News slipped 11 percent, but MSNBC is down 33 percent, while CNN bottomed out with a 38 percent drop.
In total day, Fox again slipped just 11 percent, while MSNBC lot 37 percent of demo viewers and CNNLOL lost an incredible 42 percent.
Poor MSNBC… For a while, the openly left-wing outlet (that’s a compliment) was right on the heels of Fox News. Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity were slugging it out for first place. But MSNBC, and Maddow, most especially, went way too far in gambling for a Big Win with the Mueller Report (which proved there was no collusion or obstruction).
Now MSNBC is a distant second place to Fox and Maddow is fighting for fourth place behind Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham.
The ratings collapse at CNN and MSNBC at least proves one thing: even Trump-hating leftists hate to be lied to and deceived.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor Colton Haab appeared on FOX News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight to talk about his saga with CNN and how they “scripted” a question for him to use at Wednesday night’s town hall event hosted by the network and moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Haab, a JROTC member who helped shepherd students to safety, was approached by the network to ask a question at the town hall. Haab showed CNN what he wanted to say but said Carrie Stevenson, an executive producer at CNN, ultimately rejected it and instead after several conversations “scripted” a question for him.
“CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions and it ended up being all scripted,” Haab said to a local news outlet Wednesday night.
“Before we get into anything. I just want to make sure that everybody hasn’t forgotten why we are actually here tonight. I mean, we lost 17 lives last week. I actually physically put two to rest. To me, that was the hardest thing in the world to endure. Nobody should have to go through this. As long as we are taking the right steps to move forward from this and make sure this doesn’t happen again, I’m all for that,” Haab said on the Thursday broadcast of FOX News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.
“We certainly haven’t forgotten. Thank you for reminding us yet again. And we think that the only way to make the country better and maybe put a dent in this scourge is to have a rational, thoughtful conversation about what to do next. And with that in mind, you were planning to go to this event last night and tell me if I am mischaracterizing any of this and you said at the request of a CNN producer you sent in a number of questions, — statements, questions you wanted to ask of the politicians on the stage and they rewrote one of your questions? Is that right?” Carlson asked.
Haab told Carlson he wanted to go “speak [his] part” and “open eyes” to a few things he thought could make the situation better. Haab said the network was dishonest and that is why he decided not to attend. He also said he was directed to “stick to the script.”
“She had actually said that over the phone that I needed to stick to the script,” Haab said of the CNN producer.
Haab said he believed all the questions asked at the town hall were scripted. Haab explained in detail what happened between him and the cable news network and what he thought of the town hall.
COLTON HAAB: So what had happened was four days ago I had gotten contacted by a lady named [State of the Union executive producer] Carrie Stevenson from CNN. She had asked me originally to just write a speech. It was going to be at the town hall at the BB&T Center [in Sunrise, Florida]. So I agreed. I felt like it would be the right thing to do. Be able to go speak my part as well as open eyes to a few things that I thought that can make this situation a little better. From there, three days ago, so the next day after that I had gotten an email back from her and she asked for more of questions rather than a speech. Which I was totally fine with so I wrote a little less of a speech and more of questions that I wanted to ask at the town hall. The day after that it was more of just questions. She asked for just questions that I would like to ask.
So, I gave her my questions and then yesterday, at about 5:15, I made contact with her. And she had asked if I had just asked her one question. So what they had actually done was wrote out a question for me because in my interview with CNN, I had talked about arming the teachers, if they were willing to arm themselves in the school to carry on campus. And they had — she had taken that of what I had briefed on and actually wrote that question out for me. So I have that question here if you would like me to ask it for you.
“I just want to make sure I have this straight. So you sent them a long, in effect essay on what you thought but they put their own words in the question and they weren’t the same as the words you had sent in? They were the producer’s words?” Carlson asked.
“Absolutely,” Haab answered. “They had taken what I had wrote and what I had briefed on and talked about and they actually wrote the question for me.”
“But not with your — they put their own words into their question, even after they asked to you send in questions,” Carlson responded.
“Absolutely,” Haab said.
“But that seems dishonest,” Carlson reacted.
“It definitely did,” Haab agreed. “That’s kind of why I didn’t go last night. Originally I had thought that it was going to be more of my own question and my own say and then it turned out to be more of just a script. And she had actually said that over the phone that I needed to stick to the script.”
Haab said watched some of the CNN town hall but turned it off because he “knew” it was going to be “scripted.”
“I watched a little bit of it. I kind of felt like I didn’t really need to because I knew as soon as what had happened with me that it was going to be more scripted and wasn’t actually going to be actual questions. Then I didn’t feel the need to fully watch it,” he told Carlson.
“So if CNN was willing to re-word your question, put their own words in your mouth, and as you said you didn’t want to go along with that, do you think they did that to other people last night?” Carlson asked.
“Absolutely, from what I did see, I seen a couple people that had asked questions before I did leave my house. And it was a little piece of paper cut out. And I know for a fact that nobody cut their own paper out and wrote their own question. Especially when they were all based off the same topic. So, to me, it from right there it showed this isn’t correct. Why do they all have the same size piece of paper with a short little question on it? So, to me it was a total waste of my time, honestly,” Haab said.
“You’re not just some person off the street,” Carlson said. “You’re a survivor of this shooting and the point was the listen to you — to the survivors of the shooting.”
“Were you surprised by the way they behaved?” Carlson asked about CNN.
“I mean, honestly, it was very shocking to me because we just went through such a horrific tragedy. For them to take that and now make such a big newscast over what they want to hear, it was very upsetting to me,” Haab answered.
“It’s shocking to us too, trust me, in the actual journalism business,” Carlson responded.
The email documentation beteween Haab and CNN is here:
CNN denied Haab’s accusation that they gave him a scripted question. According to a CNN insider Haab wanted to give an extensive speech and not just ask a question, something the network said the forum was not designed for. When the family was told this they decided to pull out of the event. The CNNer also noted the subject Haab wanted to address, arming teachers, was discussed at length in the 2-hour long town hall.
Here is CNN’s official statement:
There is absolutely no truth to this. CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night’s town hall, nor have we ever. After seeing an interview with Colton Haab, we invited him to participate in our town hall along with other students and administrators from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Colton’s father withdrew his name from participation before the forum began, which we regretted but respected. We welcome Colton to join us on CNN today to discuss his views on school safety.
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