[Fredricka Whitfield, Cnn:] Hello again, everyone, thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. We continue to follow this breaking news today. President Trump is confirming the death of Hamza bin Laden in a U.S. military operation. He is the son of Osama bin Laden and was seen as an emerging leader of the terror group Al Qaeda. The president releasing a statement today that said bin Laden had been killed in a United States counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. CNN has team coverage on this breaking story. Let's begin with Sarah Westwood at the White House. So Sarah, what more are you learning about this development?
[Sarah Westwood, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Well Fred, this is significant because the White House is confirming for the first time that Hamza bin Laden is dead and acknowledging the U.S. played a role in that. It was a counterterrorism operation according to the White House that took place in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. But this does not appear to be necessarily a new or recent development. CNN reported on July 31 that the administration had intelligence that led officials to believe that Hamza bin Laden had been killed and just a couple of weeks ago in late August, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said during an appearance on Fox News, he said a comment that appeared to confirm that Hamza bin Laden had been killed. But I want to read you part of the statement the White House released this morning that seems to explain what the White House viewed as Hamza's view in Al Qaeda. The loss of Hamza bin Laden not only deprives Al Qaeda of important leadership skills and the symbolic connection to this father but undermines important operational activities of the group. Hamza bin Laden was responsible for planning and dealing with various terrorist groups. Now the State Department back in March had labeled Hamza bin Laden an emerging leader of Al Qaeda and had offered a $1 million reward for information that could have lead to his capture. The documents collected from the compound in Pakistan where his father Osama bin Laden was killed 2011 by Navy Seals seemed to suggest that Osama bin Laden was grooming his son to replace him as the leader of Al Qaeda, to take the reins of that group but it's unclear, Fred, why the White House chose today to confirm the death of Hamza bin Laden and what gave White House officials this certainty to circulate the statement from President Trump.
[Whitfield:] All right Sarah, let me also bring in CNN Pentagon reporter Ryan Browne. And so Ryan that it was a counterterrorism operation does not necessarily mean it was a military operation but what are the distinctions of the ways in which he could have been taken out?
[Ryan Browne, Cnn Correspondent:] Well that's absolutely correct Fred. I mean if you look at the statement, it's fairly vague and there's couple of interesting items there. One, that the site the Afghanistan Pakistan region. Now the U.S. military does not operate in Pakistan at all except for that, of course, 2011 raid against Osama bin Laden. So it's possible that this was a CIA operation. The Pentagon not commenting on the operation referring all comments all questions to the White House and again, also what's interesting, we're being told by defense officials that they've had this intelligence for some time. We reported in July but even before that for months, U.S. intelligence officials have been poring over intel trying to assess whether or not Hazma bin Laden was in fact killed. They've been looking into it. Now there's a lot of difficulty. There have been no official announcement by Al Qaeda that Hazma bin Laden was killed. That's unusual. Usually the terror group does announce an obituary when high profile leaders are killed. So there's been no official announcement by Al Qaeda. U.S. intelligence trying to make the assessments, trying to go over through the analysis to confirm that he was, in fact, killed in this counterterrorism operation, details of which are still not forthcoming.
[Whitfield:] All right Ryan Browne, Sarah Westwood, thanks to both of you; appreciate it. All right, let me bring in now CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman, so what kind of reaction is coming from this report that Hamza bin Laden is dead?
[Ben Wedeman, Cnn Correspondent:] I'll be honest with you Fred, not much. Al Qaeda is sort of a thing of the past in this part of the world, which for the last five years has been dealing with ISIS. Al Qaeda hasn't carried out any significant operations in years. And it is important to keep in mind that the Hamza bin Laden, the reward for him was a million dollars. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the actual current leader of Al Qaeda, the reward for him, $25 million. So I dare to suggest that perhaps the White House is making more of a deal out of this killing of Hamza bin Laden who is 30 years old the 15th of 20 children of Osama bin Laden, the third to be killed. He may not have been really quite as important as all this attention warrants. Fred.
[Whitfield:] Any idea what kind of role he may have had in the operation then?
[Wedeman:] We're simply depending on what we're being told by the White House, that somehow he was involved in Al Qaeda planning and coordination with other terrorists organizations but in terms of how Al Qaeda currently operates, you have it in parts of West Africa. You have it in parts of Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan but they're all working fairly independently and separately. It's no longer this sort of global network of terrorists that we were accustomed to say 10 or 15 years ago. So it's not at all clear really what role he played beyond what we're begin told by largely unnamed American officials.
[Whitfield:] All right, Ben Wedeman, thank you so much. All right, still ahead, as democrats debate over healthcare in this country, Senator Bernie Sanders faces the real life consequences some Americans face with mounting medical debts.
[Sen. Bernie Sanders , Democratic Presidential Candidate:] How are you going to pay off...
[Unidentified Male:] I can't. I can't. I'm going to kill myself.
[Sanders:] Hold it. Stop it. Stop it, John. You're not going to kill yourself.
[Whitfield:] How the Vermont Senator handled that situation plus the Bahamas bracing for a second major storm in just two weeks. We're tracking Tropical Storm Humberto coming up.