Trump: US airman 'safe & sound' after rescue

[0:00] President Donald Trump announcing that the second missing American crew member [0:03] whose fighter jet was shot down over Iran has been successfully rescued by U.S. forces. [0:08] President Trump posting on his true social account not long ago here, writing in part, [0:14] we got him. My fellow Americans, over the past several hours, the United States military pulled [0:18] off one of the most daring search and rescue operations in U.S. history for one of our [0:23] incredible crew member officers, who also happened to be a highly respected colonel [0:29] and who I am thrilled to let you know is now safe and sound. President Trump went on to write that [0:35] this service member sustained injuries but will be just fine. This high-stakes search, it started [0:40] this week after an F-15 Strike Eagle fighter that was actually shot down in the region. [0:46] Another crew member was rescued alive shortly after the crash and is now receiving medical [0:51] attention. For the latest now, let's head over to CNN's Jim Sciutto joining me live from Tel Aviv. [0:56] Jim, is there any indication that this operation [0:58] would have been successful? JIM SCIUTTO, CNN'S JIM SCIUTTO, JOINING ME LIVE FROM TELEVISION. JIM, IS THERE ANY INDICATION THAT THIS OPERATION WAS [0:59] CLEARLY IN THE WORKS, SINCE THE CRASH? JIM SCIUTTO, CNN'S JIM SCIUTTO, JOINING ME LIVE FROM TELEVISION. JIM, IS THERE ANY INDICATION THAT THIS OPERATION WAS CLEARLY IN THE WORKS, [1:00] SINCE THIS INCIDENT AND SINCE THE CRASH? JIM SCIUTTO, CNN'S JIM SCIUTTO, JOINING ME LIVE FROM TELEVISION. JIM, IS THERE ANY INDICATION THAT THIS OPERATION WAS CLEARLY IN THE WORKS, [1:03] JIM, IS THERE ANY INDICATION THAT THIS OPERATION WAS CLEARLY IN THE WORKS, [1:06] It was, absolutely. Search and rescue efforts underway since the moment this F-15 went down [1:13] with its two-person crew. As you know, they rescued the first pilot early on, but I was told on Friday [1:20] that they received a communication had received a communication from the second [1:25] pilot Friday evening and had spent a good well more than 24 hours attempting [1:32] to locate him and then get him out of the country safely and that's what the [1:36] president has just announced we were also told that he had been injured and [1:40] that of course added to the concern the urgency to get him out of the country [1:45] safely in addition to that we know that there was a race in effect underway [1:50] between US search and rescue teams and Iranian authorities the military who [1:55] were attempting to get to him first and you even heard Iranian state TV [2:00] encouraging residents in the area to locate him offering rewards to locate [2:04] him and report report that location to the authorities so this is a race in [2:11] effect that that US search and rescue teams won and a difficult one because [2:17] these search and rescue operations although [2:19] the [2:20] the [2:20] teams are highly trained for this they're dangerous because you're putting a lot of aircraft [2:24] over hostile territory and many of those aircraft the helicopters involved in the extraction the [2:30] fixed wing aircraft involved in locating the pilot they fly low and they fly relatively slow compared [2:37] to the jet for instance the f-15 which was shot down and iran of course demonstrated its ability [2:43] to threaten aircraft taking down that f-15 and also taking down an a-10 uh a-10 uh during a [2:50] warthog as it's known in that same 24-hour period so this is an enormous relief certainly for the [2:55] pilot the pilot's family for the military i am certain for the other member of that f-15 crew [3:02] who i'm sure spent the hours leading up to this rescue wondering if his if his co-pilot or really [3:09] weapons officer would come out alive and and we well we now have that [3:13] good news yeah it's a wonderful outcome especially for the family of the service [3:18] member without a doubt the president writing that all americans regardless of their party [3:22] should be proud of this moment so there is that however the war rages on jim so based on what [3:27] you're hearing there in the region what happens next especially as we continue to look at this uh [3:32] current deadline that president trump set for monday for the strait of her moose to reopen [3:38] well the president has said that this operation will not affect [3:42] u.s war planning and as he he said in his address to the [3:46] nation uh two three days ago that he he said there were two to three more weeks [3:51] in the war now we should take both that timeline and and his latest threat to iran with something [3:57] of a grain of salt because he has put out a number of uh deadlines red lines etc uh that he he hasn't [4:04] met on those timelines right so that that timeline could slide but at a minimum the president is [4:09] saying that uh he he's trying to apply more pressure on iran to open the strait um which of [4:16] course is affecting international uh oil markets uh and it's somewhat contradictory again to his [4:21] his speech to the nation because you'll remember in in his address he said that the us doesn't care [4:26] about opening the strait because it has enough of its own oil and he intended to leave that to other [4:32] nations but here he seems to be putting himself back in the game in the game as it were to try to [4:37] pressure iran to open open the strait to allow shipping but i will say this that we know from [4:44] both its continued ability uh to [4:46] target countries such as israel as we we we see air raid warnings here quite frequently [4:53] as do iran's gulf allies you you know from iran having been able to shoot down these two jets [5:00] but also our own reporting that u.s intelligence assessments show that iran continues to have [5:06] missile capabilities that it is still it still has an ability to fight back right so so the [5:12] uh any sense that this war might be over soon and decisively [5:16] there's really not [5:17] a lot of evidence of that right now i want to head over now to retired u.s [5:20] army major general mark mccarley he's the founder of the legal firm mccarley and rosen [5:26] thank you so much for for joining us general i'm wondering if i could just get off the top [5:30] your reaction to this news from president trump that the service member was has been rescued [5:38] as a service member and a u.s citizen i am totally elated um this is a wonderful outcome [5:49] in what could have been disastrous uh for the u.s in terms of the global perspective [5:57] of this conflict with iran i'm curious if you could you just really uh punctuate that last [6:05] point general just how high how high the stakes were not only obviously with the life of the [6:11] service member hanging in the balance but also what this could have potentially meant [6:15] diplomatically and militarily for this conflict that rages on if that [6:24] was going to be an emergency private that was going to have the brink of a major conflict [6:27] during the war but it also the entire battle with the u.s includes what was supposed to be a [6:32] economic crisis just in terms of where the war wanted to go to what was expected to happen [6:38] in terms of what went on and what the results would be all of that this is the first time [6:43] a service member of that f-15 strike eagle had in fact been captured by the iranians [6:50] there is no doubt in my mind that the iranians would exploit that capture [6:53] now been stricken uh and we iranians will prevail in this conflict and then of course uh what was [7:01] discussed by several of your other commentators is the exploitation of that service member [7:10] in custody the efforts and i would certainly assert very violent efforts to extract valuable [7:18] information from that very proud and heroic member of our air force yeah thankfully that was not the [7:28] case uh when you just in reading over this post from the president general it really does paint [7:35] a harrowing picture of what the last day and a half had been like for for the service member as [7:41] the president writes that he was behind enemy lines in treacherous mountains of iran being [7:49] our enemies wrote the president but also that it keep the president suggesting here that that the [7:55] military was essentially monitoring him 24 hours a day and planning this rescue so based on this [8:02] post from the president it seems that it's likely that the pentagon knew exactly where he was [8:07] perhaps just waiting for that most ideal moment to mitigate risks given the small arms fire that [8:13] they experienced recently to be able to extract them yeah i appreciate that uh your explanation [8:20] of the dynamics of a search and rescue recovery mission to get down to the basics at the moment [8:28] that that crew member ejected from the f-15 an emergency beacon is activated [8:36] and that communicates with a satellite system the signal is sent to command headquarters [8:43] and that initiates the search and rescue operation the question i had personally [8:50] especially since almost 48 hours uh transpired or had transpired since the ejection is whether [8:58] or not that was that system was either degraded or somehow the signal was lost [9:05] but based upon what we see now a signal must have continuously emitted it was continuously [9:13] emitting information about the location of this crew member all of this encrypted under some [9:20] very very dangerous and difficult circumstances and you even addressed and it came up a couple of [9:27] times about the geography of this particular location on that west side of iran it is [9:34] mountainous certainly not near any urban center at all for anyone that is in a situation such as [9:43] this crew member he's ejected he's injured he has very light kit meaning he has [9:50] some very few rations a little bit of water and here he is in the midst of nowhere trying to [9:58] evade a multiplicity of iranians who have been motivated by this offer this both an inspirational [10:07] offer from the islamic republic leadership whomever that is at this particular point in time [10:12] plus the alleged incentive of 60 000 u.s dollars so putting all this together it was extremely [10:20] dangerous and once again we salute the members of our armed services who conducted this rescue [10:28] mission and were able to extract this service member the situation otherwise would make [10:34] tomorrow a very very difficult day not only for that crew member if he were apprehended [10:40] but more importantly for the whole effort that has been expended thus far in this conflict