. >> brown: late this afternoon, i spoke with a top american official-- denis mcdonough, chief of staffcouncil-- from the white house briefing room. >> brown: denis mcdonough, welcome. let me start with the pakistan connection. do you now believe that faisal shahzad had ties toçó the pakistani taliban or was it actingÑi alone. >> the bottom line is as the attorney-general said yesterday and the intelligence and law enforcement professionals have been working since saturday night, we're going to trace all leads here and make sure we have the firmest understanding of why he did this. where he learned and trained about how to do these kinds of things. and what it tells us about what others might be trying to do. similar to what he has done here. so i'm not willing to lay any conclusions down now. but i am willing to say this: we're going to follow this intelligence where it leads. we're getting good intelligence, and we're going to use that intelligence to keep the american people safe. >> brown: there are numerous questions today about whether the authorities have, essentially for a while

and joining us now, denis mcdonough, he's the chief of staff over at the national security council. s from the white house. denis, thanks very much for coming in. f >> thanks for having me, wolf, it's very good to be with you. >> what can you tell us about faisal shahzad's motive in apparently going to times square and allegedly wanting to blow people up? >> you know, wolf, beyond what the attorney general said yesterday, which it's clear that this was an effort to kill and maim americans, we don't really have anything additionally. i don't have anything additionally to give you right now on motive. >> well, maybe you don't have anything to give me, but do you guys, inside, do you know what his motive was, without releasing the details to us, publicly? >> well, we're trying to get to the bottom of it, wolf. we're obviously continuing to get very important and helpful information in this case. we're obviously peeling back the onion on this to make sure that we can gather additional information, both about what was a motivation for him, but as importantly, what this tells us about what