i sat down with tom donilon in the secretary of war suite in the eisenhower executive office building. when you come into the white house, has the trail for osama bin laden gone cold? >> when we came into office in the beginning of 2009, the trail had gone cold. we really hadn't had a good case to his whereabouts since he was in tora bora in 2001. >> what did the president say at that point? he tells leonpanetta, get bin laden. >> in the sfring of 2009 the president asked to see me and ron panetta and he said, i want to reenergize the hunt for osama bin laden. i want to make this your top priority. i want to get reports every 30 days. >> august 2010, leon panetta comes back to the president with some information. correct? >> that's correct. in the summer of 2010, the cia live and led by leon panetta came to us and indicated that they had evidence that was interesting to them at that point that led them to believe that there was a high value person of interest in a compound there. >> at what point did it become clear that there was a high likelihood that the person at that compound was

people who have their own interests, people like tom donilon, people on the national security staff,he people close to the president from chicago like valerie jarrett. everybody has their interest. aspects of feminism, accusations of sexism. so many swirling emotions and sentiments. how can you tell me what the president wanted? it seems to hard to get to him, not just to people around him with their own agenda. >> i think you're right. there was a split, if you will. you had sort of the cold pragmatists, all thought john kerry makes a lot of sense. he earned it, he deserves this, this is a good thing. and there's a lot of foreign policy hands who say, you know what? secretary of state should be somebody who used to run -- who almost was president. you know, and the heft of a hillary clinton being replaced by the heft of a person that was a football stadium away from being president themselves, that will impress people that this secretary of state has to sit down with, foreign leaders around the world. then there was another part of this administration, people here in this west wing.

to be leaving afghanistan -- those are all classes -- all pluses -- >> out of the white house, tom donilon -- >> you cannot say it was her -- >> where is hillary clinton on syria? how has she performed on syria? >> i think they are just laying low in syria until the election. but now it sounds like they are going to get more involved. >> i find it rather ironic that we're talking about what a great success this administration has had on foreign affairs on the day after we just got the defeat of 160-6 on an extremely important issue in the one on the palestinians, and a month after the collapse of america's allies and position in all of north africa and the middle east. we have lost all of our allies and the region, we have the muslim brotherhood in control of egypt, and hamas is on the rise, iran is four years closer to acquiring a nuclear weapon, no evidence of iran's isolation at all. and they just had a meeting of the -- 120 countries, heads of state, showed up to tehran, and we pretend that iran is isolated. we're talking, successes? >> i am disappointed that this president has not sta

the man tasked to run the decision-making process, president obama's national security adviser tom donilon>> did people worry it would be desert two? >> this is why it was a tough decision. what were the risks? there were obviously risk to the forces carrying out the operation. there was a risk of failure and the impact on the united states and its face to the world. there was risk to the pakistani relationship. we were undertaking university lateral action to go after osama bin laden in pakistan. those risks had to be considered by the president. i will tell you this in line with your question. there was a lot of history present in the room. secretary gates. there was a national security aide during desert one. i was an aide to carter. vice president biden was in the senate at the time of the desert one operation. it was clearly on people's minds. also in the room was one of the aspects that came out of desert one and that was the formation of a unified special operations forces command. the troops, the forces that would carry out the operation, that had become such a unique asset of the

if tom donilon were to move to the cia or one of the other posts that's now likely to be open, it wouldssible for susan rice to become national security adviser and to be that close with the president. >> and andrea, is there any indication that the upcoming hearings on december 20th had any affect on this coming out today? >> well, i think that there needed to be some resolution before those hearings because those hearings are going to be very difficult as it is, and that would have been a preview, only a taste of what it would have been like to have confirmation hearings. also the signal that john mccain told people he wanted to ask the leadership to put him on the foreign relations committee. he is the senior person on the armed services committee, and for him to then be on foreign relations as well meant he would have been in a key role as someone on the committee confirming her or any other secretary of state. so that was going to be difficult. this was personal. this is where it gets back to the 2008 campaign and things that susan rice said as a combatant in that campaign on behal

worth noting he singled out his national security adviser tom donilon for praise in his remarks thereto do before the end of the year, presumably he'll want to get it done by then. and some of those posts could get some attention, all right generating a bit of controversy and he'll have to make some tough decisions before all this wraps up, suzanne. >> tell us about the hot spots here, if he is, in fact, confirmed, what is he going to need to deal with first? i assume syria is high on the list and dealing with a potential nuclear iran. >> those are two of the big issues he'll be dealing with right away. the middle east is an area, suzanne, where i think john kerry will want to dive in and become very much involved. you also have the democratic crisis in egypt right now with president morsi. senator kerry has been to many of these places and i think my understanding is just from talking to some people that know him is when senator kerry is interested in an issue, such as the middle east, he likes to drive down, became very involved in the nuances of an issue and try to drive it. he can

tom donilon becomes the president's chief of staff. jack lew, former budget director goes to treasury to replace tim geithner who says he won't have a second term and. jenna: a bit of musical chairs as we go into the new year and see who fills those positions. wendell, thank you for the latest. jon: ambassador rice might be bowing out but the investigation into our attack on consulate in libya is far from over. the ambassador defending her response in the days immediately after the attack. listen. >> i don't think anybody is ever wholly blameless but i didn't do anything wrong. i didn't mislead. i didn't misrepresent. i did the best with the information the united states government had at the time. jon: south carolina republican senator lindsey graham said even though ambassador rice will not lead the state department the congressional inquiry what happened in benghazi will continue. listen. >> susan rice, in my opinion misled the public and there are other problems with her time and politics and the national foreign affairs arena. pro

tom donilon has been a part of that, and i'm grateful to him. of course, one of the most important people in this whole transformation has been outstanding secretary of state, my friend, secretary hillary clinton. hillary wanted very much to be here today, but she continues to recuperate. i had a chance to talk to her earlier today, and she is in good spirits and could not be more excited about the announcement that i'm making. over the last four years, hillary's been everywhere, both in terms of her travels which we've seen her represent america in more countries than any previous secretary of state and through her tireless work to restore our global leadership. and she is looking forward to getting back to work, and i am looking forward to paying tribute to her extraordinary service in the days to come. today, though, i'm looking ahead to my second term. and i am very proud to announce my choice for america's next secretary of state, john kerry. in a sense, john's entire life has prepared him for this role. as the son of a foreign service offi