New video released yesterday by CBS of President Obama's September 12th interview with 60 Minutes shows that President Obama did not believe the Benghazi terror attack was terrorism. President Obama was asked point blank whether he thought the attack was terrorism. President Obama did not categorize the attack as terrorism, claiming he didn't want to "jump the gun." The relevant part of the transcript is below:
KROFT: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word terrorism in connection with the Libya Attack, do you believe that this was a terrorism attack?
OBAMA: Well it’s too early to tell exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.
KROFT: It’s been described as a mob action, but there are reports that they were very heavily armed with grenades, that doesn’t sound like your normal demonstration.
OBAMA: As I said, we’re still investigating exactly what happened, I don’t want to jump the gun on this. But you’re right that this is not a situation that was exactly the same as what happened in Egypt. And my suspicion is there are folks involved in this. Who were looking to target Americans from the start. So we’re gonna make sure that our first priority is to get our folks out safe, make sure our embassies are secured around the world and then we are going to go after those folks who carried this out.
Keep in mind, this interview was conducted shortly after the President supposedly called what happened in Benghazi terrorism in his address in the Rose Garden. In this exchange, he avoids calling the attack terrorism. The video of the whole segment can be seen here.