Matt PichtU.S. Navy Seals hunted down and killed 9/11 orchestrator Osama bin Laden just shy of a decade after the attacks. President Trump says that was too long to wait.
In an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, Trump said, "Wouldn't it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that?"
Trump's comments came as he was being questioned about Ret. Adm. William McRaven, who planned the 2011 assault on bin Laden. McRaven has been publicly critical of some of Trump's past attacks on the media.
But McRaven didn't lead the manhunt for bin Laden; that role fell to the CIA, which spent years tracing bin Laden to the complex in Abbottabad, Pakistan where he was eventually killed.
Obama: "The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda."
Pakistani officials professed ignorance to bin Laden's location in the past, though those claims have been met with skepticism from some corners. The country is technically an ally in the Afghanistan War, but has been also been accused of shielding Islamic terror groups within their borders.
Trump has strained relations significantly between the two countries by canceling millions of dollars in aid money to Pakistan. He tweeted Monday that Pakistan was "just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s ENDING!"
Pakistan's prime minister, Imran Khan, responded by pointing out the steep cost of his country's cooperation with the U.S., and accusing the U.S. of trying to "scapegoat" Pakistan for American failures in Afghanistan.
