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U.S. Official: Taliban Leader Likely Killed in Drone Strike; First Images Show Life Vest, Wreckage, Jet Seats; Egypt Mourns Lives Lost in Egyptair Plane Crash; Clinton to Target Trump, NRA in Speech; Taliban Leader Likely Killed in Strike. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired May 21, 2016 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[19:00:08] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Sciutto, in Washington, in for Poppy Harlow this weekend.

And we're following breaking news on three major stories this hour.

First, a Taliban leader and an architect of mass killings across Afghanistan, including killing of U.S. soldiers, has likely, says the Pentagon, been killed in a U.S. drone strike. U.S. officials frantically trying to confirm whether unmanned drone got their targets. He is Mullah Mansour, likely killed they say in an airstrike in a remote area of Pakistan on the Afghanistan border.

We're also following a major development in the hunt for EgyptAir Flight 804. Searchers finding this, you're looking at the fist images of the wreckage pulled so far from the eastern Mediterranean, mangled plane seats, suitcases, shoes, even an unwrapped life vest. The cause of the crash is still a mystery.

But the French have just confirmed smoke or indications of smoke inside the cabin triggering an alarm system just a moment before the plane vanished from radar and plummeted into the sea. Plus, we're going to play you audio from inside the cockpit before the crash.

We are also later going to take you live to what could be a pivotal moment in the race for the White House. Guns taking center stage, as Hillary Clinton speaks at an event hosted by the Trayvon Martin Foundation. It comes just one day after the NRA endorsed Donald Trump. And CNN is learning that Clinton is not taking that Trump endorsement lightly.

I want to begin with a major U.S. drone strike that likely killed the Taliban's number one leader. I'm talking about Mullah Mansour. Two U.S. officials telling CNN that Mansour was likely killed in an airstrike early this morning, U.S. time. We are told that a second male combatant likely died as well in that operation. President Obama authorized the drone strike, we are told, by the White House. One official saying that there is no evidence of collateral damage.

Let's talk this over with our panel of experts. We have former CIA operative, Bob Baer, our intelligence and security analyst. Plus, military analyst, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton, and political commentator Buck Sexton, who is himself a former CIA terrorism analyst. We also have CIA military analyst, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona.

Bob, to start with you, first.

Under Mansour's leadership, is it fair to say that the Taliban took an even more brutal turn? The Pentagon in their statement today saying that they blame him for tens of thousands of deaths among Afghan civilians and security forces.

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Oh, absolutely. Since he's been in control, the Taliban has wreaked havoc across Afghanistan, killing civilians, car bombs. It has just been a bloodbath there, with no purpose that I can see.

And I'd like to add that I would imagine, and no one's going to admit that, this that Pakistan agreed to this, because he was such a key figure, especially to the Pakistanis. If he was hit in Pakistan, it was not a move he would make without getting the green light from them.

So, I think he was probably an obstacle to any sort of peace or any sort of settlement in Afghanistan. That's a guess.

SCIUTTO: Cedric Leighton, we got a reaction from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to the strike. He has, as you know, been a critic of President Obama's anti-terror strategy in the past. His statement saying, quote, "I appreciate President Obama for authorizing the attack. When it comes to Afghanistan, I strongly encourage the Obama administration to not withdraw troops until conditions on the ground permit their withdrawal.

Of course, the president has been gradually reducing the U.S. ground presence there in Afghanistan, although he recently paused that last year.

What is Graham conveying here? Does he want to stop the further reduction or is he conveying that he wants an increase in the U.S. ground presence in Afghanistan.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Jim, I think what he's saying is that the conditions on the ground need to dictate the pace of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I think most Americans are going to agree that at some point, we're going to withdraw from that country, but it has to be done, according to Lindsey Graham, in a way that would allow for there to be progress against the Taliban. Events such as, you know, the killing of Mullah Mansour would be one example of that.

The other part of it, though, is also that they need to make sure that the current government in Kabul stays. That it is able to not only exercise power, but keep power. And that, of course, is something that they are, at best, doing very, very tenuously at this point. SCIUTTO: Buck, we know that Mansour, in his leadership of the

Taliban, has been a key obstacle in any effort to restart peace talks, between the Afghan government and the Taliban leadership.

[19:05:03] Looking at this, he's gone. Is there any indication that whoever might follow him, assuming it is confirmed that he is killed, would be more likely to speak with the Afghan government?

BUCK SEXTON, FORMER CIA COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Well, it certainly seems counterintuitive. And I know that an administration spokesperson has already come out and said this. Counterintuitive that when somebody's an obstacle to peace talks, that you blow them up in their car, and the next person that takes over the Taliban will be more likely to be willing to talk about having some sort of a reconciliation or some kind of an agreement.

I think it's likely to go in the other direction, quite honestly. And part of the reason for the surge in violence that has happened under Mansour's tenure, keep in mind, we didn't even know or it wasn't publicly known that Mullah Omar was dead for about two years, and that, obviously, was something that when it came up, people didn't say, well, things have been going so much better in Afghanistan, I guess now we know why.

So, the leadership struggles and things that are going on don't change a very simple fact, and I think it's one that's often overlooked when we're talking about what's going on in this region, and that is that as long as Pakistan is a sanctuary for the Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, a myriad of other groups, our efforts there are going to be stymied. It's not really possible to destroy an insurgency, when the insurgency can just run across the border and use it to reequip and retrain itself.

And so, while we can look at the leadership situation now and say to ourselves, OK, this is on the win column for U.S. forces and what we're doing over there, the fact of the matter is that it doesn't change the basic strategic realities on the ground.

SCIUTTO: Rick, we know, and I'm sure our viewers will remember that the Taliban provided sanctuary to al Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks. Is there evidence that recently the Taliban has provided similar sanctuary to other terror groups, or is its focus clearly on or mainly on targets in Afghanistan and power and territory in Afghanistan?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Right, and that's a fair assessment, Jim. The Taliban is more focused on Afghan as an Islamic state. They want to rule it as an Islamic state, not an Islamic caliphate. Not part of ISIS.

And that's what's been the problem with ISIS and al Qaeda there, because, you know, the Taliban has one goal, and that's to set up this state. And the other two tend to get in the way of that. So, we're seeing rivalry between all three. So, what happens now?

And Buck laid this out very well. You know, once you remove that leadership, is the new leader -- and there will be one that emerges fairly soon, there may be a power struggle, but someone has to take over this organization. Is that person going to be more attuned to continuing the fight against these other groups? Or is he willing to talk to these other groups?

And we don't know where that's going to go, because we don't know who's going to take over. So, I think everything's going to be in a state of flux. But I don't think this is going to lead us to any situation where we're going to be able to change our forced posture there, because the Taliban will still be an effective fighting force.

SCIUTTO: No question. They've shown that on the ground, certainly.

Bob, I imagine a very basic question for people at home, and I have this same question, frankly. This is a time of great fear of terrorism, particularly a group like ISIS. But you have a plane that's just fallen out of the sky over the Mediterranean, no conclusion there yet, but fears of terrorism. Do strikes like this make Americans safer at home? BAER: Jim, I don't think so. If this plane, in fact, was brought

down by an explosive, this is an international group, state, same ideology, and, of course, the big question was, was it put on in Paris, because if it was, it could be put on American planes as well. It's, you know, let's hope that it was mechanical.

The people are already dead. But I don't think we're going to be safe until we get a political decision in the Middle East. I mean, we are fighting Sunni Arabs in Iraq and Syria and we're fighting the Pashtun in Afghanistan. And at some point, we have to come to a political solution.

I don't know what that would look like. It would not be simple. But at the end of the day, in order to get out of that part of the world, that's what we need.

SCIUTTO: Cedric, your thoughts before we go? Because this has been central to the Obama administration's strategy, which is small footprint, light footprint, drone strikes rather than big ground presence. In terms of fighting the threat of terror, in effect, the problems over there striking here, do these drone strikes make a difference?

LEIGHTON: Well, I think in the short-term, I would agree with Bob that the basic idea is that these drone strikes may not actually make us safer. Over the long-term, if it is coupled with a larger strategy, then, Jim, I do think that it could, in fact, work but it has to be coupled with other elements of strategy and it has to be done in a way that it uses all the elements of national power that can actually be both military and diplomatic, as well as, frankly, economic.

And we're not seeing that right now. We're not seeing that concerted strategy over, you know, the broad region, the broader region. And that's, I think, what we need to focus on right now.

[19:10:02] SCIUTTO: Certainly going to be a big part of the political debate in the general election. Cedric Leighton, Bob Baer, Rick Francona, Buck Sexton, thanks to all of you for joining us.

And on Monday, a special you won't want to miss in the context of this news. Fareed Zakaria investigates hate, radical Muslims in the United States, asking the simple question, "Why They Hate Us". Monday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.

And coming up next, our other breaking news. The latest on the search for EgyptAir flight 804. Officials are not ruling out any potential causes as they begin to pull debris and sadly human remains from the Mediterranean Sea.

Also this hour, we're waiting to hear from Hillary Clinton. We're hearing Clinton will call out both Donald Trump and the NRA, just one day after the gun rights group endorsed the GOP's presumptive nominee.

That is all ahead this hour after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Crash investigators say far too early to say what caused the demise of EgyptAir Flight 804. Still, Egyptian authorities said very early on that terrorism is likely what brought down the aircraft. However, no group has come forward to claim responsibility. Flight data sent from the plane indicating a series of cockpit area smoke alerts could point to fire or some kind of mechanical failure, but France's foreign minister says that no theory has yet been ruled out.

This all coming as search teams have begun finding un-inflated life jackets, suitcases, shredded aircraft seats, and sadly, human remains. But the exact location of the crash and the rest of the wreckage, the bulk of the wreckage, still unknown.

CNN's Becky Anderson is in Cairo, Max Foster in Foster, they both join me now.

Becky, Egyptian authorities who you've been talking to, they were quickly to suggest the crash was likely terror related. What is the latest on the investigation on the Egyptian end?

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is still unclear what happened and why. I think it is very clear from Egyptian authorities now that they are keeping an open mind as to what happened. We discussed the search and recovery effort, as you have just described. Human remains, passengers' belongings, aircraft equipment and seats now being recovered.

[19:15:01] This is a massive effort. The waters are deep, we're talking something 11,000 feet, and they have no idea, as of yet, exactly where the plane lies within the body of the Mediterranean.

So, at this point, the foreign minister who spoke to me earlier on said it isn't clear how long this will take. But what he did say is that he is grateful to his international partners who have been helping him, what is a coordinated effort to try and recover the black boxes and the data that will provide crucial evidence, as to exactly what happened at 37,000 feet, at something like 2:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, on a plane, with 66 people onboard.

To the claims of smoke in the cabin ahead of the crash, which you have alluded to, the foreign minister did say you could verify those claims, but he said that they would clearly help to inform what is now a wide-ranging investigation into exactly what happened. And he described those claims as part of what he described as a jigsaw puzzle that needs to be compiled.

And he also talked about how important it is to engage with Egypt's partners, as he described them. He spoke at length to me about the close partnership that the Egyptians have with the French.

And I think there was an effort not only on the part of Egypt, but also on the part of the French, while the search and rescue continues, amid this investigation led by the Egyptians, but clearly, it will be informed by others, including the French. That everybody keep an open mind, and he did caution speculation without substantive evidence.

And so, I think it's very clear on the part of the Egyptians, having spoken to the foreign minister today, that they are as eager as anybody else to get this thing sorted out and to find out exactly what happened. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Max, French authorities looking at the some 80,000 people at Charles de Gaulle airport who had access to secure areas. We know that before this flight disappeared and left Paris, a number of weeks ago, they went through a big review of all those people and they removed many people from their jobs.

You have to think, if they were doing that kind of review, they must have had a sense of threat or at least a risk. What are your sources saying there? Were they concerned about ground staff at Charles de Gaulle Airport before this?

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There have been. I mean, in terms of response so far, you've had, there's going to be more passenger screenings in equipment coming in, next week, more advanced equipment. We've also had some bag checks on the doors, the entrance into the terminal, which is very unusual.

But what you're alluding to there is this concern about the radicalization of workers here. And they do screen all of the workers here, 86,000 of them. And since January last year, they've actually have taken away the security clearance of 85 people because they've been concerned they're either radicalized or they're at risk of radicalization. This is something they're trying to keep on top of.

And there was an announcement yesterday when the government said they were going to put extra intelligence officers baud based here at the airport, which does suggest that they're looking for intelligence in the airport which would be amongst the airport. I think that's certainly something they're looking at.

They haven't had any specific intelligence, as Becky has been describing, this is terror related. So they haven't ramped it up to an official terror investigation yet. There haven't even got officially French victims yet. So, you can't spot that process.

But certainly, they're looking at intelligence here, amongst workers, and whether, or not they're a risk.

SCIUTTO: Becky Anderson in Cairo and Max Foster in Paris -- thanks very much.

The alerts warning of smoke in areas in and around the cockpit of the doomed EgyptAir flight were sent over a period of just three minutes. The data sent through the aircraft communications addressing and reporting system, known by its acronym, ACARS. It's a data link for sending messages between planes and ground facilities. It's unrelated to the so-called black boxes, which still have yet to be found, but still very key and important information in the investigation.

Joining me from New York is Les Abend. He's a CNN aviation analyst and a long-time Boeing 777 pilot, also contributing editor to "Flying" magazine.

Les, this is a little snippet of information, when you look at this data that was coming from the plane, but it's indicative, in light of what happened. Two areas where smoke was detected, in avionics, in a lavatory just behind the cockpit. Also, window censors, either they were opened or they were broken or something.

You're a pilot, you see those data points.

[19:20:02] What does it tell you?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATIONA ANALYST: Yes, Jim, this is a piece of that jigsaw puzzle that we call accident investigation. This is part of the field investigation. This is one part of putting it all together to determine the cause.

What it tells me is that something was going wrong with this airplane that was affecting the electronics bay which is down below, behind the pilots and down below lower in the fuselage. But this is the brains of the aircraft.

There are some schools of thought to consider, you know, did it originate from these particular windows, because we've got those malfunction messages. The malfunction messages with reference to the windows have something to do with potentially the window being opened or at least being unlocked. Mostly, the sliding window indicated a failure of the de-ice system. The grid that heats in between the window panes, that heats that window.

But from me, I take it from a much broader and simpler sense, from the standpoint that something was destroying that E&E, that electronic compartment, and it was taking the rest of the airplane with it, because this is a fly-by-wire airplane, and if you lose your fly-by- wire communications to the flight controls, you lose control of the aircraft. They were getting smoke and the smoke potentially was coming into the cockpit, which makes things extremely difficult as far as checklists are concerned. You have to put on your oxygen mask, you have to communicate with the other pilot and try to get through and find the source of this particular smoke. The fact that the smoke was detected in a lavatory indicates to me that it was rising up.

SCIUTTO: But let me ask you a question, Les. Is it possible, is there a different interpretation that window open there could be the signals, sort of the last cries, of an airplane plummeting to earth? Is that also plausible?

ABEND: Of course, it's plausible, Jim. But it seems to me, why did these particular -- we had air France 447 that threw out a bunch of malfunction messages, but they were very much related to what was being experienced by the aircraft. In this particular case -- or in Air France's particular case, it had to do with the freezing of what we call pitot tubes which measure air speed, among other things.

But -- so this was directly related. So that's why I'm saying, why did these particular messages come out first? And it may mean that the sequencing of these messages may have some significance. So, that's why I'm kind of going that direction with what we have.

SCIUTTO: Well, there certainly going to be looking at this for some time.

Les Abend, thanks for lending your experience here to help us explain.

Coming up next, putting Egypt in the spotlight. The government making strong comments about possible terror attacks in the immediate aftermath of the EgyptAir disaster. What's on the line for the country as it deals with another air tragedy? We're going to take a closer look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:26:33] SCIUTTO: The EgyptAir plane crash is the latest in a recent string of aviation disasters.

As CNN's Miguel Marquez reports, Egypt and EgyptAir have dealt with investigations like this before.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Airline security under scrutiny again after EgyptAir flight 804 abruptly descends mid flight into the Mediterranean. Worldwide, over the last five years, there have been nine hijackings, two bombings, two suicides and one mystery in what brought down Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Egypt has been targeted before. Authorities today more forthcoming than ever.

AHMED ADEL, EGYPTAIR VICE PRESIDENT: Terror exists everywhere. It's definitely something that we are concerned about.

MARQUEZ: But when Russian airliner, MetroJet 9268, was brought down by a homemade terrorist bomb placed in the luggage hold, killing all 224 aboard, it took Egyptian authorities four months to admit it.

EgyptAir itself has also been targeted. In March, a hijacker claiming he had an explosive belt forced Flight 181 to land in Cyprus. He was arrested, no one was injured. And in February, another bomb aboard a Somali airliner, Daallo Flight

159. This time, two airport workers suspected of sneaking a bomb into a laptop through security and giving it to a third accomplice who carried it on to the plane. The bomb blew a hole in the side of the plane, which was able to land safely. The only fatality was the man holding the device.

The incident raised enormous security concerns then. EgyptAir Flight 804 raises new concerns today.

LES ABEND, BOEING 77 CAPTAIN: If this is indeed a terrorist act, there's a hole. Where did that hole start? You know, did it start on the original departure?

MARQUEZ: Another security gap, pilot suicide. In March 2015, the co- pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 suffering depression crashed his plane into the French Alps, 150 people died.

EgyptAir too has a history with one of its pilots possibly bringing down his own plane. In 1999, Flight 990 from Los Angeles to Cairo via New York's JFK crashed into the Atlantic. Sixty miles south of Massachusetts, killing all 217 on board.

The National Transportation Safety Board concluded it was a deliberate act by the first officer that downed the plane. Egyptian authorities came to a different conclusion, citing mechanical failure of the Boeing 767.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Thanks to Miguel Marquez on the human cost of a tragedy like this.

I want to talk more about it, specifically what's at stake for Egypt.

Joining me now is Kareem Awadalla. He's an Egyptian talk show host.

Kareem, thanks for joining us.

I wonder if you can first convey to folks here in the U.S. the heartbreak going on in Egypt right now. The lives lost unexpectedly, but also just the broader tragedy of previous air disaster, the MetroJet crash. Tourism is a big earner for the economy. There must be a lot of fear and sadness in Egypt now.

KAREEM AWADALLA, EGYPTIAN TALK SHOW HOST: That's definitely the case. I mean, the Egyptian economy has suffered immensely after what happened, especially after what happened in the Russian airplane, in that it was coming out of an Egyptian airport.

[19:30:00] So the economy has suffered immensely. We have been suffering from many countries banning people, from traveling to Egypt, and then recently, this ban has started to be lifted one by one, and people were hoping that the economy will get back, especially that tourism is one of the biggest foreign currency importers, to Egypt, really one of the biggest, the second after Canada, Swiss. So people were counting on it immensely. And then after this, I think there would be another big pause, if not a very long one.

SCIUTTO: A big cost to this.

Kareem, I wonder, I think a lot of folks were surprised at how quickly Egyptian officials mentioned the word "terrorism," really within hours after the loss of the plane. Why do you think there was such an early comment on the possibility of terrorism in this crash?

AWADALLA: Number one, this was not a statement. The spokesperson was saying, I mean he was asked about that and then he commented that most probably, with the current (INAUDIBLE) this sounds more, that it is a terrorist attack than it is a technical problem.

Although, on the other hand, this situation is not as hard as it is. The past incident was a Russian airplane. It took them four months to admit or to say or to claim it's terrorism, because at that time, it was coming out of an Egyptian airport. And what the people really don't understand or most of the people don't know is that the security of the airplane lies mainly on the airport it's coming out of.

So when it's a terrorist attack, it's mainly pointing the finger at Charles de Gaulle in Paris, more than it is for Egyptair or for Egypt. So -

SCIUTTO: So you're saying that Egyptian officials were more comfortable saying terrorism, because the French would be to blame, rather than themselves?

AWADALLA: I wouldn't say that - I wouldn't position it this way. But I would say the whole scenario, if it's a terrorist attack, again, he didn't say it as a statement, he was answering a question post to him. But if it turned to be a terrorist attack, the majority of the blame would go towards Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris than it is for Egyptair or for the Egyptian government. So it wouldn't be as hard to say it's a terrorist attack. I mean, of course, everyone is now leaning towards terrorist attack more than it is technical.

SCIUTTO: Do you have a sense of who the people on the street, average Egyptians you speak to hold responsible for this crash?

AWADALLA: Well, there's more than one direction for that. Number one, of course, there's the international enemy that everyone is heading towards, which is ISIS. And the number two, you can never not relate this situation with a direct enemy people are having with the current government is now having problems, and the people of Egypt are having also problems, which is the Muslim Brotherhood. Remember that a couple of years ago, the Muslim Brotherhood rode on one of the Egypt airplanes. And some people, by the way, claims it's the one where it was taken down. I couldn't confirm that.

That they rode that plane would be taken down so they already threatened to do that. And in other hand, Egypt, in the last couple of days, has been showered in fires everywhere (INAUDIBLE) Ministry of the Interior, at some point it was set on fire and also the fingers were pointed towards the Muslim Brotherhood.

So you have one, the Muslim Brotherhood. No, number one, of course, is ISIS, because this is the place internationally everyone would be thinking of. Two is the Muslim Brotherhood. People are thinking about that. And the third possibility, whether it's a technical problem, or someone has come out of the blue, a new organization, maybe, decided to emerge and play terrorist attack in Egypt. Some people are also saying it might be a foreign country doing that but this is like very minorities, very slight percent. And I don't think it's getting any momentum.

SCIUTTO: I'm familiar with those conspiracy theories you often hear.

AWADALLA: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: Kareem Adwadala, Egptian talk show host, thanks for giving us the view from the ground.

AWADALLA: My pleasure, any time.

SCIUTTO: Any moment now, Hillary Clinton is expected to take the stage in Florida, ready to take aim at Donald Trump for his recent criticism of her over guns and gun rights and of course, his endorsement just on Friday by the NRA. We're going to take you there live as soon as she begins speaking.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:37:25]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto, in Washington. And CNN today is working multiple breaking news stories.

Our top story, U.S. officials confirm a drone strike was carried out against the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Mansour. The strike happened early this morning, U.S. time, in a remote southern region along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. U.S. officials saying that it is not clear Mansour is dead but they believe he was likely killed in this strike.

Also, in the Mediterranean Sea, an intense search continues for the wreckage of Egyptair flight 804. Officials are desperate to find the plane's black boxes. Meantime, more than plane debris and personal belongings of the victims were spotted.

We're also following news from Florida where Hillary Clinton is awaiting to give a speech, striking back at Donald Trump attacking her own stance on gun control. This is a live picture from Florida, where she will be speaking any minute now. She'll give a criminal justice speech at the Circles of Mothers Conference hosted by the Trayvon Martin Foundation.

Speaking for the NRA, Trump told members that Clinton wants to, he claims, abolish the second amendment.

Let's go now to Florida. We have CNN's Dan Merica at the event in Fort Lauderdale, he joins me now. Dan, you're hearing that Clinton in this speech coming up, will call out both Donald Trump and the NRA, is that right?

DAN MERICA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jim. Hillary Clinton has vowed not to take his comments yesterday in Florida lying down. An aide tells me that Hillary Clinton is going to respond to Donald Trump and NRA today at this Trayvon Martin Foundation fund-raiser, a $1500 a plate fundraiser for the Trayvon Martin Foundation.

And I'm told Hillary Clinton will say she's not going to be silenced by Donald Trump or the NRA on the issue of guns.

Now, Donald Trump spoke, as you mentioned, to the National Rifle Association annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, on Friday. And the speech was, quite frankly, lambasted Hillary Clinton, saying she wanted to abolish the second amendment and take away people's guns. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Crooked Hillary Clinton is the most anti-gun, anti-second amendment candidate ever to run for office. And as I said before, she wants to abolish the second amendment. She wants to take your guns away. She wants to abolish it. Just remember that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MERICA: Now, Hillary Clinton has never said she wants to abolish the second amendment. She has said she wants tougher gun laws. She's run on this issue throughout the campaign, against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and it's expected, Jim, that she will continue running on this issue when she - if she faces, Donald Trump in the fall and into November.

[19:40:15]

SCIUTTO: Dan, is Clinton going to focus more on guns moving forward now that Trump has been endorsed by the NRA? Is this -- does she consider this a winning issue for her?

MERICA: I think she has had to campaign on guns more than she would have expected, maybe, two years ago. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has a more conservative record on guns than most of the democratic party. He says that's because he's from Vermont. So he has used the issue against Senator Sanders a number of times. And I think the campaign feels that if the NRA would have endorsed whatever Republican who have up topped the ticket, whether that would be Donald Trump or Texas Senator Ted Cruz, or the hosts of other Republicans who ran and Hillary Clinton would have used the issue of guns against that Republican.

Now, as I said, I think it's going to take a more center, you know, it's going to be a more center to her campaign against Donald Trump, because of his comments, because he's using it against her. So it remains to b seen how forceful she is on that. And that's what we're waiting to see tonight in Ft. Lauderdale.

SCIUTTO: Dan Merica in Ft. Lauderdale, awaiting a speech by Hillary Clinton there.

Hotel, golf courses, a winery, even an ice skating rink. Donald Trump owns all of them. What newly released financial forms reveal about the businesses of the man who wants to become president.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Donald Trump, as you may know, is not afraid to tell you that he's rich. But exactly how rich? He may tell you one story while his records tell another. This week, the presumptive Republican nominee released the required financial disclosure forms, but as "CNN Money" correspondent Christina Alesci reports, they are meant to show conflicts of interest, not exactly how much the Donald is worth.

[19:45:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's Donald Trump's pitch to the American people. "I've built a fortune for myself and I can do it for the country, too."

TRUMP: I built a great, great company. Trump steaks. Where are the steaks? Do we have the steaks? The winery. See the wine? I've done great, and that's the kind of thinking you're going to have to need.

ALESCI: But just how great has Trump done.

The financial disclosures he's filed with the Federal Election Commission may be long, but they're short on specifics.

ROBERT KELLNER, COVINGTON & BURLING, PARTNER: The form doesn't call for a great deal of detail. It allows you to report, for example, ranges of income, rather than exact amounts, which is a little different than a tax return that you might file with the IRS.

ALESCI: But the government doesn't require Trump to release his tax records. The long disclosure document, which candidates must file, is the only official window into Trump's wealth.

The most recent filing lists assets of at least $1.4 billion, from January 2015 through May of 2016. Excluding investments, it also includes at least $611 million in income according to our tally. But it's hard to tell whether that income is actually flowing into Trump's pockets or into his company's coffers.

KELLNER: He lists revenues rather than income. He has, for example, for his golf courses, golf-related revenue. And so it makes it a little bit difficult to know, is that just the gross revenue of his golf course, or is that actually an income he got to pay for all the expenses in running the golf course?

ALESCI: In the end, the distinction may not matter, at least not to the government. The financial disclosure form is supposed to find potential conflicts of interest. It's not a check on the candidate's math. And Trump's math has always been hard to verify, says author Tim O'Brien. Trump sue d him, claiming that O'Brien lowballed his net worth. The case was dismissed.

TIM O'BRIEN, AUTHOR "TRUMPNATION": Any time he estimates his net worth, he adds in this humongous figure for goodwill and branding. He says the Trump brand is worth x many billions. And that's just Donald sitting around eating a cheeseburger saying I'm worth "x" billions of dollars.

ALESCI: Trump claims a net worth in excess of $10 billion.

"Forbes" put his wealth closer to $4 billion. We reached out to the Trump campaign but didn't get a comment.

Short of an independent audit, all we really know for sure is this.

TRUMP: I'm really rich.

ALESCI: Christina Alesci, CNN Money.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: So the question is how much? We are keeping an eye on an event in Florida. It is where Hillary Clinton is expected to speak out against Donald Trump specifically his endorsement by the NRA. Stay with us. We're going to go there as soon as she takes the stage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:51:10]

SCIUTTO: Breaking news this hour, a major U.S. drone strike has likely killed the Taliban's number one leader. That is Mullah Mansour. Two U.S. officials telling CNN, Mansour likely killed in today's air strike. It took place in a remote area of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. One official telling CNN there is no collateral damage from today's operation. It happened about 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

We do know the drone strike targeted two men, both of whom the Pentagon believe were likely killed in the strike. Let's talk it over with CNN political commentator, Buck Sexton. He's a former CIA terrorism analyst as well. Buck, how will, what is expected to be, at least the Pentagon believes was the killing of the Taliban leader impact its effectiveness as a terror organization. What do we know from our experience when other terror leaders have been killed in strikes like this?

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, one of the immediate benefits is that there will likely be disruptions of major plots. And we've seen some mass casualty attacks plotted by the Taliban in Kabul, for example, and attacking city senders, over running checkpoints, over running military installations. This may keep them off balance for a short while, and it should be noted that we're entering the fighting, we're in the fighting season in Afghanistan and so anything that disrupts our operational tempo is going to be very helpful for the purposes of stability, and it will help the Afghan national security forces perhaps get a stronger footing in some areas.

All of that said, there is certainly a succession plan in place. We've seen leadership before killed or just die of natural causes that are at the heads of insurgencies or terrorist groups like the Taliban, without really much of a long term change. In fact, things sometimes things get worse afterwards.

So right now, I think there will be a bit of a pause or there will be a pause in some operations, perhaps, because of this strike. You can also expect senior leadership to probably keep their heads down a little bit more in the Af-Pak border area, but we still have a very long, protracted insurgency, counterinsurgency campaign to wage.

SCIUTTO: So place this in the political debate for us, does this fight the narrative that the U.S. war on terror is failing? We know that there is a recent CNN poll that shows that most Americans feel the fight against ISIS, for instance, is not working. Does a strike like this on the heels of other successful strikes against terror leaders in Iraq and Syria, Yemen, you name it, does it change that narrative?

SEXTON: I don't think it will really affect perception, Jim, because not that many people, quite honestly know Mullah Mansour is or was, depending on whether he was actually killed in this strike. Isn't somebody who is thought of, for example, having direct ties to 911. Mullah Omar, for example, is someone who is generally better known, obviously, Osama Bin Laden. I mean some of the names that have become more prominent in terrorist lexicon that have taken out in the past, quite affect perception but Mullah Mansour will be replaced with Mullah such and such in a very short period of time.

And so I don't think it will really make much of a difference to how the public views this. I think what does matter is that we still have close to 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. We've been that war for 15 years and there's no change in strategy. There's no reason to believe we're doing anything differently that would put the Taliban back on their heels. We're still hoping for political reconciliation. We've been hoping for that for a long time.

The Taliban is resurgent this year. The Taliban has actually been taking back territory, so it's really, piece by piece in a very large war, and this is a good day for U.S. special operations, a good day in the counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban but not a sea change.

SCIUTTO: Well, as we know, remind our viewers, there are still American forces on the ground in Afghanistan facing real danger.

Buck Sexton, thanks for joining us.

SEXTON: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Please stay with us. We're still following a number of stories, including waiting for Hillary Clinton to take the stage at Ft. Lauderdale with a major speech targeting Donald Trump. That speech taking place in Florida. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:58:10]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back to our breaking news here on CNN.

A Taliban leader and an architect of mass killings across Afghanistan, including the killing of U.S. soldiers have likely just been killed in a U.S. drone strike. U.S. officials trying to confirm now that drones got their target. He is Mullah Mansour, likely killed, U.S. officials tell CNN in an air strike, in a remote area in Pakistan, this morning.

We're also following a major development in the hunt for Egyptair flight 804. Seearchers finding this. You are looking at the first images of wreckage pulled so far from the eastern Meditteranean. You see there mangled plane seats, suitcases, shoes, even an unwrapped life vest there. The cause of the crash, however, still very much a mystery.

The French have just confirmed the detection of smoke inside the cabin triggering an alarm system moments before the plane vanished from radar and plummeted into the sea.

We'll keep you updated on that story throughout the coming hours.

Coming up tonight, on CNN, a "United Shades of America" marathon. At 9:00, "Protect and Serve," at 10:00, "The New KKK," at11:00, "Behind the Walls." And tomorrow night, Anthony Bourdain is in Georgia, a fomer Soviet Republic where you don't want to mess with tradition in all new "Parts Unknown." That is Sunday night at 9:00 p.m.

I'm Jim Sciutto, thanks for joining us today. I will be back tomorrow night at 5:00 Eastern time, "THE EIGHTIES: GREED IS GOOD" is next.