"The buck stops with me," President Reagan said. "The buck stops right here," promised President Obama. The buck "started before I was here," countered President Trump.

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Watch Trump’s response when asked about the father of slain SEAL William “Ryan” Owens, who died in the Yemen raid pic.twitter.com/lOrAx6KAdz — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 28, 2017

This morning, the president joined the crack journalistic crew at Fox & Friends, his favorite show which is doing very well, much better than CNN, to tackle a range of issues. One was Trump's first military decision as commander-in-chief, the special operations raid in Yemen that resulted in the death of 14 militants, an undisclosed number of civilians including children, and a Navy SEAL named Ryan Owens. The SEAL's father, Bill Owens, told The Miami Herald recently that his "conscience" barred him from speaking to Trump.

When asked about it, the president refrained from attacking another father to a fallen soldier, which we'll have to count as progress. However, he also seemed determined to accept as little responsibility as possible:

"This was a mission that started before I got here. This was something they wanted to do. They came to see me, they explained what they wanted to do, the generals—who are very respected. My generals are the most respected that we've had in many decades I believe. And they lost Ryan. And I was at the airport when the casket came in, the body came in, and it was a very sad—with the family, and it's a great family, incredible wife and children. I met most of the family. And I can understand people saying that. I'd feel, you know, I'd feel—what's worse? There's nothing worse. But again, this is something that they were looking at for a long time doing, and according to General Mattis, it was a very successful mission. They got tremendous amounts of information."

Got that? He didn't plan this thing, and they lost a guy, but by the way, it was a success.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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