President Obama played cards during the bin Laden raid says his longtime aide Reggie Love



President Obama's longtime aide Reggie Love says he and the president played cards during part of the raid in Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

'Most people were like down in the Situation Room and [President Obama] was like, "I’m not going to be down there, I can’t watch this entire thing,"' Love recalled of the May 2011 raid during a forum hosted by the D.C.-based Artists & Athletes Alliance in Los Angeles last month.

He said that he and the president, along with White House photographer Pete Souza and Obama aide Marvin Nicholson, gathered in the private dining room to play a couple rounds of cards.

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President Obama's longtime aide Reggie Love says he and the president played cards during part of the raid in Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden

In this handout image provided by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of the national security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House May 1, 2011

'We must have played 15 games of spades,' Love said.



Obama has previously said that he watched the raid in real time in the Situation Room with members of his national security team. It's not clear when he stepped away to play cards.

'This was the longest 40 minutes of my life,' the president told NBC News a year after the raid, referring to the amount of time the Navy SEALs had to complete their mission after landing at the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad.



Love, 32, has worked for Obama as a personal assistant since the president was a junior senator. He was invited to the forum last month to reflect on his time as one of the president's closest aides. The Weekly Standard first reported on his remarks.

Watch more of the interview with Reggie Love on YouTube.

President Barack Obama shares a laugh with former White House aide Reggie Love as they watch the US Senior Men's National Basketball Team and Brazil play on July 16, 2012

President Barack Obama (center) talks with his special assistant and personal aide Reggie Love (left) and photographer Pete Souza outside the Oval Office on May 12, 2011

Obama (left) blocks a shot while playing basketball with personal aide Reggie Love at St Bartholomew's Church in September 23, 2009 in New York City

Love left his position at the White House at the end of 2011 to complete his Master of Business Administration degree at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

He said that during the 2008 campaign, the news was always so negative regarding Obama's campaign so 'We came up with this rule - there's like no MSNBC, no CNN - only sports.'

'If we're not at a campaign event, no politics talk,' he recalled.