The Situation Room is a noted photograph captured by White House photographer Pete Souza in a room adjoining the White House Situation Room at 4:06 PM on May 1, 2011. The photograph shows President of the United States, Barack Obama, along with his national security team, receiving live updates of Operation Neptune Spear, which led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda.

Despite its popular title, the photograph was actually taken in a room next to the White House Situation Room. The Situation Room itself has a large table that can accommodate more than twelve people, but this room has a smaller table that only seats 7. Both rooms, however, are equipped with video and telephone communications.

Air Force Brigadier General Brad Webb was sitting at the table monitoring the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound when Michael Leiter, then Director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center, entered the room. Leiter does not appear in the photograph, but was followed by Gates, Clinton, Biden, and others. Soon the President entered the room, commenting "I need to watch this," and sat down next to General Webb. According to journalist Peter Bergen, the group was watching a live feed from an unmanned drone flying overhead. The Daily Mail reported that Obama was able to watch the exact moment that bin Laden was killed, but Leon Panetta said this was not the case. Clinton said: "We could see or hear nothing when [the SEALs] went into the house. There was no communication or feedback coming so it was during that time period everyone was particularly focused on just trying to keep calm and keep prepared as to what would happen."

The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer is an afternoon/early evening newscast on CNN and CNN International hosted by Wolf Blitzer that first aired on August 8, 2005. The show replaces three politics and hard news programs: Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics, Crossfire (canceled on June 3, 2005) and Wolf Blitzer Reports.

At first, the newscast aired live from 3–6 p.m. ET and was subdivided into an hour devoted to politics, an hour devoted to security, and an hour devoted to international news. However, on November 2, 2005, CNN announced that The Situation Room would be chopped up: block 1 would air live from 4–6 p.m. ET, and block 2 would air live from 7–8 p.m. ET (taking over the timeslot held by Anderson Cooper 360 which moved to 10 p.m. ET). Lou Dobbs Tonight aired between the two blocks. Effective November 5, 2007, the show reverted to a single 3-hour block from 4:00–7:00pm ET to give more focus to the presidential election scheduled to take place 1 year from that date. Lou Dobbs Tonight moved up to 7:00 pm ET. In January 2010 after the cancellation of Lou Dobbs Tonight and the expansion of Rick Sanchez's hour into a two-hour program, The Situation Room was pushed to air from 5:00 pm ET to 8:00 pm ET. As of March 22, 2010, its third hour was replaced by a new program, John King, USA, hosted by John King. As a result The Situation Room now airs from 5:00 pm ET to 7:00 pm ET. On October 3, 2011, Erin Burnett OutFront began airing at 7:00PM, John King, USA moved to the 6:00PM time slot, and The Situation Room moved to 4:00PM–6:00PM - leaving one less hour of CNN Newsroom.

Rachel Anne Maddow (pronounced /ˈmædoʊ/; born April 1, 1973) is an American television host, political commentator, and author. Maddow hosts a nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio. Maddow is the first openly gay anchor of a prime-time news program in the United States.

Asked about her political views by the Valley Advocate, Maddow replied, "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."

Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Her father, Robert B. "Bob" Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and found civilian work as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Her mother, Elaine Maddow (née Gosse), is a school program administrator from Newfoundland, Canada. She has one older brother, David. Her father is of Russian and Dutch descent and her mother is of English and Irish ancestry. Maddow's mother was raised a strict Roman Catholic, and Maddow herself grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative." Maddow was a competitive athlete and played three sports in high school. Referencing John Hughes films, she describes herself in high school as "a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl."

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden ( /oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn moʊˈhɑːmɨd bɪn əˈwɑːd bɪn ˈlɑːdən/; Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎, ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), was the founder of Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.

Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, with a US$25 million bounty by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs and CIA operatives in a covert operation ordered by United States President Barack Obama.

Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( /koʊlˈbɛər/ or /ˈkoʊlbərt/; born May 13, 1964) is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.

Colbert originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theatre when he met famed Second City director Del Close while attending Northwestern University. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago; among his troupe mates were comedians Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he developed the critically acclaimed sketch comedy series Exit 57.

Colbert also wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. It was his work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show, however, that first introduced him to a wide audience.