Ben Swann, a reporter for Cincinnati’s FOX 19, asked the president, “How do you as president utilize that power [of the presidential kill list] to assassinate … U.S. citizens?” …

“You’re basing this on reports in the news that have never been confirmed by me, and I don’t talk about our national security decisions in that way,” the president responded. …

More than three dozen of the president’s current and former advisers discussed the kill list in interviews for a New York Times article, including former Chief of Staff Bill Daley, former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and John Brennan, the president’s top counterterrorism adviser, who personally guides Obama through the process of deciding whether or not to put a person on the kill list.