Transcripts For ALJAZ Decline 20240713

Investigate former Vice President biden and as you know from the extensive documentation i provided Vice President biden was not a topic of discussion i was not on the july 25th phone call between President Trump and president s olinsky i was not made aware of any reference device resume biden or his son by President Trump until the transcript of the call was released on september 25th 21000 white house ukraine expert Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vin men also testified as did Jennifer Williams an advisor to the u. S. Vicepresident on july 21st 2001000 present zelinsky one a parliamentary election in another landslide victory the n. S. C. Proposed that President Trump called president philippa zelinsky to congratulate him on july 25th 2900 the college heard our listeners on the in on the call in the situation room with white house colleagues i was concerned by the call what i heard was inappropriate. And i reported my concerns to mr eisenberg it was improper for the president of the United States to demand a Foreign Government investigate a u. S. Citizen and a political opponent on july 25th along with several of my colleagues i listened to a call between President Trump and president selenski the contents of which has since been publicly reported prior to july 25th i had participated in roughly a dozen other president ial phone calls during my closed door deposition members of the committee asked about my personal views and whether i had any concerns about the july 25th call as i testified then i found the july 25th phone call unusual because in contrast to other president ial calls i had observed it involved discussion of what it appeared to be a domestic political matter. Only here present donald trump who continues to deny any wrongdoing described the impeachment inquiry as a Kangaroo Court so the 2nd week of public hearings in the house between inquiry into President Donald Trump lets bring in fisher in washington d. C. For us alan its certainly been a very very long day tell us about the big moments from the hearings so far. Well i think most of the americans who are watching this will have seen live 10 and colonel alexander veteran the smalling and his testimony who was credible and it was emotional heres a man who was brought from the ukraine to the United States as a toddler went on to say in the army was wounded in fallujah has a purple star because he was wounded saying that he felt immediately the on the phone call with the ukrainian president in july that donald trump had done something wrong so we immediately went to the lawyers has a loyalty was attacked they brought up the fact that hed been offered the job as ukraines defense minister but as you pointed out hed gone straight to authorities and told them about this which all it does is really prove that he has a history of when something inappropriate happens taking it to his bosses also Jennifer Williams was interesting as well saying that she thought that there was something not quite right about the phone call were hearing now from. Volcker who is the special representative to ukraine appointed initially by Rex Tillerson but continued in the post by mike pompei o and he is essentially saying that. Joe biden the idea that joe biden was involved in something corrupt on the ferry this in ukraine simply was wrong that he would never do such a thing but perhaps i think its maybe gone under the radar ever so slightly comes from Timothy Morrison whos giving evidence at the moment hes a National Security advisor and he was asked did Gordon Sunderland see anything to the ukrainians about the aid and he said yes they were told if they didnt they would be able to free up that aid if they announced investigations into the 26000. 00 election and also into the bidens no by any reading that is a quid pro quo that is exactly what the democrats are saying that donald trump wanted to get an investigation into a political rival which of course is against the law to take their own of all of this essentially is that if you are a democrat and you believe donald trump did something wrong all youre hearing today is building up the testimony that backs that up if you are a republican and you think donald trump did nothing wrong and he has the right to direct Foreign Policy then you will continue to think that what is interesting is that Mitch Mcconnell who is the leader of the republicans in the senate and thats where this process could end up it will be there that they will vote whether or not to import impeach donald trump he says he thinks its and i quote inconceivable that theyll be 67 votes in the senate to impeach donald trump and remove him from office that may change as more evidence comes out but the moment they dont seem to have the smoking gun and the democrats would dearly love john bolton to give evidence but that doesnt seem as if its going to happen any time soon all right alan thank you very much for the moment lets hunting need to watch the hearings now washington. But you didnt know about the start your testimony right at the time i did not think he was talking about it right you heard him say investigations you thought it was inappropriate and the chairman asked you about you said oh its because i know its. I just thought it was inappropriate and then i guess when they were in the ward room and buster song raised on the bidens in 2016 you missed that too as i understand it that is correct right and then of course on july 18th you knew it was withheld and then in august you spent a good part of the time with this statement with Rudy Giuliani right and you were the guy making the changes and interacting with ukrainians you were put in rudys changes which included a call for investigating barista and the 2016 elections which you now know meant by right and they did noted that done. Right but now we know it right and that on september 1st you were in warsaw i mean youre never put in this youre in warsaw and you were there when ambassador saw and told andre youre mad that he was not going to get Security Assistance he was going to get a white house meeting unless there was the investigation and i understand you missed that you were out of the loop then thats not correct sir so i was not in more saw at these meetings oh excuse me youre not to work so but you heard about it right after from song and its not right no thats not quite correct either d it was sometime later i got it so but now we know right now you know what it meant and you said in retrospect i should have seen that connection differently and had i done so i would have raised my own objections right that is correct and one of the objections you would have rates are so that he would i would raise is that people are conflating investigating the bidens with investigating these ukrainian people but when he will have objected to the president asking for an investigation of the bines as you sit here now you said i would have raised my own objections yes if you knew it was the by us if i knew were talking about investigating Vice President biden and asking the ukrainians and his son that would be that would be inappropriate and i would have directed to that right and went and so if you had heard him ask for it on the call and you said in retrospect ukrainians clearly would have been it would have been confusing right correct is confusing the right word sir i mean it would have put them in the position of having to do something inappropriate right notice to get the but i think infusing is the right word because they were clearly hearing Something Different from the president in one conversation and different for me as a u. S. Special representative developer may be certainly understood that investigating. And investigating 2016 is fragment the binds even though you didnt i mean in fact at the time you were talking to your macin putting those changes in the statement he had talked to solomon right at the same time and so the point being that they were put in an impossible position they were being asked. To do something inappropriate and you now know that right and you would have you would have raised your own objection i know they were asked in the phone call to do that in the conversations that i had with ukrainians we were not asking them to do that and even at that point the ukrainians perhaps with the knowledge of this phone call which i did not have knowledge of at the time is that we just dont want to go there right and so so in retrospect though you would have raised objections you would have said it was inappropriate for the president right to do this isnt and mr morrison can i just ask you sir so you start im stuck on this issue of you didnt see anything wrong with the call but you went straight to n. S. C. Legal to reported is that your testimony to us today yes or thank you sir. Thank you mr chairman mr morrison and that to both of you thank you so much for your Service Thanks for being here its been a long day mr morris and just to follow up on the question from my colleague you responded earlier to a series of questions about the call and basically solved nothing wrong with it yet you skipped your chain of command to go to Legal Counsel to find out i guess to find out what to do because you were concerned about the political fallout not about anything being and appropriate or wrong with the call is that correct and i dont agree with the premise no ok could you tell me why you felt the need you saw nothing basically wrong with the call yet you skip your chain of command to go to council because of what what was the reason for that i dont know that i again i dont agree with the premise maam i dont think i did get my chain of command if eyes had seen something wrong i would have who do you lose your direct report. The Deputy National guard advisor and the name of the person dr charles government i think had dr copperman did you speak with him before you spoke with Legal Counsel you know him but you dont feel used skip your chain of command in doing so going directly to counsel maam if i may i viewed by engagement with v. S. E. Legal advisor as one or 3 focus on administrative matters i was interested in locking down the transcript of president ministry of matter i was interested in making sure that the Legal Adviser was aware of the call because i didnt see anybody from the legal Advisors Office and why were you so concerned about the Legal Adviser be and aware of this call that you saw nothing basically wrong with the substance or content of the call because i i did not see anybody from the weve got visors office in the listening room and i wanted to make sure somebody from the legal Advisors Office was aware and i wanted to make sure it was a senior person what is it that you wanted them to be aware of specifically i wanted them to be aware of the cole because i wanted them to know what had transpired what concerns you to the point where you wanted them to know what had transpired that she went directly to Legal Counsel to inform them of why by equivalent of the head of innocent legal was it wasnt is John Eisenberg he was he was my equivalent in opposition i wouldnt go to somebody subordinate to him i would go to didnt you testify earlier that you were concerned about the political fallout i was raised on the Political Climate in d. C. Yes that has been ok all right and so how long have you supervised Lieutenant Colonel then. Maam approximately i guess not approximately july 15th oct 31 or so ok all right thank you. Ambassador volcker you testified that you believe congressional pressure helped unfreeze the security system. Being released do you still stand by that testimony today i believe it was important i met with Staff Members of the Senate Armed Services committee and solve a letter that several senators signed and sent to d the chief of staff mulvey me and i was briefed about the possibility of a couple of phone calls from some senior members of the senate as well thank you mr chairman i yield my remaining time to you thank you general revealing investor volker just want to follow on a couple questions about ukrainians not being aware of the aid being withheld. Youre aware im sure of the testimony of colonel inman that in fact. He was contacted by someone within d the Ukrainian Embassy who is concerned about the whole prior to its becoming public i read not aware of that but i take that are you aware of this cross testimony Interest Groups that have been released that in fact ukrainians found out quite quickly after the hole was placed in july that she was impressed with ukrainian trade craft and that the crane instead a reason to keep it silent not make it public i saw that inner testimony you dont have a reason to question whether in fact that testimony zack or do no i dont so the ukrainians did find out before it was public at least according to these 2 witnesses but nevertheless ukrainian certainly found out it was public it was published in the newspaper right that is correct in august 29th and at the time they found out from the newspaper they still hadnt had the white house meeting and they still didnt have the aide and at that point they had already had the conversation with the president in which she asked them to investigate the bidens correct. That is correct. Its krishnamurthy. Good evening to both of you and thank you for your service and asked for volker on page 7 of your Opening Statements today you said. Since. Events surrounding your earlier testimony october 3rd quarter quote a great deal of Additional Information perspectives have come to light i have learned many things that i did not know at the time of the events in question correct yes that is correct that includes conversations that occurred as well as meetings that occurred of which you were in a part correct is correct sir you obviously were not a part of the july 25th call. Is that right that is correct you were not aware that ambassador somnolent according to your Opening Statement had a call with President Trump on july 26th correct that is correct on september 1st you were present for the sidebar meeting between ambassador silent and special advisor your moc isnt that right that is correct. And you certainly werent part of the phone call between ambassador taylor and ambassador somnolent in which ambassador susan lyne according to multiple multiple people now said that everything a white house meeting as well as military aid were dependent on public announcements of investigations is that right that is correct and certainly sir you were part of the phone call on september 7th between ambassador song lynn and President Trump in which President Trump insisted that president zelinsky go to a mike and publicly announce investigations of President Trumps domestic rivals and that right correct and certainly you werent part of the september 8th phone call between ambassador son wound and. Ambassador trying im sorry President Trump where President Trump again insists that these and now incidents have to happen is that right that is correct sir you say that you were a witness to any kind of quid pro quo or conditionality between military assistance and investigations what someone called missiles for misinformation today is not right that is correct but sir you were present for many if not all of the phone calls and conversations were these alleged instances of quid pro quo occurred is that right that is correct sir let me turn your attention to another topic thats come up today. Actually came up last friday you have high regard for ambassador youve on of it correct yes i do. I presume that you were aware that as the ambassador was testifying President Trump actually tweeted very disparaging remarks about her rights and i saw that moment and i presume that you disapprove of those types of tweets correct is i dont think thats appropriate youve supervise many many people over the years during your career in the Foreign Service right yes i have and you would never do that to one of your. Direct reports or anybody who worked in your organization right no i would not its just wrong. I believe that even when you feel like you need to criticize criticism is private praise is public and i also believe that youre a man of honor and you would not attack a veteran you would not attack someone who is currently serving in the military who is doing their duty correct no i respect the service of our members uniform in fact. Theres a certain man that we both admire the late senator john mccain. Who unfortunately was attacked not only when he was alive but after he died by the current president is that right that is true and i presume that you would disapprove of all of those attacks on john mccain right now as i know joe i knew john mccain very very well for a very long time hes on our bowl and very much a war hero for this country well today sir as Lieutenant Colonel been was testifying our president used the official twitter account of the office of the president to attack Lieutenant Colonel been moments credibility i presume you dont approve of those types of tweets either do you i was not aware of that and as with ambassador you on of its not appropriate. Thank you sir thank you for your service and thank you mr morrison for your sins well. I concludes the member questioning i now recognize Ranking Member for any closing comments yes thank you as the 1st day of this weeks impeachment t. V. Marathon draws to a close id like to remind the American People what were watching. The public hearings are the culmination of 3 years of incessant democrat efforts to find a crime to impeach the president 1st they tried to manufacture evidence that the president colluded with russia to accomplish this task the d. N. C. And the Clinton Campaign worked with the former british spy Christopher Steele still a symbol they dasi of false information alleging the Trump Campaign colludes russia that dossier was largely assembled from russian and ukrainian sources that the democrat contractors worked with next they prime their hopes on the work of Robert Mueller spent 2 years and millions of taxpayer dollars seeking evidence of a crime that we know wasnt committed moeller scaler failure was deaf as a devastating blow to democrats who clearly hoped his work to be the basis for the removal of the president today were witnessing the ukraine hoax the direct to t. V. Sequel to the russia collusion hoax the plot of the ukraine hoax is hard to follow it shifts from day to day 1st the democrats claim they had evidence of quid pro quo in extortion and witness intimidation now democrats are pinning their hopes on bribery like any good hollow it call of hollywood production democrats needed a screen test before releasing their latest attack on the president it leverage the secrecy of the House Intelligence Committee to interview a cast of characters in preparation for these public hearings with the medias enthusiastic support they built a narrative based on selectively leaked testimony. Speaker pelosi and the democrats on this committee are seeking the truth they would want to know the answers to the following questions that they refused to ask to what extent did the whistleblower coordinate with the democrats on this committee had or staff what is the full extent of ukraines election meddling against the Truck Campaign in 2016 why debris small hire hunter biden and what did he do for them and did his position impact any u. S. Government actions under the Obama Administration the American People were promised a grave and somber impeachment inquiry instead they got the salacious screen comedy. That theyve been working on for 3 years and night see in the morning i think the gentleman and i thank you both for your testimony today. I would highlight a couple things about what weve heard this afternoon 1st. Mr volcker your written testimony in which you say in hindsight i now understand that others saw the idea of investigating possible corruption involving Ukrainian Company barisich as a quibble and to investigating former Vice President biden i saw them as very different the former being appropriate and unremarkable the latter being unacceptable in retrospect you said i should have seen that connection differently and had i done so i would have raised my own objections after we appreciate your willingness to amend your earlier testimony in light of what you now know and i think you made it very clear that knowing what you do today that in fact the president sought an investigation of his political rival Vice President biden you would not have countenanced any effort to encourage ukrainians to engage in such conduct. I appreciate also that you were able to debunk i hope for the last time the idea that joe biden did something wrong when he in accordance with u. S. Policy sought to replace a corrupt prosecutor something that not only the u. S. State department wanted not only the European Union wanted and not only the i. M. F. Wanted but was the consensus position of the United States National Security infrastructure you didnt get a lot of questions about that today as other witnesses did because i think you effectively said that was all nonsense we appreciate your candor about that from ours and i think what is most remarkable about your testimony is the acknowledgement that immediately after the Vice President met with president selenski in warsaw d you witnessed Gordon Sunland meeting with andre your mock top adviser to president s alinsky and then immediately thereafter saw him and told you that he had informed the ukrainians that if they wanted that 400000000 in military aid they were going to have to do those investigations that the president wanted and you were later informed and this is also significant as you testified here today that the investor saw on land at a subsequent conversation with President Trump and informed you that it wasnt going to be enough for the ukrainian prosecutor general to announce the investigations the president wanted presence alinsky had to do it himself if you wanted to get that aid let alone the meeting in the white house now youve been asked to opine on the meaning of the term bribery although you were nasty to pine on the meeting of the terms high crimes and misdemeanors but bribery for those watching at home is the conditioning of official acts in exchange for something of personal value. Fishel acts were talking about here are a white house meeting the president s alinsky desperately sought and as you have acknowledged investor volker was deeply important to this country at war with russia to show the United States having this new president s back that meeting was important that meeting is an official act the military assistance is even more significant because ukrainians are dying every day in their war with russia and so the withholding a military assistance to get these investigations which you now have a knowledge of vaster volcker was wrong for the president to request the idea withholding that military aid to get these political investigations should be anathema to it repugnant to every american because it means the sacrifice not just of ukrainian National Security but american National Security for the interests of the president personally and politically my part republican colleagues all they seem to be upset about with this is not that the president saw an investigation of his political rival not that he withheld the white house meeting and 400000000. 00 in aid we all passed on a bipartisan basis to pressure ukraine to do those investigations their objections he got caught their objection is that someone blew the whistle and they would like this whistleblower identified and the president wants this whistleblower punished thats their objection not that the president gauged in this conduct but that he got caught their defenses well know he end up releasing the aides yes after he got caught it doesnt make this any less odious americans may be watching this and asking why should the United States care about ukraine why should we care about ukraine. And this was the import i think of the conversation the now infamous conversation that you have restaurant with gordon someone holding the phone away from his head because the president s talking so loud what is the president asking that call the day after the now infamous call he had was the lenski what is he asking that cell phone call not whether the rada had passed some new Anti Corruption reform no idea craigs going to do the investigation into biden. And songlines answer is theyre going to do it theyll do essentially anything the president wants but whats more telling is a conversation i think that saddam has with a Foreign Service officer holmes afterwards in which the president says basically donald trump doesnt give a expletive about ukraine he cares about the big things mr holmes says well ukraines at war with russia the russians thats kind of a big thing and someones answer is no no he cares about big things that affect his personal interests this is why americans should care about this american should care about what happens to our allies or die but americans should care about their own National Security and their own president and their own constitution. And they will need to ask themselves as we will have to ask ourselves in congress are we prepared to accept that a president lied states and leverage fishel x. Military existence white house meetings to get an investigation of a political rival we prepared to say well you know i guess thats just what we should expect in a prison the United States i dont think we want to go there i dont think our Founding Fathers would have wanted to us to go there indeed i think when the Founding Fathers provided a remedy that remedy being impeachment they had the very concern that a president i had states may betray the National Security interests of the country for personal interests they put that remedy in the constitution not because they wanted to willy nilly overturn elections now because they wanted a powerful Anti Corruption mechanism when that corruption came from the highest office in the land they were adjourned. Yes there we have it the end of a non day of testimony on capitol hill in the house impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump lets bring in not in fish in washington for us have been listening in all day what were the highlights when. Well i think the approach of both parties was adequately summed up there in the closing speeches from the senior members on both sides 1st of all with the republicans they have a nunez essentially saying this is a farce thank you good night see you to morrow and then adam schiff making a very impassioned plea saying look this is the evidence and this is where it leads this is why what donald trump did was wrong certainly the americans going to be talking about telling colonel alexander vitamine war veteran who gave evidence this morning he said soon as he had the phone call in july between President Trump and his ukrainian counterpart he went to a white house lawyer and said look i think theres a difficulty with us Jennifer White who is a senior aide to mike pence the Vice President she also said shed been on a number of calls between president s and thought this one was a bit odd we then had to from cut volker who said that the idea that joe biden would be involved in something untoward in ukraine was absolutely ridiculous and the bunk that Conspiracy Theory i mean talking point of the republicans and then we had as adam schiff highlighted there what becomes very important from 10 morrison when he says the Gorton Sunderland told the ukrainians youll get the aid if theres an investigation announced into the 26000. 00 election and also into the bidens that is a very clear quid pro quo that would certainly merit high crimes and misdemeanors which of course is what were going to go through as we get into the Impeachment Vote in the house what is also interesting is that 1st of all donald trump said he didnt know a lot of the people who were giving testimony even though a week or so ago he described the mall is never trampers and the other thing that mcconnell leader of the republicans in the senate essentially saying if this goes to a vote in the senate at the moment he thinks its inconceivable that the 67 votes to kick the president out of office. All right allan thank you very much for that update and that summary will have plenty more reaction and analysis to whats been happening on capitol hill coming up and very shortly on shes going to stay with us. Hi im Steve Clemons and i have a question is a Trump Administration turning the u. S. Military into a protection racket lets get to the bottom line. Burden sharing Many American president s have pushed this line but donald trump has added a new dimension arguing that allies of the United States have to pay more for quote protection he has been rated nato allies handed angle americal a handwritten bill for 2 trillion dollars on one occasion for money owed for germanys protection and moved on to saudi arabia and last week it was south koreas turn so what does it mean for the u. S. Military forces spread all over the globe and do americas allies smell a shakedown fortunately we have 3 people in the room who have all the answers to these questions admiral William Fallon who is headed who is headed both u. S. Central command and Pacific Command and served as a president ial envoy to japan lacey healy chief editor of stick and host of a podcast on military affairs called things that go boom and kevin baron executive director of defense one which covers u. S. Defense and National Security thank you all so much for joining us admiral fallon let me start with you burden sharing is not a new thing many president s have been talking about it and i remember president obama president clinton both president bush actually talking to our allies on numerous occasions and making the case that our allies needed to do more so whats different about this moment well steve i think. Before we get into this it would be good to just keep in mind that this is a complex question and the arrangements that we have with Different Countries are almost all unique so nato the Nato Alliance been around since the 1949 longstanding tradition of security very very helpful to us in the cold war days and now its a different era but there are longstanding nato agreements and arrangements that touched each of course i knew i was very helpless after 9112 it was article 5 in middle you know its so good you go to other places in the world and these are different theyre not the same and so the arrangement we have of korea is different than the one with nato and the arrangements in japan are different again with korea and you go around the world singapore with qatar or almost every place these are not the same deals and so to approach them as its one thing you pay or else is not in my opinion the right way to do this and you have to keep in mind that when these agreements are negotiated and you know she had a bunch of them done a number or been a part of those negotiations theyre best done in my experience offline out of the limelight because some of the issues become very sensitive and theyre unique to the individual countries involved well lets listen to President Trump for a moment as hes talked about what hes trying to do on this front we will insist on fair burden sharing with our allies i made it clear we are protecting many many wealthy wealthy wealthy countries we protect all of these wealthy countries which im very honored to do. But many of them are so wealthy they could easily pay the cost of this protection cabin the admiral just laid out that many of these are different that if youre like looking at korea thats a different deal than nato today where Central Command has a huge base and these so if there are 10 other some places where. Burden sharing becomes protection where essentially were loaning our our military muscle for pay running up you know running the pentagon at a profit if you will look yes if thats what you listen to the president s word when you ask but i dont when i go wait a minute let me as it were president words you know does it matter right as it depends on it and i look at this when you ask anyone in the military about why all of these agreements existence because the United States has an enduring interest that these things exist if you want a United States military thats able to react to a threat abroad or to act as a deterrent abroad and the United States needs partners and allies thats just basic one a one defense doctrine right so you need an agreement with you know to have basing you need an agreement to have access to ports and overflights with all these individual countries but i think were already way down the weeds from what kind of really the bigger question here which is donald trump has brought a new way of doing business a new way of doing Foreign Policy and hes done it by the will of the American People or at least the Electoral College and a new era and i think were arguing a lot about the means not the ends like you said in your opener obama and every other president and every other defense secretary and joint chiefs chairman before them all have the same message to nato please you guys should pay a little more use of your debts a little more and democrats like carl levin were so i hear all that i want to i want to push you just for you the lazy joining you know correct all of us on this but i want to i want to ask you if if you had set up the regime that our allies that we have Strategic Interests in partnering with and deploying u. S. Forces or that we have someone out there that says were not going to pay because paying for u. S. Military base. Installations is sometimes a controversial thing in these countries is not easy its not an easy deal and as the admiral said most of these are dealt with without the spotlight on them and theyre done in close rooms because it is domestically controversial. But what happens if a country doesnt pay. Out of the well find out if anyone doesnt pay you know you bet so they can try to call trumps bluff but look i think theres a point theres a reason why the admiral was involved and didnt go stations like this and not the president of the United States this is not president ial business usually but donald trump has made it his business and at one another and another dimension of this i think is in a generational change there are populations of American Voters and populations in these countries that were dealing with that dont remember the last 50 years or dont know maybe appreciate the reason why american troops are stationed there to begin with and so the controversies in places like okinawa of korea where you know local populations may have had beads maybe changing over time and the more that donald trump framed this as a protection racket as as you know were were were going to protect your countries and im honored to do it rather than it is in americas security interest that we protected these not just these countries but american interests in these countries and our economic interests and our social introduce name right i was amused at one point in our history that and admiral fallon may have been involved this im not sure but in the early 1990 s. In the 1st gulf war the japanese did not participate then the assistant secretary of state Richard Solomon made a big deal with the japanese didnt participate in sort of in blood and force on the line so the japanese wrote a check they wrote a 13000000000. 00 check you know 30000000000. 00 went further than that time and we actually made a profit the United States made a profit off of that war and it was the 1st time i ever thought about running the pentagon at a profit but how does this you i mean youre a specialist you kind of talk about American Military commitments today does it make sense that price. Trump is putting pressure on our eyes to contribute more after all the United States is less of the size of the economy that it once was it is still maintaining a Global Infrastructure of security shouldnt these nations pay a lot more yeah i cant say that i agree with running the pentagon at a profit i dont think thats exactly what we want to be doing theres absolutely i agree with kevin that there is it is in the u. S. Interest for us to have these bases overseas its basic 101 we have to have allies but what trump is doing i think is actually turning this on its head and hes going down a road that many president s many lawmakers have gone down before saying yes we are allies need to share more of this burden and he is he understands that this is a super political situation and he understands that people inside the u. S. Are not going to be excited about closing any bases whether those are overseas or domestic he understands that some people some of our allies dont actually want our bases there and so if he turns this on its head and he says well this is a protection racket like ill do it if you really want me to then it allows its dangerous because it puts it puts the onus on our allies to say sure we dont want well here does exactly what president. Master to give you a different promotion but admiral fallon just to talk about which is to drag this out in the limelight it becomes controversial every realist listen to President Trump talk about his latest conquest. But south korea is costing us 5000000000. 00 a year they pay they were paying about 500000000000. 00. 5000000000. 00 worth of protection. And we have to do better so theyve agreed to pay 500000000. 00 more. Over the years itll start going up admiral fallon you know the Pacific Region very well the real numbers are that korea paid about 950000000. 00 in change last year but what is what is the issue that were really trying to drive at here should we be asking the koreans to amp up what theyre doing at the level of 5000000000. 00 a year what does that do to the integrity insolvency of that alliance so without getting into the details of the numbers what i believe were seeing here frankly is the behavior of the president from his past life in which its pretty well documented that his his m. O. Is to go in and hit him in the in the nose with a big number or big threat or a big something and intimidate them and theyll back off but my experience this is not the way you do International Diplomacy particularly because the south korea fight on the on the border of north korea which is threatening the region with Nuclear Missiles and weapons and warheads threatening japan so the one that gets the bloody nose is our ally so korea is a very interesting situation again gets back to this point about each of these arrangements with Different Countries around the world and the u. S. Are unique so in korea the history here goes back to going to recite since the korean war in 1950 but as a result of that war the u. N. Was asked to go to the defense of korea after the armistice and its worth noting that in korea there is no end to the korean war it has not been adjudicated as not been settled theres just an armistice thats been in effect since 1953 pretty interesting. So the war could start again at any time the point is now were there and we have a very. Different arrangement in korea than in other places the u. S. Forces they are en route and there are not that many particularly compared to the past in the mid twentys probably 20000 Something Like that of most of those are support people for the bases and quarters but in korea the command relationship is different than in most places so you have whats known as the combined forces command in which u. S. And korean leaders are totally integrated on the staff so its not like in most places where the u. S. Will go in with a with a staff of officers maybe you usually will be the commander and others will bring their staffs this is completely integrated on top to bottom so theyre very close together and its really if this is going to be effective if the defense of the Korean Peninsula was necessary in the future it has to work so the idea that you go in and just bludgeon them and say we want 5 times as much money to do this wait a minute what are we doing here other koreans to spend a lot of money at their behest to move us out of young signing the major facility and into its own priest a home for years that actually is to our advantage because its a lot further back from the d. M. Z. Than the previous place was and in military terms outside the range of current north korean artillery significant difference so we have these facilities in korea right theyre designed to be integrated with the koreans in case of an emergency and i think its its very important that we keep these arrangements as long as we have an interest in northeast asia which we certainly do so kevin i heard everything admiral said but again going back to the words of the president that you said we should questionably listen to on occasion. As as i had shared with you earlier we watched President Trump at camp humphries during his 1st trip to korea it was about 3 am in washington d. C. Time i remember it very well gave a speech about how. Important us korea relationship was about the american presence in asia and then when he finished his speech in the teleprompter was off he said he could have built that base far cheaper than it was built for and faster and that this space was not for American Security anyway it was only for koreas and so with that one line and did what i think was the purpose of the trip was to demonstrate to the koreans that americas security was also for your security and im interested in whether or not we should be listening to that president of the United States or should we be listening to the command structure the pentagon that has been saying and arguing. As best it can differently i think you better listen to both i you know i think absolutely you need to listen to commanders in the pentagon and around the world who give their you know advice and theyre the ones on the front line saying this is what we believe is needed to remember to execute the policies that theyre given by the president by the white house and you know sometimes you know theyre lobbying in their own way for the kinds of forces and equipment and agreements that they need but you better listen to the president too because again he reflects a large percentage of the population whether you agree with it or not whether you think they understand the world or theyre naive and they dont understand the world a lot of people think even in the in the russian relations circles are starting to say you know what they have a legitimate grievance theres a theres a lot of people that think yeah most countries around the world could chip in a little bit more its whats unique is this president in his bowl in a china shop kind of way comes in and like you said bloody the nose of an ally publicly in their own country to sit just to say you know he has a little upper hand politically to make himself look tough like the deal maker that he is thats the new york you know real estate mogul language that he knows that hes bringing to something as sensitive and complex as international right but when you ask American People or voters in the population theyre not in the weeds into all of these you know agreements that we know all they hear is look hes fighting for us hes doing hes doing what we asked him to do i think theres a fundamental assumption. Inherent in words like that and that is that these deals are one way that somehow. We are benefiting old times countries by our presence and in fact most of these arrangements or very definitely 2 way deals in which we get something out of this as well as the other country and if you look at these all together and take the view that theyre all the same and its all the us the great peril mighty us and were here to take your things and save you thats absolutely the wrong you know its q yeah what is the unrecognized dependency of the United States has on this Global Infrastructure of bases that is not really being talked about much yet i mean were certainly dependent to this point though about about certainly our 2 way the 2 way importance of this its very important for the us to have these bases but that also i want to point out i very much agree with that but i we cant whole say it make the whole sell assumption that all of these agreements and all of the all of these agreements and all of these faces are necessary and i think that certainly i mean you mention ensure like it we have u. S. Nuclear weapons stationed 100 miles from the border of syria and there are some of these arrangements that could use revisiting and you know that i think i think often a conversation is boiled down into a well the president doesnt understand how nato work c. Doesnt he doesnt understand that there are not you know just giving us money to do this thing and i dont think thats necessarily true i just dont think he care let me let me bring up a tweet from congresswoman omar reads our Defense Budget continues to fund and list wars that damage our reputation in the world and do not make us any safer in the u. S. We need to reduce our military budget which totals more than the next 7 countries combined this next 7 countries combined is the part of this it interests me is that if you were basically trying to change the economics of how the United States basically makes the economic equation for defending the world and defending its interests when you begin to find it and we increase the price tag of the smaller countries its still apply. Small deal what i want to go to may to look to the level of threat thats coming from the middle east and north africa from isis and al qaeda or afghanistan from the taliban or anywhere else in asia what difference would it make of those 7 countries sort of paying more would it you know. To me that sounds like a nice optics question but it doesnt get to the heart of does america think it is it is to its interests and its enduring security to have deployed troops at these bases and have these agreements of countries go back to the top of what we would rather the sort of the price tag doesnt add up it doesnt add up its a mean its you know everyone would love to have some sort of you know some more equitable burden sharing in the world but youre never its never going to happen because the size of the United States is just so accidentally. And the capabilities are exponentially larger syria is the example you can pull the United States out of syria trump wanted to pull the u. S. And let the europeans handle the security there but the brits and the french and the others in there cant do the special ops missions without the americans helping enable those missions they cant do this on their own without these partnerships in the United States cant either so theres some fundamentals here does the United States wish to be gauged in the world yes or no the president feels by a duration of his words that we ought to be doing a lot less of that and just worry about ourselves and i would say interesting proposition but in todays world its a nonstory just doesnt work were 200 connected to interdependent and the reality is. The world depends on the u. S. In our leadership in our willingness to engage if we are to withdraw from that and we have to get into a deep Political Force waiting to see your i dont think the president wants to pull out completely i think he i think he says it but then he doesnt ever mean it is actions dont dont dont back up his words that weve seen that weve seen through the lobby that it is yet and weve more should have seen through the game of the season in a primary its very its not about iraq he says and what it does reasoning here i guess im not sure i agree with you kevin elysee i want to you know give the floor to you for a moment to show this because i find it very exciting i agree with the admiral that i think President Trump is less interested in being engaged internationally than even president obama was who believed in strategic caution and in many ways donald trump is far more cautious than president obama was and i think that when you look at that tweet from milan omar what its basically saying is were doing too much out there and im wondering if theyll handle more in President Trump are sort of covertly on the same piece of territory that was it is an interesting suggestion but i i i really do think that you know folks like mars certainly also looking at our domestic situation our domestic political situation our spending and theyre saying we need to be spending more on health care or Student Loans whatever it might be theyre saying you know these things are potentially more important than all the money that were spending that is so much more than our allies and hey could they be doing a little bit more and i do i agree with you i think that if President Trump had his way he would pull back some of some of our forward deployments he would he would be would bring us home and not entirely i dont know i cant speak for President Trump but i i think some of the think tanks in the groups that hes working with their perspective when we should let me ask him in the last bit of time we have asked you just just for short snapshots that if you were given the task if you were working for this president and part of your task was to recognize that were not an Inflection Point and i say its an Inflection Point after world war 2 we cant maintain the same level of global bases and Global Presence where. Would you roll back where would you where would you roll back and maybe where would you raise the price if you were going to keep american presence to our allies admiral fallon. Steve i would disagree with the with the premise that i think 1st of all we have thanks we have sorry but we have substantially reduced our overseas presence in numbers of troops forces particularly the last few years most in fact are back in the continental us the challenge for us is that we cannot. Respond or reach out to places that may become troublesome without access to certain places in the world its just too difficult to hard we still measure 200000 troops abroad go in for Different Reasons in different places and i give you one example back to kind of where we started in northeast asia the arrangement with japan is a result of the end of world war 2 and the basic deal was this we the u. S. Will provide your security japan we dont want you to have another military because we dont want to repartition what we saw in the early 20th century therefore we will protect you in exchange for that we need access and so we got these bases but still these but i would i would throw one more thing into the into this mix here and this is something for the congress so that a lot of criticisms you know the president does is the right. For the majority of people who start to worry we dont have a budget we do not have a real budget in this country the congress has not passed one years what does this mean that means were going to waste more money in defense and other things because the law says that the way through it. Has to be spent is not smartly not with forethought and planning but you criminals that dont exceed whatever was done last year so if you do something when you can do that its absurd so called in with. Your thoughts on what it would be i dont tell and say lets keep it all. To the budget point i agree its ridiculous that we cant have a budget but we also have not just passed things in incremental same as last year weve significantly ran the military general battlefield in years so i mentioned u. S. Nuclear weapons before i think thats why the most obvious places weve got you know nuns walking in their bases and putting stickers on on bombs. But you know some of these places we could reconsider whether or not we would even use those b. 60 lines everywhere would you roll back or would you charge a higher price for the pentagons love i i im going to go agree with admiral fallon to disagree with the premise of your question but instead said lets go back to that a little more tweet but the 1st part of it when she mentions forever wars look you have the president is more closely aligned with a rising Democratic Left who believes that there are too many wars and there is too much American Military power overseas and its costing too much money and the middle which lot of people think is the sensible National Security you know expert middle is getting shrunken out of the debate more and more every time President Trump goes out there and makes these kind of speeches that undercuts his own policy about why the United States needs to have wants to have troops abroad able to defend americas security interests economic interests of the voters interest as long as the voters hear that message they dont get the policy in are not going to support ever and this is on his career forever war is korea for a good. Question i do you know lets ask the Democratic Candidates id like to hear what Elizabeth Warren says its a wonderful conversation with thank you so much id like to thank our panel to for being with us today lisa healy chief editor of the ink stick kevin baron executive editor of defense one and admiral William Fallon former commander of u. S. Central command at Pacific Command very cool discussion thank you so much for joining us today so whats the bottom line a wise man once said nothing says i love you like you shake down the Trump Administration is demanding south korea pay billions more to keep u. S. Troops in their country japan is next and its all part of a plan donald trump laid out during his campaign when he promised to force americas allies to pay for American Protection my guests have more confidence than i do that this will blow over and that American Security is woven in tightly to the security of our allies but to me this sounds like an American Force becoming a mercenary operation alliances al a carte you get it if you pay for it and thats the bottom line. Hello there it has been a better day also across much of central and eastern regions of the United States quite a bit of cloud as you can see but really the worse weather as out towards the west now plenty of cows streaming in up into Washington State and surprisingly well not surprisingly this of cools is what we see in seattle cloudy skies and some rain but it is on its way east was not a bad day on wednesday call it 10 celsius but youll notice where most of the weather is the southwest and in fact we have cool flash flood watches in place through Southern California and through much of our a zone or we could have some flash floods here the rain of course coming down on a very dry ground 17 celsius in los angeles on wednesday 6 degrees below the average little bit better on thursday everything sort of shifts further east was but still those warnings in place no coals to the mountains and very unsettled and quite wintry up into northern sections of the great lakes and central areas of canada no sign of any snow across the counter band but we have got plenty of showers as we head through wednesday is a very unsettled a generally through much of jamaica and theres rain showers on their way towards haiti and also the Dominican Republic tending to stay in the picture on thursday so not a bad day by then they across much of the cuba up tools a homicide and not but in mexico city 22 celsius. This is al jazeera. Back to bill this is a news hour live from ahead courses in doha coming up in the next 60 minutes 2 witnesses who listened in on Donald Trumps july phone conversation with ukraines president described his comments as improper and unusual it is improper for the president of the United States to demand a Foreign Government investigate a u. S. Citizen and a political opponent. But Libyan Security forces open up access to a major for