lying to congress about it. the same russian real estate deal that prosecutors said extended well into the presidential election campaign while the president lied about it and kept secret that he was pursuing that deal. it s a deal that prosecutors now say could have netted the president s company hundreds of millions of dollars from russian sources. so, these things are these things are all just happening at the same time. the same day the president announces that, surprise, the u.s. is pulling out of syria and lea leaving it to russia after all, he drops sanctions on the oligarch in a deal made possible that was in line to provide the financing for his secret deal in russia that he was working on throughout the campaign that could have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars to him. and then the day after that, the president of russia says, yeah, that s good about syria, but you know what, you may want to get out of afghanistan, too. within hours the president announced that,
to indicate courtney kube, our pentagon reporter this does seem to be in reaction to the announcement on twitter about the pull out from syria. were you surprised by this, and why do you think this is such a serious matter that you actually called it a national security crisis? i m certainly surprised by it, in part, because mattis has weathered all sorts of substantial disagreements and reckless behavior from this president. so it does beg the question if he was willing to go out there and defend the muslim ban or sending troops to the border as an election year stunt. why was this the thing that broke the camel s back? that being said, it is a national security crisis because this was one of the last people close to the president on national security matters who was willing to tell him no when he was doing something truly reckless. two, it exposes this enormous rift between the department of defense, its personnel, and the president of the united states. i still haven t found the l
little bit at the constitutional seams between our military and our civilian government. and i don t mean to just jump right on it too abruptly, but one of the things that is now in the foreground and not at all in the background of all of this news is the president of russia, vladimir putin today praising president trump for his announcement that he would pull u.s. troops out of syria immediately. vladimir putin, of course, thinks that syria should be russia s outpost in the middle east and everybody else should butt out and leave them to it. today, at his annual press conference, one a year whether he needs it or not, today president putin praised president trump for pulling u.s. troops out of syria, but it was interesting. as soon as he was asked about that decision by president trump to pull u.s. troops out of syria, the way he responded was by praising that decision, but then immediately pivoting. he said, well, basically, you know, we think it s good news. we re happy that he i
case. and so while i don t like putin crowing about a victory in syria, i also know that he was going to have a big and is going to have a big say in the future role of what happens in syria. we all have to worry about how much of a say he has and what our government does on all sorts of issues. senator chris murphy of connecticut, i m sorry that you are at work this week and still here, but i understand. keep us apprised over the next 24 hours. i know it s going to be dramatic. will do. much more to get to tonight. stay with us. but we still had to have a cigarette. had to. kayla: do you know how hard it is to smoke in a hospital? by the time we could, we were like. what are we doing? kayla: it was time for nicodermcq. the nicodermcq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. and doubles your chances of quitting. nicodermcq. you know why, we know how. nicodermcq. ito take care of anyct messy situations..
evolving. what is a.m. goi what s going on with the shutdown which is imminent? what s happening with the defense secretary resigning in protest, giving the stated reasons for his resignation, given what appears to be the immediate precipitating event here, which appears to have been president trump s unilateral twitter announcement that all u.s. troops will immediately leave syria? one of the things we re going to need expert help on tonight with regard to that story is whether secretary mattis resignsing and resigning in this way, might be expected to cause a greater standoff of some kind between the president and the u.s. military. so we re going to get help on that tonight from an excellent pentagon based reporter, we ll be speaking with her in a moment. also we ll be talking with a presidential historian who is looking at what ace precedent there is in our history for this kind of thing, and what that might tell us about the prospects for some sort of more dramatic split between