be a strong strategy, may be right. they think they need to keep a tight grip on those voters. if you re republican leadership, are you getting a little anxious? most definitely. the president tends tore very unpredictable. anything at this point could be seen as a setback, at this point they are pushing jobs. this is something they are all trying to tout, cloincluding th white house because they feel this is key to lock in the votes. house and senate leadership should be concerned, they are on the ballot. he s not on the ballot until 2020. if they talk with trump and say trump will say let me help you help yourselves, let s get these agenda items passed. the base is still with me, mids terms on a base vote, you re on the ballot in 2018. explain the strategy, we saw that donald trump tweet this morning where he not so sarcastically thanked congress about russia. john mccain is responding to
president lashed out at a key situation meeting in the middle of july suggesting that general nicholson, who leads the troops there, should be fired. you have confidence yourself in general nicholson? of course. i couldn t imagine a more capable commander on any mission. at the end of the day, the president may not be wrong. we are not winning this war. his own commanders acknowledge it. the pentagon is in a holding pattern because there s no new strategy because the president hasn t approved one yet because he doesn t like the options because there are no good options. i m joined now by cara lee, with exclusive reporting and former director of iraq with the national security council back with me as well, washington post s robert costa and ap s vivian salama.
two weeks ago, the president went into a meeting room and we were hoping he would finally settle on an afghanistan strateg strategy. they found a president really frustrated, asking questions, unhappy with the opss and then openly questioning the merits of the advice he was getting. it went on. there was a series of tense exchanges where the president suggested multiple times that perhaps the commander in afghanistan should be fired because we re not winning. there was pushback from the joint chiefs of staff who said maybe we should put up the meeting between the two of you. they have not met. no. and defense secretary mattis also weighed in and defended the commander.
days. health care is driving his frustration. do you think that will resonate with people around the country? do you think they ll buy that? it could. president trump has a lot of influence over his base. this is the swamp that he so adamantly wanted to get rid of. i was at his rally last week in ohio. you saw the drain the swamp signs. people still believe in that notion. we ll talk to him getting back out on the road on the campaign trail. we want to get to this idea that president trump is frustrated with one serious foreign policy challenge, his strategy for the war in afghanistan. he says we re not winning and that the top military commander there should get fired. in this nbc news exclusive, whether a major shakeup could be on the way. stick around. hey you ve gotta see this. c mon.