really heard these details before. it reads, quote, mattis matd his case for keeping troops in syria. president trump rejected his arguments. 30 minutes into the conversation, mattis told the president, you re going to have to get the next secretary of defense to lose to isis. i m not going to do it. now, i should note jeffrey goldberg who wrote this piece said none of those details came from mattis himself, but still a pretty remarkable scene, no? well, yeah. it is. as you point out, john, it s not directly from jim mattis himself, but it is, i think, consistent. and i saw this when he was commander of central command, jim placed a very high premium on relations with our allies. he s not one who believes that the united states can go it alone. that s why i figured that with this america first approach, that jim s time as secretary of defense was limited. and i think the straw that broke the camel s back was leaving
country. we then heard stacy abrams talk about an america for all versus president trump s america first approach. andrea, quite frankly, what we heard was the president willing to negotiate with kim jong-un, who is a dictator, and to negotiate with the taliban without the afghan administration in the room, as if the taliban really want peace. jeffrey, the other concern here and we ve touched on it is according to our own analysis here at nbc, the president s only had 17 intelligence briefings in 85 days. and whether he s not a reader, so he doesn t take home books and books of stuff like previous presidents, republican and democratic. right. and then he s pushing back against a lot of what they re telling him. so his database is not there. right. i mean, you know, i think the number of briefings he s actually had is immaterial. it doesn t matter if he had a
international agreements, the cpoa, the joint comprehensive point of action with iran, or paris climate accords or other agreements where we re just pitching out with nothing to supplant or replace them. so why is the trump administration doing this? well, i guess this is part of the america first approach, and the disdain for any kind of treaties whether bilateral or multilateral. what is very concerning to me is if they re going to do the same thing with the new start agreement. this would be i think very disturbing because the series of strategic arms limitation agreements, new start, have served to constrain and cap strategic nuclear weaponry on both our side as well as the soviets and then on the russians.
nato. so it does pose a specter of an arms race. i think, though, there are two other dimensions of this that actually bother me more. one is this is part of a pattern of backing out or aggregating international agreements, the cpoa, the joint comprehensive point of action with iran, or paris climate accords or other agreements where we re just pitching out with nothing to supplant or replace them. so why is the trump administration doing this? well, i guess this is part of the america first approach, and the disdain for any kind of treaties whether bilateral or multilateral. what is very concerning to me is if they re going to do the same thing with the new start agreement. this would be i think very disturbing because the series of strategic arms limitation
actually push the u.s. further. away the pushing and shoving thought it alone time ago so i don t know where this is going to end but you can expect more angry tweets and tariff threats the united states says it s losing patience with the european union on trade talks at the same time the german chancellor has issued a rallying call for free trade as e.u. and asian leaders meet uniting in defiance of donald trump s america first approach but no matter how toxic transatlantic ties have become the u.s. remains the most attractive foreign market for europe half of all german companies now in the u.s. plan to boost their investment even more planned to hire new staff that s according to a recent survey from the german chambers of commerce america remains the largest economy in the world business is booming which is leading to more investment and more consumer spending. as promised the trump administration has been business friendly trumps tax legislation slashed corporate rates from thirty