that russia had interfered with the u.s. election and tried to interfere with the u.s. election. tillerson s people have said to us he is going to raise those issues as well. so he is not contradicting the intelligence community conclusion about the election hacking either. so these could be very difficult meetings and it s unclear whether there will be a meeting with vladimir putin, certainly one was expected, it was never, quote, officially scheduled, so they could always say it was never put on the schedule, but if it does not happen it will be quite a slap in the face. andrea mitchell there in a very busy downtown moscow, ann, let me bring you into the conversation, a lot of russia watchers say if you want to get vladimir putin to do anything you need leverage of some sort. what leverage does this administration have regarding assad? well, less than they helped for going into the tillerson meeting. the united states had hoped to have a strong unified message coming from the g7 na
trade talks with ina to their interactions and their involvement with north korea. so it is some messaging out of the trump white house but there are questions from people about hey, does this mean, you know, trade is now linked to our national security priorities when it comes to the korean peninsula? what do you do if china doesn t get on board with the trade negotiations as you want them to do? does that signal sort of more aggressive action toward north korea. so these are all questions that will be proposed to the president himself and to sean spicer in that press briefing in about 15 minutes from now. craig. we ll let you get inside and ann gearon, here s the thing a lot of concern not just in the korean peninsula there that north korea will launch a sixth nuclear test but all over the world, it s one thing to strike in syria, it s another thing entirely to threaten to strike inside north korea, knowing the potential repercussions that that might trigger. absolutely.
manhattan and never really engage with this stuff in any detail besides what you see on tv. the combination of the team coming in and trump having this education/accountability as president, has sort of drawn him into the foreign policy mainstream that frankly he really campaigned against. so the sort of foreign policy establishment is generally pretty happy about this but i would think a lot of his supporters, ones that thought he would usher in this dramatic break in american foreign policy must be feeling betrayed by him right now. we ll leave it there, michael, thank you. ann, thank you. hally and andrea, big thanks to both of you as well. turning now to a story that continues to spark a whole heck of a lot of outrage today. the fallout over that dramatic video of a passenger being dragged from a united plane because the airline needed those seats for crew members. that s today s microsoft pulse question of the day. should airlines should they
the washington post s ann gearon with me in washington. let me start with you, because i understand you have new reporting on that syrian chemical attack. what can you tell us? senior white house officials spoke with reporters and walked through what they described as some newly declassified information to help frame what was characterized as essentially this narrative of russian disinformation to help obfuscate who was actually behind this attack. the white house, these officials, talking with us very clear that it was the syrian they believe all evidence points to the syrian regime here. some of the top headlines from the attack itself confirmation that s was sarin gas based on physiological samples, that s a new piece of information. there was a discussion of personnel who are known to be affiliated with the syrian chemical weapons program prior being seen at this air base, the one that president trump issued that strike on last week, in mid-march and then again on the day of
the u.s. military action in syria. but from talking to u.s. officials over the last few days it s clear to me that it is no longer a question of if, there will be a military strike, only when. washington post diplomatic correspondent ann gearon joins me to talk about this. you ve been doing a lot of reporting, obviously, on the timing the kind of military strike and the legal pretext for it. roo. right. i mean there are some other options here other than military, but the whus has been signaling fairly strongly that s the way they re leaning and as you said, the question is less whether then when and in what form and with what backing, with what help. this f it comes to pass the way we think it will, is not going to be a full nato operation, certainly will not carry the u. u.n., certainly not carry the same nato imprem tur that nato did two years ago. there are a lot of allies lining