the president of iraq. we saw a clip of it last hour for an interview that aired on axios hbo. he told you he was concerned about what s happening in syria. five years of blood, treasure, effort. a lot of human misery went into defeating isis. this was not easy. and for anyone to become complacent about it is terrible. it s dangerous, tragic. it sounds like you re worried about what president trump has done in northern syria. the entire neighborhood is concerned about the implications of this policy. that s a striking statement from an important u.s. partner. to understand this, sala, president of iraq, is a very careful statesman. he chooses his words very carefully. he is one of the most pro-american leaders in the
and that s a huge source of frustration. because they ve been able to pretty adeptly been able to control what gets out and what doesn t get out for at least in a public setting from people of who left. and a lot of that is done through fee of. on axios hbo last week, mitt romney was talking about how a lot of people don t speak out, how almost nobody in the senate speaks out because they do worry that they re going to get primaried. they worry that it could end up costing conservatives any control in governance. that s been a powerful motivator to keep republicans silent. that s where this new ship, we don t know what will happen with impeachment proceedings or what will happen in terms of the trial in the senate, but we do know that for the first time there s a lot of stuff getting aired publicly that wasn t before. and so this really is a different chapter. and, eugene, as jim points out, this is first hand stuff in the is somebody who s in the room with donald trump and it adds t
joining us now from washington, d.c. with a look at axo a.m., cofounder and ceo of axios jim van dehei. i know you have an exclusive for the one big thing the morning. what s the exclusive today? we have another clip that we did for axios hbo. we had a lengthy, often tense exchange with the president and whether or not he s worried that this could result in the shooting of a reporter or others. and it was a pretty fascinating exchange. he made it clear throughout the interview that he feels he has to do this because it s what got him elected and he says his audiences command it. he said the audiences need it. they want it. they want the attacks. so it s clear he both feels the grievance. he does feel like he s outmatched against the media which i don t understand, but he also feels that this is the way to keep his party energized.