there has been concern throughout the white house as well as the administration of a wider war in the region. that is something they ve talked about for a while, but i do feel like this has been a theme throughout the biden presidency of really focus on foreign policy and sort of a juggling act, of balancing the domestic concerns, the polling numbers, frustration among voters with also frequent trips overseas and a focus, including many speeches, of conflicts overseas. i will be watching, if you look at the original foreign policy plan laid out by the administration, there was a focus on avoiding long-term conflicts and more so having precision on competition with things like china, with nations like china. so when moving forward now where you have sort of multiple incidents, multiple conflicts like this, it will be interesting to see how the administration balances this. you cover the white house for us every day, mj. what are you hearing from biden officials? i mean obviously they
be that if a democratic president did something that was sort of hawkish or even in the national security interest, he would have the back of republicans because that s where they were. not with donald trump in the race or in the leadership of the republican party. right, and you hear i think sort of joining together the criticism from the left and the criticism from trump, this notion of, oh, we re doing so much military stuff all over the world. it is not a partic particularly articulate criticism coming from trump. but we have seen the hamas war at a high level of intensity for several months. the administration is asking for a lot of money for both the ukraine and the hamas conflict and now you have this. the country, you see it in polling in a way that would not have been the case 10 or 15 years ago. the country is more skeptical of this kind of activity than they would have been. the point earlier about the
real thing. biden campaign officials say they expect that a switch will turn on for many of these voters who are not yet convinced that trump will be on the ballot in the fall. as one senior official put it, a realization will hit, oh, blank, it is an election between that guy and that guy. yeah, you know, i think as with most people the biden campaign does expect that donald trump is likely to be the republican nominee that president biden runs against in november. but what their internal campaign research is still showing is that these undecided voters that they are going after, that will determine everything in november, the majority of them still do not believe that it is likely to be donald trump. they say, you know, the biggest reason is just simply that they re not tuned in yet. they re not tuned in in the way that we are. they are certainly not following the ins and outs of the republican campaign, and that moment, that, oh, shoot, moment,
it. general soleimani, who was killed. no question. by the u.s.. and it is the way we should look at these groups, right, because the houthis in yemen, they are not the government of that country but they ve taken over a good portion of the country. hezbollah in lebanon, hamas in gaza, they have their own interests but they re means of power projection for iran. the u.s. made very clear in terms of these houthi attacks on shipping there that it is not just iran giving them mild encouragement, it is iran giving them operational support for these attacks including intelligence information as well as many of the weapon systems that they re using. real quick final word? it is exactly right. in fact, the u.s. assumes that there are iranian forces on the ground, small numbers, that are sort of helping coach and mentor here. thank you both. appreciate it. coming up, some leading progressive democrats are not happy with president biden for ordering these strikes in yemen. it is
luxury of lacking official responsibilities, a president must consider the geo-strategic and humanitarian implications of their actions. sometimes that mings acting in the national interest in a way that may harm their political interests. very cogently put there by steven. our great panel of reporters are back here with us. let me just give an example of what he is alluding to, a few examples of what progressives are saying about these strikes. pramila jayapal, an unacceptable violation of the constitution. ro khanna, needs to come to congress before launching a strike. barbara lee, violence only begets more violence. those are some of the most powerful progressive voices in the house of representatives. i mean it is kind of what comes with being an incumbent president during an election year. you have the responsibility of not only going out and hitting the trail and the politics of the job, but also of governing.