arabia says the full takes full responsibility for the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi but mohammed bin salman denies ordering the killing. khashoggi, critical of the saudi government, he disappeared nearly a year ago last seen going into the saudi consulate in st. sebastiis stand balance , 2018. he never came out allegedly murdered by the saudi government agents there. here s what the crown prince told cbs 60 minutes. what does that mean that you take responsibility? translator: when a crime is committed against a saudi citizen by officials working for the saudi government as a leader i must take responsibility. this was a mistake and i must take all actions to avoid such a thing in the future. the world wants the answer to this question, how did you not know about this operation?
was it spent. was it spent by nationals, was it otherwise pumped in and americans assisted in that effort to spend the money? and so i think in looking at the finances, you re going to get a lot of questions answered that need to be answered to make important determinations here. and very quickly, samantha, because you re an expert in this area as well, the u.s. expelled 60 russian diplomats. they expelled 60 american diplomats. we shut down their consulate in seattle. they shut down the u.s. consulate in st. petersburg. now they re questioning oligar h oligarchs as they arrive in the united states. they re about to impose sanctions on these oligarchs close to putin. you know that putin will respond and do the same thing to americans. most definitely. we saw this happen after the magnitsky sanctions back in 2012 when putin really cared about. he stopped u.s. adoptions of russian children because he knew that would really hurt the american people, so i do think we ll see a counterre
crews removed the u.s. flag from the building that had been used as the u.s. consulate in st. petersburg. russia ordered that consulate to be shutdown. that was after the u.s. did the same with the russian consulate in seattle, washington. moscow has also retaliated by expelling 60 u.s. diplomats, the same amount of russian diplomats the u.s. expelled. meantime, there is another indication president trump could make significant changes to the u.s. involvement in syria. mr. trump has placed on hold more than $200 million that was meant to be used for a syria recovery fund. on thursday, president trump said the united states will withdraw from syria. quote, very soon. u.s. officials fear, though, a complete and quick withdrawal of u.s. troops could lead to a dangerous power vacuum. we are also learning the identities of the two soldiers who were killed in a bomb attack in syria on thursday. they were taking part in an operation against isis in northern in the northern part of the
forced the president to go forward with these other sanctions last year. he was angry about it but it happened and they have begun to follow through on those. under h.r. mcmasters leadership and jim mattis at the pentagon, this administration has come out with tough language about dealing with russia. and then we saw the feeling on the part of the u.s. that there needed to be a response alongside the uk to that attack inside the uk that s been attributed now to the russians. president trump feels proud that he was able to kind of bring along other countries, maybe they would have come along any way, there s 20 countries that have responded including the u.s. and to what happened in the uk and russia s response was to some extent reciprocal but to some extent pretty aggressive because the consulate that the u.s. dealt with in washington state is really different than a consulate in st. petersburg,
while in russia the u.s. consulate in st. petersburg. the president has a happy easter tweet and the public schedule does not lay it out. last year he celebrated with a family meal and gone to church so that may be part of plan for today, as well. the president does return to washington later this afternoon and tomorrow the first lady is the hostess for the long tradition white house easter egg roll where thousands of kids are invited to the white house and have a little fun on the south lawn. we look forward to that and reporting later on and what the president is doing today for sure. joining me now, caitlyn hughie burns for real clear politics and john harwood. thanks for joining me on a holiday. let s begin with the feud. what in your mind is behind it?