nbc s hans nichols, thank you very much. joining us now, member of the senate foreign relations and judiciary committees, democratic senator chris coons of delaware. he has a new piece in the atlantic magazine entitled the senate must rein in trump. this . it s an important message. and obviously, senator, donald trump has been attacking every ally that has served as a bulwark against autocratic aggression, whether you look at his constant attempts to undermine nato, his constant attempt to undermine democratic allies across europe, and now, of course, his abandonment of the kurds which, in effect, gives vladimir putin and russia complete control of that region. i mean, they are they are now the king makers in that part of
turkey if he went too far aernl dialing it back and giving some sort of warning to turkey and feem frankly don t know is this offensive going to happen? in a smaller way? people are trying to figure out what it was the president said to erdogan, what message erdogan received, and then what this bizarre warning to turkey means amid all of this confusion. so you asked what s the latest, people are scratching their heads trying to figure out what trump, what his policy is, regarding the kurds. richard, stay with us for a moment. i want to bring in nbc news correspondent hans nichols from washington, d.c. covering the white house and the pentagon as well. hans, good to have you with us. as you saw richard kind of lay out the confusion that has bee fallen washington as well as the region, let s talk a little bit about what the president intended to do with this because there are questions as to whether or not he was actually signaling to the turkish president that he can have a go ahead,
the conversations with the assad regime and with russia. richard engel and hans nichols, thank you very much. we will see you both coming up on morning joe in a little bit. let s turn to impeachment for a moment, taking questions during a briefing with military leaders at the white house yesterday, president trump told reporters he is not worried about the second whistle-blower that has come forward regarding his july phone call with the president of ukraine. mr. president, are you concerned with the second whistle-blower and what they may reveal about the conversation. not at all, it was a perfect call, he had sten graphers who took it down, it is a perfect call, this is a scam, a scam by the democrats to win an election they are not going to win in 200. what reflects a growing distrust of the colleagues, republicans of the house is looking at masking the whistle-blower, and three officials familiar with the deliberations tell the washington post the steps in considerati
and that s where we really begin the morning, where the president has this rhetoric about this being part of getting out of foreign wars, that s what he thought he got elected to do, and at the same time, is suggesting that just 50 troops up there, and they re just getting out of the way a little bit, and boy, we don t really know what s going to happen. hey, hans, there is a news week piece out yesterday with an intelligence leader on the call with the turkish president and the president was outnegotiated and basically rolled by the turkish leader and that the president has no spine. what have you heard about this specific interaction between the turkish leader and the president, this phone call? so nbc news has some reporting on this as well. and you know, when you look at who was on the call, you have mike pompeo, the secretary of state, also on the call, and the backdrop to all of this is the united nations general assembly meeting and later in september, earlier in september,
welcome back, everybody, i m yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. the bottom of the hour, president trump planned and canceled a meeting with the taliban and now facing bipartisan criticism from the meeting, almost no one knew about. nbc news correspondent hans nichols has more on this. reporter: america s preparing to inflict more pain on the taliban. they fear the taliban conditions have been worsening and they re about to get worse. reporter: america s top diplomat on all five major sunday morning shows, defending trump s plan to host the taliban, and the afghan government, at camp david, just days before the 9/11 anniversary. it was a useful effort to try and get all of those parties in one place, so that we could have serious conversations about how to reduce america s risk. the president dramatically called off the meeting after the