we will fight to win. from now on, victory will have a clear definition. attacking our enemies, obliterating isis, crushing al qaeda, preventing the taliban from taking over afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against america before they emerge. the tt vowing to lead u.s. troops to victory in afghanistan. in 2012 he called the u.s. mission in afghanistan a total disaster and in 2013 he insisted u.s. troops should, quote, leave afghanistan immediately. so how do you do dpo from promising to end the war to approving a plan that will boost troop levels? robert costa is our national political reporter for the washington post and an msnbc political analyst. his latest story gives us an inside look on how trump arrived at the decision. good to see you. let me start with the
mind, i guess maybe it s not a surprise he decided to say what he said last night. is not revealing a plan in your mind a strategy? look, you know, we no re in bad situation in afghanistan. the last couple years have been a steady erosion of the position. the central government s corrupt and incompetent. the governors are out of control. the taliban now control half the country i think last night was realism in action. mr. trump may have read the speech, but he had to approve secretary mattis, tillerson, h.r. and others putting tot a plan to avoid a disaster. so i think that s what we heard. 4,000 troops, that s all on the margin. is this a plan to avoid disaer or a plan to win? plan to avoid disaster. i think general nixon on the ground there s a tremendous amount of experience, by the way, in d.c. if you know, chris, in understanding this problem. they did get left with a mess.
president s what he said last night. he said he studied afghanistan in great detail, then he gave three reasons why he decided on this new strategy. here s number one of those three. our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made. especially the sacrifices of lives. they deserve a plan for victory. he admitted he s changed where he was, but has his priority gone from getting out to winning, from saving money, which he talked about as a candidate, to looking like a strong leader? there has been a transition. and if you look at president trump s life, he started out as a graduate of the new york military academy growing up, he loved the movie patton with george c. scott. but later, around the time of
would look like, and this is a challenge of assuming that time lines are signaling is a bad thing. that s what trump has gone in throughout saying we can t let the enemies know what we re doing while at the same time we re not letting our allies know what we re doing either/or the afghan government or afghan security forces know what our plan is either. the they in 16 years have not gotten ready to stand up and take over the country, we need a plan and we need details that will allow them to d that or we need other countries to step in and those are not the detail wes heard yesterday. back, general, to the military strategy because mike pence was on the today show this morning. i want to play a little bit of what he had to say. what the president has decided is to deploy a sufficient number of troops at the brigade level in afghanistan to assist the afghans who are in the lead, who are at the tip of the spear in this fight, to assist them in their fight against the taliban, in th
great music whoever chose that. these were some of the truly awe-inspiring photos. the cosmic dance continues with another eclipse scheduled to happen just seven years from now. look at that. that s incredible. so crazy walking out to sixth avenue yesterday and they were just packed with people just looking up most without the glasses on. it was cloudy. more news with hallie jackson. back in d.c. back in d.c. thank you very much, ms. jansing. we are back here because we made a little road trip pit stop back inside the beltway to look at what you could call the tale of two presidents. the scripted one versus the unscripted. this morning, we have seen the president stick to the script on his plan for america s longest war. and his aides have stuck to it, too. the vice president, the defacto