the ends, ways, and means of the north korean dictator, of the syrian dictator, of what s going on in afghanistan and the status of that. it just can t be a marketing scheme, which seems to be what s driving the current administration in the way they approach things. sometimes marketing has lies behind it, and we ve seen that in spades from this administration. you can t do that with national security. you have to rely on the intelligence community, you have to rely on facts, and then you have to determine what is your best strategy for how you fit in the world. it isn t just unilateral decisions without any agreement from generals. so when you take all those things into consideration, who is going to be the next secretary of defense, i have no clue. but he better be a very special person with a steel backbone to stand up to this president and say, you don t know everything there is to know about the world, and you don t know much about national security. john, final thought? it s
department of homeland security, some elements of law enforcement, health care, et cetera. i mean, these are not inconsequential parts of the government. is that a price worth paying for the american people? absolutely not. look, this is utterly reckless. we all know how this is going to play out. the house just sent a bill over to the senate. the votes aren t there in the senate. the senate will trip out that $5 billion. they ll send it back to the house. if the house doesn t pass it, this is going to shut down. there s absolutely no reason to do this. the president had a deal on border security, and daca, the dreamers. he walked away from it. the president, like you said the other day, he s going to own this. these members of congress have a responsibility to govern.
we have to talk about, what is at stake with this, and hope the president changes his mind and hope the people around him can get in his ear and ignores the rand paul view of the party, which is not a republican view, it s a libertarian view. congressman, thanks for taking the questions tonight and credit where credit is due, not a lot of republican lawmakers were willing to talk about it tonight, and we appreciate you took up the cause. thank you very much. you bet. joining us again is my panel. admiral kirby, big picture view here. the president is withdrawing american leadership and power from half a dozen fronts from around the world. syria, afghanistan, some of the drawdown that mattis opposed in north korea, talk of reducing troops there, but stopping exercises. even with saudi arabia, and the killing of khashoggi, not using american power to drive, you know, better behavior by a u.s. ally there.
republican who doesn t want to speak publicly, but willing to say that privately to send a message that this is too much chaos all at once. similarly, i spoke to a gop congressman earlier, who used the expression f -ing distraught and the president s decision to leave syria. i want to remind viewers, these names that are scrolling on the screen, all the people that left the trump administration over the last several months. the question now, jim, as you ve been covering that building for some time, who, if anyone, can backing the president on mattis departure here? who is defending him? reporter: nobody really at this point, jim. the only person that i suppose may not be against this at this point, and it s only because it hasn t been expressed is the vice president mike pence. he s been a very loyal soldier
keep the government running. and the chaos leading up to it, that some republicans are blaming on this president. [sneezing] you don t want to cancel your plans. [sneezing] cancel your cold. the 1-pill power of new advil multi-symptom cold & flu knocks out your worst symptoms.