isis trump claimed in a tweet has been defeated there. on top of that shock, a bigger one came the next day as secretary of defense james mattis announced his resignation in a letter to the president. in it mattis made his own priorities clear, maintaining alliances, showing respect for allies, using american power to provide for the common defense and to stand up to those nations whose strategic interest are in tension with america s. retired four-star general suggested his views were not aligned with the president he is a. to help make sense of all of this i want to bring in richard haass. haas was director of policy planning in the state department under george w. bush, he is the president on the council of foreign relations and the author of a world in disarray. richard, let s first talk about the process here because my suspicion is that james mattis has always known that he and trump had disagreements but that he felt like on the issue of syria and maybe afghanistan he had gone
on wednesday we learned of president trump s plans to withdraw american troops from syria. isis, trump claimed in a tweet, has been defeated there. on top of that shock, a bigger one came the next day as secretary of defense james mattis announced his resignation in a letter to the president. in it mattis made his own priorities clear, maintaining alliances, showing respect for allies, using american power to provide for the common defense and to stand up to those nations whose strategic interest are in tension with america s. retired four-star general suggested his views were not aligned with the president. to help make sense of all of this i want to bring in richard haass. haas was director of policy planning in the state department under george w. bush, he is the president on the council of foreign relations and the author of a world in disarray. richard, let s first talk about the process here because my suspicion is that james mattis
accomplishing or preventing it wasn t happening anymore. mr. trump essentially has become not only his own national security adviser, he has also become his own secretaries of defense. you saw that reserve that mattis had, if you remember that early meeting of the cabinet where trump forced cabinet officials to go around almost in a north korea fashion pledging fealty and loyalty to him and mattis was the one who refused. he said it s an honor to serve the american people and lead the armed services. he made no reference to trump. again, in this letter of resignation to me the most interesting part is the omission. he doesn t thank trump personally. no, again, he ended it with a reference to the men and women in uniform. he was in that sense true to himself. there were so many signals in this letter. this is one of those great things that historians will look over. what i liked about it, it s so rare in washington where people actually resign and then resign on matters of principle
he certainly can pardon himself to avoid impeachment. i don t think the president can pardon himself even from prosecution. i know there is a debate about that. that s my reading of it. it would in effect nullify other parts of the constitution, if you interpret it in a way that would allow him to pardon himself. the bigger fear, though, is that he pardons other people as a way of discouraging their cooperation with bob mueller or with congress. and that is really a worry. the more profound concern, frankly, and i think it s implicated in this latest shakeup and crisis, and that is the president doesn t have people around him to, you know, talk sense to him about our system of checks and balances. he s got some very good people in the national security realm and people like mcmaster and t mattis. but in terms of the justice department, he obviously doesn t trust the attorney general. there is no one really that has the kind of standing with him to
dana: the time has come to confront north korea, according to president trump. the question is, how? the president was asked that today. we will see what happens. i don t like to talk about what i have planned. i have some pretty severe things we are thinking about. it doesn t mean we are going to do them. i don t draw bread lines. president obama drew a redline and i was the one that made it look a little bit better than it was. we will take a look at what happens over the coming weeks and months, with respect to north korea. it s a shame that they are behaving this way. but they are behaving in a very, very dangerous manner and something will have to be done about it. dana: defense secretary mattis says he does not think we are closer to war but if the north starts one, there would be severe consequences. there was a report today that