40,000 troop level, and the need that he felt for an exit strategy led him to proclaim according to this book to lindsay fwra ham i can t lose the whole democratic party and that s one of the criticisms they re getting at the white house, there was too much politics involved in the decision-making process. exactly and to that point, thank you so much, mike viqueira. the book grapples with how the president was trying to walk the tight rope between the military s demands for more troops and growing opposition from the democratic base to the war in afghanistan and setting a withdrawal timetable as mike pointed out said to senator graham i can t let this be a war without end and i can t lose the whole democratic party. joining now a man with political experience writing tell-alls, the coauthor of game change john heileman. there are more details from the point where game change ends, when they went into this afghan