this would be the sixth house republican from your home state of texas to announce that they won t run. what s in the water in texas? craig, you are right. this is the sixth republican from texas who won t be seeking reelection. part a lot of this has to do with now republicans being in the minority, being in the house minority is never a great place to be. there is some speculation, of course, that this is a sign that republicans don t like their prospects of taking over the house in 2020. and the deck might be stacked against them. as my colleague and a really smart political journalist from texas abby livingston also points out that mack thornberry is the ranking member of house there are term limits for this. so mac thornberry probably thought this was the right time to go. being in the minority and term limits have played a role here.
national emergency. we think the president will not be sustained by the courts. mack thornberry, the republican chairman of the now the ranking member of the armed services committee urged president obama not to declare an emergency and divert military items to this emergency. this is a challenge. there is no doubt about it. it is a challenge we ought to work together to make the borders secure. but it is not a national emergency any more than it was a national emergency during the campaign when the president said we were being invaded by this large group of people marching up from the south. yeah. this is a device the president is using. but the real problem here is the president is using what republicans have done before. they did it for the affordable care act. they did it under bill clinton when he refused to cut education as much as he wanted to. they have taken government employees hostage and taken
you mentioned mack thornberry. right. i think he s opposed to that. mark meadows, by the way, the ultra conservative in the house freedom caucus, an ally of president trump, told my colleague that he s skeptical that he s not fond of declaring a national emergency. he thinks it should be a last resort. he still prefers there be a congressional solution at this point. i would assume that small government people should be shared i mean rand paul and the libertarian wing of the gop, stephanie, national emergency being declared willy-nilly is something that drives big government. it creates a very dangerous precedent for what s to come. and i also think that we have to remember that for every taxpayer dollar that the federal government spends, there is a constituency that relies on that dollar. there is not $5 billion worth of money hanging around to put towards this wall. there s also not a willingness, even amongst republicans in the senate, to want to find that money and put i
mattis, steve hadley a republican national security adviser. i was struck that some prominent members of the house sent a letter to the ambassador of australia saying that they would use their article i co-equal powers how they put to it make sure that the alliances that mattis spoke up for in his resignation letter were preserved. this was people like mack thornberry. i see little signs of revolt among recognizes, maybe within that trump base, this is a bridge too far. you don t go after the marine general who symbolizes the continuity of our military. no. and james mattis departure was the most high-profile but just the latest in a long list of departures. trump administration has a record amount of high level turnover with top cabinet posts,
signaled that the united states would withdraw from syria. the backers have heard him and emboldened by american inaction. what do you think of that criticism from senator mccain? i think the syrian regime backed by the iranians will do despite the fact we re in syria or not. how strong are we in syria? 2,000 soldiers, the assad regime will continue to do so. we have to make a big decision. will we have a strong presence in eastern syria or not? that would answer the question in my view. appreciate your analysis this morning. walid phares in washington, d.c. sandra: as the suspected chemical attack raises the stakes for the u.s. we ll talked to house armed services committee chairman mack thornberry about what the trump administration should do and how we should react as a country.