one, the president is is standing by his decision despite the just onslaught of criticism from fellow republicans in addition to democrats, and despite the evidence that we re seeing now of the ramifications of basically giving a green light to turkey to do what it is doing. i think that you are seeing cabinet officials and others around him defend that decision. you saw that from the secretary of the treasury on friday and the white house briefing room, as well, when he announced that the president was giving the authority for potential sanctions when you listened to pompeo, isn t that different and mnuchin, as well, isn t that different from what the president is saying? yeah. there are certainly some conflicts there. and that s just a reality. i think that they re living with. scott long, as republicans are being critical of the president and his choices here, aren t they concerned about reprisals from the president as he s often known to do? i think they are, but in t
president is standing by his decision, despite the just onslaught of criticism from fellow republicans, in addition to democrats, and despite the evidence that we re seeing now, of the ramifications of basically giving a green light to turkey, to do what it is doing. i think that you re seeing cabinet officials and others around him depefend that decisi. saw that from the secretary of the treasury on friday in the white house briefing room as well, when he announced that the president was giving this authority but jeff, aren t they conflicting messages, when you listen to pompeo, isn t that different, and mnuchin as well? isn t that different from what the president is saying? yes, there is certainly some conflict there. and that s just the reality i think that they re living with. okay. scott wong, as republicans are being critical of the president, and his choices here, aren t they concerned about reprisals from the president, as he is often known to do? i think they are, b
john, and publicize of being a little shell-shocked. take it away sir. i ve just been trying to compile my thoughts as well. neil i walked out did a hit and suddenly got hit by a subway train. holy mackerel. let s try to get to the news at hand as i do just news that we just heard. completely shocking. the president with leo, the chinese vice-premier and the oval office, yesterday the president seemed to indicate things were going well in terms of trade and talks with china. whether treasury secretary treasury secretary mnuchin was in the briefing just a while ago. he was saying that things were looking good and there you see leo coming over from the trade representative office to the white house. i asked secretary mnuchin, i said the stock market seems to like what it s cheering and he said the stock market is always right. you pointed out the stock market was up about a hundred points higher than it is so maybe they were expecting more than what we
face five finger legal bills. i want to focus on the president s foreign policy today. it s really confusing. it is clear mnuchin was sent out, carol, to do cleanup, reassure republicans. they don t want turkey to do that. it happened the same day, the united states couldn t use the word condemn with the europeans when it comes to what turkey did. the president sent more troops to saudi arabia. are you confused? no one has a sense of what policy is, whether getting out of endless wars in the middle east? even if you look at the president s twitter feed, it is all over the place, getting out of endless wars, not doing anything like that, we re not leaving, abandoning anybody, kurds have to stand for themselves, we re going to help them out. what reporting shows is behind the scenes there s some effort to get this contained. not just the political problem that he has with congress but
also the actual problem on the ground that s been created here. what you saw secretary mnuchin do is come out, use the backdrop of the white house briefing room to add oomph to sanction turkey if they cross some unspecified red line. the opposite of we have here a strongly worded letter that we have not yet signed. we can do this and we will. but we re not signing it. but let me reiterate we re not doing anything. if you re trying to reassure the lindsey grahams of the world, make no mistake, we re not doing anything yet. this wasn t a policy move, it was a political move. it was 100% of republicans save rand paul are attacking me, i didn t know what i was getting into. i don t think he had any sense of what he was doing. no clear u.s. national interest rationale for what he is doing, got fierce blow back. it was stunning to see. i have a theory on that.