Oil fields. when the president revised his decision, this is absolutely critical to making certain that those oil fields are going to stay in u.s.-led coalition hands and syrian hands in terms of the syrian democratic forces. paul: general, we don t have a lot of time but what changed the president s mind here? he seemed very intent on getting out. well, i think just the realization that if the iranians got the oil fields, it would reduce the impact of his maximum sanction campaign on iran. that is one. i think there was a general realization i m only speculating. i m not inside his mind. that since he made the decision, there was so much feedback that he got about the decision, i mean, we re not just going to protect the oil fields, we are going to counter the resurgence of isis in the area as well. and by controlling eastern syria, gets us a seat at the table. right now as we speak, negotiations are going on in geneva with the russians and the turks, et cetera, over syria. and th
Syria. maybe a new strategy. even said this might be an opportunity for critics to kind of change their view and support the president. mitt romney was among those who has been critical. he tweeted out celebrating essentially the decisions made. what does this mean now for what was evidence of cracks in republican gop support for him? well, you know, i think you heard this a lot with your last panel where they were talking about putting distance between the accomplishment of getting rid of al-baghdadi and the real problem of his longer term syria strategy which is something lindsey graham tries to be leading trump back to having more u.s. involvement in syria. it s not clear to me that this success is going to equal that. you know, these things get very complicated where you have republicans criticizing the president over syria.
Conference, where he now infamously seemed to say the president engaged in trying to force a quid pro quo from ukraine the point of the conference was to talk about the trump dural announcement which is not something vulnerable republicans are thrilled about discussing. it s the kind of thing the trump administration has blamed the bidens for engaging in, and purely from a political perspective white house allies were very much knocked back on their heels that the administration was touting that decision that was quickly reversed. tim, is there a concern at this point that some of these republicans are going to start to break with the president at a time when he need them most? yeah, i think it showed he has at least a little bit of a concern and so do the people around him. i talked to the few of the so-called privately concerned republicans on the hill from time to time, you know the types of folks that would peel off from him, and i think the fact that this impeachment came righ
Transcripts for MSNBC MSNBC Live With Craig Melvin 20191021 15:16:30 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Swan, a reporter for the daily beast. and tim miller is here, a former jeb bush communications director. bett betsy, white house damage control mode on multiple front seat. we ve seen this before. white house considering leaving behind troops in syria cancelling plans for the g-7 summit in florida at the president s resort. surprised at all to see the president give in to the pushback this time around? it is out of character for him, traditionally over the course of his presidency trump seems to relish taking steps that frustrate his foes in the democratic party and on capitol hill. so it s certainly unusual for him to roll out an announcement like having the g-7 at his resort and then make a total about face within a couple days. one thing i can tell you is that among white house allies there was a lot of head scratching at the fact that mick mulvaney even had that thursday press conference in the first place. of course the point of that