Of this pause in hostilities, does turkey come up with a reason to continue really the encouragement in the offensive or is it satisfied with what it has? and thirdly there is this hunt in washington for a diplomatic solution. you see some of the folks from the syrian/kurdish areas who have sent political leaders to washington, there is a discussion going on. there are some people who are deeply hopeful that some kind of a deal could be worked out, that would save the lives of those who risked their lives to stand alongside the united states and be the infantry in the fight against isis. the top kurdish commander, gayle, told nbc news that the current weather conditionsish assault in northern syria called it an ethnic cleansing operation. is that, in fact, what s happening there? have the kurds resigned themselves to having no u.s. buffer in the area? i spoke with the head of the u.s. backed forces at 5:30 a.m. pacific on saturday morning and we had a discussion about it. i inter
Over the region? this is the question, right, because turkey has really been pushing to protect id lib, a place where folks who have been misplaced from other parts of syria have found safety and there are al qaeda linked groups there. turkey has been trying to protect the civilians there. at the same time they have been launching an offensive that has, you know, created what many have called war crimes against civilians in northeastern syria. would this be spliced up like a pizza pie and different people get different zones of influence, different countries have different spepieces of syr? russia is not just speaking for russia, russia is also speaking for the syrian regime and of course the syrian regime s major backers of iran. gayle lemmon, good to have your insight and perspective, thank you. still to come, iowa, up for grabs. democrats facing a shakeup in the primary polls. on the other side of the aisle the trump reelection campaign
Because he s completely insecure. he knows he s an illegitimate president that was helped by the russians in getting elected in 2016. we are seeing his meltdown about it every single day. let s move on to another topic here and i want to talk syria. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell wrote this op-ed for the washington post published overnight. i want to read two lines. withdrawing u.s. forces from syria is a grave strategic mistake. it will leave the american people and homeland less safe, embolden our enemies and weaken important alliances. evan, to you, how does his condemnation after what we ve heard from other republicans on the hill change this conversation, or does it? well, first of all, he s 100% right. i mean trump s decision to willy-nilly pull out of syria was a strategic blunder which has only enabled erdogan to go out and invade and hurt our allies. further, it has hurt our ability to look our allies in the face
Condemning the president over syria. he points to senator warren at the abc debate in september and this is on afghanistan. let s watch this. you have said of afghanistan let s help them reach a peace settlement. it is time to bring our troops home, in your words, starting right now. would you keep that promise to bring the troops home starting right now with no deal with the taliban? yes. and i ll tell you why. what we re doing right now in afghanistan is not helping the safety and security of the united states. it is not helping the safety and security of the world. it is not helping the safety and security of afghanistan. pulling them out without a deal with the taliban and just bringing troops home, would that not, to peter s point, leave afghans exposed, maria? well, i will tell you this. i am 100% confident that any person in the democratic primary
Him, hey, you re describing a quid pro quo. he responded and said that happens in foreign policy, get over it. and the last thing, of course, being the withdrawal of u.s. troops in syria. we saw a lot of republicans incredibly angry, staunch supporter of trump, senator lindsey graham, was really attacking this policy all week long. yesterday the senator majority leader, mitch mcconnell, wrote an op-ed. but i do want to note one thing about that excore yat the idea of taking troops out of syria, he didn t mention the president s name, so going up to the line but not quite crossing it and directly attacking trump. but as you said, francis rooney, the republican from florida, he did go up to that line. take a listen. you re saying at this point you are not ruling out the possibility that this is an impeachable offense for the president? i don t think you can rule anything out until you know all the facts.