joining us now is congressman david cicilline, who sits on the foreign affairs and judiciary committees and was in the room for parts of today s testimony. congressman, i know you are limited about what you can say about the testimony of michael mckinley. in general can you say if it tracked with what other witnesses have been saying? yes. i think what we re learning from the witnesses we heard from today and the witnesses the committee has been hearing from for the last two weeks is that the president s phone call to president zelensky was really the tip of the iceberg. there was an elaborate scheme in which the president engaged many parts of the state department and people outside the government to advance his plan to ask for assistance from the president of ukraine to dig up dirt on his political opponent. this is a tremendous abuse of power, abuse of his office. it compromised the national security of the united states and the integrity of our elections. it was a betrayal of his
to thank turkey. that was president trump reacting to the news today of a temporary cease-fire in syria. almost two weeks ago president trump agreed to move u.s. troops out of north eastern syria to clear the way for a turkish military opralgds in the area. this week president trump sought to create distance from the escalating violence that ensued after that decision. president erdogan s decision didn t surprise me because he s wanted to do that for a long time. it s a very semicomplicated but not too complicated problem and it s a problem we have very nicely under control. we re not a police force. we re a fighting force. today vice president mike pence and secretary pompeo spent four hours negotiating this cease-fire with the president of turkey. now a week after turkish forces crossed into syria turkey
what is the future there? well, i think there are 70,000 people in various camps around north eastern syria who are associated with isis. some isis fighters already were in the fight from the first days of this conflict started. and so they are now free to make their way into turkey and into iraq and other countries. they ll take their cells internationally. there s no control over them. the u.s. said that it might be able to attack isis from iraq territory. i think that s a lot more hope than reality. so in fact this is the unaddressed question which will be extremely significant as time goes forward. president trump today seemed to echo the turkish president erdogan s views and defend his desire to clean out syrian kurds from the region. take a listen. you have a 22-mile strip
this, quote, president trump is flailing. the president s decision to reverse sanctions against turkey for brutally attacking our kurdish partners in exchange for a sham cease-fire seriously undermines the credibility of america s foreign policy and sends a dangerous message to our allies and adversaries alike that our word cannot be trusted. president erdogan has given up nothing and president trump has given him everything. for more i m joined by robert pearson, former ambassador to turkey and nonmiddle east scholar and that statement we just have from pelosi and schumer the contention is there s a five day pause here and it looks like supposedly during this period the kurds will be removed which was turkey s goal all along. is there more to it than that? the kurds abandoned territory
war between turkey and syria. syria s not our friend. assad is not our friend. that s the way it goes. you said you withdrew 28 troops. 28. they say it was 28. we thought it was 50 but it was about 28. nobody injured. listen, all accounted for, nobody injured, nobody missing. it s really nice. look at what s happened since those troops were withdrawn since you ve had that conversation with erdogan. you know what s happened? no american soldiers have been killed. very easy to recapture those people that probably the kurds let go to make a little bit stronger political impact. that s okay. i fully understand it but that s the way it goes. we re bringing our soldiers back home and we ve done a great job. we were supposed to be in syria for one month. that was ten years ago. and we ve been a police force. it s time to bring our soldiers back home. that s the way it is. we ve had no soldiers injured or