if i m donald trump, i m thinking these are good days. hard to reverse. oh, come on. what s going to be hard to reverse? i don t think the u.s. is in a path to datante with russia. you think donald trump is going to go to the kremlin and do a big thumbs up with a big mac with vlad. no time soon. especially because of the ap report that we haven t confirmed yet is that russia knew about the chemical attacks before they were carried out and provided cover. if you re wcondemning that as te reason you went into syria, he can t be shaking his hand. if that s the case, we don t want to shake their hands. if russia knew about the chemical weapons, we don t want to shake their hands. now you watch. putin this is not worth it
putin we can strike syria even when the warplanes are there. do you know how embarrassing that is for vladimir putin when he s tryingo project streng? a big gas station and i m in syria, too. great, you can t even protect your client in syria. embarrassing. things just got a lot more complicated for him. back in washington there are signs that senior counselor steve bannon is standing down in his feud with presidential advisor and son-in-law jared kushner. over the weekend the new york times reported that kushner allies told the president of the increasingly unflattering coverage that kushner is receiving from breitbart news. the website that bannon used to run. and now anonymous sources tell business insider that breitbart editors ordered staffers to stop writing stories critical of kushner. a breitbart editor responded it is an absurd suggestion that they would muzzle critical
they not been charged with assault and battery? they can t do that. they just can t do that. let me get to the headlines this morning. at ceo of exxonmobil secretary of state rex tillerson received the order of friendship from russian president vladimir putin kind of like a victory lap. when tillerson visits moscow later today. peaches and herb reunited and it feels so good. tillerson is going to moscow today and he s not even going to get a handshake. what? reuters reports that tillerson and putin will not meet after the kremlin was angered by the u.s. missile strikes that targeted a base also used by russian troops. ding, ding, ding. i have an answer. what is kabuki theater? mark halperin, this is all a setup.
for vladimir putin. now putin starts stepping away from syria because it s for what he wants, this is doing just the opposite for basically a glorified gas station. he doesn t need this. he went to syria because it was a cheap, easy pr win. it s not worth it anymore. in a warm weather port for the russian navy. clearly the syrians and as sads especially have really embarrassed russia, put putin in a tough place. russia overplayed his hand with the wikileaks stuff last year. now they can t get zblig now they can t get anything, right. and i agree with mark. i think this is frozen for quite while. and that is in everybody s best interests. putin wroild like sanctions relief. he s not going to get that.
presumably that includes the first 2 1/2 months of donald trump s presidency. we are hoping for productive talks. so they re looking this morning at the g7 meeting, looking for any signs of a clear message from the g7 just as they ve been looking for a clear message from washington over the last couple days, both in washington and italy, they ve been getting mixed messages. what exactly is the u.s. strategy, under what circumstances would the u.s. take action in syria again, and the same thing from the g7 summit. one statement of note, there was a conversation on the phone between donald trump and the british prime minister, theresa may, she talked about this being a window of opportunity to put pressure on putin to get rid of assad. boris johnson, the british foreign secretary saying putin was tox phiing the reputation of russia by clinging on to assad.