here enough to pick up in what s in the water. again, between the tweets and the way he responded to this story, you have people just saying, you know, republicans saying i don t know that we can handle eight years with him. and it s such a marked difference as nbc reporting shows from the way this was handled eight months ago when the first announcement was made. when that first announcement came down, sentcom officials had time to reach out to the head of the syrian defense forces, our partners in northern syria were able to wake him up, tell him what was happening, make sure our kurdish partners knew this change was in the works. the marked difference this time has been extraordinarily jarring. another piece of this that s important is that those syrian forces recently at the united states behest moved south some of the defense materials, machine guns, other weaponry they had south away from the turkish border. they did that to cooperate more closely with the united states, and n
for beijing to go into hong kong. it could be disastrous on a number of different fronts but the fact is these forces are here and giving beijing the opportunity to send in troops if they choose to do so. matt rivers near the border. retired general joseph o tell roins me now, the former commander of central command and oversaw all operations in the middle east until he stepped down in march. it is good to be here, jake. so a lot of people think that china is the biggest threat to the united states right now. i know that is not your area of expertise, the pacific. what do you worry about as somebody who was head of sent com, what is your biggest fear. we have to take seriously the threat that iran poses not just to the united states but to other regional partners in the middle east. so that is one of the areas that i spent quite a bit of time focused on as the cent com
the national unlawfully. we have to insure we have sovereignty and security at our southern border. every action the administration is taking is designed to do that. president trump has been very clear. we work i worked personally on an arrangement with mexico now a week and a few days ago. i m confident that we will get that under control. it s important. it s important for america s national security that we do in fact achieve that. thank you all. secretary of state pompeo in tampa at sent com. back with us now kristen welker and jake sullivan the former national security advisor to vice president joe biden and state department official. jake, he said they ll continue to work with partners around the world. he was asked about communications. he said one of the communications is what i m doing now, there were communications through abe and he mentioned that china has a strategic interest in keeping the strait of hormuz open for oil trade. you were involved in two years
tensions. secretary pompeo is going to be speaking from sent com. iran is threatening to break out of the nuclear deal for the first time in 14 months, even though the president withdrew from it. we see these hits on the tankers. they say there s intelligence, the brits agree with the u.s. this was iranian proxyied. what do you do right now where iran is arguably acting aggressively, even whoa, whoa e whoa in reaction to the u.s. policy making. just a couple of points. first of all, what is absolutely necessary is an objective investigation as to these incidents. the destruction or the bombing or attacking of oil tankers in the gulf of oman is not acceptable. we need to investigate it. you don t accept let me
and right now on andrea mitchell reports, campaign kickoff. president trump officially launching his reelection campaign with a florida rally tonight. a threat of mass arrests against undocumented efforts in an effort to fire up his base. that s the same game plan he used before the 2018 midterms. the democrats want to continue giving automatic birthright citizenship to every child born to an illegal alien. coming up, democratic presidential contenders bernie sanders responds. razor s edge, the secretary of state meeting with top military commanders at sent com in tampa, after the pentagon announced it s deploying 1,000 more troops in response to escalating tensions with iran. within days we ve had a military buildup, a tax on tankers in the middle east and a nuclear warning from iran. it doesn t look like there s any sign of a way out. no talks likely, and no climb