pretty critical to us there. the secretary of state has a totally different message. now, you know, we wake up to this charge that president obama colluded, that he did nothing, which is completely false. this is certainly in the realm of foreign policy it s a very, very dangerous thing. especially as you guys were talking about earlier, at a time when the president has laid down a threat, has drawn a red line for military activity in syria. are we to believe the department of defense, or are we to believe tweets? i m not sure the world knows. congressman, have you or to your knowledge have any member of the house intelligence committee received a heads-up on that notification that came out? i don t think so. i certainly did not. i read about it in the press like everybody else did late last night. i can t speak for my colleagues, but i don t think anybody around here knew that that was coming out. this is really critical because the president of the united states threatened a war,
15 million people will lose their coverage next year. this is not eight years from now, but next year. 15 million. and those people are going to be around to vote in 2018. senator, different topic. i want to ask you about the statement the white house put out yesterday suggesting that an attack by syria chemical attack on its own people was imminent. you sit on intel and armed services. did the white house talk to you or anyone in the senate before putting this statement out? certainly not to me. i don t know whether they were in touch with the leadership of the intelligence committees. they might have been, but i have not heard anything along those lines. we have an intelligence committee that is meeting this afternoon. i have no information on that. i do know from president obama s experience, you have to be careful when you draw red lines, and you have to be prepared to
it s a very dangerous situation. now, i think this story is going to get bigger. senator angus king, thank you very much. he brings up a great point. donald trump is drawing a red line. so barack obama had his red line. not just for syria. now donald trump has drawn a red line. if asaad does something, he has to act. it doesn t look like a lot of people were prepared for the statement. i think that s problematic. coming up a number of democrats are taking the obama administration to task for not doing enough against russia after the 2016 election. we ll ask congressman jim hines how he would punish moscow. he joins us just ahead.
rattner, and andy card and yamiche alcindor. great to have you all on board this morning. andy, before we jump into health care, this ominous warning put out by the white house unexpectedly about syria, what questions do you have about that? have the state department, the defense department, the intelligence community been engaged in this for a little while? or is this the first time they re hearing about this as well? we have reports of the dod that no. that s the bizarre thing. this is a call to action or a threat of action without understanding if there s an underlying cause. there was a report yet that sitcom on the tip of the spear was caught off card by this. i find it bizarre, and i
back it up. that was one of the things that undermine s president obama s credibility in the middle east. what should we read into that statement from the white house? what was the point of the statement? at the end, i recall it said if they do this, they ll pay a heavy price. that sounds like a red line, and it sounds like they re preparing to take action. a month or so august they did take action with a strike on the airport. that s a possibility, but syria is one of the most complicated situations. there are 12 00 opposition groups to asaad, and who is on which side? who do we want, and what happens if asaad goes? these are complicated situations. plus asaad has one of the best air defense systems in the world, so it s not like we can just fly in to syria and do something and not have some results or consequences. you got the russian air force there.