things together. as you say, why would we cancel a trade deal with south korea? they re not our enemy. we re supposed to be looking north. we need to look at international leadership. we re looking at first of all, this president trump has withdrawn from the climate change accord. we were leaders in that effort and this is a major, major problem withdrawing in terms of u.s. leadership. secondly, when you look at the state department budget, i serve on the funding committee for the state department. this administration has proposed a 30% cut. this is our diplomatic budget which requires us to look at diplomatic initi iic initiativg health, education. this is how you reduce tensions, this is how you prevent wars. i just returned from a visit to west africa and reassured people of west africa that the congress is not going to withdraw from our role in our initiatives on the continent. but when you look at this administration, we don t hear much. when you look at the budget, we
a trade deal with south korea? they re not our enemy. we re supposed to be looking north. when we look at international leadership, we re looking at first of all, this president trump has withdrawn from the climate change accord, we were leaders in that effort and this is a major, major problem, withdrawing in terms of u.s. leadership, secondly, when you look at the state department budget, i serve on the funding committee for the state department. this administration has proposed a 30% cut, this is our diplom diplomatic budget, to look at global initiatives, this is how you reduce tensions, this is how you reve you prevent wars, i just returned from west africa and we reit frat ewill when you loo at this administration, you
relief if the president had said we re going to come up with a comprehensive strategy, a diplomatic and political strategy that would begin to bring our troops home. also let me just say i don t believe this administration cares about a comprehensive strategy because they have cut the state department budget or attempting to cut it by 30%. that s where our diplomatic initiatives are funding and they are defunding and they don t have staff and so i think that they really want to stay on this war footing and they want to stay in a state of perpetual war and it s hard for me to understand. it does not help our national security at all. thank you for being with us tonight, ma am. thank you.
certainly changed, rachel. we re talking about over $780 billion. we re talking about over 2,000 of our troops have been killed. we re talking about continuing with a failed policy. and the american people are war weary. certainly we understand the importance of our national security and want to make sure that we protect ourselves from terrorist attacks. but you don t continue down the same path and create more havoc and create more war if you are attempting to find peace. so i think the american people would have breathed a sigh of relief if the president had said we re going to come up with a comprehensive strategy, a diplomatic and political strategy that would begin to bring our troops home. also let me just say i don t believe this administration cares about a comprehensive strategy because they have cut the state department budget or attempting to cut it by 30%. that s where our diplomatic
much. ambassador, how are things going? we have to go. that s why i m going to ask you another question. exactly. a lot of criticism of rex tillerson over the weekend on a variety of issues. what s happening at the state department? are we in trouble? is the state department withering on the vine? well, there isn t the senior leadership there at the undersecretary and assistant secretary level. they haven t appointed people to these positions. rex tillerson wants to cut the state department budget by a third. congress, republicans want to restore the funding and now the state department is saying they don t want it. morale is pretty low at foggy bottom. that s horrible. ambassador, thank you very much. thank you. the washington post brings us the latest reporting on tomorrow s key special election in georgia as democrats try to flip gingrich s former seat, and the trump legal team becomes the