leaning forward in terms of redeployments or potentially leaving their partners in northern syria. again, this is more confusion and more chaos in a situation that is already very complex in northern syria. as barbara starr just said, there s a big lack of clarity, but something else happened with senator graham s meeting with president trump. he said president trump told him that because he had gone to iraq on that surprise visit for christmas that when he was there the people on the ground, commanders on the ground, informed president trump that isis has not been completely destroyed, which mr. trump found eye opening. why wouldn t the commander-in-chief have that that information? it depends on how much attention he was paying to the daily briefs from the intelligence community. the top officials have been saying we almost have them all defeated but there are pockets,
and you have iraq saying they have indigenous groups that are helping support isis. this battle was at least another year to run, just in the actual battle zones, and you also had people like the isis envoy who now resigned and wanted to see more of a social and security infrastructure before you pulled out the small numbers of u.s. troops who were serving like training wheels and a security umbrella for the other forms of aid, not all aid the u.s. was paying for but aid that the u.s. was enabling that now is going to be harder to deliver, but back to mark s point, can you really turn this off? my understanding is that mattis signed an execution order and they were moving out on pulling out u.s. troops and replacing some of their mission with french and british forces.
this war is not from u.s. travel ban. so that s a point the west has to appreciate. look at the tachers in istanbul. two different attacks the one in the airport and nightclub all from the former soviet union. in sweden similar tach to the one in new york was perpetrated by that. and in new york within the last two years have conducted an investigation which has led to the arrest of fiveus beck living in brooklyn who support isis. point taken. michael weiss,as always with your wealth of knowledge, thank you so much for starting us off here in this hour. i do want to get to the president stunning remarks, including calling the u.s. justice system a joke. let s go to jim acosta, this story started breaking at the end of my show yesterday, we are barely 24 hours in, and the president is already pushing
strict control. and also, too, activists telling us about the tricks they re playing especial weather it comes to isis informants, leaving threats to try and make those who support isis increasingly uncomfortable. here s what one had to say. we can only get to them by leaving messages on their door like we know who you are. this soon stops them. some of our friends started writing the word free on the walls of isis buildings. then, locals started. the elderly writing it on walls, and children on chalkboards, making isis wonder who are these peopl people. clearly there is a lengthy conflict ahead. it will possibly be swifter than the brutal eight-month-long fight for mosul in iraq. there s a lot of coalition firepower facing toward raqqa. they ve been dug in for quite some time, isis. you see how the streets are deserted, how we re told many cars are actually car bombs.
if this was a retaliatory attack by anti-muslim extremist, then we really need to be on guard and disturbed not just how horrific of how the attack itself was. how it this play into the hands, the stated plans of isis. for example, i m holding in my hands right now a 1-page article written by isis in one of their magazines where they said they had something called the extension of the gray zone plan. what that means is that they view the majority of muslims are living in the west. especially europe as being viable targets. that they are on the enemy s side as isis sees it those who support isis. gray zone in the middle. people haven t chosen either side. radical but not on the isis side. according to their thinking triggering anti-muslim responses is what will bring that radical gray zone over into their army. rob: i still think people are angry right now all over the world, and especially in england after the march concert attack seeing all