tillerson, anybody in the foreign service, anybody with history and expertise in the region and the politics and dynamics. to say that afghanistan is going to be a long-term diplomatic political fight when president trump is considered poison around the world, not sure how he s going to bring in countries to support afghanistan. last point if we haven t created a soviet union in afghanistan for 16 years to hand over to the security forces not sure what the speech tells us we re doing in the next couple of years that will allow the united states to bring troops home. general mccaffrey that was a powerful presentation. your response to it? in addition, if you can back up you are comforted by the voices you hear of the generals surrounding the president in these remarks? well i agree with what nayyera had to say i think she has it dead right.
stand up much more. that s beginning to happen. the business community, we ve seen others step up. so we have to see what we ve never had this kind of a situation. think about that. the chief of staff to the president of the united states, you ve cover sod many of them and known them pretty well. i believe when john kelly gets up in the morning, partly he thinks how can i advance the president s agenda. more fundamentally, he thinks how can i prevent the president from doing something to damage the country. i m glad he s here and he was able to push the president to a more responsible policy. a gold star father who people should remember lost a son in afghanistan, notably. i want to show you a picture of a group we used to call the thee amigos. leererman, graham, mccain. look at those guys. they took a hike together this weekend. i want to ask you what you think they talked about on the trail
general barry mccaffrey one of our military analysts, a decorated commander in vietnam with experience in government appear military throughout the world. jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the pentagon and cia and nayyera hauck with the late ambassador richard holbrooke. welcome to you all. general that one quote stands out we are not going to we re turning from nation building to killing terrorists. what do you make of that, and what else did you hear? well, you know, i actually think it was an excellent presentation given the disastrous situation we re in in afghanistan. i think you know he was thoughtful. a lot of people made much ado about the fact he read a speech. that was a victory of common sense, mattis and tillerson, h.r. mcmaster over the bannon faction. i thought conditions based made sense. i thought the new putting leverage on pakistan using
campaign in phoenix. they get hot. you know he is talking about immigration there. he s going to have a huge crowd of supporters. he may in fact say something about pardoning sheriff joe arpaio and could be a controversial evening for him and certainly change in the tone from the scripted teleprompter speech we heard on afghanistan. michael crowley there will be politics in the air. think about it. the president has attacked both senators from arizona by the way, they re both republican senators from arizona, flake and mccain. right. i mean it s we re how many times have with we said this brian. we re in uncharted waters. yet i listen to susan collins talk, and i listen to the growing questions about whether trump will be primariyed and whether he can get the republican nomination again. i go back to about two years ago at this time and everyone said there is no way this guy can win the republican nomination.
i was dealt a bad hand and i m going to fix it. i think there s a real problem with that. in afghanistan and the general and nayyera know well we are part of a 39 nato led coalition. it s inconceivable tell 39 other nations the number and the composition but not tell the american people. that doesn t make much sense. i m not sure it makes us safer. the president has erected that strawman we don t telegraph our moves, but in some ways you do have to telegraph to our friends as well as our adversaries our commitment to afghanistan over the long-term. nayyera we invoked richard holbrooke, one of the more celebrated diplomats of his time dating back to the vietnam war. he has been gone a few years. controversial guy, had his fans and detractors but to pick up on a point you made about the state department, since the day of