don t do this. there are rules and we play by those rules and you re breaking those rules. that certainly is the attitude, not only of the british, but also of straight thinking u.s. intel operatives and say, look at putin s russia attacking british citizens on british soil and now, like you said, because of the sloppiness of it, two other british citizens possibly. joe, let it be noted another of those rules is be careful about mounting broad, covert actions against your adversaries political system. yes, we challenged communism in the soviet union. yes, we ve beened av ed a vedbe
department spokesperson heather nowart, this is a classic tit for tat and what is the state department saying about it? they are saying it is not a classic tit for not a classic t because the russians were responsible for this chemical weapons attack the first on british soil with weapons grade toxic agent, and that therefore the only two victims here are the british citizen, former russian spy, and his daughter. so, they re saying that this should not have been a retaliation against the united states and that russia is the one who is responsible for it. i tried to drill down on that with heather nauer at the briefing. andrea, go ahead. why haven t we heard from the president of the united states? the last thing we know about his communications with russia were his congratulatory call to vladimir putin when he did not
peter. geoff bennett at the white house. thank you. we ll see you back there shortly. as we ve been saying, the u.s. and more than a dozen allies are expelling russian officials in solidarity with britain. this morning the trump administration announcing that it is kicking out the 60 plus russian diplomats in what is being called the largest collective expulsion of russian intelligence officers in history. this does come in response to the poisoning of an ex-russian spy and his daughter while on british soil. u.s. and foreign officials blame the kremlin for the attack. of course russia has denied being involved. british prime minister theresa may spoke out about the wave of support today. i have found great solidarity from our friends and partners in the e. u., north america and beyond over the past few weeks after we ve confronted the after math of the salisbury incident and we will not tolerate russian
whatever s left of it and that should worry do europeans you just talked about the world order that s being threatened by these from what you perspective many things at the moment turkey but also we have the new. allegedly from russia on british soil the leaders here at the u. council will talk about those things today what kind of response do you expect from them well the first thing that i would like to see is unity because what we know that putin wants to play one member state against the alter and i ve read some statements of of european heads of states and government and in the case in point to. pass basically playing the good boy of moscow within the european union the greek prime minister exactly and if the greek prime minister destroys the unity of the european states interest for us so unity is the first thing then purpose i mean we should not threaten russia we should respect russia but then we should insist on russia respecting us and so there what i would expect is a factua
between the events at all. it could happen the president wants to fire these guys or mulling over firing these guys at the same time this russia crisis is happening with what appears to have been a russian state attack using a nerve agent on a private citizen. on british soil. it could be this is coincidentally happening at the same time. these are public remarks these national security officials would be making regardless whether the president was in the process of firing them or not. but now we have seen this same dynamic play out twice in a week. we saw this play out in very quick secession with the mcmaster news last night and before that with the tillerson firing on monday night into tuesday morning. and because it s now happened twice, it may be worth looking into what is going on here. it s not just palace intrigue. this is not just the president enjoying chaos around him. these are serious men in serious jobs. this is the american secretary of state. this is the top security of