week. i want to turn to a third subject that came from the presidents trip from asia. he met with russian president putin and the two of them talked about reporters and meddling in the 2020 election. take a look at the conversation. [inaudible] [inaudible] get rid of the reporters, fake news and don t meddle in the election. is this just trumping trump and not wanting reporters to tell them what to say or do you see his by play there putin is more serious than that. it s both trumping trump in more serious. it is damaging, it is yes to both. it seems like so many people, especially trump supporters, basically excuse his behavior
subject that came from the presidents trip from asia. he met with russian president putin and the two of them talked about reporters and meddling in the 2020 election. take a look at the conversation. [inaudible] [inaudible] get rid of the reporters, fake news and don t meddle in the election. is this just trumping trump and not wanting reporters to tell them what to say or do you see his by play there putin is more serious than that. it s both trumping trump in more serious. it is damaging, it is yes to both. it seems like so many people, especially trump supporters, basically excuse his behavior
complaints and from outside the realm of military policy. people are complaining about trumping trump since before he ever started running for president. all of a sudden the reality of what s going on, the president goes to the middle east, and what s happened? were not having a million isis, their physical footprint which was a big problem with isis to begin with is virtually disappeared, thousands of foreign fighters are not flooding into the middle east. ebron has been put on notice. i actually think his record kin of speaks for itself, any other president any other president except donald trump, people would be trumpeting this is the triumph of two years of successful form policy in the region. lets get to the policy a little bit about the decision t pull out of syria. presidentid trump talked about
country. i think you re exactly correct. just last week before the president decided he would pull out, the military was saying there s some 20,000 to 30,000 active isis soldiers or militants operating in syria. now, if that s the president s notion of being knocked out, well, i don t think he s been in a real battle. this battle against isis is going to continue for some time. moving out of syria totally, which is apparently what he wants to do, will leave a very, very serious vacuum that will be filled by iran, by assad, syria, and by russia as well as turkey, all of which is bad news for the united states. with regard to operating from iraq, yes, we ve been doing that regularly from the air fields in iraq, targeting various isis formations in syria. we know of those formations because of our 2,000 troops that
essentially, i think it is fair to say he would have played some role. i don t know how much of a role or perhaps less of a role than if he had been allowed to stay on as he planned for a couple more mont, or if he had not resigned in the first place. i think what is more clear is that he did overshadow this trip, both by his absence, not traveling with the president as he might have if he was planning to stay in the role, and because president trump not only having not visited the troops prior to this troops forward-deployed troops prior to this, but also this visit wind up being almost a response to what happened last week, the criticism over the precipitous syria announcement of a pullout and the decision to let mattis go, or mattis s decision to go in protest of that syria decision. rob, does today s trip solve some of the lingering political problems this president has at this moment when it comes to calming jitters on the market in new york, calming jitters over his command o