just a tragedy. we re going to be talking more about the impeachment factor and all the impeachment proceedings happening on capitol hill later in the show. great to have you on the show. thanks, hallie. there may be a reversal when it comes to the president s plan to remove troops out of syria. you heard the defense secretary talk about it this morning. mark esper is in the middle east. that s why he s not going to be at the cabinet meeting in just a bit. he s talking about a plan that may keep a few hundred troops in the country. our forces will remain in the towns that are located near the oil fields. the purpose of the forces, a purpose of the forces, working with the sdf is to deny access to the oil fields by isis and others who may benefit from revenues that could be earned. nbc s chief foreign correspondent richard engel is live for us. richard, bring us up to speed on the developments over the last 24 hours. where do you see this going from here? reporter: so let me
who served under the coalition to defeat isis. he resigned in december of last year after president trump announced his decision to withdraw troops from syria. we re lucky to have you. i remember when you resigned, brett, i was covering the white house. if you hadn t resigned then, would this activity now trigger you to resign? we ve seen this movie before. it s a bad movie and it s going to get worse. in december president trump, all of a sudden said everybody get out and then he revisited it, that limit our options and influence. as we speak now, we are abandoning all of our basis that we controlled and blowing up the basis as we leave. the population that supported our forces for four years are throwing potatoes and tomatoes at our trucks as we leave. this is shameful and humiliating and now we re going to collapse down to a little zone in the southwest part of the northeast
reinforcements to the border. is there any possibility in your mind that the cease-fire ends up being permanent? i have great respect for the diplomats working this issue, those brought about by a decision of the president, two decisions by the president now. but this isn t a cease-fire. these towns are deseiged by turkish opposition forces and the kurdish backed fighters have to leave. that s a tactic used by the assad regime. let s not make any mistake, erdogan has ulterior motives here and we should not play into them. i appreciate you being on set to talk through all of the developments. up next, an nn nbc news exclusive you will only see here. lester holt is talking to the former chief security officer to make sure foreign actors do not mess with our elections. first as the sun starts to come up in dallas we re getting a clear picture of the damage from