The U.S. military Thursday held a joint armed exercise with members of the YPG, the Syrian affiliate of the terrorist group PKK, in northeastern Syria,.
other guests. first let s go to the white house, our correspondent abby phillip, is on the scene for us. abby, the president apparently exploding as he faces severe criticism for his syria policy in addition to the impeachment investigation. reporter: that s right, wolf. the temperature in washington seems to be going up precipitously as the pressure over impeachment and also the president s syria policy seems to have combined at the white house today with explosive results. we have just gotten a response from the white house press secretary, stephanie grisham, to the way this meeting was characterized by democrats. she said the president was measured, factual and decisive while speaker pelosi s decision to walk out was baffling but not surprising. democrats say this meeting went totally differently and went off the rails when president trump went after speaker nancy pelosi in personal terms. tonight, a white house meeting on syria derailed hours after house republicans joined democr
one, two former intelligence officials likened this move to the one that put secretary mattis over the edge. ultimately a lot of national security officials believe secretary mattis finally resigned not just because he disagreed with the president s syria policy but because he feared that lives were at risk, that perhaps syrians who helped as translators or allies, that their lives would be at risk. they said there might be a parallel concern in the intelligence community that allies, informants, intelligence sharing agreements could very much be at risk if the attorney general who has staked out ground for himself as an ally of the fringiest kinds of beliefs that the president and his allies and conservative media voice about the intelligence community, do you share that concern? i do. it s one thing, a bad thing but one thing to politicize intelligence analysis to say, well the analysis of what happened with regard to the iraq war should lead to this policy outcome, war or peace or
overturning an executive order that s been in place since president reagan that said these intelligence leaders and only these leaders have the authority to declassify information. so much to unpack there. let me follow-up with you on two points. one, two former intelligence officials likened this move to the one that put secretary mattis over the edge. ultimately a lot of officials believed secretary mattis finally resigned not because he disagreed with the president s syria policy but he feared people s lives were at risk. they said that there might be a parallel concern in the intelligence community, that allies, informants, intelligence sharing agreements could be at risk if the attorney general, who has staked out ground for himself as an ally of the fringeiest kind of beliefs that the president and his allies and conservative media voice about the intelligence community. do you share that concern? i do. it s a bad thing, but it s one
isis has been defeated. reporter: later, pence released a statement that was more carefully worded saying we have crushed the isis caliphate and devastated its capabilities. he president has been touting a military victory over isis, tweeting, we have defeated isis in syria. my only reason for being there during the trump presidency. we have won against isis. we have beaten them and we have beaten them badly. we have taken back the land. now it s time for our troops to come back home. reporter: a message he repeated during his troops with iraq over the holidays. we are no longer the suckers. people aren t looking at us as suckers. i love you folks because most of you are nodding your head this way. we re respected again as a nation. reporter: the lack of clarity on the president s syria policy comes as tensions are flaring over the shutdown. nancy pelosi told mr. trump to