Cnn. Having spent time in iraq an afghanistan and gazza i know and have seen first hand the horrors of war and all people from all Different Countries and all different war zones are, of course, victims and suffering enormously. But there is something unique to the Syrian Crisis to both the david and goliath kind of element to it. Whereby you have a civilian population being bombarded from the skies, relentlessly. Where the rebel fighters do not have anything like the same kind of firepower that the russians and the regime and the iranians and hezbollah have when put together. So and to see hospitals targeted, to see Fruit Markets targeted, to see schools targeted, there is a cynicism to the syrian war that really is particularly haunting to me. Rose and we conclude this evening with author and new yorker columnist calvin trillin. I cant remember when pictures were introduced in the new yorker but a the lo of these store hees were written before there were photographs, and before there was a littl description of what the story was about. So it is a good place to tell a story without being interrupted. The, you dont have somebody like a Photo Caption saying was he pushed or did he jump. And i might not tell you that theres been anything like that till the middle of the story. Mike murphy, matthew dowd, Clarissa Ward, and calvin trillin. When we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose the counts down to 100 days we continue our coverage leading unto President Trumps 100 days in office that comes on saturday, a day after the president revealed his tax plan, the white house faced questions about how the proposed tax cuts would be carried out without adding to the federal governments growing deficit. Meanwhile republican members of Congress Worked to come up with a short term spending bill that what keep the government open for at least another week. House democrats have threatened to allow the government to shut down if republicans use the extension to vote on a new healthcare bill. Joining me from los angeles, mike fur fee, a gop strategist and the host of the podcast radio free gop and from austin, texas, path u dowd, chief political analyst for abc news. Im pleased to have them on this program. Weve been talking about a hundred days. Let me talk about it at the beginning from a political standpoint. Assess donald trump and his political performance and future. Mike . Well, i would say on the plus side, we conservatives are happy with the Supreme Court outcome and hes continuing to set the agenda which is what a president has to do. On the minus side i think there are more things. He has not positioned himself in a place where he has any popularity or strength in the country other than the voters the core of the voters who voted for him. He is he unable to go around politics and rally much, just talk to the base with the same Campaign Rhetoric he used. On the ledge slailtive side, he is boxed himself out of working with democrats by becoming so radioactive that if you are a democrat, you get a primary and on the republican side you are starting to see ideal logical tension. He has not done much to get things done which is what a president does. If is with grading his first hundred days i would give him an incomplete. He needs to turn his homework in and get it done. I dont think hes really done yet. Donald trumps best day if you look at how the public perceives him was the moment he put his hand on the bible and took the oath of office. Every day after that hasnt been a really good day for donald trump. And his Approval Ratings in the country have deter rated from that day onward. And he e as mike said, he has a majority of the country that is o pussed to him. What he is done is solidified both bases. He solidified a majority against him over the course of 98 days and solidified the group of voters that is probably 35, 36, 38 that are for him. And so while its solid and hes got a solid level of support in nearly every Single Member of the Republican Party and voter group he dun have a majority of country that he can communicate with. And president s rise or fall on their ability to connect with the country. That ability he has right now is very limited. Rose has he shown the ability to change . He want people that say i have this information, have i these principles but i will adopt it this way. What we dont know is what he has learned. When he is changed, he hadnt enunciated why he changed, what his principles are and what information that he came in contact with made him change. So yes, hes changed but i done know what he learned. Rose lets take syria, really looking at him, not so much the strike itself, the preparation for that seemed to me was handled well. I think it was a paper that was already written, right . The paper was in the desk. And he took the paper out and i think that plan was already and he handed that paper in and of course we would give him a grade on his paper that was done. I think what we really will looking for, yes, the implementation of a tactical action was done well, primarily obviously by the pentagon but he made the decision in that. We have no idea what the strategy involved in, what the end game is and what are the next steps. So he launches 15 tomahawk missiles, seem to hit where they were supposed to hit. Great, that was done. We have no idea what the end result of this is going to be. Has he made friends within the Republican Party, mike . Well, its a weird kind of marriage of convenience. Because hes not a traditional republican, idea logically. And as matthew said, hes all tactics, no strat he gee. And will change his positions every day, but we dont know what the strategy is that is driving that. So republicans, the republicans in d. C. Particularly liked about him was he was quote a winner, he won the election. Big surprise, we have the house, we have the senate. But now were finding out were not sure he is idea logically reliable. So there is fear growing in the caucus. And there is a lot of worry that he will go try ang late himself over into left field or right field or who knows what. And when you have a president who is kind of a chaos machine, it can be a negotiating advantage for the president. But also scares your allies a lot. Because they dont know what to count on. So if he keeps, you know, if he starts having wins he will hold friends. If he try ang lates against the rs and ds because he they cant get anything done, then hes not going to have very many friends. If we lose the special election coming up in georgia, this runoff in a republican district where its really a coin toss, then the real power will take over the congress. The fear of my own reelection, the golden rule, do thine own political career be true. And then the kal you can lus will change which is this guy was supposed to be the big win wore got elected, is now an anchor around our necks and what are we going to do about it. The idea is nothing succeeds like winning, i assume. Thats the in politics, that is the golden rule. Yeah, and thats why if you look at these hundred days, i think theres a lot of things that the trump folks ought to be worried about. Matthew and i both eluded to earlier, hes got bad numbers. The president has the toolbox. If you are popular pressure the congress. He doesnt have that. Hes backed into one part of the Republican Party that loves him, but even that is not enough in a majority where you can see it in health care now between the Freedom Caucus on the right and moderates on the center trying to find a middle ground to change obamacare which is is a very tough Public Policy problem. So he is running out of tools. And that is a problem. But matt as you know, everybody says you know, everybody who supports him says well, youve said that all along. Look what happened. He won the republican primaries. He got the nomination and he defeated hill rae clinton. Well, thats totally true. But es hes in an entirely different scenario, charlie. I said this ever since he took office. He succeeded by pushing up against somebody or something that were more unpopular or more, less acceptable than him. Right now hes pushing up against himself. He stands on his own as president of the United States. Hes flailed around trying to find an enemy to push up against, the press, democrats, whatever st whatever it is, he is president of the United States without an Election Campaign for another three years. So he succeeded, yes, he succeeded in the primaries against a group of weak candidates that didnt never take him seriously. He pushed against them, succeeded against Hillary Clinton, a person almost as unpopular as he was, can he succeed as a leader standing on his own. And now hes on a world stage that he cant sort of compete against, and get a rebound off of somebody else. He has to do it on his own. And thats where he found deficit. So mike, what does he have to do to become transform tiff. I think he has to understand the difference between a campaign which is a promise auction and the reality of governing where you have to use these tools of amplification like the white house. I mean we have an essentially disfunctional staff in the white house, the administration is well understaffed. The only e semp shun is some of the National Security team are quite excellent but a president needs to know how to play the big piano to use the assets of office. And instead hes kind of hunkered down in the bunker. If you look at the legislative agenda its all been tactical, there is no strategy. So you know how he does get some winds in the reality of washington politics is what vexed them, will have to up his game tremendously or he will just be sitting in the white house angrily tweeting all day long. And thats a dead end for any president. I know they is about optics but what about having the centers to come in and brief them on north korea. What about having the Security Council come down to washington so he can try to flatter them. Well look, i think it was a good tactic because were trying to widen the sal yent of the north korean issue and that also sebds the message to the chinese and north koreans, most of the Foreign Policy tactics have been pretty good. But those are tack take tactics. They get to you tomorrow, they are stepbystep, they are not a strategy to know a hundred days from now what are the wins. How do you get the numbers up. So you have the political power with both parties, really, to get something through. The stuff he wants to do is really hard. Tax reform is easiest thing in politics to talk about in a campaign, its one of the hardest things to do. Like the bermuda triangle. You fly in smiling at 300 miles an hour, youre never seen again, its all about sacrifice. So theyre going to need to be a plus strategists to get to the kind of stuff you want to do. Right now i give him a d. Well, do he they need some magic bullet in the presence of one person that can come in and make the white house a different place . I dont think so because its him, you know, thats part of it. Trump doesnt change. Hes the atomic clock of what it he is, his strength and weakness. Matt. I dont think you can add anything that will change. I totally agree with mike. This is fundamentally about donald trump. You cant add a series of people that are going to say i will feel better about donald trump t will be a different brand of leadership in this. Donald trump if he wants to succeed has to understand his own weaknesses and liabilities and confront them and move through them and become a different kind of leader. It is on his shoulders to sort of become Something Different than he was in the campaign. What about his relationship with the media . Well, it is sort of standard plarks especially by republicans to sort of lambaste the media and say the elite media and all of that. I think the media still loves to cover him. So he has a huge asset there. The media wants to cover him. They even want to cover anybody around him. So its an asset and a lot of president s dont have, the media et goes bored by things. Theyre not bored at all in this. The problem is he lost a level of trust. Its not only with the American Public but is dramically level with the media. So every word that comes out of his mouth or on his keyboard or out of sean spicers mouth or sb somebody else now is automatically questioned. There is not a level of trust. That makes it very hard to reach any consensus to people that are covering you dont trust what you are saying. Rose matt, thank you for joining us. Great to be here. Rose michael, let me go back to the issue of him. Sure. Rose it really isnt a remarkable time, a hundred days, and our our entire fascination has been with donald trump and our entire fascination has been with his behavior. Right, it is amazing. Weve never seen anything like this. He is a very assymetrical character because he has the genius for holding the media spotlight. But one of the ways he holds the media spotlight is by breaking the china and doing incredibly outrageous thinks hurting his credibility with media so over time he discounts himself. Its like steroids. Hes so steroidal he can grab the media and have all the power but he is he killing his political body with the tack takes he uses to do it. So hes got to change things up. But i dont know at 70, somebody who has lived in kind of his bubble of success that he has created, if hes capable of changing that way. He makes the biggest mistake with the media you can ever make which every politician makes, he reads it. Thats the problem. Most success one of the most successful governor i worked for john engler of michigan never read k4reu7s. Trumps knows how to drive the media but he reads it and reacts so he gets caught in his feedback loop and den doesnt help him move the big ball. Rose not only reacts but it seems to influence decisions he makes. Totally. Im in the advocacy business in. Did krvment. When we are talking to cliepts we say here are the three cable shows to put an ad on to get right to the president. Nobody knows how the staff works with the cardinals fighting each other. You go direct to him. It is a New Territory here, because hes totally, to use the computer term, open source. Rose it is also education by tv. Yeah, no, i mean, you know, you hear from people in that orbit that he is difficult to brief because the president doesnt like to read things, even short decision memos which is often how a white house works. Doesnt do that. So you have to verbally brief him, but when you try that he likes to tell the story about the conspiracy that denied him New Hampshire or whatever it is. So it is difficult for the staff there to brief the president , in a twoway situation where he can gain information. And you know, thats a troubling thing to me. Rose mike murphy, political strategist, screen writer and whatever else out on the west coast, thank you for joining me. Thank you, charlie. Rose well be right back. Stay with us. Serious civil war is widely considered the worst geo political and humanitarian crisis of the 2 1s century. The conflict has clawmed at least 470,000 lives in the six years since it erupted out of the arab spring protest. Millions more have been displaced leading to a refugee crisis that has destabilized the neighboring region and fueled far right sentiments across europe. Joining me now is Clarissa Ward. She is a Senior International correspondent for cnn, she spent the last six years reporting from syria, and it was announced yesterday that she was one of the recipients of the 2016 peabody award for her series undercover in syria. And here is a look at that. It was just an air strike here in the town of arija so were driving very qukly. Its not clear yet what was hit but we are hearing that there are still plains in the sky. Arriving on the scene our team found chaos and carnage. Volunteers shouted for an ambulance as they tried to ferry out the wounded. For many it was too late. A woman lay dead on the ground, a jacket draped over her, an attempt to preserve her dignity. Russia has repeatedly claimed it is only hitting terrorist targets. This strike hit a busy fruit market. This is just a civilian market. This is not a military area. There are no military installations here or anything. Its a market. Its a market. A fruit market. Is this what you want . Rose im pleased to have Clarissa Ward back at this table. Welcome. Thank you. Rose youre in town to a, celebrate with your friends, and also receive another award. Yes, indeed. Rose from the press club. Yes, a very exciting one. Always a tremendous honor to receive an award that is basically from your peers, if people without do the same type of work. Its a particularly exciting one to win. Rose when was you last in syria. I was last inside syria when i made that piece, or that series of pieces, undercover in syria. That was last march. I have been trying to go again, especially after the recent strikes, the u. S. Strikes and also the chemical attack. But unfortunately now it really has become incredibly difficult to gain access. The guardian was able to get in there briefly. But with the turkish referendum the turk irish thortds were a little reluctant to allow journalsts to go in to visit the scene of the Chemical Attacks and try to piece together what happened. Rose of all the places youve seen, you still say nothing, nothing compares to syria. Its true. And i really, i go through in my mind, and its not to minimize the horrors of any war zone because having spent time in iraq and afghanistan and gazza i, i know and i have seen first hand the horrors of war. And all people from all Different Cou