To mount juliet, tennessee. Christy walked in for a get together and got the surprise of her life. Not a dry eye in that house. Thanks for joining us. Busy day. Im dana perino. Heres shep. Shepard a live look, the Eisenhower Executive Office building next to the west wing where were about to hear live from the president in the wake of an extraordinary morning. The pressure on President Trump accelerating and in moments hes scheduled to speak. Two big issues, first, the president s decision to withdraw troops from syria. Widely criticized by members of his own party, his own advisers and generals and cabinet. Our own reporting that he stopped listening to top leadership, didnt inform our allies or the pentagon. Hes getting praise from putin and condemnation from conservatives. At the same time, in the face of pressure to build that wall, the newly announced president ial decision not to sign the
shortterm budget deal that easily passed the u. S. Senate. His base was rebelling. The Freed
of nato yet. wanted to be free. and now it isis free. tucker: lots of people want to be free. in western europe the poor countries of western europe. poland. tucker: poland is not a core country in western europe. you are willing to feed all of eastern europe, even the countries like poland that are our allies and part of nato and say we should only protect western europe? because once eastern europe goes, then western europe is threatened. tucker: we re almost done.ed you think there is a plausible threat within our lifetimes of, say, the u.k., germany, belgium, litten liechtenstein, switzerland, spain, portugal, being invaded by russia? i m not saying that. what i m saying is all of the other e countries in eastern europe, including the ones whoo joined nato fell, n of course te next frontier for russia expansionism would be western europe. that s obvious, iio think.
rethinking membership in nato isn t treasonous, it isis prima facie evidence of insanity. you are not fit to govern if you say that you probably shouldn t drive a car in the interest of public safety. so whatever happened to the old democratic party? s when did the antiwar people d become neocons? when did it become the party of bill kristol max boot and every other discredited hack time to replicate the iraq disaster in nations around the world? who knows when that happened but that s exactly what the democratic party is today. just ask tulsi gabbard a democratic member of congress now running for president. on most questions she is a liberal represents hawaii after all of course she is. but on the question of syria she is skeptical. gabbard isn t eager to overthrow the assad government why? because she worries about what might come next. what might happen to the christians and other religious minorities who live there.. for saying that, for holding that position, she is being denounc
open ended. the u.s. mission there was now expanding to training 40,000 troops, which would take a number of years. and there would inevitably have been a peacekeeping operation, where that would keep us in there for another couple of years, at least. so i just wonder in we recognize back here that the military was trying to pull us into a mission that could have lasted at least a decade and that is legally questionable, and candidly, i think that those issues need to be kept in consideration by those legions of critics that are saying digging out of syria was the wrong thing to do. and the last thing i would say is, isis is around the world. it is not only in one small part of syria. we ve got to fight isis not only in syria, but in the sinai and dozens of other places, where
either isis or their affiliates are krocropping up. let s not get myopically focused on syria where the only place that isis is operating. it s operating around the world and we have work to do around the world. would you say that if the president says that isis has been defeated, that that s premature? well, it s certainly the case that they have not by destroyed inside of syria. that s fully accepted. defeat, militarily, is that they are no longer able to continue their mission , and candidly, that s where they are right now. but mcgurk is right we need to keep pressure on them to make sure they can t start operations again outside of that area. and frankly, that s what we have allies to do. that s what we re doing in iraq. we ve defeated and almost destroyed isis in iraq and it hasn t been done with american troops, it s been done with iraqi troops and local forces in syria can keep that same pressure on, aided by american air strikes, aided by american