which is why the president can make the call he is making tonight. send additional 4,000 troops or whatever it is he announces and be secure in political knowledge this won t cost him a huge amount amongst his base. he promised a lot of things on the campaign trail. the all working class people get to fight these wars. anyway, secretary jim mattis who oversold the war in afghanistan when he was commander of u.s. central command. he said mr. president we haven t fought a 16-war so much as we have fought a one-year war 16 times. what does that mean? kelly, you re the expert. what does that mean? i ve heard that a lot pr mat nis previous roles. i think is a lazy phenomenon. there s a lot of reasons why things aren t working out in afghanistan. the karzai government was
century. they deading wi, all of them. charlie wilson knocked them without a few stingers, they are gone. and it always happens. we have to come home. nobody wants to live in afghanistan, except afghans. we ain t going over there to live, we are coming home. this isn t colonization. they are coming home. thank you. up next, a new report says white house staffers are scared to quit. then the only thing in the way of trump impulses. someone who recently resigned his boast after battling with the trump administration. over ethics, i think. i no longer live with the uncertainties of hep c.
white house? i think i can drive immigration stuff, trade stuff, drive that conversation outside the white house. but i can t be in the meetings with mcmaster on afghanistan. he ticked off three things that trump promised. reduce immigration. provide jobs. and get us out of foreign wars. the trifecta that got him elected. to bannon, it is to important to get america out of messy entanglements. he can t wage that war as effectively. the president going rogue last week when responding to the violence in charlottesville. newt gingrich saying he add lha lack of discipline. last thing he has to do, i m very cannedity here, he has to quit stepping on himself. he had a good infrastructure conference and then stepped on it guaranteed it couldn t get covered. he has to be disciplined, work
trump watch monday august 21, 2017. donald trump won his electoral victory last november with a promise to quote end stupid wars. what i expected him to say tonight in prime time will be a contradigs. i expect he will call for more troops in afghanistan and call for in fact 50% hike in american forces there from 8,000 to 12,000. to put it another way instead offeding the 16-year american war over there, long nest our history, he will lengthen it. my question is how is this any different than previous presidents? from kennedy to nixon to johnson, to bush to obama to trump in iraq. how he is different than any president before him to make the decision to keep an american war going long enough to escape blame from having lost it. how does trump just if i putting more troops in harm s way after
my question. that s my question. for more, co-anchor from bbbc news, kelly who worked for the defense department under president obama. thank you both for joining us. i m a skeptic. i m a dove. i do not see where you go into these wars, you go in and never can come home. i understand why the general is generally opposed going to work because they know we will get stuck. then generals say we have to stay there because justifying blood and treasure justifies staying in. is this justified? we are going in for a bigger war in afghanistan tonight? i think the president will extend troops in afghanistan and if you begin afghanistan represents an existential threat to the united states, we have seen a rise in islamic state there, then you may decide that 12,000 american troops are worth the price of keeping us i think america will be half the president is almost going to have to level with the american