we thought it would lead to the release of isis prisoners, lead to greater instability in the region. we saw some of that. it puts into contrast our concerns about turkey s direction that they may be spinning out of the nato orbit. i have spoken publicly about that. turkey is a long-standing nato ally. they fought with us from korea to afghanistan and i think it s in all of our interest to mick sure we pull them in closer to nato and we preserve what is now a will soon be a 30 nation alliance, a very long-standing and capable alliance. a recent pent i don pentagt says president trump s partial withdrawal from syria allowed isis to, quote, reconstitute capabilities and resources within syria and strengthen its ability to plan attacks abroad. do you aa agree with that? i have not seen evidence of that. i think given our operations together with the sdf, given the operations undertaken by turkey,
what are you telling the kurds in regards to syria who feel that they ve been yo abandond by the u.s. decision to pull out there. what are the conversations you have? i certainly understand that feeling at the tactical level. i ve been there when you re on the ground with your friends and partners, brothers you shed blood with to defeat isis. we went into this with mutual interest, being the defeat of isis. isis had taken a lot of ground and territory that was that the sdf, the kurds owned, they inflected great harm. we came in. it was a great marriage that led to the physical defeat of the caliphate. at no noint time di point in tiy we re here to establish a kurdish state. at no time did we say we were going to defend defend you agait
that although he said he thinks that we re in a position to continue to combat isis but the most important and interesting comment was that turkey is spinning itself out of nato. and that means a lot if the secretary of defense is saying that about a nato partner, turkey. david, thank you for playing 24that round robin with me there and analyzing bret baier s pass nateing interview fascinating interview with the defense secretary. eric: we ll have a lot more from the defense secretary when he sits down with chris wall a has owallaceon fox news sunday,t 2:00 p.m. eastern on fox news. what that s it for us for now. we re going to be back in one hour for 5:00 p.m. eastern. get the time right. arthel: i m not going to comment on the time. i m confused myself. we re back in one hour, you re right, 5:00 p.m. eastern. we hope you can join us then. stay tuned for the journal
eight years it was over 38%. president reagan recognized the importance of human capital, of how critical our people are. it was president reagan s vision that brought me into the service. i under i went to military academy in 1982. i remember 1979, many of us remember when desert one fell in iran. remember that disastrous raid. here we are, 40 years later, we re able to pull off the raid, kill the leader of isis because of how far the country has come. ensuring we have highly capable, ready forces with cutting edge technology. that s what we re about. the very last question. what s it like working for president trump? i have a very good relationship with president trump. we have a great national security team. you called out robert o brien there. my classmate, secretary pompeo and i have a good relationship. it s a good, strong team. the president is always open to
could by saying i have a great relationship with him. i think they re trying to keep that from blowing getting out of control. let s talk about syria in my last minute or so with you. that was brought up by brett and he asked if has the administration put turkey in a position that has disadvantaged the u.s. in any way and the secretary esper said no, turkey put turkey in a position that s bad for them, in spinning themselves out of the nato orbit. what do you think about that? i thought that was a fascinating comment from the secretary of defense. it was very insightful. i think he s right about that, to put the onus on turkey. turkey engaged in this action in northeastern syria. it s been a accused of engaging in human rights violations. it s attacking kurds. it s attacking the kurdish partners in syria that we worked with to defeat isis. he expressed some concern about