Page 80 - Combatant Commanders News Today

Way. he sees all things through his own personal lens, and with regard to the russia question, he keeps seeing it with regard to his own legitimacy as president, not with regard to an attack against the united states. and don, let me just give you one additional thought. he made all those really, i think, over the top comments. and he did it in the presence of all of americas combatant commanders. >> senior military members. >> yeah, they were the props for that. and i think if the president wan...

Attack on our country? >> yeah, it just jumps right out at you, that the president certainly -- i mean, we all have this feeling, but i think the president has this in a special way. he sees all things through his own personal lens, and with regard to the russia question, he keeps seeing it with regard to his own >> and don, let me just give you one additional thought. he made all those really, i think, over the top comments. and he did it in the presence of all of americas combatant commanders....

Spoken publicly about it. were they uncomfortable? were they all looking down at their hands and the table and not making any eye contact, yeah. absolutely. the question is this, was the president really politicizing the most senior levels of the united states military, the combata combatant commanders, the head of centcom who is trying to come up with options for military action in syria and yet sitting there all of them including the chairman of the joint chiefs, including secretary mattis lis...

Were involved. and that may dictate some of the targets that they may plan to strike. john? >> so, barbara, the president was meeting at the white house yesterday evening and afternoon with military leaders to make plans on syria. it was at that moment, looking at pictures now, he chose to make that remarkable statement, the diatribe about the special counsel investigation and his reaction to the raids on michael cohen. what are you hearing from military officials about how they felt at that mom...

Heather: donald trump could decide on whether to respond to a chemical attack. what is the right move for donald trump to take n lieuten richard newton. >> what is the next step. >> the president mentioned yesterday and various reports, the source of these chemical attacks point toward the asad regime, curiosity attacks, i believe the president is meeting with national security team and us combatant commanders meeting with the president on a prearranged session, determining what the

>> absolutely, david. i would say what the president is doing right now is laying down a marker, and clearly every president has the authority to do that. maybe his intentions are aspiration aspirational, in other words, hes laying out what he thinks should be done and he wants his department of defense and national security leadership to come back to him. as a soldier, my view is, i would want the president to say ive got a word picture in my mind. this is what im trying to achieve. come back t...

And dont necessarily see in the headlines every day. >> general marks, how does this affect military leaders, including those in the field who think, perhaps he actually does have some design drawn out here when you consider hes surprised them with other announcements. earlier this month, the president popped into the briefing room to announce a development and pentagon officials told cnn they didnt have knowledge the president agreed to meet with kim jong-un. how does this affect them? >> certa...

That piece of turf in syria. you have the special operations command, which is doing a lot of precise, heavy lifting in that part of the world and nato. you have the supreme ally commander. those three american commanders have an array of networks and array of alliances and partnerships and they have to communicate very, very clearly. this proclamation by the president makes it difficult because theres little predictability in what the president is saying and what exists in terms of what those c...

Came home, but also using that same appearance to attack the credibility of the widows representative in congress. i wonder if you can speak to just the strategic importance of our military deployments in africa, how many more or less troops are deployed and the nature of those mission s? >> well, there are two places in the world where our combatant commanders, our four starz are in a shooting war. one is central command. but the other is africa, africa command with general tom walled houser. i...

>> there are none. there are no fail safes. the president has the sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. if he wanted to use any other form of the u.s. military, he would have to give that order to either the secretary of dwents or to the chairman of the joint chiefs and that would have to be communicated in writing to the combatant commanders. in the case of nuclear weapons the president can puck up the phone, call the deputy director of operations at strategic command or in an eme...