what the vice president said about richard holbrooke is he is the most egotistical bastard i ever met but he is probably the right guy for the job. so there are extensions and contexts there when you see the book that some of the newspaper headlines did not pick up. but i think it does cause problems and i think it does sort of precede an exit strategy by some people, like the national security adviser jim jones it is very clear that he feels ostracized. that he didn t have access to the president on the president s first european trip, the white house aides, he had to go to the president and complain. that kind of thing. it true they don t like each other? bottom line. true the military guys don t trust the white house political people and the other way around? your thoughts first, andrea, on that one? i think that is true and in particular, jim jones, marine general, retired marine general, feels very much at odds with some of these civilians on the national security team and is
fight the war. this morning the administration is trying to put a positive spin on the book. john hendren is in washington with more. good morning, john. reporter: good morning, vinita and rob. the white house insists president obama is certain he got his afghan war strategy right. but a new book says there was a lot of disagreement and name-calling before he got there. it s the book that has washington buzzing. bob woodward s obama s wars is a detailed account of how the obama administration assembled its policy for the war in afghanistan. it portrays the president as a leader urgently trying to find a way to end u.s. involvement there, at one point saying, i want an exit strategy. woodward reports the president pressed top advisers for a withdrawal date aerms changnt bicie in the n er s psdenemba upon a very bold gamble in
american taxpayers. come on, john, you don t even believe that. we re not going to go backwards, john, we re not going to go back to the bush years the american people don t want to do it. gentlemen, ask you about in book that s coming up bob woodward has written obama s wars and i m glad that there debate inside of the white house, i m glad they re swearing at each other about policy, it seems to me like president obama s trying to do the right thing, get us out of that damn thing. he says, quote, i can t let this war eye can t let this be a war without end and i can t lose the whole democratic party. what do you make of this, bill press? first of all, if i were president obama, i would have paid woodward to write this book from what i read about it so far. look, this is a big deal. this is bush s war. obama inherits it, they ve got to decide what do. and the way he describes it, it worked. the system worked. the president brought everybody in, the generals, everybody else in.
education, better job training, better infrastructure, allowing us to reduce the long-term debt, this is not and should not be controversial. believe me. the book is called aftershock. great to see you this morning. good to talk to you. the white house reacting now to obama s wars. a new book by bob woodward claims the president has been battling with top military advisers who refuse to provide him with an exit strategy to the war in afghanistan. what is the white house saying about those claims? we ll that at the top of the hour.
handle. if you go through the details of this. broad brush we ve known that there s division, there has been division, there s division in every administration over war, policy, et cetera. the extent, the details spilling out cannot be good for the white house. for example, one bit that s quoted this morning. the president at one point saying i want an exit strategy. i can t lose the whole democratic party that basically there was political pressure on him to come up with this beginning of a withdrawal date. another point the president allegedly saying i m done doing this. the context being he was allegedly facing even more pressure after agreeing to send some 30,000 more u.s. troops late last year. the military was trying to force him to send even more. and he said i m done doing this. secondly, the book quotes richard holbrook, one of the president s top advisers saying it can t work in terms of the president s broad strategy. having that kind of second guessing within the admi