Page 1455 - Leverage News Today

Prime minister and nothing much happened, so why cant i get away with dispatching a mere journalist? >> youve been around a long time and reported from all over the world. how unusual did you find it when this new president chose as his first overseas stop, saudi arabia? >> you know, there was -- that was surprising, but i was willing to accept that there is an argument for trying to rebuild the relations with saudi arabia that had been, you know, badly hurt by the obama years. but the problem w...

Anything. turkey says they definitely did. your own intel people said they were up to something. what do you do? >> we have a relationship with the saudis. weve enabled the saudis in previous administrations, both republican and democratic. but never have i seen an administration more determined, it seems to me, to placate and assuage the saudis. we have tremendous leverage. the president himself several weeks ago reportedly told the king of saudi arabia if it wasnt for the u.s. military, you wo...

Whats right. even if you take that off the table, its basically a question of negotiation. why would you take that off the table? >> thats our leverage. >> thats the leverage. were waiting for another state department briefing, we hope in the next hour. but something happened at yesterdays briefing that was noteworthy, frankly, and odd. i want to talk to you on the other side. >> i see what youre getting at. we are confident in our diplomatic -- >> you dont have an ambassador in either place. an...

It seems to me to placate. we have tremendous leverage. the president himself reportedly several weeks ago told the king of saudi arabia, if it wasnt for the u.s. military you wouldnt be around in two weeks. so the reality is the phone call that probably should have happened from pompeo to mohamed ben solaman to the king, we need accountability now. to show his disappearance or worse. and whats at stake here is nothing less than the future of the u.s.-saudi relationship. we have the leverage on ...

Affected. i dont understand why the president wants to take tools off the table. we have achieved a measure of independence in the united states. we are not as reliant on saudi oil. they cant hold it the way they used to. we would like to have that, but they dont. he has leverage if hes willing to use it. >> this is the case that is entirely possible that you can see the two tracks of the trump administration where the president said one thing that every senior official from national security ad...

Have not made their private accusations public. but the place to start here is to pick up the phone, at the senior levels of this government, and ask for an explanation from the saudis. we have cultivated them. we have placated them. we have an exceedingly close relationship with them. probably closer than any of the administrations that i worked for, republican or democrat. and we need new accounting. once the accounting is clear, depending on the credibility and verification, we need to do som...

Conservative judges mitch mcconnell wants to put on the docket. how do you think that conversation will go? do you think we can expect more before the end of the year? >> no. i think we can expect more before the end of the year. this happens a lot at the end of a senate right before an election. there are a bunch of nominations that were stalled. the senate works slowly in cooperation of the other party to schedule votes. so we get down to tend of the senate and heres the dynamic. senator schum...

Personal joke between two people. i dont have to describe any of this." but when you are in a work contest and youre talking about things like removing the president via the 25th amendment, or secretly either wearing a wire or having someone else wearing a wire, that is not necessarily funny. you are in a work setting. maybe the president is off-loading some of that heavy lifting to congress. they can have those tough questions. >> harris: thats a possibility. i do think that its interesting, as...

>> i think its premature and heres why. once we do that. have a peace treaty that would involve us, the chinese, north korea and south korea and we would represent the u.n. participants in that, the reality is, once we do that, i believe what the north koreans would come back with very strong and say well, now that we have this treaty and peace and some degree of reconciliation, why do you need to have your troops in south korea? and the troops in south korea are a significant leverage for the u...

That in the coming hours and days, george. >> so, if determined to be true, jamana, what are the preliminary p -- implications for relations with turkey and with the united states? >> reporter: you know, george, so many people say that the united states can play a much stronger and much bigger role here. this is something weve heard from people on the ground saying that they could push saudi arabia to use that leverage, use that really good relationship to push for more answers from the saab i. ...