Misbegotten Strategy News Today

Our base, so many americans, vast majority, are unsettled about how things are going. its time to govern. thats the best winning political strategy. let the democrats overplay their hand on these investigations if thats what they choose. but i think this strategy is short term, perhaps shoring up the base but long term i do not see it as a winning strategy either from a governing standpoint or political standpoint. >> mack mcclarty, robert costa, thank you for being on. >> members of the militar...

Take a listen. >> do you have plans to pull out of iraq as well? >> no plans at all. in fact, we could use this as a base if we wanted to do something in syria. i will say this. if you take isis and if we see something happening with isis that we dont like, we could hit them so fast and so hard. >> peter, you used to serve in iraq. what do you make of that? >> i think its a misbegotten strategy. isis is not yet completely eradicated. what the president is saying is well, we could stay on this si...

Explanation again today. he talked about the role moving forward of turkey and saudi arabia there. do you think that will be a successful strategy for him? >> absolutely not. turkey will be more interested in attacking our kurdish allies than they are in eradicating isis along the iraqi/syrian border. what we have just told any future group that wants to ally with the united states is that you cannot trust us to be a partner over the long haul. its outrageous. >> ambassador burns, here is that s...

On that if he chooses to extend that and loses any possible claim, that he also doesnt have, that this is a democratic shutdown. it is all on him and he is waging a war over a wall. >> as hans explained, a lot of these workers are democrats, is the point he was trying to make, and so nancy pelosi should try to open the government for them or give him the wall for them and many of these federal workers are telling him to stay the course and stay strong. the largest federal workers union came out ...

>> talking to top trump allies they say at this point 2019 will be so volatile he needs his political base to stick with him. this is not just about the wall but setting the stage for a rocky political year after losing power in congress. can he make sure that core group of voters is sticking with him? to make sure that happens, he has to signal to them hes fighting for the wall. >> in your view, is that a smart strategy for this president? >> i think its a win/win strategy for the president wit...

Agree with colonel mansour? >> i think the presidents policy is one of lack of strategic coherence here. in taking the american forces out of syria, hes helping the russians, strengthening them, the iranians and hezbollah and president assad. weve been fighting with the syrian kurdish partners for several years. theyre the ones helping us to destroy the islamic state but that job is not finished. the president is essentially leaving the field with the job unfinished and is weakening the united s...