Page 11 - Sam Cedar News Today

Sanctions and economic measures have failed. >> sam, i wanted to talk to you because you and i had this similar experience. i feel like theres this sort of pendulum swing. theres the iraq war and theres george w. bush, and that was routinely sort of unanimously viewed as a huge failure by the end of his presidency, a disaster. in fact donald trump ran against it. thats how he won the primary, partly. and then theres barack obama and his was he didnt act enough. and i feel like weve erased the pr...

Likely that hes a grown-up who has adult advisers around him who say, you know, historically to engage in some type of military action when your numbers are rather low can give you seven points in the polls and bring you back up into the 40s so that you can start to move a legislative agenda. i mean thats also -- >> thats a very cynical interpretation, i will say. >> its also just as probable. it seems to me, then, that the only awareness he has of children dying in the world are from the most r...

Believed that they have the authority to escalate and to at least consult but then go forward. the question is, is it in our interest to get congress involved, and i actually think now he could get the vote, and it would be helpful to go to congress at this point. >> thats interesting. jennifer and shadi, i want you to stay with me because i want to bring in ken vogel, who say cheev investigative reporter at politico, and msnbc sam cedar. ken, i want to go with you because ive been sort of monit...

Nondecision. and with the president of their own party, i think they would be much more likely to follow on and to follow him. and many democrats have been speaking out about this as well. . demanding a mor forforceful, mo robust foreign policy. let me go back to something that sam said that i think is very troublesome. i didnt vote for this president, but he is the commander in chief, and were going to have to live with him and we cant not take action because we now dont trust him. its why i di...

The united states would lead to the fall of assad, i dont think even is on the table as an immediately tactical aim. >> right. its not. >> sam, michael just mentioned libya. that i think is part of the context here as well is the notion of, you know, libya was passed out of the u.n. security council and it had a very specific set of non-regime change aims that were humanitarian, having to do with the responsibility to protect civilians that were surrounded by gadhafis forces that were explicitly...

Better or worse, he hasnt made a lot of appointments in the deputy undersecretary, assistant secretary level so there are state department, defense department professionals who are filling out those roles. >> sam, i want to give you a second to respond then were going to move on. >> the point is not that the president doesnt have authority to do it because i didnt vote for him. the point is when we say were supporting something thats reliant on a very complicated strategy that sees beyond this f...

Ultimately comes down to him. >> sam, i mean, to me what was striking to watch the president yesterday in the rose garden was that his command of the issues seemed charitably extremely thin. but this is a place in which he is watching cable news all the time, and that is how he is producing his opinions on things. he doesnt have deeply held strategic visions or world view or a thick ideology or politics. hes sort of watching cable news, and thats how hes making these decisions. >> yeah, i mean t...

Appears to continue unabated with a host of conflicts? >> it certainly put the house republicans in the spot and easy for trump to say because the office of congressional ethics has no jurisdiction over the white house so he could do anything he wants to prop up an agency that cant investigate him and it costs him nothing and only put the republican house members in an embarrassing spot. so it was quite a maneuver for him to sort of push this and their faces and im surprised he chose to do this ...

Republicans they needed to work with in congress. >> one of the many investigative reporters on the case, eric lipton, thank you for your dime tonight. >> thank you. >> im joined by the editor and publisher of the nation magazine and sam cedar, host of the majority report. what do you take from this, katrina? >> i take quality investigative reporting still matters it can in this moment lead to a transparent zahn campaign of mobilization which shamed this mind bendingly moronic republican caucus ...

Trust. well, i dont know if its a blind trust if ivanka, don and eric run it. is that a blind trust? i dont know. i would probably have my children run it with my executives and i wouldnt ever be involved because i wouldnt care about anything but this country. >> just this country, thavs not a blind trust. so far, president-elect trumps sole plan to deal with conflicts of interest from financial holdings is leaf leave it in th hands of his children. "america is on a precipice, unpressed threat -...