Page 6 - Setting Policy News Today

Happen. so i am curious your take, robby. people inside the administration who can give sort of a fresh, different kind of real-person voice as opposed to people who have the ability to do the deep dive. >> i think there are two dimensions to this. one is the president of the united states needs to provide clarity and leadership. when you have all kinds of people swirling around him in official roles that have been senate confirmed, members of his family who, some of whom have a role, some of wh...

Saying we dont see peace with him in charge, the other is saying we need to have him gone. i think thats the point of both. >> all right. lets bring in tim carney of the "washington examiner," jason johnson, politics editor at theroot.com. ashley parker, white house reporter asey, let me start wyou st in terms of the question here of who is setting policy in the trump administration, how the foreign policy, how the syria policy is being constructed. i think it can be a little confusing to an out...

To sound the alarm on this soon? >> this was an effort, their backing of him. he wasnt maybe their first choice. >> they saw it as the best choice they could get. >> absolutely. i think they were testing and trying to figure out what will the trump team accept. i just spoke with somebody who saw tillerson a couple of days before the election. he had no idea that he was about to become secretary of state. absolutely. >> wow. susan glasser. it will be interesting. at some point theyre going to wan...

Now. where do words matter on policy issues, on foreign policy? they matter a tremendous amount. they dont just matter because germany is unsettled or ukraine is unsettled. it matters because your own staff behind the scenes trying to create briefing documents trying to give you pathways forward for your administration, posture a policy, arent sure where to go. >> thats the key point. the president thinks if you are unsettled, it helps him in a negotiation. he has a deal, and he wants you to be ...

The letter, you wont be working here anytime soon. the other thing. not reading the preparation memos. i think something that happens in nigeria, the u.s. has interests in all kinds of countries in the world. i wonder about the countries that are not in the news every day, what the depth of knowledge is there. we have a lot of interest beyond the big headlines. >> i think the other thing that is causing a little bit of problem is understanding who is in charge. >> right. >> there seems to be an ...

These folks are family people at the core, and i believe paul ryan on this one, and i intend to hold his feet to the fire. >> yeah. so, you feel comforted. you have, you know, speaker ryan on immigration and just broadening out weve been hearing these cabinet nominees on iran and russia and the border wall and their words stand in such stark contrast to the rhetoric we heard from trump on the trail and if you think about it, if you have trump and steve bannon and jared kushner there in the west ...

Of the s.e.c. as apparently donald trump is going to allow him to do, if thats not putting the hen, the fox in the hen house, i dont know what it is. its by definition the fox is now in the hen house. if you let carl icahn pick the head of the s.e.c., and he does not have to divest himself of his considerable $25 billion fortune, its like trading on inside information. >> right there, carl icahn being able to influence policy making and doesnt have to divest any part of his business, how extraor...

Meeting in conversations where they are setting policy thats going to affect the business empire, that is the very definition of a conflict of interest and no getting around it. >> lets look at the law, david gregory, in terms of nepotism. they say a public official may not appoint a relative unless that individual appointed employed, promoted or advanced if they are in violation, basically, theyre not entitled to pay and money may not be paid from the treasury. is that how theyre getting around...

Weve got to have have a congress thats willing to make progress on issues america cares about. >> lets go to our white house correspondent michelle kosinski. its obvious he wants democrats to win. peel back the layers. what is this really about? >> reporter: we havent seen him do this before during his presidency. i think now -- you look at all thats been going on in this election season, this unprecedented season. and they see, you know, places where democratic support, where democratic seats h...

Great, the currency should have done up. they didnt let it. theyre not letting the currency go down either. neither is great. effectively means that the united states is setting policy for china right now and china lets the u.s. decide the currency worth and then china can end up with fiscal policy that doesnt let it respond. china really ought to manage that itself and not let us run their currency. thats a choice theyve made. >> this is another piece of the puzzle and the debate over whether a...