These are interview obtained by the New York Times of Alpha Platoon Seal Team 7 members, breaking an unwritten code of silence in 2018 by taking on their chief of their platoon, who was eventually tried for war crimes. Heres a taste. Hes a psychopath. The guy got crazier and crazier. The guy is toxic. We cant let this continue. Thats friggin evil, man. These are not from now, not sworn, not crossexamined. Nerp they were an early part of the investigation. Mr. Gallagher was acquitted of war crimes, including killing an isis prisoner. He was only acquitted for posing for photos with a dead body. Thats when the president intervened. Why . He reversed the demotion and let gallagher retire honorably. Navy secretary Richard Spence are strongly objected. Some say it cost him his job but it did not silence him. He wrote in the Washington Post this president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices now, gallagher responded to news of the release of the tapes. Quote, my first reaction to seeing the videos was surprise and disgust that they would make up blatant lies about me. I quickly realized they were scared the truth would come out of how cowardly they acted on deployment. I knew their lies would never hold up under real questions. The jury would see it. Gallagher recently photographed with the president at maralago. Gallagher didnt do what he did for political reasons, as far as we know but he has become a political chess piece. Lets bring in james spider marks and a policy researcher at rand corporation. Thank you both. Spider, as always, thank you for being of such use to my audience all year long. Thank you, chris. You are a gift. I welcome you in in you year. Phillip, youre new, thank you for being my guest. In terms of context, what do they raise as you for issues spider . The big thing is this really del strai demonstrates a break in terms of the cohesion, specifically within this team. I dont know that i can extr extrapolate and say the seals have a challenge. Letsin fra ibe frank, the seal had a challenge for 18 years. You have these pressures on these teams but when you look at that video, i have to assume that our priority any mission, there were conversations that say we have some challenges, lets follow those. If they didnt have those conversations, you have more than just a fractured cohesion within that team, youve got a real breakdown in terms of leadership challenges and again, as i said, i cant extrapolate out to the force but this needs to be addressed. To keep it specific, phillip, you know, were not used to hearing seal Team Members Talk about one another this way. Were not used to hearing them challenged as to being cowardly. Of course this was a piece of litigation. The lawyers avenue response wy obvious, said look, these arent sworn, these are of known meaning. Whats your take in. We dont often see the inside of a seal room. This is the inside of a dysfunctional seal teams room. It shows the breakdown of unit cohesion. We should take these videos seriously because the seals would have faced pretty serious repercussions had they lied to ncis investigators here. They may not have been formally sworn or under oath but these seals werent cavalier live making these statements. You can imagine what it takes for such professionals to get to the breaking point where theyre going to go seven of them are going to go to ncis and tell them these kinds of things about their chief. Then it becomes political. So gallagher is acquitted. He is found guilty of taking the photo in front of the dead body. They want to demote him. The president says no. What did you make of that decision then and what do you make of it now, spider, in terms of what may have motivated, why it was right or wrong . Were talking about this now, chris, and weve taken our eye off the other 8,000 plus soldier airmen that are in afghanistan. The president got involved way too soon. He could have waited for this thing to entirely wrap itself up, tied with ribbon, gone legally through the entire ucmj process and the administrator process, could have been presented to the secdef, the secretary of the navy. He clearly has the authority to do that. The president is cloaked in immense power, we know that, but that kind of got this thing spinning. And then the secretary of the navy ended up having to resign because he was trying to walk a line between what i would call honor to the navy and also trying to honor of the direction of the president. He didnt make that happen. We can assume it was not a co incident that mr. Gallagher wound up in a photoop at maralago with the president. There is obviously some thinking that helping this man, mr. Gallagher, the platoon chief, is of some benefit to the president. Theres no reason for him to have been invested. What do you think was the political plus minus for the president . It hard to judge other than i think what you said. But it is more broadly about the Civil Military relationship between the president and the military. And what do we want that to be . In this case you had the reportedly the secretary of the navy, the chairman of the joint chiefs, the secretary of defense and the secretary of state of the army in other cases recommending one thing and the president did another. Now, thats clearly his constitutional prerogative, but just because you can doesnt mean you should. One has to wonder how fractured that Civil Military relationship is now Going Forward on afghanistan, on russia, on the budget and Everything Else that comes through the oval office. And is it a nod to the president endorsing harshness, even if it is just about the photograph. We have rules. I know people will debate this over war is war, but, you know, americans try to do things differently. Is this a nod that maybe not anymore. Now, spider, to your point about were talking about this, not other things. I wanted to get your take on a situation that i believe weve ignored at the peril of too many. 235,000 people, the latest count of the number displaced result of an escalation of violence in the last two weeks in northwest syria. The military and defenders of the president say we were never there. This has nothing to do with our decision to leave, the United States. Whats your take . We were the sinu that held all those loose parts together in terms of o you are relationship with the kurds. You can be very agnostic and say, look, the turks are our ally through nato, weve got a longstanding relationship with them that dates back to the early 50s, albeit a troubled relationship in many cases. The kurds, that was a marriage of convenience. What we didnt do was establish what the prenup was going to look like before that marriage and we ended it and didnt give them any opportunity to better position themselves and get ready for this. So the fact that weve had that type of displacement, the main thing in my mind is turkey now is taking advantage of this vacuum and created a buffer zone. Independent n im not a lawyer but you are dont create a buffer zone unless theres an understanding on both side that a buffer exists. This is sovereign land, although syria is a pretty screwed up place, but now this strip of land so erdogan can displace it not 23 or 2,300. Its 235,000 people, ambassador you guys know much better. The conditions are not great too th time of year, the services and the safety is not going to be great. We got to watch it. I hope that we have you back soon. Thank you to both of you. One topic of frustration for many of you is that the two Political Parties are reading from the same script with it cops to impeachment. They just changed roles when it comes from clintons impeachment to trumps. Theres new footage, the president is using because hes saying something very different decades ago to what hes saying now. Lets take it on with an influence house player next. [sneeze and sniffles] are you ok . Yah, its just a cold. Its not just a cold if you have high blood pressure. Most cold medicines may raise blood pressure. Coricidin hbp is the. 1 brand that gives. Powerful cold relief without raising your blood pressure. To take care of yourself. But natures bounty has innovative ways to help you maintain balance and help keep you active and wellrested. Because hey, tomorrows coming up fast. Natures bounty. Because youre better off healthy. This president s christmas message calling for more christlike behavior aside, he continues railing against speaker of the house nancy pelosi. In one of his latest offering, so interesting to see nancy pelosi demanding fairness when she provided over the most unfair hearing in the history of the United States congress. As we say often on this show, just because the president says it a lot does not make it true. In fact, this statement has never been close to true. The procedures in this situation are those echoed from the clinton situation. The obvious difference is that the house did the investigating here and not a special secret counsel like ken star or the politics in nixon. Lets bring in democrat being congressman lloyd dogget here. Get to your family for the holidays, the holy day and the new year. And to you, chris. Good to be with you on this final show of the decade. Thats right of the decade. Sounds so big. So the idea of the state of play, the idea that nancy pelosi is negotiating with mcconnell over the rules of the senate trial, is that true to your understanding . Well, i think what she has done is to take a little time to thoroughly look at this and to recognize what mr. Mcconnell said. Each of these senators takes an oath. They raise their hand and swear that they will do impartial justice in accordance with the tu constitution. And mr. Mcconnell has said instead of that hell do a coverup in accordance with trump. And in view of that, the house as the Sole Authority for impeachment has every right to take its time in forwarding these articles to the senate in an effort to try to ensure that precedent is followed, that witnesses are called and that there is an impartial justice that is done there. One of the reasons we pleaded with you to come on the show, you also were a judge. You were a judge in a texas supreme court. Of koushs it plcourse its a po proce process, not a judicial process. There are two salvos being used again yours side in the legitimacy of fairness. One is from senator schumer from back with the last iteration of impeachments with clinton. Its making the rounds. The republicans said proudly, quote, im not an impartial juror. Independent not im not impartial about this at all. Anybody taking an oat tomorrow with have a preopinion. It not a jury box. This is not a criminal trial. This is something that was put in that is susceptible to the whims of politics. People are saying this to say, see, its all the same. Democrats are saying impeachment is so bad, now its okay. Impartiality was bad, now it okay or vice versa. Whats your response . I think there are inconsistencies on both side but it important to look at the precedent set by the clinton trial. Republican majorities leader lott and minority leader daschle agreed on the process by which the senate would proceed. It was approved unanimously with the senate, not with republicans saying well have it all our way. Second and even more important is the fact that witnesses were summoned. Not the 40 witnesses that testified in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson and three witnesses and senator lott said he wanted is it done by deposition rather than live testimony. Those are the precedents i think are really significant here. Certainly these senators will come with their own views. Right. But it critical that they comply with the oath and attempt to engage in impassion justice and they cannot do that if this is the first trial in American History of impeachment where there are no witnesses even summoned. One wonders what is the purpose of the gathering perhaps just to hear another round of inconsistent speeches. You would think that this president , if he really made a perfect call, would want people all the president s men to come there and testify about the level of his perfection. That is the weakness of the argument, which is if everything was good and everybody can defend him and excuse and exonerate him, why is he keeping them from testifying . Then we bounce back to the idea of what is being asked for versus what is being offered on the democrats. So you brought up the issue of witnesses. It the perfect pivot. Former v. P. Joe biden now running for the democratic nomination in 2020 for president , he was asked about what if youre called . Thats one of the horse trading arguments here. The democrats are going to have to give if they want to get anybody, they dont have the numbers. Heres what he said. Reporter do you stand by your earlier statements that you wouldnt comply if you were called to testify at an impeachment trial . Correct. And the reason i wouldnt is because its all designed to deal with trump doing what hes done his whole life, trying to take the focus off him. The grounds for them to call me would be overwhelmingly specious. Lets say i voluntarily just said let me go make my case. What are you going to cover . You guys are going to cover for three weeks anything i said. And these going to get away. First, your honor, the idea of what joe biden is arguing here is exactly what you just impeached the president for, his feelings about the subpoena process and congressional oversight made him feel like not complying because he didnt like what you were asking. How is it any different than what joe biden is saying . Well, it significantly different. First, i think that joe biden or anyone else would be subject to subpoena power and could be compelled to come to this proceeding, but theres nothing that joe biden or any of the other witnesses republicans have talked about have to say about what the president is being impeached for. The only purpose of bringing them is for distraction urged by the master of distraction donald trump. But why . If argument is you cant say the president had corrupt inintent, some kind of malice of forethought, he didnt have it. He has a legitimate believe that ukraine and the servers raises issues so we want to put on testimony to prove theres something there. I think the president s corrupt was shown by his conduct. It was not just one phone call. We do know from one of the documents that has been discovered that they begin their action to terminate aid within an hour and a half of the phone conversation but this was a pattern of conduct, perhaps as your earlier shows have demonstrated, perhaps over two presidencies in the ukraine. So we have plenty of evidence of this pattern of conduct and of his intent and his desire to do me a favor, though. Theres no need and no justification for calling joe biden or any of the other witnesses that have been discussed, but theyre all subject to subpoena. So that would be up to the senate. Better to have more witnesses than to have no witnesses. Quickly, congressman, take off the judge hat and put back on the politician hat for a second. A state texas card player, would you give a biden to get a mulvaney . Oh, i would not begin to engage in that kind of horse trading. I think that the senators will have an opportunity to consider the witness list. It strikes me as very a very poor trade in this regard to get the president s chief of staff to come out and tell what actually happened instead of to hide, in this case to hide behind the call for joe biden. The strong part of the argument theyll have to overcome, two things. Mcconnell will have to explain how he can take the oath after what he said and, two, what does biden have to do with why he was impeached to the specific facts to the instance. But it is politics, its not a court of law. Congressman, thank you for arguing compellingly as always. Appreciate it. Thank you. Happy new year, chris. Happy new year. Best for the new year. The president ial candidates are now fanned out in the early voting stage. Remember what i keep telling you, everything starts when the voting starts. I know that sound silly but the whole narrative is going to change, by who does well there, who does better, does worse than expected. We probably have a ton of data to go through about iowa. Wrong. 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Howd he get out . a camera might figure it out. That was easy glad i could help. At xfinity, were here to make life simple. Easy. Awesome. So come ask, shop, discover at your local xfinity store today. Mr. Biden, are you feeling the pressure here in iowa . No, im feeling good in iowa, feeling the heat in iowa, the good weather. And thats no malarkey, the former v. P. Making his way around the hawk eye state, 38 days until the Iowa Democratic caucus as joe biden says hes feeling no pressure. Hes got to be feeling pressure, they all do. The polls tell a different story to the point that they tell a story at all, harrye enten, how do we not know the state of iowa. There have been only two polls conducted in iowa. Thats the fewest polls weve had at this point in the race since 2000. I think are two key reasons for that. Number one, the cost of polls has been skyrocketing as news media budgets have been shrinking. Number two, whats been the big news story over the last month . Its been piechimpeachment. Youre not going to spend a ton of money on polls that youre not going to be discussing. Those two reasons stink. Lets try to find a third. What do we know about polls in iowa in general, that inform us about why you need to be careful about doing horse racing. This is important. This is one to two months before the iowa caucuses. I think this is the key point. The difference between where the person ended up winning, the polling the polls were off almost ten snounts. Ten points . Yes. Look at this, 2004 and and the democrats, john kerrey w