There is no room for bigotry and no tolerance for hate. I do believe that he messed up on tuesday. President trumps aides hoping he wont veer off message tonight. Youre going to go to phoenix and make a speech, fine. Say something thats going to bring people together. This is new day with chris cuomo and alisyn camerota. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is new day, tuesday august 22nd, 6 00 here in new york. The starting line, President Trump reversing course, recommitting the United States to the war in afghanistan and offering few details certainly about any exit. The president did not say how many more american troops will be deployed or how success will be measured. President trump also attempted to clean up his response to the deadly violence in charlottesville, without actually mentioning the city by name. New National Poll shows the problem. 56 of americans disapprove of how the president handled the aftermath. And House Speaker paul ryan is one of those. In a cnn town hall last night ryan says the president messed up his charlottesville response and needs to provide the American People with moral clarity, all this as President Trump heads back on the campaign trail tonight with a rally in arizona. Many are watching to see if his mess am will change when hes not antehe witeleprompter. Athena jones is live at the white house. Reporter good morning, alisyn, a speech delivered long on broad themes but short on spesksz. The president emphasized the importance of a regional approach to fighting terror groups. He insisted he would not lay out a specific u. S. Timetable for its commitment to the country and said eventually the u. S. Would win the fight but he didnt lay out details on troop levels, and he didnt explain how this new strategy which borrows heavily from previous ones would help ensure a victory that has alluded this country for 16 years. The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. President trump recommitting the United States to the nearly 16year war in afghanistan, despite repeatedly calling for america to pull out of the conflict entirely. Zblts he aa total and complete disaster and id like to see money spent on this country. At some point are they going to be there for the next 200 years, you know at some point whats going on . Its going on itto be a long ti. My original instinct was to pull out and historically i like following my instincts, but all my life ive heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the oval office. However, our commitment is not unlimited and our support is not a blank check. Reporter President Trump vowing to build up americas military presence in the region. But refusing to offer specifics. We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. Conditions on the ground not arbitrary timetables will guide our strategy from now on. Reporter the commander in chief criticizing his predecessor while pledging to roll back obama era restrictions on military engagement. Micromanagement from washington, d. C. , does not win battles. Reporter but certain key components of President Trumps strategy largely echoing the previous administration. We are not nation building again. We have no interest in occupying your country. Perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes element of the taliban in afghanistan. We will support efforts by the Afghan Government to open the door to those taliban who abandoned violence. Pakistan often gives safe haven to ages of chaos. This same cancer has also taken root in the border region of pakistan. Reporter the initial response of republicans to the address largely positive. Im pleased with the decision. We cannot allow another safe haven for terrorists to materialize again. Reporter Democratic Leaders criticize the president for declaring an openended commitment to americas longest war. The commander in chief used the beginning of his speech to call for unity a belated attempt to address the damage caused by his willingness to immediately condemn White Supremacists in charlottesville. The young men and women we send to fight our wars abroad deserve to return to a country that is not at war with itself at home. Reporter his tone a stunning departure from his language just six days ago, which drew widespread condemnation. I do believe that he messed up in his comments on tuesday when it sounded loo you cike a equivocation or moral ambiguity when we need extreme moral clarity. Well be watching to see if the president s gentler tone focused on unity continues at the rally tonight in arizona. We know that Vice President mike pence will be joining him on that stage, but the states republican governor and two republican senators both of whom have been frequent critics of the president wont thereby. Alisyn, chris . Athena, thank you very much for all of that. Lets talk about all of this. We want to bring in our cnn politics reporter and editor at large Chris Cillizza and analyst john avalon, and khoura khouran demerjian. He didnt spell out benchmarks and didnt say how many troops, how many more will be going to afghanistan. Do the americans deserve to know those numbers . Well, this is probably the first time in American History weve had an announcement about troop increases without making specifically clear what those troop increases are. We have maximum promises but uncertain details. The main specifics of the speech and Lindsey Graham and others applauded hes delegating the details to the military and expanding to some extent the theater to pakistan, recognizing the hakani network. Gloves are off, the troop levels and time is deferring to the military, a clear departure from his policy in the past and murky for the American People. Its murky by nature though, but weve done it many times. The problem with afghanistan its called the graveyard of empires for a reason. Anybody who has been there will tell you what the main problem is and it wasnt addressed in that speech last night and not addressing with the military really feels, which is what do you do about corruption and how do you get that government to deliver the services to the people that they need so that they dont need the taliban. He didnt address that last night because its too hard to do. Its very hard to do, and he didnt address even what the success measure is for something less than that. He talked about everlasting peace, talked about getting rid of the tises and making economic commitments. He did not challenge the Afghan Government expect at the end we expect to see something, not a blank check. He didnt say what he was expecting from the Afghan Government either. You have a system of throwing out all these things were going to commit ourselves diplomatically, economically and military. The old donald trump would have rejected every one of the point of this plan. The doctrine of principled realism which basically means when things change, question change strategy, thats what that is basically. Which is what he has done since the campaign, because he had to, but it doesnt tell us what the benchmarks are that were aiming for or where were going or how we get there. It may be realistic but its troubling for the troops and the country. We know its an escalation of some mind. Mattis and mcmaster feel positive, they worked in anticorruption in particular but this speech contained multitudes of contradictory phrases. They sounded good on their own. When you add them up it was pretty incoherent. We know the broad direction, the details are utterly unclear. Chris cillizza, no timetable for withdrawal, no specific troop increase, our numbers suggest, our sources suggest 4,000. The president did not say that. The plan is so obliterate isis, reduce talibans influence, target terrorist networks, strengthen the Afghan Security forces, and pressure pakistan to fight terror. What it ydid you hear . Honestly, a speech about troop withdrawals troop increases and time lines that had neither details of troop increases or time lines. I actually think donald trump used that speech los night in the prime time format of it to try to make right the damage done from charlotteville. I thought the first five minutes of the speech in terms of what he was trying to do was by far the most important. Some of the quotes coming out of donald trump, love means love for all of us, talking about an injury done to one is an injury done to all, anyone who suffers an injustice means we all suffer an injustice, those are not typical donald trump lines. To me, that was a clear attempt to apologize for charlottesville without apologizing for charlottesville because donald trump is not going to be apoll ji jidsing for anything. The charlottesville stuff i thought was quite important. The rest was just sort of, you know, well im going to give a speech about afghanistan and our next steps forward, karoun and john pointed out theres no details that. The only thing i take away he knows he screwed up in charlottesville. Hes being told he needs to make it right and thats what that was last night. Campaign rally is a whole different animal. If Donald Trumps past is prologue that was a oneoff for the duration of that speech, a call to unity. Ill try not to suggest the speech is a wag the dog. The opening of the speech was very well written. You have teleprompter trump, twitter trump and town hall trump. It doesnt matter how you say it, you dont have to be articulate, you have to mean it. You can have an eloquently spoken word as we saw at the top of the speech last night but it doesnt mean that people are going to believe especially when it has been contradicted time again. Which people, which audience. Was there an audience of the country that needed to hear something on charlottesville, is he talking to the world in afghanistan who needs to figure out are we going to stay or go or sending out pakistan talk to india there is a conflict. He has the same problem in each one he has said something opposite. He spent years saying pakistan stay out of there. You give them lots of money, stay out of there, give me a date certain. When obama said ef getting out it was one of the few times he said i like what the president s saying. On charlottesville he looked the media and the nation in the eye and said i know its true and you know its true but only one of us wants to admit it. In the speech youre right, absolutely, how he addressed all these things but in so doing leaves everything a little bit more muddled, confused about where its going and where he stands. Go ahead, chris. Its not just charlottesville. Look at his comments in the past regarding barack obama and birtherism for example. There is a lot of bridge under the donald trump racially coded not all that racially coded language bridge. Lot of the donald trump as divider not uniter political bridge. It was harder for donald trump to say we need to love one another. Is he a credible messenger given what hes said and given the fact if you were in las vegas and could bet on things like this the odds would be in the favor of donald trump being more confrontational, more fiery, rhetorically, far less of a uniter in a speech tonight becauses at a campaign rally. Stick around, because in our 8 00 hour we have another one of our voter panels of diehard President Trump supporters and how they feel about it, also we have nikki haley coming up, u. S. Am bassor to the u. N. , shell be here to talk about the president s afghan strategy. Maybe she can put a few more details into this. Big polls show the president needs to be speaking not to that little shrinking core but the huge group that we dont talk to the same way, that are against what he said. So as we mentioned President Trump is trying to circle back, clean up the mess. Its his mess from charlottesville. He fanned the flames of hate. There was plenty of opportunity to say the right things coming out of it. He just didnt. Speaker paul ryan had strong reaction. Does he own the mantle of authority in moral agency . Judge for yourself, when we come back. N. Now get our best offers of the season. On the agile mkc. And the versatile midsize lincoln mkx. Or go where summer takes you in the exhilarating mkz. Hurry in its the final days of the lincoln summer invitation sales event. Ending september 5th. Right now, get zero percent apr plus 1,000 dollars Summer Savings on the lincoln mkx, mkc and mkz. We believe in food thats anaturally beautiful, fresh and nutritious. So there are no artificial colors, no artificial flavors, no artificial preservatives in any of the food we sell. We believe in real food. Whole foods market. Its our back to school beeone cent evente. At office depot office max. 10 pack pens, one cent. Composition notebooks,scissors, and plastic folders all one cent each hurry to office depot office max. 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All i remember saying was, my boyfriends beating me and she took it from there. And all of this occurred in four minutes or less. I am grateful we all made it out safely. People you dont know care about you. Its kind of one of those things where you cant even thank somebody. To protect what you love, call 1800adtcares all right, if if you didnt watch the speech last night, and youre going to listen to some sound this morning, its really the top of the speech that you want to listen to, because Everything Else gets muddy after that. The top of the speech was the president trying to deal with his response to charlottesville. The president did not mention the city explicitly but he made numerous references to diversity, peace, especially in the military. Take a listen. The young men and women we send to fight our wars abroad deserve to return to a country that is not at war with itself at home. We cannot remain a force for peace in the world if we are not at peace with each other. As we send our bravest to defeat our enemies overseas, and we will always win, let us find the courage to heal our divisions within. You saw the president there locked on the teleprompter, those words were the right words. Are they his words . We bring by Chris Cillizza, john avlon, karoun demirjian. Theres no question the top of that speech was not necessarily to sell the plan in afghanistan. Not at all. Obviously somebodys gotten to the president and say we know you doubled and tripled down but you are wrong and people arent with you and you cant draw moral equivalence between the kkk and people fighting against them so lets do this, and he did it last night. What is its net effect . Look, donald trump is a believer mostly in polling, and a poll came out yesterday the Washington Post abc news that had his approval in the way he handled charlottesville at 28 and the disapproval at 56 . Man, your graphics people are good. So the point here being, it is pretty clear how it went over, no matter what donald trump thinks. These were words that he said. Now, are they words that he believes . His candidacy in the First Six Months of his presidency would not bear out that donald trump is the whats so funny about peace, love, and understanding candidate, right . He is someone who has really focused heavily on what divides us, the bad state of the country, remember . The American Dream is dead, folks. So words you read versus words you say in a nonformal speech setting are different. It seems to me based on saturday august 12th and charlottesville happen and the response tuesday with the backandforth we have a good sense where donald trump is coming from us. I appreciate the Elvis Costello reference by the way but this is not terribly complicated. As a former speechwriter you can get the words Crystal Clear right, a strong lead to the speech but of course it doesnt represent what donald trump believes. Its not off the cuff. Lets put that conversation on the shelf. Its done. Tonight hes going to talk also, this has been his pattern to be on message one day and next day not quite so much. If hes going to undercut what he said it will probably be at the rally. If its not maybe he said lets just end this now. Here is white House Speaker paul ryan said last night in the town hall meeting about how he interpreted the president s response to charlottesville, which was not good. Listen to this. So i do believe that he messed up in his comments on tuesday, when it sounded like a moral equivocation or at the very least moral ambiguity, when we need extreme moral clarity. Let me back up and make one or two other points. It should not be about the president. This is not about republicans or democrats. This shouldnt be about some Voting Congress or some partisan issue. This is so much more important than that. So where was he . If its all true, what you just heard from speaker ryan, karoun demirjian, where was he last week with his kind of noncommittal tweet about it. Where was that sent of clarity and leadership. If its so much more important than sticking to the pol