Casualties. There has, in fact, been a surge in reported civilian casualties in the u. S. Air campaign against the socalled islamic state. And under trump, a massive increase in u. S. Drone strikes, more broadly, almost one every two days according to the council on u. S. Foreign relations. Today, tragically, marked the third time this month a u. S. Led air strike may have killed civilians or even our allies, with 18 syrian fighters alied with the u. S. Killed in a Coalition Air strike in syria. The pentagon blamed partner forces. That news comes on the heels of last weeks air strike in syria and now today the decision to launch the mother of all bombs. And we are just 84 days into the Trump Administration. Im joined by Steve Schmidt larry corb. Larry, im going to go to you first because there is a very strange donald trump relationship to the military. He claimed during the came papa
that you knew more about the generals, that he was smarter about isis, now hes in office hes outsourced everything to them. What do you make of that contact. President trump is going to have it both ways. Hes outsourcing to them and if something goes wrong, he will blame them. And hes also making a very tragic mistake as you pointed out here with the number of civilian casualties. Thats why you need a civilian to oversee what the military wants. I dont blame the military. I remember when i used to fly for the navy, youd want to, you know, go after the enemy. Youve got to have somebody who looks at the civilian casualties. For him to say he did not know about dropping this socalled mother of all bombs, basically if i can paraphrase general mcmasters book, thats a dereliction of duty. The first time you drop that bomb, the president s got to be involved. Steve, im not sure which would be worse, if he didnt know about it at all and just outsourced and let them do it, or if he knew about it and wont
very clear that he was going to step up militarily the pressure against isis, and isis is a deadly foe, dangerous. Theres no room for negotiation here. They need to be destroyed, and i think you see an increasing tempo of strikes in order to do that. Its interesting you mentioned a red line because it seems that the administration was trying to establish two red lines at once. We have the one to steves point, larry, against isis. But then you have this second one against north korea, which we know is going to apparently do some sort of demonstration against themselves. This is leon panetta on hardball, talking about the seeming other kind of threat that donald trump is sort of vaguely making that if china cant handle north korea, we would somehow do it. This is leon panetta earlier tonight. The fact is were dealing with a nuclearpowered nation. If we were to try to attack them, they would virtually wipe
out seoul and 20 Million People who live in seoul. And if it became a nuclear war, which is likely, millions of lives would be lost. And thats the reason we havent pulled the trigger. The fact is weve used both containment and deterrence as a princil licy here. I think frankly in the end, thats what were left with whether we like it or not. And frankly it was containment and deterrence that ultimately resulted in the soviet union selfdestru selfdestructing. Larry, you worked in the reagan administration. That was reagans doctrine, containment. Can donald trump successfully maintain this hyperaggressive posture against north korea and this red line against isis at the same time . You hope so because they are totally different. North korea as Secretary Panetta said, they have artillery 20 to 30 miles from seoul, and they could literally, you know, with these thousands of Artillery Strikes wipe out 20 Million People. Thats without even using their
some of what trump is doing is trying to get the approval that he gets from using the military, the sort of love from the media he gets, the sort of respite from the ridicule and attacks on his other aspects of his agenda by using the military sort of as a way to boost himself . So i think we saw during the campaign is that donald trump has this remarkable intuition, this native intelligence almost on how to please the crowd, how to get the applause. I think its innate to who he is as a marketer, as a communicator. We live in an era where trust in Public Institutions in this country has completely collapsed across the board. I think its one of the defining crises in america of our time with one exception, and thats the United States military, which has risen in the eyes of the American People. And i think from my perspective, you look at someone who has the radical world view of a steve bannon, the antagonism to the
u. S. Led liberal, global order that president s from truman through obama, whether they were republicans or democrats all bought irninto. I think people like mcmaster, mattis, extremely well read, prepared. As Douglas Macarthur pointed out in his farewell address, its the soldier who hates war more than others because hes seen the terrible cost of it. Im reassured by the presence of these mainstream figures around donald trump. Mcmaster, mattis, and donald trump is right. The United States military is one of the most remarkable institutions in the world. Its hypercompetent. Its efficient, and i think that he likes the glow being associated with it that it gives him. Yeah. I think the concern that a lot of people have, though, of course is that we have a civilianled government, and donald trump has put together almost an aware of military leaders and has essentially said
theyre running things. And you should be reassured by them, not by the president of the United States. I thk thats disturbing to a lot of people. Thank you both thank you. Coming up, having rekdled his interest in repealing and replacing obamace, donald trump has come out with a new tactic, threatening to sabotage obamacare and leave millions of americans holding the bag. How democrats are fighting back after this twominute break. H y. Try new Flonase Sensimist instead of Allergy Pills. H y. Its more complete allergy relief in a gentle mist you may not even notice. Using unique mistpro technology, new Flonase Sensimist delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances that cause your symptoms. Most Allergy Pills only block one. And six is greater than one. Break through your allergies. New Flonase Sensimisthow to win at business. Step one point decisively with the arm of your glasses. Abracadabra. The stage is yours. Step two choose la quinta. The only hotel where you can redeem Loyalty Points for a free nightinstantly and win at business. Quite, obamacare is dead next month if it doesnt get that money. I havent made my viewpoint clear yet. I dont want people to get hurt. What i think should happen and what will happen is the democrats will start calling me and negotiating. Democrats are countering, however, with some threats of their own. Accords to the washington post, Democratic Leaders determined to use their leverage in the upcoming fight to force the Trump Administration to make the payments. The president s handling of the First Health Care bill has been the only thing so far to have a real impact on his Approval Rating and not in a good way. Now hes going back for more and hes threatening to drag the rest of his party down with him. With congress on recess, town halls are back in full swing. Just like last time, health care is at the top of the agenda. I talkedo hlth Insurance Companies,which, by the way, we only have one in the state that will write these policies. One. If you live in eastern tennessee, you dont have anybody. Most states right now have one. Im a registered republican in your house district. Im sorry to say i was shocked that you declared your intention to vote for the American Health care reform act, the socalled trumcare bill and to replace the Affordable Care act or obama care. Thats not the way we do things here in colorado. Its sad to see these premium increases that are going up. Were living rite now under obamacare. Its the law of the land. Its the law of the land, and you can thank obamacare you can thank obamacare for these huge [ Audience Shouting ] thats why we need to repeal and replace obamacare. Sit down with the democrats and fix the affordable
care act. [ cheers and applause ] i want this repeal crap to stop. [ cheers and applause ] im joined now by senator brian schatz, democrat from hawaii. Senator, you know its been interesting. You look at the town halls and you see that people are showing up clearly angry and terrified frankly that theyre going to lose their health care. On the other hand, you have people like congressman dave bratt. I believe hes from washington state, who is positively giddy about the idea of repealing the Affordable Care act, saying its a conservative principle. 50 laboratories, 50 experiments going on simultaneously. You can see what works and what doesnt work. Hes talking about ending community rating, ending the requirement that states that Insurance Companies have to not charge older people more than they charge younger people, ending those requirements in the packages. I dont understand what republicans think people want, but do you detect any desire out
there to go back to that old system . Well, i think that they spent so much time using obamacare as a foil, that they forgot to formulate a policy. So here they are in charge of both chambers, in charge of the executive branch, and it all fell apart really quickly. Actually without our intervention as democrats. We didnt have the votes to intervene. They didnt approach us to intervene, and yet it all collapsed within because they were lying for the last seven years. The truth is that what donald trump and many other republicans said for many, many election cycles is you could get rid of the bad stuff and keep all the good stuff. But the truth is that to the extent that the bad stuff is revenue, you need that revenue for taking care of people with preexisting conditions, for community rating, for people being able to stay on their parents plans until theyre 26 years old. So all of the things all of the protections in the Affordable Care act had to be
arranged by virtue of revenue and by virtue of regulations. And now that they dont have President Obama as a foil, this thing fell apart, and it fell apart quickly. So you still have 20 or 30 members of the house who are so ideological that theyre willing to inflict pain on their constituents, but the rest of them are just running scared, trying how to figure out how to fulfill a Campaign Promise that nobody wants them to fulfill anymore. You know, youve had now senator ron widen come out and say were not going to negotiate with hostage takers. That was the quote in the washington post. Ron wyden saying not going to negotiate with trump if hes trying to take hostages. But Behind The Scenes, would democrats cut a deal with the white house if trump dropped repeal and said, okay, lets do an obamacare fix instead and call that trumpcare . You think democrats would go for that . Its a good question. I think theres two things. First of all, to the extent that donald trump is threatening to withhold money from Insurance Companies which will harm individuals across the country,
which will make hospitals and Hospital Systems fall apart, if his threat is essentially, im going to inflict pain on people and destroy the American Health care system, or ill do it with you, were not going to negotiate under any circumstances like that. Now, what we have said all along is if they officially drop their proposals to destroy the Affordable Care act and we talk about Iterating Legislation and working on a bipartisan basis, Everybody KnowsAca Doesnt Work perfectly. But everybody also knows that for any major social legislation, that you iterate it over years, whether its the Social Security act, the medicare act, whatever it may be, the clean air, the clean water act. You have updates to that law. This is one of the very few major social changes that had no updates into the statute, which is why its a little clunky. If they want to get back to legislating in good faith, we are more than open to that. But they have to drop repeal from their vocabulary. And how far are democrats willing to go . If donald trump withdraws from this was essentially a lawsuit that the House Republicans brought, saying that the subsidies to these Insurance Companies were unconstitutional. At the moment, its on appeal. Trump could just say, were not going to fight it anymore. Were just going to stop paying. How far would democrats go . Would they allow those subsidies to go away in order to stand to this position of not participating in repeal . Look, this is Donald Trumps decision. I think hes threatening the American People. I think hes also threatening the legislative branch. One thing that he hasnt figured out is that legislators dont like to be bullied. You know, hes not in real estate anymore. Hes sort of trying to treat members of the United States senate, who are former governors and admirals and astronauts and, you know, tv stars, and people with substantial egos and substantial support in their home states. They cannot be bullied. They will not be bullied, and this idea that you can sort of treat members of congress, a
coequal branch of government, as though were sort of a subcontractor in a real estate deal that he wants to stiff, its one of the reasons that hes been such a failure so far as a president , is he doesnt understand that we have three coequal branches of government and that the legislature the legislative branch is not going to be shoved around. So especially on this, were not gointo allow him to hold the erican people, the American Health care system hostage and negotiate under those terms. Now, if he wants to improve the Affordable Care act, were all in. Yep. It is a coequal branch of government. I think donald trump might be learning some civics 101 in his 84 days as president. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Lets bring in Jonathan Cohn who covers health care for the huffington post. Jonathan, i think that last point is very important. You have senators who have their own egos. They have their own power bases. Its not as if theyre going to respond to bullying. But more than that, they couldnt get blamed according to the new polling if health care goes awry. Its not democrats who would
take the blame. It would be donald trump and republicans. Kaiser health did a poll. 61 say the president and republicans in congress are now in control of the government. Theyre responsible for any problems with it moving forward. I dont understand the politics of threatening to take away subsidies for millions and millions of people when they would get blamed for the, you know, pain that results. Do you understand the politics on the republican side . No. This is one of the most baffling political moves i have seen in a long time. I mean you said you cited that kaiser poll. There have been other polls. It is very clear that, you know, if the Health Insurance system suddenly unravels for millions of people, theyre going to blame the people in charge. Theyre going to blame the Trump Administration. Now, if you listen to trump, who has this weird tick where he likes to tell you what his maneuvers are, like in realtime. Like heres what im trying to do. So his theory is basically, look, im going to threaten to withhold this money and cause all these problems for millions of people, and democrats will be so upset about that. You know, Chuck Schumer is going to be on the phone with me saying, please, president trump, lets make a deal. That makes no sense because the alternative that trump is offering is basically to take insurance away from even more people. So, you know, hes basically saying, look, if you dont agree to take im going to take away insurance from several Million People unless you agree to work with me on taking insurance away from even more people. It just doesnt im honestly baffled why he thinks this is going to work. And do you think that the fact that its democrats that hes threatening and not his own party is sort of a tacit admission that he cant get a bill through his own party, and so hes essentially admitting that he needs nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer to put together the whip count for him . Yeah. I mean theres no question at this point. Theres a lot of we keep Hearing Republicans were this close to a repeal bill. They have some really fundamental disagreements within the Republican Party about what to do. If you try to imagine sort of a way forward on health care to
make