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We were debating this issue, there are a lot of cross currents involved in how you conduct a trial. the democrats -- i mean you heard chuck schumer, you know, we want witnesses, but only witnesses that we think are relevant. so they don't control the process, and usually historically what we saw when we were there, we tried to find a bipartisan solution because the senate was bigger than this particular situation. i think the acrimony seems to be so bad in the senate right now that that doesn't seem to be -- look, we were at a very contentious time in 1998 and '99. we were not holding hands an...

How the country views this or is this just baked in and there won't be other blips based on what happens in the senate trial? >> when i was in the senate and we were debating this issue, there were cross currents involved in how to conduct a trial. we want witnesses but only witnesses that we think are relevant. they don't control the process. they tried to find a bipartisan solution because the senate was beggar than this solution. in 1998 and 1999, we were not holding hands and singing kumbaya, but we did rise above and decided we needed to do

Ahead of time, and typically the white house likes to roll these things out on their own schedule. now, if they do it wednesday at the height of impeachment, that could raise some eyebrows. but, look, on so much with the trump administration there are a lot of different competing cross currents and there are a lot of competing factions within the administration. one thing that is pretty clear on the foreign wars, especially in afghanistan, but to a lesser extent syria, is that the president has isolationist impulses. every time he brings back or makes an announcement of bringing back troops, s...

It gets you down to about 8,000. now, what that does to peace talks with the taliban, it's not quite certain. you mentioned the peace talks started again, and they have. the white house quietly did that after the president made that unannounced vivid to afghanistan over the thanksgiving holiday. i think one thing to look at is when the peace talks actually get back on track because they're in a temporary pause right now after there was a big attack at the bagram air base on saturday. there are a lot of cross-currents, but you need to look at the president's rhetoric and his intentions. preside...

Because they're in a temporary pause right now after there was a big attack at a base on wednesday. so there were a lot of cross-currents here. but, richard, on this all, i think you need to look at what the president's rhetoric has been and his intentions have been. president donald trump has wanted to get out of afghanistan from day one. and he's been sort of challenged by his generals on this. and there's this big "washington post" multipart reporting out that has these afghanistan papers on how a lot of senior officials always suspected that the war was essentially unwinnable. richard. >> ...