and general townsend spot on and there will be criticism about why can t we go faster? you can t go faster with the limited number of u.s. forces on the ground and without some kind of sunni backup all the problem actually focuses on syria. how did we get to syria? we got there with the civil war that began right after the famous speeches about this administration, ed, has created a firestorm in that part of the world. i think the general, quiet frankly is being optimistic saying two years. what you are going to see a s. a long-term progress on this thing that s only going to be happening as long as you got people on the ground like, perhaps, the egyptians or the jordanians, both of whom would have gone there as peace keepers. they are not going to be peacemakers, they can t be. last question, i have got 30 seconds. sure. we have heard the criticism and we have discussed it of president obama. moving forward, president-elect donald trump has made promises about being able to defe
the head. i talked to eric schultz white house press secretary about that very notion he said listen, kevin, we have to do something to give the russians a very strong message. what that something looks like to a lot of people is not terriblely much. keep this in mind, ed, this is relevant to you and the viewers. public pronouncement and sanctions that you can put your arms around. that s one half of this. there is also the cyber angle that a lot of people won t be talking about. but as far as the things we have heard about today, 72 hours, that s the amount of time that nearly 3 dozen russian operatives have to get out of the country. they have been expelled by the obama administration in retaliation as you know for alleged russian cyber activity in the run-up to the 2016 election. president obama making a number of points in his statement today. i want to share just part of what he was talking about with your viewers here tonight. the president saying, and i m quoting now. these act
complicated lives very greatly. the whole, you know, age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what s going on. we have speed, we have a loot of other things. something else transition officials said this morning that they have not backed away from is that putting a lot of focus on hacking is just an attempt to delegitimize mr. trump s election day victory that comment, of course,.ed at people on the left. these officials also urging obama administration officials to release whatever evidence that they were basing claims of russian interference off of. we do now expect that in the next few days. however, there has not been a change of position yet. the president-elect though, keep in mind, does want to keep updated with the classified intel in the next few days as well. as far as today at mar-a-lago it was relatively quiet one. the president-elect huddled with senior staff it really shouldn t be too quiet for long transition officials say there is going to be a flurry of
that this was all about russia. our man at mar-a-lago correspondent peter doocy live tonight again in palm beach, florida. good evening, peter. good evening, ed, about an hour ago we got the first reaction from the president elect to president obama s decision to punish the russian government and expel those didn ts. it came in a written statement that says this: it s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, i will meet with people of the intelligence comi community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation. so we still don t know, based on that statement, what the next president plans to do about these sanctions, whether he wants to leave them in place or get rid of them. but, that statement about saying it s time to move on is completely consistent with what the president-elect said last night on this issue. i think we ought to get on with our lives. i think the computers
berlin have law enforcement on high alert especially in new york city s famed times square almost 2 million people will be expected to watch the ball drop there. that s where we find our own rick leventhal. how is it looking, rick? it looks good tonight, ed, there may be no more secure place in the world than right here saturday night according to the nypd commissioner who says this will be the most policed, best protected event and one of the safest venues on the planet thanks to awful assets that will be deployed including for the first time ever on new year s eve 65 sand and sanitation trucks they will be blocking cross streets to create a perimeter against any possible vehicle attack. the nypd says there will be more checkpoints and stricter controls in place this year with 7,000 uniformed officers deployed here and at other events across the city along with plained clothe cops, critical response teams with heavy weapons. snipers on rooftops. police headquarters and boats. explos