Phili Rucker News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Now as commander in chief at a war zone overseas. it's not surprising because donald trump is so political, but it is unusual to see a president act that way. >> phil i rucker, douglas ol vant, big thank you to both of you gentlemen. coming up, lawmakers back on capitol hill today trying to come up with a way to reopen the government on day six of the partial shutdown. will this wrap up before the new year starts? first though, more of "time" magazines top photos of 2018. this one offering a unique view of prince harry and america's princess, meghan markle, departmenting windsor castle aft...

A few months now. there have been some challenges in getting him there but he's there. he's actually playing the role of commander in chief and interacting with these troops. you know, there are a lot of things that can be criticized about this trip, including some of the falsehoods that the president made in his speech. but he did go there and he interacted with those troops and it comes at a time of peril for his presidency back home. so it was a moment where he could escape some of that temporarily and be the commander in chief. >> douglas, the president in that speech, he seemed to really ...

To train the iraqis and work with them. i think the president said all of the right things about iraq. i wish he had gone to baghdad and met with the political leadership there, though i suspect the secret service and security concerns had something to do with that. that said, he said all of the right things about iraq. let's see if we can get -- and he did give an invitation, we're understanding, for the iraqi prime minister to come for a state visit. if and when that happens, we can see this lockdown a little better. >> phil rucker, how surprised were you the president seemed to spend so muc...

Picture on a very public plat form. it was clear they were navy s.e.a.l.s and team five, which everybody knows is serving in iraq. which is generally a violation off the op-sec, operational security. that said he can declassify what he wants and it's not a firm and fast rule of never showing faces when they're deployed in a war zone. craig? >> hans nichols for us. thank you for that, sir. let's bring in phil rucker, white house bureau chief of "the washington post." and an army retired officer who served as director of iraq for the national security council during both the bush and obama admin...