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The bombardment went on for 10 to 15 minutes and only stopped when u.s. air assets lazed the turkish battery. what that means, joy, is that the turks would have kept the artillery barrage if not for u.s. air power letting them know, if they didn't stop, they were going to get a bomb on their forehead. the second thing that we can report, in conversations i've had with a senior turkish intelligence official is that the kurds did not know about donald trump's decision to allow the turks to move forward with the invasion. in fact, they found out, like the rest of us, over twitter. they have not h...

Have changes at the top of the defense department? >> well, don, i think the combatant commanders and the theater commanders here are all very, very competent people and they're able to execute on these things. but there has been a sense of instability at the defense department since general mattis departed as secdef. we had patrick shanahan as the acting. we've had the chaos of shanahan's departure this week. there have been a lot of other questions about whether or not the appointee structure at the pentagon has been adequate to reflect administration policy or if folks are sort of drifting ...

Unsafe. >> are we less safe because of what's unfolding to our south in venezuela? >> no, i think venezuela is a nightmare. clearly has nothing to do with u.s. military intervague. it would be an utter disaster. we're not going to do that. i'm confident. we see resignation of the acting sec-def and others and the congress would turn on trump if he does that. what do we do? 3 million refugees, starvation, murder of the people. i actually applaud secretary pompeo, whoever came up with this clever idea to recognize the opposition assembly leader. we have to do something. the people are in abject ...

Taken by democrats last week to try to stop a treasury department move to ease sanctions on three russian companies tied to that russian oligarch deriposkov. and congress just started so there's a lot more. >> the oversight starting to ramp up even as the government is shut down. or partially shut down. eliana? >> i'm looking at the administration's search for a new secretary of defense to replace jim mattis who left in late december. and it's not getting a whole lot of tracks. it will be interesting to watch. you can trace it back to the president's abrupt decision to pull american troops out...

To align closely with some of trump's current positions, including being against the iraq war, being against the iran nuclear deal, and wanting to aggressively confront china. the white house has declined to comment on the report. joining us now former nato supreme allied commander, retired four star navy admiral, james, stavridis. >> so what is your opinion on the former secretary of the navy becoming the president cease sec def. >> what we need, joe, and you know this, is somebody who will stand up to the president. jim webb is somebody i have known for a couple of decades. i worked on his s...