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Also lobbied the white house to begin relying more heavily on private contractors. defense secretary jim mattis remaining tight lipped about the details, but he gave this sobering assessment in june on the state of the nearly 16-year long war. >> we're not winning in afghanistan right now. >> reporter: trump has questioned the purpose of america's continued involvement in afghanistan. repeatedly advocating for full withdrawal on twitter, before running for president. officials say he remains deeply skeptical, but his doubts have come up against hawkish generals in his inner circle. any troop i...

Crafting the kind of strategy that would bring a reluctant commander in chief like donald trump along and then he might be able tos a sellable a strategy that his predecessors couldn't? >> well, general scales has stumbled on the great irony about afghanistan and we were joking about how, do you remember last time we were up in the middle of the night listening to the president give a speech about a troop increase and that was in 2009. secretary mattis very well aware of that. and he's -- i think he understands as does national security adviser mcmaster and general dunford there has to be some...

Interesting to see what the strategy is the president will roll out monday night. >> nothing on the order of tens of thousands of troops sent in as president obama did? >> the options are small -- the most likely options are considered a small increase, if that's the way the president has decided to go? >> that's right, i think the number we've heard the most from sources about 3,000 to 5,000 troops. a far cry from the 30,000 troops willing that president obama sent to afghanistan in his first year in office. mostly advisers that would embed with local units. not a major departure from the cur...

Future commitment in afghanistan. the president will leave bedminster a short while from now, return to the white house and tomorrow night make the trip to arlington virginia for a 9:00 p.m. address which the white house has billed as an update on the path forward for america's engagement in afghanistan and south asia. traveling to jordan, secretary of defense james mattis speaking on this today. he says the president has settled on a policy on afghanistan after what he called a sufficiently rigorous strategic process. the president convened his national security council at camp david friday t...

Bombing the hell out of the  world, you know, and just ignoring it? >> they, you know, as republicans historically have followed the lead on these things and their commander in chief. if they're commander in chief is quasi-isolationist, which is sort of how george w. bush ran in 2000. he changed after september 11th. republicans were on board with that campaign in 2000 and after september 11th they were all in. i think most republicans, members of congress today, you say when obama tried to do something in syria, most republican members of congress didn't want to do anything. that will be the...