tv Face the Nation CBS April 8, 2018 8:30am-9:31am PDT
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>> brennan: today on "face the nation." the president makes bold moves that shake up the stock market and the diplomatic world leaving administration officials to clarify and clean up. fears of a trade war spiked in the wake of new tariff threats by the president and counter threats by china's leader. add to that president trump attacks on amazon with facebook's revelation that 87 million users' data could have end up in a firm working for the trump campaign made for a wild week. we'll talk to treasury secretary steven ma new hampshire in. injuries hundreds. we'll have report from the region.
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maryland's ben cardin a top democrat will be here to talk about that and other news. then -- >> we know did not do good enough job. i'm really sorry for that. >> brennan: facebook executive goes on a m,a colpa before congress on tuesday. will saying sorry view what is likely to be contentious hearing? we'll ask louisiana republican senator john kennedy what he plans to ask zuckerberg. we'll have political analysis on all the news just ahead on "face the nation." good morning, welcome to "face the nation." i'm margaret brennan. we have lot to get to today but we begin with that chemical attack in syria. overnight, in the city of duma the last rebel held town just outside damascus at least 40 people have been killed in an alleged chemical attack.
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we turn now to cbs news news holly williams. at this point what can you tell us about the attack? >> margaret, the videos emerging from this alleged chemical attack on saturday reefening show people who appear to be dead but no obvious wounds to their body. seemingly struggling to breathe, especially children. being hosed down with water. we should stress that we cannot independently verify any of these videos and we cannot confirm that a chemical attack has in fact taken place. survivors reportedly smelled of chlorine that is chemical that can be deadly wean used in in closed spaces. has denied any involvement in this alleged attack as has ally russia. >> brennan: jim mattis said it would be unwise for assad to use weaponized gas and had prepared military option to respond.
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any indication in this case what kind of attack this could have been? >> well, margaret, around a year ago there was large chemical attack in northern syria, that killed scores of people, on syrian air base. there's an important distinction that attack respond to abuse nerve agent. there was important question here. will this be concerned to have been a chemical attack? if chlorine was used, a chemical that is sought to have been used pretty widely in the syrian conflict will that draw international response? >> brennan: as senior administration official tells us the u.s. is near certain that this was the regime but cannot be definitive, a u.s. response is near certain. it is worth noting that the russians have previously vowed to shoot down any missiles the u.s. fires at the syrian regime. trump tweeted this morning, many dead including women and
quote
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children in mindless chemical attack in syria. area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by syrian army making it inaccessible to outside world. president putin, russia and iran are responsible for backing animal assad. steven mnuchin joins us. mr. secretary as cabinet official what can you tell us about a potential trump administration response to syria? >> good morning, thank you, great to be here with you. we'll be reviewing the situation later today i expect to get an update from the national security team. and as you've pointed out with the president's tweet, this appears to be another horrible example of the assad regime, just incredibly targeted. >> brennan: military response to potentially on the table? >> i can't comment on what our response will be or won't be. but i expect to get update later today from the national security team and i assure you they will
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be reviewing with the president. >> brennan: you said on friday there is the potential of a trade war. how should americans prepare for that risk? >> well, actually i was very clear when i discussed i said, our expectation is that we don't think there will be a trade war. our objective is to continue to have discussions with china. we want to have free and fairy cipro call trade. we're just looking for our companies and our workers to have a level playing field. right now we have about 500 billion of goods we buy from china and they buy about 135 billion from us. that is one of the single biggest opportunities for american companies and american workers if we are free and fair trade. that's what the president wants. i don't expect there will be a trade war. it could be, but i don't expect it at all but the president is willing to make sure we have free and fair trade as you've seen his tweet already this morning. again, he has very close
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relationship with president xi we'll continue to discuss these issues with them. >> brennan: the markets reacted strongly to the acknowledgment of the potential risk here. the president as you said is tweeting this morning that china will take down its trade barriers because it is the right thing to do. mr. secretary, has china given any sign of concession since friday? >> it would be inappropriate for me to comment on what our back channel discussions are. >> brennan: what is the president referring to or just triking optimistic tone based on his friendship? >> again, i don't want to comment on specific discussions and where they stand. what i will emphasize is that this is really our objective is free and fair trade. we've been talking about this for the last year with them. it's actually just about a year anniversary since the president's meeting at mar-a-lago. the good news is, president xi and president trump have shared with the economic teams. we have a common objective to make sure we reduce the trade
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deficit. president trump is prepared to defend u.s. interests. >> brennan: sir, because you know this has caused such nervousness in the markets which will reopen overnight, has there been any progress so far? >> again, we've committed not to comment on specific conversations and we're not going to update specific conversations and what they are when there is progress, you'll know when we reach a deal there's progress. that's our objective. so the markets have had a lot of volitility in general. the market is still up a tremendous amount since the election. we should be focused on is the strong economic growth. the tax plan is kicking in our regulatory relief is kick can in, trade has always been the third part of our agenda. >> brennan: that's why there's concern this dispute could disrupt economic growth that republicans run on in november. >> that's true. but let me put this in
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perspective. it's only 135 billion of goods in 20 trillion dollar economy. if we can open up poe a ten trillion dollars economy for us to compete fairly, this is one of the single biggest opportunities long term for u.s. companies. so whatever happens in trade i don't expect it to have meaningful impact on our economy and president says factors like agriculture he's prepared to defend. >> brennan: i want to ask you about your colleague epa administrator scott pruitt, seem to give him a pass on some of the questions about potential ethics violations. is it the official position of the administration that all of these criticisms arexdñr simply political attacks? >> well, i think as the president said, scott has just done a fantastic job on policy. and again, the president believes in clean air, clean water, he believes in proper regulation just not over regulation, we're determined to be energy independent that is one of the most crucial long term issues for the united
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states. and as it relates to the specifics of scott's situation, i can't comment on them but i'm sure the president's reviewed it. >> brennan: has he come to a conclusion? he did acknowledge that he was looking into these potential violations. >> i think the tweets speak for itself. >> brennan: that's maybe? >> again, i haven't had any direct conversations with the president on this, i've obviously had a lot of discussions with him on trade and the economy, but i know he's very supportive of scott pruitt's positions and what he's done there, tremendous progress. >> brennan: mr. secretary, thank you for wake can up early on the west coast to join us. thank you very much. we turn to top democrat on senate foreign relations committee, ben cardin, the president said that there would be a big price for this chemical attack in syria. he called up vladimir putin by name for backing the assad regime. in your view would military response be justified? >> margaret, first, it's good to
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be with you. clearly there needs to be response. needs to be international response. this is against international norms -- dash. >> brennan: a military one? >> first and foremost, president assad needs to be held accountable for his war crimes. >> brennan: he hasn't been in the seven years of this war. >> senator rubio and i have introduce legislation that would hold the evidence accountable we need to make sure that there is a proceeding started by international community to hold him responsible this is not the first use of chemical weapons. secondly, congress passed very strong sanctions against both russia and iran, the syrian regime under president assad cannot exist without russia's support and activities of iran. the united states international community need to take action against russia and iran for what they're doing in syria. so, we need to take a pretty strong response for another use of chemical weapons. >> brennan: are are there any briefings planned with the administration and do you think a military response is legally
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justified? >> i hope there will be briefing, congress returns tomorrow. i hope that we will get a full briefing on the use of these chemical weapons, there's not a lot known because syrian regime has closed the area. we're not going to have the direct information. it will be challenging for us to know, everything points to this controlled by president assad and again violation of international norms there needs to be international response. >> brennan: on russia, you commended the president for his sanctioning of these russian he'll gashs and other high ranking putin's own son-in-law and former bodyguard here. but you did criticize the president for not acting faster, what do you think these punitive actions, what is the affect of them? >> it's been long time since the congress passed sanction bill against russia, passed by 99% of the votes in congress. the president was very slow to act. what i think our main
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complaints, it was very important sanction, i really applaud the people and state department and treasury for taking this action. what we didn't hear when the sanction iss were i am positivessed the president of the united states saying that is policy of our united states. president mentioned mr. putin. >> brennan: by name. >> that was significant change. but he has not done that in regards to the sanctions imposed against the he'll gashs and with mr. putin's interference. >> brennan: you helped author a law that provides oversight for nuclear deal along with your colleague, senator corker who said he expects the president to withdraw next month from that international agreement. do you agree with senator corker? >> i think both senator corker and i agree it would be a mistake for the president to withdraw from the iran agreement. if the united states violates the agreement we are isolating america not iran from international community. by all indication iran as not violated the agreement.
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yes, i disagreed with the agreement from its beginning but this isn't an agreement, iran is complying with it the united states would be marginalized by withdrawing. i hope the president will recognize that we need to work with our european allies make sure we're lock step against iran. >> brennan: mike pompeo, his conmir makes is this week as he goes up for this job of being secretary of state, you voted against him when he stood up for the cia director position. are you going to support him this time? >> i've had chance to talk to him briefly by phone. we'll have a meeting on tuesday then as you know committee is holding confirmation hearings this thursday. this is going to be very busy week for mr. pompeo, i want to make sure that he will stand for the values of america, good governance, democracy, anti-corruption and use diplomacy as head diplomat if confirmed. make sure he'll be independent voice in the oval office with the president. >> you're open to voting yes
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this time 1234. >> we'll wait to see how this week goes. obviously i have many questions. >> brennan: i also want to ask you about another committee as it relates to the environment, a lot of questions about scott pruitt and epa administrator. there's some speculation that the president, even if he wanted to get rid of him which he made clear he doesn't. that he'd have hard time finding someone and getting him confirmed for that role. do you agree? >> i think it's a challenge. so many positions open right now in the administration, there's so many weeks left before we get to the mid term elections. i think it's going to be challenge for us to get cabinet level positions confirmed, epa. my main complaint against mr. pruitt was his policy. environmental policies. his ethic issued need to be resolved in open manner and congress has role of oversight. >> brennan: you don't think he should be fired over these ethics? >> that's a decision the president has to make. that is a cabinet-level did he
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six up to the president of the united states. what congress is appropriate role during confirmation we don't have confirmation process on this, but oversight of his ethics issues are certainly within the realm. >> brennan: thank you very much for all of your insights. for all of your insights. we'll be back on "face the nation" in one minute. d technoly that's moving companies forward fast. e-commerce. real time inventory. virtual changing rooms. that's why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent network speed across multiple locations. every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. comcast business outmaneuver.
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mnuchin. >> brennan: we turn now to republican senator john kennedy of louisiana. he'll be one of those questioning facebook ceo mark zuckerberg on tuesday, welcome to "face the nation," senator. >> thank you. >> brennan: facebook has acknowledged that some of the search tools were used by malicious actors to obtain information and also that 87 million users had private information shared with other organizations without their consent. what do you need to hear from mark zuckerberg? >> i don't want to hurt facebook. i don't want to regulate them half to death. but we have a problem.
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our promised digital utopia has mine fields in it. mr. zuckerberg has note hawsed himself being forthcoming. we had one hearing, mr. zuckerberg sent his lawyer, very bright, very articulate, could talk a dog off a meat wagon but he didn't say anything. my biggest worry in all of this i have many questions of mr. zuckerberg. but my biggest worry with all this is that the privacy issue and what i call the propaganda issue are both too big for facebook to fix. and that's the frightening part. >> brennan: too big for facebook to fix. does that mean that lawmakers like you need to seek regulations to fix it for them? >> it may be the case. i'd rather do it with facebook and other social media platforms. we've got to talk about the initial market. is it fair for me to give up all
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of my personal data to facebook, apparently everybody else in the western hemisphere, in exchange for me being able to see what some of my high school buddies had for dinner saturday night. who owns my data? do i own it or does facebook own it? the service agreement with facebook, it's written in swahili. nobody understands it. should i have the right to opt in as opposed to opt out, put the burden on facebook? should i have the right to erase my data? should i have the right to demand that facebook get my permission before it sells the data? we all know that it's being spread on social media not just facebook. how are we going stop it. what is poison. first amendment concerns. >> brennan: but this is -- these are very deep issues and bigger --
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>> brennan: they absolutely are. but some would say, look, is it really something that facebook needs to police themselves or should americans essentially have known better in that they're putting that private information out there? >> facebook knows more about its business, its algorithms and methodology than any of us in congress. i'm hoping that mr. zuckerberg will come to the fable say, okay, here is a problem, here are some suggested solutions, lieutenants talk it through together. but you know, some people respond when they see the light. others have to feel the heat. and these issues are not going away. let me say it again, i do not want to hurt facebook, it's done a lot of good. how do we preserve the good things about facebook while mitigating the obvious detrimental affects of it. it is a mine field in many respects. >> brennan: facebook said ahead of this hearing that they're
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going to start disclosing to its users whose information may have been -- they don't like the word breached, but shared with others. and they're also talking about now requiring buyers of political ads to confirm their location and identity and display labels. what do you think of that kind of pro-active action? >> i think it's a start. but the first question that mr. zuckerberg needs to did is, does he really know who has ads on his platform, he doesn't. facebook's lawyers said they have radio 0,000 unique advertisers a month. i think that's probably wrong. probably much more. i don't think they know who is running ads and issue campaigns. we need to talk how we're going to find out. again, you're going to get quickly into first amendment issues as well. i don't want facebook to sensor what i can see in all respects but i do want them to stop the fake news. i do want them to stop people
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from running advertisements on facebook that encourages the genocide of muslims and burma. these are deep issues, they're not going away we're not going to conclude this in one hearing, i hope that mr. zuckerberg will be forthcoming and frank. >> brennan: forthcoming and frank, if not, what happens? >> well, we can do it the easy way or the hard way. again, i don't want to regulate facebook. half to death. but we do have two major problems we discovered one is the privacy issue. the other is the propaganda issue. facebook needs to talk with us frankly about how we can fix that, if it doesn't know how to fix it which is my biggest wor worry. it needs to be in that regard, too. >> brennan: also ask you about epa administrator scott pruitt. the president seems to have given him a pass in a tweet yesterday signalling that he's okay with some of these reports
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about government spending run amuck these other allegations of ethical violations. what do you think? >> well, mr. pruitt and other members of the president's cabinet, i would say ethics matter. impropriety matters. the appearance of impropriety matters to the extent stop acting like a chuckle head, stop the unforced errors, stop leading with your chin. if you don't need to fly first class, don't. don't turn on the siren on your suv just to watch people move over, you represent the president of the united states, all of this behavior is juvenile, it's distracting from the business that we're frying to do for the american people. >> brennan: should he keep his job? >> that's up to the president. i know what i would do if i would mr. pruitt. i'd call a press conference tomorrow and say, okay, let's talk about your criticisms of
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me. >> brennan: he did -- i would do a full blown press conference say, okay, here are your criticisms. that's fair. i'm going to stop doing that. here is what i think is not fair. these people are hurting the president and i'm not saying he's not a good person. but the appearance of impropriety matters, you can -- >> brennan: the president and certainly scott pruitt have alleged that all of this is just politically motivated by environmentalist who don't like his -- >> some of it is. but all of it isn't. he either travels with 20 security folks or he doesn't. either flies first class every single time or he doesn't. i don't know whether the allegations about his apartment are true or not, they don't look good. in his position why do you want to rent an apartment from a lobbyist for god's sake. stop leading with your chin. these are unforced errors, they're stupid.
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a lot of problems we can't solve. but you can behave. i'm not -- i don't mean denigrate but doggone it he represents the president of the united states and it is hurting his boss. and it needs to stop. >> brennan: senator ken dork thank you for coming on "face the nation." we'll be back in a moment. it's really not very important. i was in the stone ages as much as technology wise. and i would say i had nothing. you become a school teacher for one reason, you love kids. and so you don't have the same tools, you don't always believe you have the same... outcomes achievable for yourself. when we got the tablets, it changed everything. by giving them that technology and then marrying it with a curriculum that's designed to have technology at the heart of it,
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>> brennan: welcome back to "face the nation" i'm margaret brennan, take a closer look now at the facebook state da story how it's affected users how the company is responding. to help us do that we're joined by wired magazine editor in chief, nicholas thompson who is also cbs news contributor. good morning, to you nick. that is very confusing story for a lot of people at home. what is the main question that mark zuckerberg has been called before congress to answer? >> the most important thing he's going to answer is, what happened to people's data. what happened with cambridge analytica. what are you making sure that doesn't happen again. he'll apologize, explain it,
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interesting is what comes next. do we actually try to figure out policy because we haven't had a debate that had a regulate these companies in 20 years. >> brennan: senator kennedy was just telling us, he's going to be one of the questioners, he said facebook may be too big to fix. meaning government may have to regulate it. what does that look like? >> there is going to be regulation coming. certainly some regulation that be very sensible. certainly regulate advertising on facebook, political advertising on facebook meets standard of political advertising on other media platforms, that's a good idea. also probably have some kind of structure for privacy regulation. you could model it after what has been done in europe. make sure that people have control over their data that the companies have requirements to make their privacy settings very clear. that would be a good idea, too. once you get beyond that, you get into specific regulations about speech, you get into
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specific discussions about anti-trust then it gets very complicated and there's a lot of risk. >> we've already seen facebook try to get ahead of these hearings, tomorrow they're going to disclose to users if their data was shared, breached, whatever word you want to use. also talking about forcing? disclosures on political ads in terms of where that person was located and who paid for the ad. is that enough to soften the blow? >> i think it is enough to soften the blow, it's probably not enough overall. there does need to be some level of regulation that goes beyond what facebook is doing. facebook has announced about 20 policy changes in the last few weeks. they're very good changes. they do protect you. they do open things up. they will make political campaigns clearer and fairer, but there also is role for congress, both in specific regulations also setting
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guidelines for facebook to follow in the future. >> brennan: is there truth to what senator kennedy was telling us that facebook doesn't even know who is running ads. do they really not know? they know a lot about users. >> they don't know everything about who is running ads on facebook. like they didn't know that the ira, russia propaganda was running ads on facebook because the ira had hidden its purchases. but i think he was overstating that a little bit. facebook does have a good sense. people enter their financial information, when they buy the ads, facebook has lots of people monitoring them looking for suspicious behavior they set up ai for suspicious behavior, over statement to say that they don't know who is advertising. but there are certainly certain things they don't know. >> brennan: they seem to be playing catch up because none of those things stopped from the russians in the 2016 election.
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>> facebook was caught totally unprepared during the 2016 election, they're still paying for that. they stuck their heads in the sand they were not paying attention to the fake news, the propaganda operations. since then, though, they have adjusted their algorithms have hired tons of people, they are working very hard. so the bad guys are going to work harder at hiding what they do facebook is also going to work much harder what is going on. odds that we have as much manipulation, as much chaos in 2018 or 2020 they had in 2016, i think it's small. i think facebook is getting a handle on this, you're totally right. they were absolutely unprepared in '16. >> brennan: do you think, you've interviewed mark zuckerberg, do you think he gets it now that he understands the weight of the outrage? >> i think that there's been a real education process for mark zuckerberg that began the day trump was elected. remember, trump's philosophy
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which is tribalistic. so the day after the election, i think zuckerberg started to realize, wait, did my systems do this? am i responsible for this? he's gone through a lot in the last year and a half. and i think you see a real education, a real evolution, he's still making all kinds of unforced errors and mistakes, but i think that zuckerberg is really grappling and i think he's understanding that this platform, that he genuinely thought could only do good for the world actually can be manipulated. that's theçó story of the last o years, mark zuckerberg realizing the tools he built could be used for ill as well as good. >> brennan: one of his top executives tried to lay the ground work for this testimony this week, she was all over news networks, apologizing on mark
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zuckerberg's behalf and her own. how effective was that? >> it was fine. i mean, she and zuckerberg -- >> brennan: doesn't sound very convincing, nick. >> well look at the reaction to it. i don't think anybody said, oh, now we're totally sympathetic. still completely against facebook. that is why congress is going to be out for blood on tuesday and wednesday. if you look at the public perception of the company, it's terrible. the stock market is mad. employees are upset. people are really upset at facebook right now. i think she said the right things. i think zuckerberg has been staying the right thing. i thought his conference call with the media the other day went very well. on the other hand, they didn't respond to this crisis nearly as quickly as they should have and they're still paying for that and paying for years of sins. one of the ironies, cambridge analytica scandal has been a little blown out of proportion.
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what happened in this specific instance isn't as terrible as people make it out to be. facebook is not as at fault. >> brennan: the data scraping and use by outside application of this information without users' knowledge. >> yes. that particular scandal, it's bad. but a little blown out of proportion. on the other hand facebook has been violating our privacy and not doing anything for 12 years, this is the comeuppance or 12 years of sort of small privacy violations and breaches of trust that facebook hasn't really been punished for. they're being punished too much for this specific crime but maybe the right amount for accumulation of things over the last decade. >> brennan: going to be fascinating to watch, thank you very much. we'll be back with our panel. we're about to move. karate helps... relieve some of the house-buying... stress. at least you don't have to worry about homeowners insurance. call geico.
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>> leads us probably, if past can predict the future a year ago he launched 49 tom hawk missiles at various sites did not have desired affect it could lead us to another attack by american military. it will not lead us to a conclusion or satisfactory conclusion to the syrian civil war. it's very late in the process. assad and his iranian and russian allies have basically won this civil war. it's all over but the dying it seems in this one town. i don't think that the u.s. can do anything to affect the overall outcome at this late stage. remember donald trump also said just last week we're finished with syria. against the wishes of the pentagon he said this by the way. he wants out. it's an interesting moment to see how far to make a difference. >> brennan: those u.s. troops that are there aren't doing anything against the assad -- >> donald trump probably being
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premature saying that victory at hand. >> it comes days after trump signaled that the u.s. was getting out while he's not using a specific timeframe publicly he is privately telling his national security team that he wants to be out by october. that's exact type of thing that he and republicans criticized barack obama, if you made clear to the opposition, to our foes when we're going to draw out they will respond to that. so we don't know exactly what is -- >> putin, iran and assad have read it. >> it's interesting, because john bolton will be the new national security advisor this is happening on his watch now. makes for tough first day at work. >> bolton has been a hawk on a number of issues in the middle east including the iraq war. he's likely to push the president more towards taking action, striking back against the assad regime even though president has seen the middle east in the light of it beigler p net's nest -- hornet's nest,
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does not produce any positive results for the u.s. the president has this duality where he wants to seem very tough, we saw him name president putin in a tweet for the first time sort of being critical against him and his role in syria. but at the same time the president has said that he wants to get out of syria. he wants to bring the troops home. that is clear that bolton will have tough time making the president have a coherent foreign policy when it comes an area that he does not want to be in but also wants to seem tough. >> brennan: is there a syria policy yet? >> i means there a trump doctrine at all? it's difficult to know when he surrounds himself with so many different types of voices, likes to have competing voices around him then he does make very impulsive foreign policy decisions, makes it difficult to know whether or not there is an overall strategy behind what he's doing. >> brennan: ramesh, conservatives cheered the president when he took that action last year saying, look, he's not president obama who sets red lines and doesn't act
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on them he's set out consequences for crossing his red line. well, it appears another line has been crossed here. can he track hill self? >> there was a split. i think there is a cost that you pay when president says there's a big price if he doesn't then exact the big price. reduces his credibility and reduces american credibility. i think there's a real challenge, no question what the administration does. people will be surprised by john bolton, he's never been an enthusiast for interventions for just humanitarian reasons, he's gone back and forth on the syria question depending on circumstances. in 2013 he was publicly against president obama taking military action in syria. i'm not sure that he's going to live up to the caricature of being the hawk on all issues. >> brennan: it's interesting. he's going to be in place before we get a secretary of state confirmed, mike pompeo has hearings on thursday does that
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in any way solidify bolton. few days on the job give him more influence? >> i think what gives him more influence is he has a very good relationship with president trump. of course, other people have started out with good relationship and seen that deteriorate over time. this administration in particular, the relationship with the president personally matters a great deal even more than it does in any other administration. >> brennan: jeffrey, you had han interesting interview with the crown prince of saudi arabia in this past week. now we're going to see his nemesis, of sort, amir at the white house meeting with president trump. are we going to see any kind of diplomatic break through on that stand off between the countries? >> no. who knows. but it doesn't seem very likely. the hatred between the qatar royal family and saudi royal family.
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the saudis have defined for themselves and for moderate so-called moderate arab wing. iran, assad, to a lesser extent important extent outlying qatarians. it's very difficult to see donald trump negotiating peace between gulf states. >> brennan: it's significant. he stood in the rose garden said that qatar was funding terrorism at the very highest levels now he's got the head of state coming to see him. >> welcome to the middle east. qatar also home to u.s. military installations and the pentagon obviously wants us to calibrate that relationships. donald trump is not expertise -- does not have expertise in calibrating expertise in the middle east or possibly many other places, we'll see how this meeting goes. nothing grand is going to come out of it i don't think. >> brennan: the president will be traveling to south america, will we see a preliminary trade
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deal on the nafta front, not china, but nafta? >> not likely that it's going to happen before this meeting or during this meeting he's going to the summit of americas in lima, peru. there is still trying to work out the kinks of the trade deal but the president is throwing grenades by announcing global tariffs trying to take on china but at the same time really making a number of our other allies unhappy when we talk about steel tariffs that hit not only china but also a number of our different allies in different parts of the world including south america. by sending troops to the southern border, he sort of inflaming the relationship with our trade partner in mexico making it more difficult to have those continued talks and reach a deal during this summit. it's likely that we're not going to see a deal before the summit. maybe there's some more happening behind the scenes away from the president's twitter account and these incendiary moves he's making on the border that can work itself out over
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the weeks to come. but not necessarily something that we're expecting to see in the next few days. >> brennan: convince the president to save nafta? >> you know, this administration is full of people who support it but it also has lot of people who are against it. it does not speak with one voice on this issue. trump has given us every indication for his entire adult life that he is a protectionist by conviction. and people have been trying to talk him out of each of the steps he's already taken. i would not be confident about nafta survival. i think one of the reasons you're seeing the markets react the way they're reacting, it's not each individual tariff that the presidents has announce asked going to be so destructive but people don't like where this is going and they're were uncertain. >> brennan: the indicator, betting that is going downhill. >> that's correct. >> brennan: we have to take a commercial break we'll be back be more from our panel in a moment.
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democrats will try to make it difficult ultimately i think he will be confirmed, already confirm for cia chief which tends to make it easier to get through second time around. the one i'd pay attention to is gina for cia his replacement amount the agency. this is confirmation hearing that republicans are uncomfortable with, simply for the fact that it's going to raise so many issues around torture, her own past history and questions about what the administration's policy is toward the types of covert action, is that became a big deal during the obama administration but we haven't heard a lot a bout then hanging overall of this is scott pruitt, of course, one of your guests was talking about there being limited time left in the legislative calendar, because mid term elections are coming up, lawmakers don't like to spend time in washington. you are going to hear republicans telling the administration, maybe you don't want to throw another open seat on your cabinet into the middle of this mid term when we already have two pretty difficult
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confirmations ahead of us. >> brennan: the v.a. secretary. >> also in the mix. pretty busy agenda not something that republicans want to deal with in the middle of the mid term cycle. >> brennan: ramesh, the president seems to have given solution to scott pruitt in this tweet last night saying he's doing a great job, not concerned about the ethics accusations violations. is it really about that or just simply getting somebody else to fill that job would be too tough? >> there's also pruitt has very strong support from conservatives who approve of his policy record at the epa. you combine that with trump's relative lack of condition for the kind of media ethics firestorm that in another administration would have gotten cabinet secretary dismissed and i think that pruitt looks like he's weathering the storm. but if there are more scandals that break that could change, of course. >> brennan: does that mean that any prospects for a job are
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over. the president said i'm not going to replace jeff sessions with scott pruitt. >> i think that this means that if that were being contemp plated it's not any more. very hard under this circumstance to see pruitt getting confirmed for attorney general. >> brennan: what are you hearing on that front, toluse, the cheat of staff gig it seems to be a regular headline that john kelly is growing frustrated or president is growing frustrated with him. it would be news if we got one that he's happy, right now. >> scott pruitt might be available at any moment. >> brennan: what is the likelihood here that we see that kind of shake up? >> we have seen john kelly's stock drop within the west wing, my colleague reported a few weeks ago that he's not a part of very important meetings, very important personnel decisions, phone calls with foreign leaders, president trump has
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greated at the fact that john kelly has trite to enforce so many discipline, not on the president who likes sort of having this free wheeling experience within the oval office, phone calls with various friends and allies, people coming in and out. john kelly has tried to crackdown on some of that the president has not necessarily taken to a lot of the new reforms. and the fact that john kelly is seeing his stock drop and seeing number of the members of his staff and number of the officials within the west wing more willing to talk to reporters and say, john kelly is no longer the star general that he was when he first came into the administration. makes it seem like the president may take a move, maybe make a change but we did see a tweet from the president saying this was not true and not necessarily the direction. >> makes an important point that i think is important for people watching to understand. it's one thing for the president and his chief of staff to have a tense relationship, trump has a
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tense relationship with a lot of people in his senior team. kelly has lost the support of his staff. he's a man on an island. large part how he handled rob petter issue, he was not being truthful in his account of his own role. they feel like he has undermined what they have been sent out to say, either on his behalf or on the president's behalf. you have a chief of staff in the white house who the president is not happy with, the staff is not happy work can for. that is really untenable. >> we're talking also about abs looks for tweeting. the president doesn't have a great record of sticking with those grants of absolution. reince priebus is a good example. amazing thing about this administration is this conversation could be overcome by events during this conversation. because he can do anything, fact that he's speaking with scott pruitt is remarkable. that he's tweeting positively
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about his chief of staff is remarkable. that can change this afternoon. >> successful chiefs of staff tended to have a strong relationship with the president personally or to have experience in politics and good relationships with capitol hill. john kelly became chief of staff people greeted him as an adult going to impose order, he didn't have either of those two qualities, he dill stews, some ways some of those things are getting worse like his relationship with the president. while he may have imposed some discipline in this process i'm not sure you can say he's been a successful chief of staff. >> brennan: what does that do to the rest of the cabinet and the administration, it's been pointed out that he was a cabinet member, rose to this position that that has in some ways instilled confidence in his fellow administration members, with dismissal hurt anyone else? >> but the bar is always so different in this administration. "washington post" story that about kelly that president trump
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condemned earlier today was saying that there was less fighting and dysfunction now that kelly is chief of staff. okay, fine, than there was in july of last year but that's still a lot of dysfunction. every little thing increases people's worry, increases people sense maybe we should look for the exit, too. >> brennan: thank you, all of you. we'll be right back. for you, it's always leap over look. now over later. and pause. not even in your vocabulary. so when a cold sore tingle strikes you act on it.
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>> brennan: that's it for us today. thanks for watching. until next week for "face the nation" i'm margaret brennan. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org taco taco are you one of the millions of americans living with a taco obsession? my $3 taco deal with three of the tacos you
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new at jack in the box. there ya' go. >> this is it now. >> sergio garcia. >> bla played a lot of tourname, you, to overcome that down the stretch, it is tough. >> i said to him, he had the game. and the tools to win major events, until you do so, it is a question mark. >> people say, he played so well, so close, you deserve to win. but you got to do it. >> probably put too much pressure on myself because of things that happened in the past. you have to do it.
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