this week secretary of state rex tillerson will face the biggest challenge of his yet short shorten tenure in office. he will make a trip to russia and do it with the added scrutiny of multiple investigations between the trump administration, trump campaign and russia. he is tasked with discussing the serious issues of requesting the syrian president stop using chemical weapons on his people. and the trump administration as we saw this weekend is spending a lot of time on mixed messages

about its plan. >> in no way do we see peace in that area with assad as the head of the syrian government and we have to make sure we push that process. >> and it's through that process that we believe the syrian people will be able to resolve the fate of bashar al assad. >> it's difficult to understand how a political solution could result from the continuation of the assad regime. we're not saying we're the ones that are going to affect that change, what we're saying is other countries have to ask themselves some hard questions. >> america is first, we're going to make sure our national interests are protected. that we do what we can to make sure our interests both economically and international are secure, and we're not just going to become the world's policemen running around the world. >> interesting, with us to talk about it tonight, jack jacobs,

only one of 75 members who received the medal. we are very happy to welcome back to our broadcast michael crowley, political senior foreign affairs correspondent. and michael, i begin with kind of a process question to you. what is normally the clearing house? an admistration has several people that speak o the kind of issues on for the purpose issues on foreign policy, especially going into the weekend. and what do talking points come from other than just knowing we're going to row in the same direction? >> typically, the national security adviser may have a say. you may have a communications chief on the nfc, probably in coordination with the white house communications team. you know, whoever the white

house press secretary and communications director are. i wonder whether that process happened in this case because these trump spokespeople seem to be able over the map. and more generally, brian, i wonder whether we have a national security process that is functioning in the traditional sense, where these meetings are happening regularly, the process is happening, or we're still in this kind of mode both when it comes to policy and messaging. they're confused right now. >> i was just going to ask -- sean spicer's comments, the president a week ago said i don't want to be president of the world. what sean spicer detailed collides with the notion of lobbying 60 cruise missiles into a foreign country. >> absolutely, you know nothing that we've seen or heard from this white house in the last week squares with the america

first philosophy that trump espoused during the campaign or any number of statements trump made about foolish american interventions overseas. i mean, everything that trump seems to stand for in foreign policy seems to turn on its head, and some comments are breathtaking. sean spicer even seems to suggest that the use of barrel bombs against civilian s constituted a kind of trigger for american response, these barrel bombs are dropping by the dozens every day. so at a minimum it's a real lack of discipline when it comes to the message. you got to get the policy right, but also brian you have to be precise in your messaging because you're telling both your friends and adversaries where your lines are and what you expect and if you don't have clarity on that, you have all sorts of possibilities of dangerous miscalculations. >> before i go further on the

barrel bombs, it's horrible, but in the news. let's hear one of the two times sean spicer took the podium, sean spicer on barrel bombs today. >> the sight of people being gassed and blown away by barrel bombs ensures that if we see this kind of action again we hold open the possibility of future action. if you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, i think you will see a response from this president. >> so jack, what just happened there is he named it as kind of a threshold, beyond which you may hear from the united states. i have a stat here that shows nearly 13,000 barrel bombs were dropped in the year 2016. can you for our audience define the weapon here? what is a barrel bomb? >> it's an extremely unsophisticated weapon.

barrel a barrel filled with explosives or incendiary substance, and nuts and bolts and the making of shrapnel. and these things are ins unsophisticated. basically ieds, dropped on civilians usually because they don't have any anti-aircraft weapons, so the weapons are just easily hovered above them, and the weapons dropped. >> sometimes they have chlorine gas, whatever, they really are improvi improvised. lethal, and rolling out of a helicopter onto your people, they can't place that beyond the line of which they will respond. >> it's interesting, we started out as america first, and then

we decided if they're going to use poison gas, that is a line they can't cross. and now the line is inching farther and farther forward. you use barrel bombs when you don't have anything else when all you want to do is kit civll civilians. when you're going to drop them on military people, they shoot back. and you don't want to use a helicopter over anything but civilians. it's a weapon to destroy civilians, demoralize civilians. and in an environment in which assad does not have anything other than an air force and barrel bombs left to their own devices without barrel bombs and no weapons of mass destruction, assad would have a heck of a time maintaining even moderate control that he has now so. when you keep moving that line forward you're almost guaranteeing that the next thing that will happen will be another american strike. and i'm not opposed to that necessarily but we don't have a

policy and without a policy striking doesn't make a great deal of sense. >> and michael crowley, obviously we don't have a whole lot of agreement on this topic. >> no, not at all. and i think you know -- you just have to think that trump at this point is sort of improvising it. some of it, you want to give him a little bit of the doubt. he is learning, he was not tuned into the details of it, getting briefing, appreciating the complexity of the problem, and also balancing the different views and factions with his administration. if hillary clinton came into office, she had a clearly defined world view, teams coming together figuring months how she would approvach all of these issues. i would wager that hillary clinton's campaign staff had meetings talking about the

scenario, what would we do if assad used chemical weapons, deemed it out. nothing like that on the trump team. they're kind of making it up as they go along. >> what is interesting here, trump's team doesn't exist. it's in a state of flux and until it settles down to actually be a team with someone in charge i think we'll continue to have all of these miscommunications. >> all right, gentlemen on that note thank you to both of you for our conversations, up next after a break i will speak with a member of congress, an iraq war veteran about why he was opposed to last week's missile strike. when "the 11th hour" continues. if you've got a life, you gotta swiffer

welcome back to our broadcast, joining our conversation about how to approach the growing humanitarian crisis in syria is u.s. congressman reuben gallegos, representing arizona, and an iraq war veteran. he sits on house armed services,

congressman, thank you very much for coming in. you were against this particular use of force, i must say, when a lot of americans woke up this morning and saw what was admittedly propaganda video of planes taking off from this relatively very small compact airport. they wondered what that was all about the night before. what was that attack about in your view? >> well, that is the problem, we don't know. it was an impulsive attack. we have no strategy about what is the next step or what is the strategy of the overall strategy in syria. we're playing with too many sides right now. and you know as somebody who has fought in the iraq war i don't want us to trip into another war in the middle east. this is the danger of praising this type of attack when in the end there is no military goal right now. and we can essentially cause ourselves a lot of damage and even really destabilize the

regime worse than it is now. >> the critics of the sean spicer briefing today have raised a good point, and that is if you're going to come out against barrel bombs as basic and gruesome a weapon as there is, do it before now. do it before -- what was the stat about 13,000 of them falling in 2016? this is dozens a day and as i mentioned many of them contained chlorine gas, for added measure? >> look, when you're dealing in international relations especially in the middle east the most important thing you could do is be predictable, is to have a doctrine that people understand, both your enemies and allies. if you're being irrational and acting irrational you will have irrational outcomes, and it will be very dangerous in this world. without a doubt what assad did was horrible and he did gas his own people.

but there should be a strategy, and repercussions, and something we're not just able to execute but execute with allies. and at the same time we should be able to use this opportunity to also put pressure on people like russia. syria is essentially a client state of russia, russia at least knowingly or was complicit in this type of nerve gas on the syrians, and the fact that we're only going to crater a couple of airport fields and think that will send a message, when russia seems to be doubling down, is incredibly naive. >> and i heard senator lindsey graham use the argument in reverse, saying it's a good thing that nobody in the administration will be able to predict how this administration will react. >> i mean, that just goes against what we understand hundreds of years of foreign policy.

it does not help the fact we have hundreds of men and women in harm's way in iraq and syria, they're within striking distance of iraq and hezbollah, and many other actors that would gladly strike against our men and women if they feel threatened. and they may feel threatened just because we're being so unpredictable with our actions, including the men and women fighting in syria, this is why we have operations to make sure we're not shooting at each other. whatever we're doing over there we should be predictable, but predictability just means we'll be able to work in a manner that brings some type of strategy, some type of doctrine that would potentially bring us good outcomes without actually getting us into a shooting war in a very volatile area of the middle east. >> congressman gallegos, in an

area west of tempe, congressman, thank you very much for coming on the broadcast, we appreciate it. >> thank you for having me, brian. and coming up, congress heads home for recess, but not all members are willing to face their constituents while they're at home when "the 11th hour" continues. [classical music] for a whole mouth clean with a less intense taste... ahhh. try listerine® zero alcohol™. also try listerine® pocketpaks for fresh breath on the go. let your reign begin. ♪ evony, the mobile game. download now.

pg&e learned a tragic lesson we can never forget. this gas pipeline ruptured in san bruno. the explosion and fire killed eight people. pg&e was convicted of six felony charges including five violations of the u.s. pipeline safety act and obstructing an ntsb investigation. pg&e was fined, placed under an outside monitor, given five years of probation, and required to perform 10,000 hours of community service. we are deeply sorry. we failed our customers in san bruno. while an apology alone will never be enough, actions can make pg&e safer. and that's why we've replaced hundreds of miles of gas pipeline, adopted new leak detection technology that is one-thousand times more sensitive, and built a state-of-the-art gas operations center. we can never forget what happened in san bruno.

that's why we're working every day to make pg&e the safest energy company in the nation. i am not going to support planned parenthood. my fight is not with planned parenthood. my fight is with no taxpayer's money going to any organization that does abortions. let me finish. ma'am, you okay? >> you are killing women. >> what is abortion doing, ma'am? >> congressman ted yoho of florida facing an angry voter tonight in his home state, only two swing district republicans that backed obamacare replacement will in fact hold

face to face town halls during this congressional recess according to usa today. the headline tonight, republicans avoid town halls after health care votes. quote, there have been roughly 30% newspaper editorials slamming lawmakers for avoiding town halls and calling on members -- i put the word percent in there, members to face their voters not only in bluer portions of the country like new york but also in critical battlegrounds. the story's writer, heidi pryzbola is here, and folks in his district know him and who they elected. who were the swing state members of congress you mentioned? >> right, well, i thought i could go ahead and quantify this trend i was seeing by observing

these editorials that you mentioned all over the country calling on members to come and face their voters and thought if it was happening with local newspapers it was happening. so i took a look at republicans who actually cast a vote. there were two members, representative ryan costello, of pennsylvania, and leonard lance, and the two were able to hold meetings with their accounta constituents, of course these members were able to cover themselves saying while i voted for it in committee i would not have voted for it if it came to the floor. this is a broader trend we're seeing, which are the members are shying away from the town hall forms. and in a certain forum, you can understand why given that some of them are being shouted down. but on the other hand, in terms of just the long-term effects of

this, this is the most basic function that members of congress were supposed to serve, which is to be accountable to their accountantconstituents. and you already have the examples of this, where they're holding empty chair town halls and dogging these members, which is in its own right grabbing attention. which is the outcome they're trying to avoid by dodging their town halls. >> kaitlin, politics as i always say is the only business where the people are the boss and customer at the same time. they don't have a lot to go home and run on or brag about, so this decision to avoid massive gatherings with the people who sent them to washington is unusual. >> it is, and what is really interesting about this cycle is that you have a very active democratic base, more active and organized by the donald trump presidency than they were by

barack obama and hillary clinton during the campaign. you also have the advancements of technology that make it very accessible for people to find out when and where their town halls are. a lot of these groups are harnessing social media to get the word out to go to these sorts of things. but the really important thing here is that republicans have promised all of these things, namely a repeal and replacement obamacare over the course of several years saying elect more of us and we will give you this. when you play that intro into the show about the hundred days of the trump presidency, really the only victory they can claim is the supreme court nominee confirmed which is a big deal but that has to do with the senate, not the house. and you explained the process by which that happens. >> and heidi, what is your 15-second answer on whether speaker ryan thought he was taking a political bullet for members in not allowing a vote?

>> i think he just didn't have the votes, and certainly some of the republicans he was sparing from the outcomes of the members we're seeing here facing on stage, but he wants to bring it back up again, that is not sparing, that is just prolonging the pain. >> thanks to both of our journalists, this is an issue, and not only are the democrats getting organized but journalists are getting organized to cover as many town hall as we can cover during the two-week recess, those who will have town halls. thank you very much, katie burns, heidi przybyla. coming up, we called the 20 presidential nomination the journalist act. today they were rewarded by their peers, despite what the president may say about them. when we continue. my daughter is...

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last things before we go here tonight, this was a big day for the enemies of the american people, this was the journalists, you will remember that donald trump called us enemies. and we'll use the titles the president of the united states has already given them. the failing "the new york times," big day, in international and feature reporting and breaking news photography. the dummies at "the wall street journal." the dying and dishonest new york

daily news, and the phoney washington post, their national reporter won for national reporting and especially his reporting on donald trump. that is going to do it for tonight on "all in". we're not going to become the