different players in a hotel with the latest there from the turkey syria border think you well joel rubin is a former senior official of the u.s. state department and joins me live now from washington d.c. sir thank you so much for joining us here on al-jazeera i guess 1st of all your reaction to this statement the u.s. president saying is going to issue an executive order authorizing sanctions i mean he had spoken about sanctions before do you get the sense that it's a president under pressure because this move within the u.s. has been received so badly let alone in the region itself. yeah absolutely this is a day late and a dollar short we like to say here he is being dragged to do these sanctions if he had wanted to put pressure on turkey and make sure that they were not going to slaughter the kurds he should have done that when he spoke with president aragon on the phone last week when he green lighted this invasion of northern syria so more sanctions actually not only will have minimal impact on the turkish military moves but they also potentially harm another important economic rela

beijing let's discuss this more now with joel rubin who's president of the washington strategy group who was formerly u.s. dip in the assistant secretary of state under president obama and he joins us from washington d.c. nice to have you with us of course on a very critical of the obama years he said that obama did not push back enough against china china continue to rip off intellectual property manipulate its currency and run up big trade surpluses when mike pence is that china is a strategic and economic rival isn't he right. but it's great to be with you. yes china certainly is a competitor of the united states and a rival in many respects but president trump when he criticizes president obama's strategy he fails to mention that we actually had built up a coalition of countries through the trans pacific pacific partnership agreement that c.p.p. that was going to actually advance our ability to engage china and ensure the concerns about intellectual property and other trade issues can be dealt with from a position of strength. position of strength is this precisely what president

well let's get more on this now we're joined by joel rubin former u.s. deputy assistant secretary of state commentry president of the washington strategy group and he's joining us live from washington d.c. mr rubin thank you very much for your time this evening so atypically be with you a typically defiant president at the on do you think president trumps threats carry any weight no not at all and i think that's why we're seeing a panic here in washington about what the turks are doing in northern syria because there's a sense that the president president trump. outmaneuvered in his phone call with with the president there to one on sunday night and the result is that turkey is doing what it wants to do and has wanted to do for some time and that the u.s. was resisting and so now going backwards in time is not a viable approach and it's a there's a lot of skepticism about our ability to influence turkey right now and what about the u.s. congress to. influence to this. well if sanctions are passed and it's possible that some type of sanctions bill will be

. >> joel rubin worked in the state department and joins me to discuss.k you for joining me this morning. your reaction to that? >> that is a great phone call example of diplomacy in action, people talking, jeffrey was career ambassador to ukraine. victoria newland was the assistant secretary handling ukraine. turns out she was a senior advisor to dick cheney in the mid-2000s and they are talking about the elections and how to engage a deal with ukraine's transition after autocratic leadership with russia transitioning in the violence period to ensure the elections were free and fair for the ukrainian people. >> this was before the regime change and the people at home now if you listen to the entire leaked a the favored candidate mentioned in a ultimately is the one who when the regime change happened took over. >> in 2014 after what happens, victor fled to russia, invited them to invade ukraine to protect him and this was bipartisan. john mccain was a leading voice in ensuring that there would be competition and ultimately when he won the election. we ha

hoping to avoid mr rubin is great to get your insights on this we do appreciate your time that's joel rubin live in washington d.c. thanks so much. well the u.n. security council discussed the turkish offensive on diplomatic as a james bays has more on what was said behind closed doors from the u.n. headquarters in new york the u.n. security council ambassadors had been talking about colombia in open session i mean by that because their members to you for my quince notation but when they headed to the deliberations on syria they were held in the closed consultation room next to the chamber perhaps they didn't want yet more division on the latest phase of syria's long war to be seen in public behind closed doors they couldn't agree on words for a joint statement instead the u.s. ambassador tried to sum up her country's position after days of controversy and confusion in washington on whether president trump had given the green light to the turkish operation we just finished our consultations on syria and as the president has made abundantly clear the u.s. has not in any way endorsed the deci

arthel: we're going to bring in former deputy assistant secretary of state, joel rubin. turkey doing, what is russia doing? >> yeah, arthel, turkey is about to engage in ethnic cleansing, and russia is backing them up. and it's really tragic because we had our foot on the neck, essentially, of isis. we defeated them, and now donald trump is taking it off. and i understand why he claims he wants to bring our troops home, but as you hearing from this report as well, our troops aren't coming home. they're going to iraq, they're staying in syria, and turkey now feels free rein to engage in massacring our kurdish allies who helped us defeat isis, and it's a real tragedy. arthel: yeah. and the troops that went to iraq, iraq saying you didn't ask me if you could bring your troops over there. you've got one month to get them out of here. meanwhile, i want to show you a tweet from brett mcgurk, former special presidential envoy to the middle east, as you know, to defeat isis. he worked under presidents bush, obama and trump. syria, last 24 hours, u.s. military returns to guard oi

i want to bring in joel rubin into the conversation. and joel, you worked at state. i sort of think that we need to understand, why this have been a normal course of events for an ambassador to a place that isn't ukraine to be involved in this conversation, to put the special envoy on hold, on text basically, and go check with the president about what the real story was or what story the president would like to have out there, and then communicate that, and then tell everybody let's get off text so that this is not memorialized? >> wow, you just laid out everything that could possibly be wrong and this is all wrong. and you know, i testified to the benghazi committee when i served at state in 2015. and i remember a time when mike pompeo who was on that committee went crazy about the idea of possible email communications that they weren't getting. and these were email communications at the time that were on the state department server. so this is hypocrisy of the highest magnitude, off the books communications, encrypted text messages. this is the tip of the iceberg.

garrett haake, mieke eoyang and joel rubin, thank you. >>> why it pays for senate republicans to stand by the president during the impeachment inquiry. >>> but next, what could john bolton know and what could he tell law makers? deep diving into him next. but we're also a company that controls hiv, fights cancer, repairs shattered bones, relieves depression, restores heart rhythms, helps you back from strokes, and keeps you healthy your whole life. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. i felt i couldn't be at my best for my family. in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured and left those doubts behind. i faced reminders of my hep c every day. but in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured. even hanging with friends i worried about my hep c. but in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured. mavyret is the only 8-week cure for all common types of hep c. before starting mavyret your doctor will test if you've had hepatitis b which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b, a liver or kidney transpl

joel rubin served as deputy assistant secretary of state under president obama. phil rucker, pulitzer prize-winner, the white house bureau chief for the "washington post." anne gearan, white house correspondent for the "washington post," and bret stephens, pulitzer prize-winning op ed columnist for "the new york times." philippe, to you first. what is the significance of these apparent omissions from what the president called a perfect, exact, word-for-word transcript? do these emissions change the narrative around this call? >> they could potentially, steph. what the omissions show is that, clearly, this was not a perfect transcript, a complete transcript, as the president has been saying. it was rather a rough transcript with those ellipses that were noted, by the way, at the time. the omissions, according to the testimony of the lieutenant colonel, include a reference by the president to biden being on tape, which would be another piece of information that helps you fill out the portrait of what the president was trying to communicate to his ukrainian counterp