joining me to discuss his michael weiss. this stood out to me. of the main backed militias decided to suspend action in tikrit because the u.s. was involved. how does that play out? michael: it was backed by the revolutionary core and shiite militias. these militias are very anti-american. they are looking to export the islamic revolution into iraq. the battle was supposed to have been finished by now. 25,000 forces, of which 20,000 or more were of these shia militia groups. they were supposed to sack tikrit in no time at all. last week, the battle was stalled. isis has maybe 700 militants holding the city. booby-trapped the place with i.e.d.'s, snipers, suicide bombings. they have bled the militias severely. iraqi government says we cannot win without u.s. air power. the united states is saying this is a victory for us because it means iran cannot do the job iran would like to do. i have seen statements coming out from centcom, the pentagon, the state department. these militias have not gone away. in tikrit today, you had two advisors in central

likely used a russian-made pistol and let's put it in context, joining me is foreign columnist michael weiss and he interviewed boris nemtsov in 2013. when we were speaking last hour michael, you made the point that you were surprised to see how strongly vladimir putin came out condemning this murder. why? >> usually when critics of his government are killed under very suspicious circumstances he doesn't mention them by name. his preference is to sort of relegate them to the ash heap of history as sort of irrelevancies in terms of russian culture and society. in this case he did come out, i mean very swiftly to say that you know this was a provocational-seeming crime that needs to be punished and he's personally meaning putin, will oversee the investigation. a lot of observers of rush a contemporary and historical russia and myself included have made the assassination of sergei kurov in 2004 and this was a high-party oible fishl, a communist, orchestrated by joseph stalin to have a dragnet of the opposition figures in the country. so i've seen a lot of people and pulitzer prize-winning histo

my next guest interviewed boris them seve several times and most recently in 2013 and michael weiss. let me begin with this. i know that you spoke in estonia with nemtsov two years ago and he said that putin is part of a mafia. we all know how he felt about president putin, but was it to the point where he was worried about retaliation and some are saying this is clearly political and putin is saying we have nothing to do with it. >> i think he felt a certain degree of impunity up until recently. he's confided in people that he thought putin might kill him in the last year or so. he was being surveilled 24/7 by the russian security forces and it's also important to understand, being anti-war, opposed to the russian invasion of ukraine and the annexation of crimea is an extremely dangerous opposition and there are opposition figures who try to straddle the line and nemtsov was one of the most vociferous critics in ukraine. and wasn't like he had been escorting a young ukrainian companion and he had visited kiev several times and they've cast him as a fifth columnist or a traitor and t

to look at in the hour ahead, and joining us is fareed zakaria host of "fareed zakaria gps" and michael weiss from the daily beast and kareem barun is a book of "fighting fundamentalist isis." and graeme you say that this sis a perversion of islam and you say it is a very primitive look. >> yes, they look at the islamic text of the koran and the hadith, and they have a literal interpretation of the text. >> and they are literal. >> yes, very extreme of the interpretation, and they do care about the texts, and they do have a collection of the scholars and not widely known scholars but people who look at the texts, and look at what happens because of the text. >> but people who are joining, they are not islamic scholars but people in street gangs. >> and yes, graeme's articles tell us who the true believers believe. and why is this catching on. and islamic ideology has been around for centuries, but why is that catching on now? it seems two layers that are at operation. one is that a lot of the people feel dispossessed andssessed and the stagnant economies economies, and the middle east has 85%

. >> joining us, michael weiss. so michael, iran helps beat islamic state in one battle area.what does that mean? >> i think the congressman was quite right. this is iran taking over iraq. this is what i call the hezbollahization of iraq's military. you mentioned that the ayatollah is not backing away from nuclear negotiations and that he blames the united states for isis. shia groups trained and backed by the qods force, iran's elite foreign intelligence operations team, are going around saying the u.s. is dropping aid to isis. one group claimed that they're launching and moving anti-aircraft missiles to target american cargo planes. >> so they don't say that the americans created the islamic state by going in and knocking off saddam hussein. they say we're actively in there, like the 9/11 inside job. >> and this curtails with assad's regime from day one. the u.s. and the zionists and the saudis are responsible for the rise of al qaeda. so listen to the rhetoric. these shia militia groups, the ideology that is funding them, fouling them, this is an anti-american ideology. the

and michael weiss, co-author of isis inside the journal of terror. it's a new threat.ing. >> it is anderson it was done by al quaeda it's been done by the taliban. but the isis crew are just better at it. they are more organized, they can pull off social media sites. i think most of the pictures you see have come from facebook pages, from press releases and certainly, we are still very concerned about it. imagine if you are a family member of that soldier or that pilot, you see suddenly your address, it strikes fear and it's another attempt at isis to just instill fear within tear enemies. >> i mean we have seen people acting out on this michael, people in england killing a british soldier, griggby his last name beheading him on the street. >> remember the emyoulation of british airmen. there was a whole section at the end of a jordanian pilot and tear hometowns if jordan. the idea is we have located you. we know you are a part of this air company. we are hoping to inspire some jihadi in jordan. >> i remember looking at that list closely. a lot of toys guys lived on ba

michael weiss, thank you for being with us. >> sure. >> you two were in estonia in 2013.can you tell me about that conversation? >> well he was quite keen on expanding the nagnitsky act, a u.s. law that was passed recently back then anyway that sought to impose visa bans and freeze the assets of russian officials, named after a famous -- well now famous russian tax attorney who exposed a $230 million tax fraud perpetrated by members of the russian government. he was then railroaded by the very people he exposed for the crime that he exposed. so nemtsov was very keen on, you know the main bulwarks of his work since 2000 has been to expos rampant russian, he named names, people involved in the sochi olympics he considered one of the most notorious and expanse i was acts of theft, not coincidentally some of the people he named wound up on u.s. sanctions over the invasion of ukraine. if you look at what the treasury department had to say, the money and figures they cited often -- so he actually still was a relevant opposition leader despite what the kremlin is saying he was c

joining us is co-author of "isis: inside the army of terror" michael weiss joins us this morning. >>gnificant is this to you. what does it say about this american military veteran trying to join isis? that's significant, isn't it? >> i mean it is and it isn't. in a sense that look how many thousands of people are former military veterans? i mean this guy was a mechanic he wasn't an air force pilot. i don't know that he was recently deployed anywhere. we don't know the back story or psychological motivation. it seems that he was definitely radicalized. he had told his wife his new wife that he wanted to go off to palestine to do jihad. obviously the authorities have confiscated or retrieved various sort of radical islamic imagery on his mobile devices and so on. everyone wants the perfect, you know explainer for why people go off to join isis. it's different reasons for different people. this guy could have had a psychological breakdown in his life and just decided, you know committing holy war is the way do go. you know i've seen cases of people who are just lured to the ultraviolent

the country is de facto and iraq as we know it is finished. >> michael weiss, thank you, i think.ch. this is a fascinating concept. really think about it. why one deckorated combat veteran said the military should tap you upper class americans for war. we will discuss his new cole lum. plus, the conversation you will likely won't be happening with your starbucks barista. but the coffee giant is saying about the much criticized campaign on race relations. we'll be right back. the real question that needs to be asked is "what is it that we can do that is impactful?" what the cloud enables is computing to empower cancer researchers. it used to take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome; with the microsoft cloud we can analyze 100 per day. whatever i can do to help compute a cure for cancer, that's what i'd like to do. >>> what if we were to write race together on every starbucks cup and that facilitated a conversation between you and our customers? if a customer asks you what this is try and engage in a discussion that we have problems in this country with regard to race and rac

michael weiss, the co-arthur of isis inside the army of terror. this is we're told a very critical point in this campaign to take back tikrit. what has it taken to get to this point? >> well, good morning, first of all, chris. you have about 20,000 iraqi soldiers outside the city of tikrit. they fought up from a shia holy city to their south. they're heading toward mosul on the supply lines. tikrit is critical. again, i say there's been about 20,000 iraqi forces. two-thirds of those are either shia militia or folks from baghdad. only about a third are actually fighters from the iraqi army. it's important because the force is there giving advice and assistance. and you only have about a thousand and 2,000 isis fighters in the town of tikrit. so there is overwhelming odds. they have attempted to take this city before. they have had differenty doing that. now, taking tikrit and turning it over is critically important to the overall campaign of the iraqi government. >> what does it mean to have our top general dempsey on the ground there. >> i know hi

and later, michael weiss "isis."nd the national museum of health and medicine to view items from their civil war collection, including artifacts related to president lincoln's assassination. let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments at c hfl span.olg. or send us a tweet. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. >> now isis rears their ugly head. we shouldn't be surprised by that. we can't undo decades of soviet era and saddam hussein issue stuff in eight years. afghanistan, according to the president's announcements, we currently have 10,000 troops there in a training year. we're going to drawdown to 5,000, and then zero the year after that. i would think we will see a similar effect. that army will be very shaky. >> on "q & a" the failed u.s. tragedy in iraq and iran and what we should have done differently. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us on the program now is cory mccray. he is a delegate in the state of maryland. he's here

i want to bring in mike weiss. michael, i want you to listen first to what president obama said about six months ago. >> this counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady relentless effort to take out isil wherever they exist using our air power. and our support for partners forces on the ground. this strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us while supports partners on the front lines is one that we have successfully pursued in yemen and somalia for years. >> what happened? you listen to that and that's the only question you can ask, what happened? >> oops. this is another jv team type of statement that i think the president thinks he should have never said. what's happened in yemen now, you have four competitive passions. you've got the rebels bombing the capital, you've got isis, which is now, i mean in a stunning debut, this horrific bombing of shiite mosques killing hundreds of people, probably their most spectacular attack outside of syria, then you have sunni tribes fighting and of course al qaeda

let's talk to michael weiss, a fellow with the institute of modern russia and buck sexton former cia discussed last week a lot of people were skeptical as to whether anyone would be arrested and now we have six suspects. >> right. look it's important to put all of this in context. putin's ascension to power came after appearing tough on islamic extremistism and he had the famous comment we'll rub them out in the out houses and his consolidation of power and also the result of cracking down on islamic extremism. so people in rush a at least those who van oppositional bent don't buy this at all and they think this is part of the same scenario. possibly pressaging another state crackdown or getting tough or security measures and not really aimed at terrorism and aimed at the opposition or what remains of it today. >> it's interesting, buck that one of the people who has been arrested and detained has apparently admitted to this. what do you make of that? >> i would expect something like that has happened. that's not surprising at all and they're checking off all of the boxes. one person

stephen weiss, jim lebenthal, pete najarian and michael block of rhino trading joining us for 6awell.ve, what do you make of the markets here. it seemed as though perhaps yesterday was as strong, maybe sell signal for some people as we've had in a while, just for sake of reaching the milestones? >> i don't think it's unusual after the market hits the psychological levels, for it to sell off or retrace. people say let me take my profits off the table, let me, you know, can't go much higher. this was a tough point, 15 years ago. but having said that, we're seeing this volatility which strikes me as how cheap vol has gotten and risk has gotten. there's no excuse for anybody out there not to have risk to protect their portfolio. the volatility we've seen called down a little bit in february, but i dot think it's gone. it's going to continue to be with us the rest of the year. i'm not alarmed by it. i don't think there's major values out there. some areas maybe energy higher price target, david ruben stein was great on squawk this morning. i'm staying with the market, moving more into euro

let's meet our starting lineup, stephen weiss the managing partner of short hills capital, jon and pete najarian are the co-founders of optionmonster, michaellock is chief strategist at rhino trading partners, paul richards head of fx at ubs and joe davis head of ininvestment strategy at vanguard. apple and the dow. as america's most loved stock enters the index after the close, will it fall victim to the curse of the dow or buck that trend. losing the lockup with alibaba insiders finally tree freeh to sell, now the time to buy or beware. a stock that seems to have lost its luster. we begin with decision day. a day investors have been waiting for, maybe dreading. the moment we may learn how much closer the fed is to raising interest rates and the markets truly ready? stocks lower ahead of that. rates move to the downside. it's a simple question, are we ready for the fed to raise rates? >> i think we are. the market seems to have given yellen a free pass. >> we you or we the market? >> i'm always ready. we the market is ready and i'll tell you why. as far as the markets are concerned patience comes out. having said that i'm not sure it does,

let's meet our starting lineup, stephen weiss the managing partner of short hills capital, jon and pete najarian are the co-founders of optionmonster, michaelstrategist at rhino trading partners, paul richards head of fx at ubs and joe davis head of ininvestment strategy at vanguard. apple and the dow. as america's most loved stock enters the index after the close, will it fall victim to the curse of the dow or buck that trend. losing the lockup with alibaba