mr. mcgurk, thank you for being here.ate you making the time. >> thanks, rachel. >> i'm a layman and civilian and observer of these things. it strikes me as a sober and practical decision for us to be blowing up our own base in syria rather than allow it to fall into other's hands. it also strikes me as a very, very bad sign as to what's happening there. >> look, i don't say this lightly and i worked two years in the trump administration, he doesn't know what he's doing or talking about. he made this decision on sunday night, and without any contingency plan for our troops on the ground. and to make it worse, he cut our force, the president did, by 50% earlier this year for no reason and we already had a very small force there. and when turkey came in, very predictably, the unraveling began immediately. and our forces now on the ground don't even have enough manpower to deal with an evacuation. you know, rachel, when you're in these areas, i've been to this facility, i used to go into syria every month, every two months.

mr. mcgurk had choice words with the president today. add senior director for iraq and afghanistan in the george bush white house. he was the special envoy for the campaign against isis under president obama. that's a role he continued under president trump until he resigned in protest at the end of last year. mr. mcgurk writes today, quote, trump twice abruptly reversed curse after one, a fortunately leader call and without consulting his own military advisers. if anyone still believes trump cares about america they are wrong and includes 80 countries and two dozen contributors to the military and stabilization mission in syria leading a collision requires consultation with collision partners before major decisions are taken. this is elementary. the consequences of such unreliability from the oval will reverberate well beyond syria. the value of an american handshake is depreciatindepreci. trump said we could crush isis again if it regenerated. with whom? allies would sign up? who would fight on his assuran e assuranc assurances? bottom

mr. mcgurk had choice words with the president today.e served add senior director for iraq and afghanistan in the george bush white house. he was the special envoy for the campaign against isis under president obama. that's a role he continued under president trump until he resigned in protest at the end of last year. mr. mcgurk writes today, quote, course after one foreign leader call and two after consulting his military advisors. if anyone cares about trump and syria, he doesn't and his erratic swings heighten risk on the ground. it includes 80 countries to the military or stabilization mission in syria. leading a coalition happens before it is taken. the consequences from the oval value beyond the oval. trump said today we could crush isis again it regenerated. with whom? who would sign up? who would fight on his assurea e assuranc assurances. they deserve deliberations. erratic swings favor far more adversaries in moscow, beijing and tehran. thank you for making time. >> thank you for having me. >> so you wrote today pointedly that

mr. mcgurk's presentation to be helpful to our caucus, it does not replace the need for the trump administration and its officials to come to congress and explain their strategy. and at the same time, we should send a message to the president that both parties oppose his policy in syria. the house has passed such a resolution on an overwhelming bipartisan vote including republican leaders like leader mccarthy, representative scalise, representative cheney. i have asked the senate twice now to take up the house resolution, only to be blocked by a single republican member. i continue to believe the quickest and most powerful way to convince the president that he's on the wrong track is for congress to put a bipartisan joint resolution on his desk saying so. that's what the house resolution does and the senate should take it up and pass it. we all know that it's hard to shake the president from his thoughts and ideas, even when they are creating such disaster. his ego is enormous. but the one thing they can do, it is our republican colleagues joining us in a resolution that reaches his desk. when r

mr. trump's actions. joining our discussion now, brett mcgurk served in the national security positions under presidents bushrump, most recently as the envoy leading the global campaign to defeat isis. he's a senior foreign affairs analyst for msnbc. also joining us, malcolm nance. brett mcgurk, your reaction to "the times'" reporting about this? >> well, it's quite an extraordinary report. and what strikes me is the fact that when president trump had this call with president erdogan, this fateful call on october 6th, i think quite clearly there was no process to staff that call to brief the president, so he fully understood the consequences if erdogan had a green light to cross the border, green light to cross border, because nobody was providing more intelligence on baghdadi -- and this isn't new. this has been going on for years now. the majority of the and what's happened since then, all the kurdish areas of syria, along the border, the vast majority of them, we've abandoned those areas and they're now under the control of russia and the assad regime. our ability to continue to prosecute this campaign, t

mr. trump almost single-handedly got us there. >> you know, ambassador mcfaul, there are two phone calls now under scrutiny. and general mccaffrey and brett mcgurkrmer u.s. envoy to the coalition to fight isis have both called for understanding more about what went on in this phone call. but there's one guy who knows. secretary of state mike pompeo, he was on the call with erdogan, the state department official said the official didn't characterize his views but pompeo had opposed the president's previous move to withdraw u.s. forces. so pompeo sits on the phone with zelensky, listens to donald trump ask for dirt on the bidens. mike pompeo america's secretary of state, sits on the phone, listens to donald trump green light a military operation that imperils the lives of our troops in syria and sends our kurdish allies running into the arms of assad. what's pompeo doing? >> great point. i'm glad you pointed that out. >> that was for ambassador mcfaul. we'll come back to you, general. >> but, general, i am just going to agree with you. i think that general mccaffrey said earlier is really important and that it gets to pompeo is that the normal sta