try to cross into europe from turkey the greek prime minister convenes a meeting of the national security council a major setback just that day after the u.s. taliban deal was signed the afghan president refuses to commit to a prisoner swap. let's get back on. and back in the race joe biden's presidential debate gets a much needed boost in south carolina next on super tuesday. welcome to the program turkey has announced a full scale military operation against the syrian government dubbed operation spring shield it follows the killing of $34.00 turkish soldiers in italy province on thursday turkish jets have shot down 2 syrian army warplanes that were carrying out a combat mission in the rebel held area of reports stuff from the turkey syria border . but you aren't turkish and syrian fighter jets faced off in an encounter in the skies above aleppo and it with 2 syrian warplanes down the confrontation marked in u.s. collation in the conflict between turkey and syria. turkey's defense minister warned that turkish troops will retaliate against and if air that attack. also announced operation spring s

. >> the national security council used to have a global health team specifically to deal with pandemics like this. president trump shut it down

things and 2018 the president shut down the national security council and in his budget cutting out $700 million for cdc and said with we need those employees we will get them back. what they are doing a job and we have to recognize the value e their work and have them trust the fact they will not be here today and gone tomorrow and get another job. so there is one - - is some mistakes that were made not so much to drill on the but to say we cannot do that the national security council and related agencies quite frankly if you want to see a template of such an epidemic look to what the obama administration is. and to allocate resources for those to evaluate the epidemiology what are the prospects much of that was a race with the trump administration and the reality of this even if the president thinks it is 65 or whatever it does that day and that was in the public domain with the administration. had we go forward recognizing but then to take responsibility. >> we just want to get people well. we wanto to make sure this does not spread and as we go forward so simply we have no idea so th

. >> the national security council used to have a global health team specifically to deal with pandemics like this. president trump shut it down years ago. >> he got rid of the white house's entire global health security team. >> for some reason president trump eliminated that office two years ago. >> laura: everything you just heard was a lie. here's the proof. in this op-ed by former nsc official tim morrison, he said the white house didn't dissolve its pandemic response office. i was there because i let the very directorate assigned to that mission. for a year and then i headed off to another official who still holds the post. i know the charge is specious. tim morrison who is now a senior fellow at the great hudson institute joins us now, it's great to see you. do we know from whom this false claim initially originated? was it your predecessor? >> i can't say where it originated from but i think it's unfortunate claim that distracts us from where we need to be paying attention. >> laura: what do the american people need to know about this given the fact that they have heard other lie

greece's prime minister has called for missing of the national security council as thousands of refugees and migrants continue to gather at its land border with turkey a local media is reporting that greek security forces have prevented 10000 people from entering over the past 24 hours the surge in numbers follows turkey's decision to open its borders to europe great police say more than 500 refugees and migrants also arrived on the greek islands closest to turkey on sunday most of them landing on the island of lesbos john psaropoulos is in less valse and that's the main entry point for refugees and migrants coming from the aegean sea he has this report. a single boat load of refugees is asked. altered to the shores of less force high winds have likely prevented many others from crossing but they are forecast to die down and more boats are expected to come all who arrive and up here in moria camp there are 22000 people here 7 times what it was built for and many have to find space among the olive groves most are from afghanistan they've escaped war and death but many say they haven't fou

greece's prime minister has called a meeting of the national security council has thousands of refugees and migrants gather at its land border with turkey 10000 people have been prevented from entering in the past 24 hours. iran has confirmed 11 more fatalities from the coronavirus with the national death toll now highest outside of mainland china 54 deaths have been reported since the outbreak was confirmed a week and a half ago infections of surge to 978 the health ministry has dismissed claims the figures are much higher but it says the outbreak is serious and is warning against all travel into iraq he says the outbreak is having a major impact on daily life and the economy. stores shops cafes restaurants all around the city wherever you go you can see signs posted on windows of closed closed businesses saying that they are closed indefinitely due to the coronavirus and those few restaurants that do remain open some businesses have to remain open. on the tables at all of these restaurants you'll find a bottle of hand sanitizer sitting right next to ketchup bottles so that's really wh

greece's land border with turkey the greek prime minister has called in a meeting of the national security council to deal with the crisis greek security forces have prevented 10000 people from entering over the past day the surge in numbers follows turkey decision on its borders to europe greek police say more than 500 refugees and migrants also arrived on the greek islands close. mr turkey on sunday the e.u. border and coast guard agency or frontex has already deployed hundreds of its staff to greece and bulgaria and is looking to deploy even more in response to al-jazeera as questions the agency said we are monitoring the situation closely and of raise the level for all borders with turkey to hi we're also monitoring the situation in cyprus says say we are in close and constant contact with the greek authorities regarding additional support we can provide in this rapidly evolving situation. is in a d.n.a. on turkey's border with greek she says the situation is increasingly desperate for people trying to cross the border. for about 45 minutes we could hear sound bombs just to give you some conta

and stun grenades to keep the crowds back the greek prime minister has met his country's national security council and says no asylum requests will be accepted for months on friday the turkish president announced that he will open the borders to europe for migrants. the us taliban agreement may already be facing a major obstacle afghanistan's president ashraf ghani has announced the government has not committed to releasing 5000 taliban prisoners he says this means a prisoner swap cannot be a precondition for talks with the armed group. the husband of a british iranian woman jailed in iran unless binoche charges believes his wife is contracted coronavirus richard ratcliffe said or thought he is at evin prison in tehran refused to testify as an instigator the radcliffe despite her developing a strange cold that hasn't improved in more than 5 days the british foreign office has called on the government to allow health officials into the prison immediately . you're a wise new president has been sworn in marking the country's shift to the right after 15 years of leftwing rule conservative luis like io

the defense department thinks and what state thinks and how it gets integrated into the national security council, that institution is important and there are a lot of institutions. and i made a pitch for tim snyder's earlier book, the road to unfreedom, he's also got a book on tyranny which i recommend as well and one of the things he points out in that book is the importance of institutions and strengthening institutions. what do they mean? they maybe george washington university is an institution. higher education more broadly area us foreign policy structure is an institution. the private sector, these are all pieces that kind of provide guidelines and provide direction and provide a conscience for what we are all trying to do in our different ways so let me chris stop there and hope that something i said there prompted some disagreement or some other arguments. i would love to have the opportunity to talk with chris and you about them so thank you very much. [applause] >> i'll turn this back on (inaudible) >> does that work? >> you called us how institutions are so very important in our syst

why hasn't there been a meeting of the united nations security council? rity council? why would the 67 net virtually were they not able to issue a common statement? because the united states insisted on calling at the wuhan virus. why are we fighting over words? no words matter, but unless the world pollster gather... the un secretary—general launched a $2 billion appeal for those countries of the world. here we are sitting in britain with the nhs, for all of its imperfections and now deficiencies as we see imperfections and now deficiencies as we see in protective equipment, tests and so on, one of the best health systems in the world. spare a thought for afghanistan, spare a thought for afghanistan, spare a thought for afghanistan, spare a thought for yemen, which was already going through the worst humanitarian crisis in the world were less than half of the country's health facilities were functioning. there are global solutions but if countries produce and my country first attitude, we will all be last. i wonder before we finish at —— if i could ask yo

everything but trump did dismantle the white house pandemic response team that was part of the national security council a former senior director of the national security council's dissolved pandemic unit said its closure of the united states less prepared for the coburn $1000.00. can i mean it could have been worse the president could have disbanded the white house extremely contagious respiratory illnesses that start with a dry cough response team. a reporter you me shell sindoor from p.b.s. asked him about it my 1st question is you said that you don't take responsibility but you did disband the white house pandemic office in it and officials that were working in that office left this administration abruptly so what responsibility do you take to that in the officials that worked in that office said that you that the white house lost valuable time because that office wasn't disbanded what do you make of that well i just think it's a nasty question because what we've done is and tony had said numerous times that we saved thousands of lives because of the quick closing and when you say me i didn't do it

because the president is not a fan of science or john bolton was trying to streamline the national security council. since then, open course reporting has warned about the risk of global pandemics as a major threat to the united states. president trump and the national security council get classified intelligence on those matters and others and president trump has failed to staff up appropriately in light of those threats. >> samantha, i have to wrap it there. thank you so much. good to have you. >> thanks. >>> breaking news regarding the coronavirus here in the u.s. new york is confirming right now the state's first death related to the virus. new york's governor said the victim is an 82-year-old woman with preexisting emphysema. she died yesterday in the hospital. we'll keep you posted as we get more information. >>> the virus is forcing 2020 candidates to adapt to new ways of campaigning. joe biden attempting his first virtual town hall. it didn't go so well. ♪ ♪ you work hard for your money. stretched days for it. ♪ ♪ juggled life for it. ♪ ♪ took charge for it. ♪ ♪ so care for it. look after i

cross into europe from turkey the greek prime minister convenes a meeting meeting of the national security council. a major setback just a day after the u.s. taliban deal was signed the afghan president refuses to commit to a prisoner swap. the woman being stuck in the band no where to go and part of what you're trying to the sense of control on a husband's plea for help his wife is jailed in iran and likely infected with the coronavirus. hello welcome to the program russia says it cannot guarantee the safety of turkish military planes in the skies over syria's problems moscow's warning was made after turkey announced a full scale military operation against the syrian government and shut down 2 of its planes over the rebel held area turkey has ramped up military operations following the killing of 34 turkish soldiers on thursday and the expiring of a deadline by turkey's president for syrian troops to pull back from the rebel held province the syrian government says it's now closing the airspace over the italy breaching of reports from the turkey syria border. but you aren't turkish and syrian fig

and this administration has left critical positions vacant at homeland security and the national security council. including positions responsible for managing pandemics. americans need their elected leaders to spend less time tweeting and more time making sure that government resources are coordinated and fully funded and ready to combat this outbreak. soon, the house will move forward to provide emergency funding that matches the scale and threat of the coronavirus. we must make sure that the president and the administration uses these funds for what they are intended, a comprehensive and aggressive response to managing the coronavirus outbreak and making sure that any future vaccines or treatments are affordable and available to all who need them. we also must hold the president and his administration accountable for the information they share with the american people. three years of keeping science and facts at arm's length have rightly made people suspicious of what comes out of the white house. and now as americans worry for the health of themselves and their loved ones, they unfortunately

national security team as a whole took on that recommendation. what did we do? we created a global health security and pandemic preparedness directorate within the national security council. to work alongside the other dedicated units within the national security council that are assigned to an dedicated to other transnational threats. so in a worldna in which experts and non-alarmist people like bill gates have said pandemic disease is likely to kill for most people in the shortest period of time over the next ten years, and that's how he has described pandemic disease, and that kind of world i think we ought to have, and by the way when our intelligence community in its annual worldwide threat assessment puts pandemic disease and emerging infectious disease as amongst the top threats that we face as a nation, i think it's not crazy to say we ought to have a dedicated unit of professionals within subject matter experts, i'm not talking political folks, subject matter experts working day in and day out inor the national security council just like we t have a counterterrorism directorate or a cyber threat directorate. that's an elementary approach. we did and made a lot o

decision to open its borders to europe the greek prime minister has called a meeting of the national security council greek security forces say they've had prevented 10000 people from entering in the past 24 hours and greek police are reporting that more than 500 refugees and migrants arrived on the greek islands closest to turkey on sunday the e.u. border and coast guard agency called frontex has already deployed hundreds of its staff to greece and area and is looking to deploy more the agency says we are monitoring the situation closely and have raised the alert level for all borders with turkey to high they also say they are monitoring the situation in cyprus they say we are in close and constant contact with the greek authorities regarding additional support we can provide in this rapidly evolving situation al jazeera natasha name is intervene on turkey's side of the border with greece she says the situation is increasingly desperate for people trying to cross the border. for about 45 minutes we could hear sound bombs just to give you some contacts this road behind me leads to the official checkp

national security advisor. this was the national security council. he said he knew nothing about it which of course is stunning given the fact that if he is telling the truth, he didn't know what he was going on in his administration. and if he isn't telling the truth, which seems more likely at this point, then you have a president saying i'm completely aloof and don't want any responsibility for this pandemic. >> very quickly, first of all, congratulations to you on just standing up for yourself. i saw you trying to follow up but we couldn't hear you. one of our reporters said is the mics get cut after the president decide he is finished with a reporter and doesn't want to talk to them anymore. in fact, was your mic cut after you asked the question? >> that's right. i was trying to ask the follow-up question to say it was your national security council but you cooperate hear me because the white house cut off the mics. >> just for the audience hear, beth cameron actually served as senior director for this office. wrote an op-ed about the council be

in 2018 the president shut down the part of the national security council that deals with this issue. just shut it down. never appointed other people in the role. in his budget, he cut out $700 million for cdc. when asked, he said, "i just don't like having a lot of employees around. when we need them, we'll get them back." well, they're doing a job and we have to recognize the value of their work and have them trust the fact that they will not be here today, gone tomorrow, and oh, don't get another job because we may hire you back later. so it i think there were some mistakes that were made. but not so much to dwell on them but to go into the future and say, we can't do that. the people who are there in the obama administration, in the national security council and related agencies, were there for this particular purpose. if you want to see a template about how to deal with such an epidemic as ebola, look to what the obama administration did. it was picture perfect. it was really excellent in terms of how to husband and allocate resources, also talent, talent. to put some of our scie

doha these are all top news stories greece's prime minister has called for a meeting of the national security council as thousands of refugees and migrants continue to gather at his land border with turkey local media say 10000 people have been prevented from entering of the past 24 hours 40 say more than 500 have also arrived on its islands closest to turkey most of them landing on less false. we're standing at the beach on the north shore of lesbos where both arrived this morning with 74 people mostly from afghanistan some of them still lingering here on the beach and the boat which has now been deflated you can see lying in the shallows there on the beach behind me this is one of 7 both arrivals recorded by the coast guard early on sunday morning roughly 360 people crossing over from the turkish coast to 3 greek islands most of those boats arriving here on lesbos 360 people doesn't amount to the threatened flood. the president. announced on thursday night 72 hours ago but more boats are expected today so we shall see how it goes this is early hours and early days in this new phase of the refugee c

and excellent one, which was that the president had disbanded the pandemic center at the national security council, interestingly enough, we have you, you were senior director for global health at the national security council under president obama through president trump, until they eliminated the position. why is it significant? do you think if you had been there or if you had been replaced by somebody with the same position, maybe the trump administration and others would have begun to have this press conference that they had today back in january, when the first patients started showing up in the united states? >> i absolutely think it would have made a difference. first i want to say it's graiea news that tony fauci and debbie birx are on tv making a pitch to get this under control, that's excellent, we have scientists and we have scientists with fact-based guidance driving part of the press conference today. but would we have gotten more ahead of this if the office had still been intact, i think absolutely. so during the obama administration, during the ebola crisis in 2014, a day did not go

washington post" debunking the idea that he closed down the whole pandemic response team and the national security councileorganized the national security council and trimmed it down, but the pandemic response team remains in effect. the pandemic defense team remains in effect. similarly this claim that he was telling the states they are on their own in terms of requiring the vital medical protection equipment, turns out what he was saying if you can get it faster, by all means do so. this president doesn't get a fair shake. even some of these governors with whom he appears to be working closely with who are democrats seem to be having trouble, or at least their staffs do in not leaking out stuff from their conversations that turns out not to be true but reflects badly on the president. >> shannon: talked about gavin newsom, the governor has had nice things to say about the president and he is not a fan. let's hope that we can all work together. brit hume, always good to have you with us. >> thanks, shannon. >> shannon: breaking news on the primary fronts tonight, ohio postponing its votes due to a health

missile launch, five european countries lodged a complaint condemning the action in the united nation's security counciln of united nation security council regulations. pyongyang fired back saying these type of military exercise are simply defensive measures. >> many thanks to you, joining us live from seoul. >>> we'll take a short break. coming up next on cnn, refugees kicked out of greece with no clothes and no id. the migrant crisis on the turkish/greek burden takes a turn. we'll have more when we get back. ♪ i want to rock! (rock!) ♪ i want to rock! (rock!) ♪ i want to rock! (rock!) ♪ i want to rock! (rock!) ♪ rock! (rock) ♪ rock! (rock) ♪ rock! (rock) ♪ i want to... (chris rock) who'd you expect? (sylvester stallone) i don't know...me? (vo) ♪ i want to rock! ♪ rock! (rock) ♪ rock! (rock) ♪ i want to rock! welcome to portabella's. thisfor some scampi bites.eady wait a sec i feel like i know you? oh! have you dined with us before? no, you're -- you're that insurance guy, aren't you? the pasty one? oh, yeah. as if! like i'm gonna go into some spiel about how you can get options based on your budget wi

we should also immediately restore the white house national security council directorate for global health security and biodefense. with a full-time dedicated coordinator to oversee that response. our administration, our last administration, we created that office to better respond to future global threats after the ebola crisis of 2014. it was designed for exactly this scenario. for some reason i still don't understand, president trump eliminated that office two years ago. look, here's the bottom line. we have to do what's necessary to beat the challenge, beat this challenge sooner rather han later. we will beat it. i assure you, if we wait for it to worsen, then scramble to catch up, the human and economic toll will grow faster, larger and more dangerous. congress gave this administration $8 billion last week to fight the virus. we need to know exactly what that money is going to be used for. how quickly it's going out the door. and exactly how it's being spent. this brings me to the second half of the challenge in terms of economic dislocation. the coronavirus is going to cause in our c

the defense department thinks and what state thinks and how it gets integrated into the national security council. that institution is important and there are a lot of institutions. that are important. jim steiner's earlier book the road to unfreedom, he also has a book on. he. one thing he points out is important of institutions and strengthening institutions. what may they be, they may be george washington university as an institution. higher education more broadly. the u.s. foreign-policy structure is an institution. the private sector, these are all pieces that provide guidelines and provide direction and provided conscience for what were all trying to do. let me stop there and hope that something i said was prompted some disagreement or other arguments, i would love to have the opportunity to talk with chris and you about this. thank you all very much. [applause] >> i will turn this back on, thank you very much bill. institutions are so very important. in our system of government, institutions of the vehicle by which the voices of all get her. as someone, who like the work to government ofte

national security adviser at the time, other trump administration officials have denied the office was disbanded. they say it was streamlined, absorbed into other units under the national security council did that make a difference in your view? >> so it is true that the office was dissolved. so it was -- it was dissolved and folded into another directorate. what this means, it is a bureaucratic challenge, right, that governments and white house can absolutely organize the way they want to. but what happens when you fold a directorate focused on pandemics into a larger directorate, you're de facto saying the person in charge of that directorate, the senior official, has a number of jobs and in this case including iran and including north korea, including nuclear nonproliferation. that means the staff whose day to day responsibility are pandemics are lower level and they're one step removed from the national and homeland security adviser. and so i definitely think that this issue set deserves a full time human and a full time staff whose only job it is to focus on biological threats. >> the president is talking about divvying up the country to high and low risk zones, relaxing some soci

got rid of the whole global health security unit at the national security council and at homeland securityll and even at the pentagon. his global health security teams existed. they were put in place for a reason. the u.s. government had seen fit because of the experience with ebola and other novel challenges, to set those things up, inside the federal government, so we wouldn't be starting from zero, so as to prepare us for a moment like this. president trump in ex politiccally affirmatively moved to get rid of those people of the federal government unexplained in this pet fying crisis. president trump announcing a ban tonight on european travel. nobody will be allowed to travel from europe to the united states starting friday unless you're coming from the u.k., in which case it's fine, each even though the u.s. isn't any less susceptible to the virus than any other european country. we're joined next by somebody who knows what the federal government is supposed to be doing in a situation like this because he used to command those efforts in a previous administration. that's next, stay wi

doing his important job in the national security council. not getting out of his lane, focusing on what he's supposed to be doing and doing it well . i did not know him before i was kiev this last time but i interacted with him whole lot during the time that i was out there and he's always professional and he supported fiona hill, another hero. and was able to provide her with the kind of information that she needed. so those two people that you asked about i think are going to do fine. i think they're going to be fine. ambassador yovanovitch has now retired. she gave a speech at georgetown a couple of weeks ago and it was great to see. because here, ambassador yovanovitch had really been on the receiving end of some really tough things, not just from the ukraine but also as you indicated from here. and to see her, she had just retired and to see her up there on the stage making this very good set of remarks and then the reception from all of the people in the crowd, there were students like in this room, but there were also a lot of her col

the failure of the united states to vote against or to veto the united nations security council resolution state of israel that it literally deemed the western wall to be illegally occupied territory. we also inherited the jcpoa in an agreement in which the last administration released more than $100 billion to the islamic republic of iran, the world's most lethal state sponsor of terrorism and gave it a pathway to a nuclear weapon. iran used those funds to enhance its arsenal ballistic missiles and expand its malign activity throughout yemen, iraq, syria and lebanon. all the while shouting death to israel and death to america. incredibly, none of that disgraceful activity was even prohibited under the jcpoa. we did not answer office on the 50-yard line of the u.s. israel relationship. no, we found ourselves deep within our own territory and playing against the wind and so from that of vantage point we set out to work you all know what happened next. president trump fulfilled his campaign pledge the same pledge made but ignored by his predecessors and moved the united states embassy to isr

national security staff. in 2018 john bolton eliminated the ofce of global health security on the announce national security councilff. that's no the first time that happened. r e00lyuas 2ni adration eliminated it. job brought back. the obama administratioas eliminated iell. so this is actually a bipartisan blind spot. >> it is.e bush administration,n they came in, abolished the office altogether until 9/11 and the anthrax attacks. suddenly they re-created anth office it offveice, and that officetayed in place and did really good work til the next administration started. the next administration started, there were no more big epimics could tell, this was not an important issue for the national security environment, abolish the office again. >> reporter: you just said not an important issue for the national security environment. an extradinary statement, when we think about what is hap today. bout as you say, it's not angni politics. is it more about how the national security community doesn't coordinate withach other and perhaps doesn't take health seriously? >> yes, it's been the problem from the very start. the p

there, in fact, was an obama administration national security council table top exercise january 13th2017, for the incoming nsc, and the pandemic, the response to the ebola and the pandemic preparations were one of the things that was exercised for the incoming team. >> that's absolutely right. we came out of that experience somewhat, you know, somewhat calmly terrified if i can put it that way about the prospects how vulnerable we and the recalled were about future pandemics. you hear that echoed in tom bossert's comments. we tried to put a lot of infrastructure in place before we left. the administration set up the pandemic team at the white house. we put together a whole guide book on how future administrations should approach pandemic response. that was reported in politico today and i and my tecontribute to the developed of that team. there were multiple efforts to leave infrastructure in place to deal with this kind of risk and warning the incoming administration to take it seriously. >> we should do a shout-out to susan rice and her team for what they tried to get the incoming

at greece's land border with turkey the greek prime minister has called a meeting of the national security council greek security forces a free vent 210000 people from entering in the past 24 hours the surge in numbers follows turkey's decision to open its borders to europe greek police say more than 500 refugees and migrants also arrived on the greek islands closest to turkey on sunday at the e.u. border agency and coast guard which is known as frontex has already deployed hundreds of its staff to greece and bulgaria and is looking to deploy even more in response to questions the agency said we're monitoring the situation closely and have raised the alert level for all borders with turkey to high we're also monitoring the situation in cyprus they say we are in close and constant contact with the greek authorities regarding additional support we can provide in this rapidly evolving situation well let's get the latest now with natasha good name who's in it d.n.a. on turkey's border with grey's natasha tell us about what's been happening where you are and just how many people have been attempting to