should the - obama administration have done more? ., , , obama administration have done more?tions and diplomatic failure and a failure to meet humanitarian needs and this is a political emergency and a humanitarian emergency at the same time. emergencies don't happen without mistakes and there have been serious mistakes throughout the conflict. ~ , .,~ , ., conflict. mistakes that president _ conflict. mistakes that president biden - conflict. mistakes that president biden and l conflict. mistakes that. president biden and his conflict. mistakes that - president biden and his team are clearly anxious to not repeat. biden launched air strikes on iranians backed targets in syria in late february. a show of strength from the newly invested commander—in—chief. brute from the newly invested commander-in-chief. we took the action to be _ commander-in-chief. we took the action to be very _ commander-in-chief. we took the action to be very clear, _ action to be very clear, notably to a run —— iran, that they cannot act with impunity against our people, our partners and our interests.

should the obama administration have done more?ave done more? ., , , ., ., done more? there has been a global failure of monumental— done more? there has been a global failure of monumental proportions, i failure of monumental proportions, diplomatic failure and a failure to meet humanitarian needs. this is a political emergency and a humanitarian emergency at the same time. emergencies can happen without mistakes and there have been serious mistakes and there have been serious mistakes throughout the conflict. mistakes that president biden and his team are clearly anxious not to repeat. joe biden launched air strikes on iranian backed targets in syria in late february, a show of strength for the newly invested commander—in—chief. lode strength for the newly invested commander-in-chief._ strength for the newly invested commander-in-chief. we took this action to be _ commander-in-chief. we took this action to be very — commander-in-chief. we took this action to be very clear, _ commander-in-chief. we took this action to be very clea

and we saw this somewhat in the obama administration, he went around and apologized to the world for american transgressions, you conner that with -- counter that with trump administration, people loved about president's policy, people waited their whole life to spend someone to united nations to stand up and say we're not giving money to countries that hate the u.s. any more, i think that is difference, trump administration had the courage to say and do things that both republicans and democratic administrations would not do in past, with this, you see a lot of same obama folks, that did not really believe in the greatness of america. and really were more concerned with a harmonious world order than they were with putting america first. mark: i think you are right on. i think they take the position that america got where it was by being an imperialist colonialist power, america will be fine, if she is number three super power in the world. and again, i think you are right, this also addresses what has been going on domestically, 5% of world population using 25% of the world's resourc

let's look at the obama administration's policy toward syria. president obama used the words red line. if you could talk a little bit about the evolution of u.s. policy on syria under the obama administration, what happens to the red line, why there wasn't more of a response after the use of chemical weapons. attacks happened, why it didn't happen in the end. >> guest: there's lot to unpack. that gets to the meat of some of the bigger issues that are raised in the book. to start with, one has to put himself back in time in 2011. this is the obama administration is heading into its third year when arab spring breaks out. i was covering the middle east as a diplomatic reporter at the time and i also happen to have been back in the late 80s a reporter covering the fall of communism in eastern europe. the parallels were amazing. all of us who witnessed both events there was this sense of history turning. it was exciting and away, a place like democracies on the horizon in the middle east of all places, and the obama administration had to quickly scr

russia -- so it wasn't during the trump administration that putin took crimea it was during obama administration what happened immediately just a few months into this administration? now you see the russians going back into ukraine. and really taking threatening action again, putin like president xi they're going test biden they're going test the redline they were able to cross over repeatedly in the obama administration that they weren't able to cross over during the trump administration. and unfortunately, we're going see all of these countries iran as well -- testing biden, the administration's resolve to stand up for american interest abroad. mark: you know, john radcliffe president of the united states and his people have access to the same information you had access to. donald trump's national security team was strong as could be from the national security advisor to your office to pompeo and so forth. look at the people this president has surrounded himself with. it is either the obama foreign team or worse -- and as we look all over the world, and we'll get to iran a little bit later. it

should the obama administration have done more?nd a failure to meet humanitarian needs. so, this is a political emergency and a humanitarian emergency at the same time. and emergencies don't happen without mistakes and there have been serious mistakes throughout the conflict. mistakes that president biden and his team are clearly anxious to not repeat. biden launched air strikes on iranian—backed targets in syria in late february. a show of strength from the newly invested commander—in—chief. we took the action to be very clear, notably to iran, that they cannot act with impunity against our people, our partners and our interests. the possibility for nuclear negotiations are still on the table. but president biden needs congressional buy—in. i happen to agree with the republican and the trump approach, which is to put pressure on iran and make sure they pay a very heavy price for pursuing their nuclear ambition. look, right now they are enriching uranium at 20%, this is a pathway towards having a breakout nuclear weapon. that's una

under normal administration whether it was the obama administration, the trump administration, the bush a administration, the clinton administration is a model alien was arrested by a local sheriff's department, a police department, state trooper, state police or highway patrol they were flagged by ice, detainer was issued whether whether they were put on put on trial or completed the prison sentence, this prevented them from sounding and once her committal procedure was over they would be sent home, the biden a administration has stopped doing that in the vast majority of cases. so all of the criminal offenders are now being released back into the u.s. population back into your communities, back into your schools, back into the places where you live. the result is good to be massive amounts, innocent people are going to get hurt, innocent people are going to get killed, innocent people will suffer

this was something that the obama administration attempted to do to some extent. i think joe biden is really doubling and tripling down on things that are popular with americans with the hope that his administration gets credit for it and that might help him stem the side tied of history which tells us republicans should be picking up seats in the coming election. lisa: it seems like we used to have infrastructure week, now it seems like we'll have infrastructure year or infrastructure two years. also this week, there was a courtroom full of covid safe flexi glass which is the latest lens for america. former officer derek chauven charged with second degree murder in the dead of george floyd. the jury heard testimony and america heard the pain of those who watched george floyd go unconscious under a police knee. >> did you make a 911 call? >> i did. >> mr. floyd died as a result of hypertension, the ingeston of methamphetamine and the adrenaline flowing through his body. >> why did you feel the need to talk to mr. chauven? >> what i watched was wrong. lisa: floyd's

building on things from the obama administration like sustainable communities and climate zones and choice neighborhoods. >> so the next thing, almost in this line of work, but our new administration did is presidential memorandum that acknowledged -- and the ways that it contributed to simplification and the denial of opportunity to people, particularly in black and brown and other disadvantaged communities. talk a little bit about how -- and then we'll talk a little bit about the -- but again, let's talk first about the acknowledgment itself and what do you think it means? >> you can't fix a problem until you acknowledge it. and, you know, that seems so simple and it is, but let's be clear. the previous administration wanted to change the mission statement of the department of housing development to take out its mission, to create equal opportunity and housing. that's why it's so important that as soon as this administration started, they said no. this is the true history of how policies were disadvantaged people of color and other communities, we're going to acknowledge that and now we'

>> well, at the end of the obama administration, the last year they admitted about 85,000 refugees. and they had planned on a cap of 115,000. the trump administration, one of the first things that they did was to ban admission from certain muslim countries or predominantly muslim countries. countries like somalia and yemen were outright banned. and that started to bring the refugee numbers down. in most years, they didn't fill that cap. at the same time, there's less money going to those voluntary agencies that cooperate with the u.s. government to resettle the refugees because they're funded based on the number of refugees they resettle. that part of the system atrophied. then they withdrew their refugee screening officers and redeployed many of them on asylum cases at the border. finally, the third component in the government is the u.s. department of state, which arranges the travel and provides that initial settlement assistance during the first few weeks and there were also massive cuts over the course of the trump administration, state department lost 15 to 20% of its total sta

they have been dealing with that since 2014, the first of the surges under the obama administration, first of these child surges, but it is a real issue that they are facing. i have reporting coming out later this week hopefully on the older male teenage migrants present to their own problem. for one thing, we saw this in the 2014-2015 and 2019 sarge, they turn out to be a prime recruiting ground for ms 13 and other gangs. i have a list of cases where children who cross as unaccompanied juveniles or part of a family unit as teenagers were quickly recruited. sometimes they come over already as ms 13 members but were recruited from ms 13 and joined gangs and are now stand accused of horrific crimes through those gangs. so there is real danger of fueling ms 13 numbers through this surge. that is sort of a dark part of this. host: there is a headline from tucson weekly, bite into nominate chris magnus as head of border patrol. what we know about chief magnus, and why did the president select him? guest: he has been chief in tucson and also in a city in michigan and in the bay area, i thi

we also saw during the obama administration a push towards banning assault weapons. high-capacity magazine guns. this was something that president clinton back in the 90's enacted a 10 year ban on assault weapons. that had expired in the early 2000's. president obama was not able to do that. so now, biden is calling on congress to get this done. ros: the trial of the former police officer derek chauvin has been hearing testimony from a veteran lung doctor who has told jurors george floyd's death was caused because it was impossible for him to breathe. the expt says george floyd showed signs of a brain injury about four minutes before derek chauvin lifted his knee. here he is explaining the mechanics of how george floyd stopped breathing. >> have you formed an opinion to medical certainty on the cause of mr. floyd's death? >> yes, i have. >> you tell the jury what that opinion or opinions are? >> yes. mr. floyd died from a low level of oxygen. this caused damage to his brain, and it also caused a pea arrhythmia that caused his heart to stop. >> and by pea, unique that

team over the obama administration same figures same people same names same agenda go ahead mary. well it was very very complicated for me to figure out what on earth is going 'd on because frankly as seen from london the whole. hue and cry about what was going on between russia and ukraine has been building rather slowly and i only sort of woke up to it last week that what we were looking at was every day practically every hour we're seeing accusations from london and from washington and from nato russia has embarked on this gigantic arms buildup on the russian side of the ukrainian border and is just waiting to launch a war. to shore up the supposed to russian presence in the east of ukraine either to help the rebels or even to seize territory and possibly even to consolidate some sort of further land bridge into crimea now one of the reasons that i wasn't sort of paying sufficient attention to this is that i couldn't take this seriously that russia would actually want to wage or to embark on military action that would result in any sort of military confrontation in the east of

through the millennium challenge corporation , was one of countries singled out during the obama administrationor an mcc compact, and there is friction and you see it with this tit-for-tat refusal. -- came directly to washington and did not get a meeting at the white house in february. it was said he was looking to gain political advantage in advance of the elections, and when the state department special envoy for the northern triangle visited el salvador and other countries recently, he was refused a meeting with president boo kelly -- the president. there is a great up -- amount of cooperation with the foreign ministry, other ministries of the government. but with the president, there seems to still be a great deal of friction. el salvador is a country that continues to have high levels of violence where there continues to be a lack of opportunity. but again, we have to be careful not to gauge the levels of violence only by homicide statistics, and they have gone down, gone down in a number of countries in the northern triangle. but there are other crimes that really affect the daily lives o

during the obama-biden administration, we made a lot of progress, and most of all, i'm proud that we helped lift up the stories, like the ones i heard from those on the screens behind me. and now, we are ready to do more. so, here is what you are going to see us do over these next few years. we are going to focus on military family employment and entrepreneurship. before the pandemic, the department of defense estimated that the military spouse unemployment rate was about 22%. spouse's, all of you deserve opportunities to do the work you love. whether that means keeping your job when you move from base to base or owning your own businesses. and we need to make sure that you can get quality childcare when you need it so that you don't have to feel like you are choosing between your job and taking care of your kids. we are going to work on education for military children. there are more than 2 million kids whose parents are service members, national guard reservists, are -- or veterans. our schools want to support all students, but they don't always know how to do so. we are going to w

the first of the surges under the obama administration anniversaries child surges. it is a very real issue that they are facing. i have reporting coming out this week hopefully on mail older teenage migrants to protect their own problems from one thing that we saw this in the past in 2014 and 2015 and the 2019 search. they turned out to be prime recruiting ground for ms 13. and of the street gangs. actually have a list of cases where children who crossed unaccompanied juveniles across as part of the family unit as teenagers, wereen recruited sometimes they come over already is ms 13 but were quickly recruited by ms 13. and join gangs that are now accused of horrific crimes through his gangs. so is very real danger of fueling ms 13 numbers through this search. that is a dark part of this. >> from tucson, their headline reports by biden and police chief chris magness' had a border patrol. what we know about chief magnus and wanted the president selective pretty so he has also chief in the city of michigan in the bay area in california. he is known as a progressive law

reliant the nuclear weapons then perhaps prior to this era of competition and possibly with the obama administration but i want to read you a couple of quotes and policies which suggests somehow the new administration may be departing from that bipartisan consensus that was captured in that commission report. senator warren for example during her campaign called for quote no policy in biden promised quote to reduce excessive expenditure on nuclear arms and you may have seen the international security guidance that is a document that came from the national security council in the foreshadowing of their national security strategies and national defense strategies that quote will take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and that would would be the barger from the previous administration. do you think this is a sentiment that will find its way into administration policies of the budget or is this outside groups that want to use language on this but perhaps cannot really make a significant impact on policy? what's your take after hearing that? >> i don't know wha

attention for a number of years until the first crisis of unaccompanied minors during the obama administrationn 2014. that is, i think, probably the time when the united states, other than the cold war period paid the most -- the greatest amount of attention devoted. the greatest amount of resources. yet a lot of those efforts were dialed back, if not canceled during the trump years. so we are once again with a migration surge and a sense that what is wrong in central america needs to be addressed or we will never really going to produce these tremendous migration pressures that have dogged -- you know, administrations for many years. it's not just a biden administration, as they say. >> here is your opportunity to balance your comments, your perspectives and questions. cynthia arnson who has looking -- then looking at central america's for centuries -- decades. text us with your comments and questions at 2:02, seven for eight, eight zero zero three. you just need to put your first name, city and state. tina is up first in huntington, pennsylvania. a republican. go ahead, tina. >> good morning

iranians to moderate their behavior in the region, then you risk making the same mistake that the obama administration did when it engaged with iran in 2012, 2015, which is so swing from one side to the other. and what i believe this administration is trying to do is to find a better balance in the way it approaches both iran and saudi arabia and that is really become a relationship between three countries like a min aja twa. >> it seems unlikely that you'll get a deal in yemen before you get a deal with iran. in other words, the iranians do seem to have enough influence to keep the pressure on yemen until they feel the united states is accommodating them. i want to ask you a point that vali made was that the policy of maximum pressure toward iran which has been tried by the united states for 35 years now and has tried to double down by on the trump administration on the theory they were going to collapse and the economy was going to collapse and the regime would collapse. it never really worked out, right. so why do we -- why do we seem to learn something from them, i would argue if you look at cuba,

have to presume very much we can look back at history we're in a similar situation that the obama administration was when the israelis went about killing iranian nuclear scientists on the streets of tehran there were so there were i think 4 or 5 israeli murders of his iranian scientists at that time and it was so such a big problem for the united states that u.s. intelligence officials were back great rounding very thinly veiled back great rounding major media outlets here in washington that it was the israelis and it put the obama administration in a position where it had to seek diplomacy with iran oh is it any cost otherwise face and israeli instigated war which by which obama did not want we are in a similar situation where the israelis perhaps in concert with some in the unit in the u.s. administration are pushing the biden administration into this very serious choice go along with war with the israelis against iran or pursue real serious diplomacy with the real lifting of sanctions that trump imposed as the iranians have been clearly saying now for some time so the by ministration i think

ambassador to nato during the obama administration.rzheimer had a 30 year career in the foreign service. she was the deputy chief of mission in afghanistan from 2017 to 2018, and was acting deputy assistant secretary of state for afghanistan until 2019. david sedney was deputy assistant secretary of defense for afghanistan, pakistan and central asia during the obama administration. until recently he was the president of american university of afghanistan. we welcome all three of you. david, i will start with you. we heard president biden say that threat to the u.s. over the last 20 years has spread around the world and it has metastasized and does not make sense to keep troops in one country, afghanistan, at a cost of billions of dollars. what is your response? mr. sedney: i think he is dead wrong. the threat from al qaeda and places in afghanistan has not gone away. the pledges by the taliban to combat that have been shown by a recent report. trusting the taliban, which is what this administration is doing, is a very bad idea. judy: a

all of those were part of the obama administration triad and dca modernization. i think those are likely to continue. the makeup and how many and so forth that will likely be reviewed. in addition to that, those were supported through the trump administration, the trump administration had what they called supplemental capabilities. of those, i doubt that the sea launch cruise missile will come to fruition because it has not started yet, it is still under analysis and review. it will be costly, and all the nuclear modernization is costly. and because i don't see -- there has already been some noises on the hill that they may run into some problems. the other supplemental capabilities from the trump administration, the lowered yield warhead for the ballistic missile, it is already deployed. it has been deployed for over a year. it is a sunk cost both economically and politically. it may be reviewed, i don't know that it will be drawn back, though. we will see. i do think, whatever the specifics of the nuclear force modernization program and how it plays out in the

it put the administration in a position where it had to seek diplomacy with iran, almost at any cost. esotherwise, face an israeli instigated war which obamaid not want. we are in a similar situation where the israelis, perhaps in concert with some in the u.s. administration, are pushing the biden administration into this very serious choice. go along with war against iran, or pursue serious diplomacy with the lifting of all sanctions trump imposed. as the iranians have been saying for some time. the biden administration is in a much more difficult position than it was even a week ago. and a similar position that it was under the obama administration. it was not sanctions that brought iran to the table. it was this choice. make a concrete concession to iran in terms of saying, we recognize their right to enrich domestically, or go along with an israeli instigated war. obama decided that was not worth it for the united states. there is a good chance biden will also think it is not worth going to war, but prime minister netanyahu is pushing biden to make that choice, and he may have some support within the administration. at the end of the d

more reliant than perhaps a decade ago during the obama administration. i want to read a couple of quotes and policies which somehow that the new administration, the biden administration, may be departing consensus ipartisann that was captured in that commission report.called senator warren, for example, during her campaign called for a, quote, no first use policy. biden promised, quote, to reduce excessive expenditure on nuclear arms. and recently gui you may have s the interim national security. that is a document that came f from the national security st foreshadowing of their national defense strategy said, quote, we will take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our t national security strategy. that would be a departure from i thement previous administration. are you f concerned, do you thi this is a sentiment that will find its way into administration policy which -- and budgets, or is this kind of signaling to outside groups that want to seey some language on this, but nt ip perhaps may not really make a significant impact on policy? what

attention is the republican party in congress collapses as a negotiating partner during the obama administrationer barack obama, it begins from the question or one of the major questions is how do we write this in a way that can get a couple senate republicans to support it or how do we get caught trying to get a couple senate republicans to support it. clinton's first budget big spending cuts, barack obama affordable care act built on romney care. when the republican party collapses on that level, those policies are simply among themselves and that does more than anything else to unleash their ambitions and joe biden ends up going along with that. >> then you talk about two other aspects in the piece that i really agree with. one is the ideological and intellectual aftermath of the great recession and recovery, right, which i think among people that work in democratic party politics learned real lessons, which is the recovery was too slow, that you can be much more aggressive with deficits and trying to get back to full employment. and that relates to a political lesson, which is, look, the cou

the obama administration abandoned them in 2010. our allies in asia thought that was an important piece. yes, there was an allusion to drawing down troops in germany. i did not agree with that. we launched a defense agreement last year with poland and increased presence of u.s. troops in east europe, where they would be more likely of use in a crisis with russia in the first place. so let's not forget the steps that were importantly taken over the last four years and remember the rodders story arc of -- broader story arc of challenges to the alliance based in beijing and moscow policy, which we need to show seriousness in confronting. the final point, these challenges have been mounting at a time in which the alliance, the members of the alliance, have been less interested in the nuclear piece of that alliance, at least in some key countries. this is not just america's problem to fix. nuclear guarantees and their effectiveness are not about what is done in terms of u.s. posture and in washington. another piece is to correct the drif

that is when george bush was president and also at the beginning of the obama administration, very popular at that point. also certainly we referenced 2012 when obama was reelected and also late 1992 or 1993 after clinton was elected. >> the numbers tell us one thing, what are the driving was i not enact. >> what we are really seeing is probably less of a shift to the democratic party, so if you compare the first quarter 2021 but the last quarter 2020, the leading has dropped three points where is it has stayed the same and what we are saying is that fewer americans identify as republican, 25% identify out right as republican, that is not the lowest but it's pretty close to it. below is 22% in 2013 by obamacare. >> would youou say to that drop amongst republicans going towards democrats as a result of the trump administration's overall over the time they had ance office? >> i think that it's one reason than that. definitely in the postelection timeframe, after the approval rating went down, he left office with a 34% approval rating, the lowest of his presidency. and in addition to this goi

site and was run during the second term of the obama administration and drink the trump administration is a very high level way. every decision being made in kabul and washington, every decision of great consequence on the american side. but that's not the way it was in the early years. in the early years in these rural districts was when the tone was set in when the mission was to find and often they were defined by much lower-level commanders that it seems reasonable to us now to have been making those decisions but that's how it was. they were small teams, green beret teams, green beret companies, infantry battalions and brigades who were responsible for huge chunks of the country and their commanders had to make the decisions about how to proceed. so very often what we can now in retrospect cs incremental steps in a long, long escalation were not decisions made by international government in the capital but decisions made by major or lieutenant colonel or a kernel, often very quickly on the battlefields, in the course of a deployment. for instance, the ideas we went in and just loo

who are blocking their critics on the left or the right you have to remember that during the obama administration and barack obama's vice president was of course joe biden they expanded the targeted assassinations through militarize drone drones and there's complete continuity between republican and democratic administrations on this issue which is why the biden ministration has supported the appeal in london to get julian a songe extradited to the united states. the former u.s. intelligence analyst faces up to 10 years in prison for blowing the whistle on washington's targeted drone assassination program daniel hale pleaded guilty to transmitting and retaining national defense information his case comes amid mass disclosure of similar crimes allegedly perpetrated by the u.s. . i have to tell you when he called me a few hours ago he was surprisingly upbeat and optimistic and he he remarked about how much press this issue has been getting since he decided to plead guilty so in the end i think that he thinks that this is been worth it that americans know more about the drone program now than 8 they

andreas: i think they are on this path, there is some path dependency that goes back to the obama administration the u.s. has said that we are delegating the burden of conflict of the middle east to our partners in the middle east, and that also means that saudi arabia has to take care of its own security, its own defense. military aid will be provided to do that and the saudi military, it will be the defensive units of the saudi armed forces which have been trained and supported by the american military. it is about burden sharing meaning that the u.s. will no longer carry the burden of the fence for the golf and that is the message that has been sent all throughout the obama administration it also through the trump administration despite some rhetoric. if you look at the ground, the united states no longer look at the middle east as strategically most important region of operations and that means local partners have to adopt more burden. hashem: this is the problem with the strategic review forced placements around the world. this is something that americans did in the past, but they had to ba

so much of the progress made under the obama administration was reversed in four years what we need too, as i said, we need to use those executive actions. the biden administration is doing that, but it can only go so far. we need to codify those changes. with the divided congress and senate, with the tie-breaking vote by the democratic vice president and some democrats who might sign on to expensive climate legislation, joe biden is going to need all of the diplomatic tools at his disposal, and democrats in congress may have to use some of the parliamentary tools that they have at their disposal if we are to get climate legislation that will complement the executive actions that are being taken, and that is what we need. judy: ambitious but clearly complicated. michael mann, thank you very much. we appreciate it. ♪ as we've been mentioning, today is earth day. while carbon emissions and climate change are front and center, this is a good moment to look at another major environmental problem. as the world has become hyper hygienic since the pandemic began, plastic is playing an oversiz

away it was denounced by the us administration a point i wanted to pick up under president obama. believe you had the view that the just be aware would be the start of normal relations. with iran but i think under biden they are basically trying to fix the current situation and then back on clobbered them in prospect your economic investment picks in the economy are not really interested and broadening and the reopening of the us iran relationship and putting it on them normal. well that's not it's a very interesting point here again you know i hadn't thought about the creation of political facts as we go into this round of negotiations here it's very interesting i didn't know that mohamed again what we heard from our guest in vienna is very interesting is what what is the end goal do you think of the biden ministration because you know the the people around him i call them the b. team from the obama administration not people that are very very impressive at all maybe they just want to take this poker out of the fire and this kind of be done with it because my hope and i think tha