warned us this week that the pentagon could open itself to costly litigation from contractors if the u.s. pulls out of afghanistan this year. you have to learn how to respect the process of extract and wealth which can take decades c.n.n. is really talking to my heart strings telling me to think of the profit lists war profiteers yes i think of them there are only $2500.00 american troops still there while there are $18000.00 contractors of which only about $6000.00 are americans don't be so insensitive to these multinationals further danger pay $18000.00 mercenaries are there excuse me that's a pejorative term for military contractors fine contract killers not all of them are doing security ok 18000 capitalist goons ok i can argue with that 18000 cabalist goods are making it so operations in afghanistan have no oversight they can kill with impunity they're basically a hired mafia and they haven't even been affective for the best 90 years well the plausible deniability makes the hired guys really good at helping the afghan army function so they can lose gracefully against the taliban

troop withdrawal at the same time at the pentagon is very reluctant to commit to a total u.s. withdrawal pointing out that the mission is still in place they say that there is still a threat from insurgents within iraq that the u.s. forces are there to help train the iraqi forces to contend but what we're looking at here perhaps is a kind of interim stage where the pentagon and the u.s. itself and willing to commit to a timeline for withdrawal because that could encourage posing fighters at the same time as you say well aware of the popular nature of the u.s. presence in iraq and what we do know about paul is president biden in the red point of agreement with former president trump has said that he wants to reduce u.s. is fighting presence in all parts of the world he wants to bring the u.s. soldiers home where he can do so however like with afghanistan iraq is a situation that has got to be reviewed on an ongoing basis and the pentagon spokesman says that is exactly what is going to happen ok mike many thanks mike and of the reporting live for us from washington. in the news

that we're spending too much on the pentagon. we need to invest that money into domestic programs, education, health, labor. even a tiny 1.7% increase over the previous year is too much for progressives. at the same time, you have republicans who are saying, you're flat funding the military. this is never going to fly. this is going to affect our readiness, and this is a big problem for us. you're going to need republican support to pass a government funding package. so 1.7% is not going to be enough to earn republican support moving forward. >> your colleagues are reporting the president will have an announcement this afternoon at 2:15 p.m. on withdrawing troops from afghanistan. will there be less of an expenditure in afghanistan, so that figure may be more appropriate? >> it remains to be seen. you'll probably have to capitulate to republicans and provide more funding for the military. any government funding package will need support from at least ten republicans to get through the senate. so republicans can be as loud as they

the non-defense programs, programs that do not involve the pentagon or military. that's because we are now on the other side of what was 10 years of strict funding limits under the budget control act. that set limits on how much congress can spend for 10 years, a 2011 law. now that we are in fiscal 2021, 2022 will be the first year we are outside of those caps. so folks feel like domestic programs, health programs, labor programs and education programs have been shortchanged essentially for a decade because we had to adhere to these budget caps. so now that we are beyond that, congress has an opportunity to course correct, if they want, and rein in military funding. but we are essentially in a free zone when it comes the budget policy, where congress can decide which levels are appropriate for domestic programs and what's appropriate for the pentagon. that will be the subject of a lot of upcoming spending debates. host: the committee had this to say. the president's proposal is a good reminder on the need to extend the caps that expire at the end of this year, imp

he couldn't really manage the pentagon. he made unfortunate comments. he monopolized the president's time. but through it all, it appears that eisenhower never really considered getting rid of wilson. he thought that wilson was doing the best job he could. that breaking in a new defense secretary would be more harmful than working with the old one, and most importantly, he thought team chemistry was important. he said early in his administration, he took great care in picking this gang and he was very loyal to it. so here we have a picture coming up of eisenhower saying good-bye to wilson, clearly with some affection and with some ambivalence. now, with regard to humphrey, it was quite different. eisenhower was close to tears when his term ended because they were very close. but i think humphrey's obsession with inflation and spending had a political price. this is certainly debatable. i should say at this point looking back from the 21st century, this preoccupation with budget balancing and spending seems almost quaint. the u.s. budget deficit last yea

he well knew that money was being wasted at the pentagon. he understood how fiercely parochial the army and navy and air force were. even though that he had long encouraged them to think, you know more in the terms of the national interest. what bothered him especially was redundancy? the fact that the services were all kind of working on similar. capabilities that would overlap and result in waste of money so this meant that eisenhower and humphrey expected wilson to go in the pentagon and knock knock heads together right at the very beginning. so before wilson it even learned the ins and outs of a complex government agency. he had to come in and check things up. all the while trying to gain the trust of the admirals in generals who work for him as you could imagine this made him feel just a bit insecure. so he began bothering eisenhower over and over again. per meetings taking up likes time. to go over details until i could explode i won't run the pentagon. that's your job. and everyone around the eisenhower from his secretary and whitman

so why he considered all the turmoil for the pentagon worthwhile. but when humphrey left office in 1957, he was still unhappy with his inability of cutting more. towards the end, his poor wife had had enough. here you see a picture coming up of eisenhower and the wilsons, jesse and his wife. and dressy went to a washington post columnist, which he probably shouldn't have done and she told him, it would be nice if mike would get a slap on the back once in awhile. he works seven days a week, she said, and i start back and listen to criticism until i am disgusted with it. so this was wilsons unhappy lot, and on the other hand, while my story is -- one of my book is a story about wilson and his troubles, it's also an account of eisenhower and humphrey as recession fighters and i'll conclude with a little bit about that. and why is it important? why was it important for eisenhower to worry about a recession? it's easy to forget one of the main concerns of the incoming administration, but to prove to the country that republicans can handle the economy wit

pentagon a hi there patty so do we expect the president to speak in about 2 hours time what do we expect him to say. well we think he's going to say look i'm the 4th president to rule over a war in afghanistan i will not turn this over to be a problem for the 5th he's basically going to say america has done its best it's done what it could it's been 20 years it's time to come home now this can is cut can't have come as much of a surprise here at the pentagon because joe biden as vice president made it very clear that he thought to the to then president barack obama that he thought the pentagon brass was trying to back him in force him to send more troops there that said here in the pentagon there is real concern about what's going to happen when u.s. troops leave we've heard testimony in the past that they will only be able to keep their aircraft flying for a matter of months but they're not sure that they'll be able to stand up to any offensive from the taliban but what we expect to hear from the pentagon is a plan for counter search counterterrorism they've said that they want to make

the pentagon is concerned about it you know to the coins that it is now reckon there isn't any empty kind of fat work and systems but they also are i 90 percent on local grids power grids in the united states which are not protected up. yeah and as you know there's a lot of financial yeah. as peter price says if you're groups are now down that can extract all of our military. onus on the mainland here. well that's chilling enough you mentioned the financial system and i have a new appreciation for keeping paper copies of things with this threat we're talking electromagnetic pulse with long time former pentagon official michael maloof and don't try this at home. today i want to make an e.m.p. electromagnetic pulse device and that's why i bought one of these super high wall generator 2 or more jewels. do to try and see how it works. wow. but seriously michael what about the iranian north korea nukes we've got gun nuts shooting up supermarkets and elsewhere lately is even m.p. a suit case sized threat that could put some. wacko in action. you know that's one of the concerns that are lon

but that's not necessarily pentagon spending.really reuse some of those resources that are geared towards the pentagon and put them towards things like health care, education, housing that would help for americans today marks two weeks since activists in detroit launched a hunger strike in protest of saudi arabia's ongoing blockade in yemen. earlier this week you and other members of congress wrote to the president a letter urging him to take action on the war in that country. what would you like to see happen? >> again, i give the administration a lot of credit. they came out right off the bat and said the u.s. would not be involved with anything in the war with yemen. they are looking at selling arms to saudi arabia. they are delisting hauty as a terrorist group as donald trump did. one thing that has been lacking is protecting the main port where most of the food and gasoline come in. because it is so restricted we are back to having starvation conditions in yemen. this is the biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet. we need

vaccinations have been administered but why this why the caution over this now well this is the pentagon has developed a chip which can detect the coded 1000 virus in your body once implanted could the implant be the next thing the public could be shamed into getting well with all of these details regarding the 2 stories we bring investigative journalist in on bin both of these stories are very alarming to me i'll be honest with you and i don't know which one to start with i'm going to go with the headlines right now that's come out today talking about the pause of one of the 3 vaccines being offered to the public so is the f.d.a. being overly cautious considering honestly there's only been 7 cases and what do we know about those cases. yes so overly cautious absolutely not in fact the f.d.a. is not being cautious enough remember that the johnson and johnson vaccine the mold journal vaccine in the pfizer by same have all been issued on an emergency basis which means the f.d.a. hasn't actually taken a strong look at any of these vaccines now you mentioned there are 7 cases some reports ar

the pentagon has estimated 18,000 contractors in afghanistan.r the past 20 years of war 100,000 afghan civilians have , been killed as well as more than 2400 u.s. service members. brown university cost of war has estimated the u.s. has been $2.3 trillion in ahanistan. we turn now to congressmember ro khanna who has long been a critic of the pentagon budget and also the wars in iraq and afghanistan. your response to what biden has done? congressman, welcome. >> is a courageous decision. it is a complete withdrawal of troops, including a special operation troops. senator sanders and i have an op-ed coming up in "the washington post" supporting the president's decision but i am very glad we have a president who is finally recognized this is not a militarily winnable war, that we are spending $50 billion that is leading to more debt of the afghan civilians and putting our troops at risk. so this was the right decision. i will be standing up for it. nermeen: congressmember khanna, we just learned today secretary of state antony blinken is in afghanis

joined now by helene cooper, who covers the pentagon for "the new york times".it seemed as if -- and i didn't know if it was part of the biden/putin phone call, but the russians seem to send word to say we're just doing a military exercise. we will receive soon. it's over in a couple of weeks. don't send any ships to the black sea. and the u.s. apparently took them at their word. do i have this timeline correct? >> yea, that's about correct. the u.s. so far has been taking russia at et cetera word, but at the same time pentagon officials talk about these what they call triggers. and they have actually a list of ten things that sort of signal this there could be another invasion of ukraine coming. on that list is you move a whole bunch of assets to the region, which russia has done. the you move a whole bunch of war ships to the region, which russia has done. you move a whole lot of soldier and tanks and assault troops, which russia has done. what russia hasn't done so far is moscow has not put any support stuff, you know, all of the logistical stuff any army nee

others point to ship logs that call the objects drones or uavs but a former official with the pentagon program that dealt with advanced aerial threats says for years the u.s. military has encountered mysterious objects that seem capable of traveling more than 11,000 miles an hour or able to transition from air to water without slowing down >> some of these videos are 20, 25 minutes long in other cases these things are 50 feet away from the cockpit. >> reporter: but he says most alarming are incursions over restricted nuclear assets >> we've actually had some of our nuclear capabilities disabled by these things. if russia or china had the ability to disable our nuclear strike capability or defense capability, that's pretty significant that's a concern >> reporter: we reached out to the pentagon about those alleged incursions they say they do not comment on intelligence matters and that lou elizondo left the pentagon in 2017 and does not speak for the department of defense. lester >> yeah, it's got us all thinking thank you, gadi. >>> after a stunning upset for best actor anthony hopkins

is that causing concern in the pentagon? mr. is causing the most concern is this recent buildup along the eastern border of ukraine with russian forces and occupied crimea. it is the largest buildup since 2014 and is deeply concerning. the secretary is in brussels, as you know, last week. and this was a topic of major concern among our nato allies. it is not exactly clear what the russians are doing there, but it is certainly not adding to the security and stability in that part of the world. as for the politics inside russia, we are watching that closely as well. what concerns us most of the pentagon, hontly, is russian malign activities. certainly what they are doing on the continent, but in cyberspace, election interference here in the u.s. and the way they interfere in other democracies around the world. and the muscle flexing they continue to do in the mediterranean, up north near the arctic circle. all of these activities are concerning for us. katty: bill burns, the director of the cia, says on talk about ukraine that rus

pentagon for us about 1st we'll bring in our white house correspondent kimberly halakhah to talk to us more about this decision and we do expect the president to speak in a few hours' time but how politically feasible is this for him. the u.s. president has for the last 3 months been conducting a policy review in consultation with the security experts and initially the u.s. president had favored. at least when he was the vice president for at least a small footprint of u.s. forces in afghanistan that changed on the campaign trail and following this policy review is now the conclusion of the commander in chief that in fact there will never be the conditions on the ground that will make the timing perfect for the withdrawal of u.s. troops add to that well this was a popular war back in 2001 following the attacks on the twin towers and pentagon and september 11th public support has waned for this conflict a generation later america's longest war has cost more than $2300.00 lives 2 trillion dollars and as a result joe biden says the time has come for troops to withdraw but this is being cr

the pentagon making moves to purge the military of anyone who doesn't fall in line politically.t does that mean? it means conservative spiritual explained that -- drastic lengths they're going to. jamaica. (woman) best decision ever. (vo) feel the sand between your toes, and the gentle waves of the sea on your skin. feel the warm jamaican breeze lift your spirits and nourish your soul. escape to exactly what makes your heart beat. you will love every moment. jamaica. heartbeat of the world. let's go. ♪ ♪ >> laura: the biden administration turning its back on our troops, as the pentagon announcing new immediate action to combat what they call extremism in our military. we know what that is called for, don't we? they want to purge anyone from the military who they think is a political opponent of joe, a.k.a. conservatives. the pentagon saying it's going to update the definition of extremism and create a commission to study the behavior among other things. pentagon press secretary john kirby gave us all the details about this rampant extremism they are seeing. >> do they see proble

conservatives, the pentagon will update the definition of extremism and create a commission to studyhn kirby gave details about this rampant extremism they are seeing. >> problems of extremism in the military, racism, anything that jumps out at him. >> anecdotally the service secretary shared with him what bubbled up from the ranks in terms of what they heard and i don't have specific stories, not like they gave me a specific story or elected. shannon: they were don't want specific stories, they just want to tie anyone that disagrees with their agenda as an extremist, that is why they will never get specific, jesse kelly, marine corps combat that, john kirby stumbling, did it surprise you? >> know because like you said they are not looking for it, don't care about racism or extremism, they are following the same cultural marxist playbook communists of always followed, purge the military of people who oppose them and they will pull it off. i don't think they will start handing out papers to people and sending them out the door but i'm getting phone calls from a lot of guys who are say

this shift is happening in the pentagon. it started under carter. there is a real focus on buying those systems along those lines. there is a laundry list of things that will make this difficult without a shadow of a doubt. but i think if we take that basic approach we can get to a better and affordable national defense strategy. missy: you mentioned it is a minority viewpoint, i think it is an interesting one. the view i hear from the pentagon usually is that the ability to dominate is the key to effective deterrence. it sounds like you disagree with that? rep. smith: well, no. dominance is always better. i mean, would i rather have the sports team that i am rooting for win every game by double digits and march to the championship every year? sure. you have to live in the world you actually live in and not the one you would like to imagine. i think given the competitive nature of the world and the different pieces, imagining dominance is an ineffective approach. it leads you down the wrong way. i joked that when i first got elected to congress i di

department and the pentagon the best they found the pentagon to have a lot of say in in works of hollywoodya know. somewhere drew scrooge i'm sure. i mean years ago i do. in fact go in with your desired should you. should die or should you. got sort of here's very emotional issues you're not bored you. meet the parents was the stiller funny movie love it right. so you find out that deniro was a cia operative at one point ben stiller goes into his layer in the basement and he sees photos of deniro with clinton with what looks like maybe a bent a lot in type figure originally stiller found a cia. on deniro suggests this cia itself reviewed the script and said then and then. you're not going to bring up cia torture do they watch every single movie that is about to be produced in our wood in any film that has any military hardware in it an obvious example top gun you got it asked for permission you don't just walk on to the air force base and start flying jets around. so if you get their permission. they get the right. to look at what you're saying about. the officer for information which was

the pentagon has many, many plans, of course, and they have options for everything. nobody wants any military conflict with china. that's the last thing that the u.s. would like right now. >> amna, a larger picture here, when you think about the various challenges internationally, the administration seems on russia and afghanistan not to have new thinking here. we can say it's a little more developed when it comes to how to handle china. they seem to have a point of view. on the russia front, they seem to be at square one on how to have a constructive relationship with putin. >> it's so interesting -- >> they do a bit. >> i found secretary blinken's answer to your question about russia and ukraine to be fascinating. we very much were going back to 2015 and 2016 and 2013 and the crimea invasion. ukraine is not in nato. so there is no treaty obligation to protect ukraine from a russian incursion. beyond that, this is, again, another case of hoping it doesn't happen. >> amna, weigh in here. >> absolutely. i agree with what helene is saying here. there hasn't been a lot

with edward snowden and daniel ellsberg as we move into the 50th anniversary of his release of the pentagon papers. for more information for that event as we span the world from russia to california, can go to democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

our next question is from court of the pentagon course correspondence. >> courtney? okay. we will move on to leslie thomas, please. leslie. >> hello, thank you very much. you framed president biden's policy of the use of afghanistan as a launchpad against the united states and citizens. we don't want to be on the force but we did look at the soviet withdrawal and u.s. disengagement along time ago and what happened there could obviously happen again and it's on everyone's mind. in a world in which most of us receive notifications that three people are on civil society assassination list last week in which a woman was whipped and these activities that are or not approved by the taliban and are there sticks as well as the carrots that they referred to, 80% of the budget that we may or may want not provide to government that does these things and how can this be used constructively? >> i think leslie you bring that up just right particularly with those comments but there are mostly nonmilitary approaches that make sense in 90% of the cases in the world where we are trying to s

this is not provocative, this should be the simplest thing for the pentagon to go out there and approve to risks, i think we can make those decisions for ourselves to decide if we want to risk being outside during covid or getting on a motorcycle, we've made those decisions before. >> harris: congressman, thank you for your service and for being with us on "the faulkner focus" today and joe, good to see you as well and thank all of you for "the faulkner focus." "outnumbered" starts right now. >> harris: fox news alert, democrats and the mainstream media are being criticized for pushing a narrative about the fatal police shooting of 16-year-old ma'khia bryant in columbus, ohio. this new home security video

she's a reporter covering the pentagon, military issues and national security for the washington postonored to have the opportunity to introducehe congressman adam smith, chairman of the house armed service committee to this global and distinguished body. microsoft headquarters in redmond, washington. washington's mike congressional district, district is home to many microsoft colleagues the congressman has always been a steadfast partner microsoft on a wide range of local national and local policy matters. mike, i want to commend meridians under invitation to chairman smith as speaker today. in his role as chairman of the house armed service committee, he chose global leadership, diplomacy and promote cultural connection and diversity. the three core pillars, chairman smith promote global leadership, for example he's working with new administration to tackle national security challenges.. at microsoft, we know cybersecurity threat will. this congress chairman smith created a new subcommittee, cyber innovative technology and information systems subcommittee which he serves on the subc

if not true, says the pentagon. russia is using that information to justify putting 40,000 troops on the border asking russia to de-escalate and suggested a summit. >> bret: okay, we will continue to follow it. jennifer griffin live at the pentagon, thank you. now to minnesota where emotions are wrong tonight following another evening of straight violence over the weekend's fatal shooting of a black man by a veteran police officer. there are big changes happening tonight in brooklyn center minnesota, where senior correspondent mike tobin is right after another night there. good evening, mike. >> good evening. curfew has just been set for several towns in the area but not this one, for 10:00 p.m. you can see behind me a crowd is going for planned demonstrations tonight and all of it on a day of rapid development. less than 24 hours after the world learn to her identity, the police officer at the center of the unrest submitted her resignation as well as the brooklyn center police chief. she said she loved being a poli

president joe biden has ordered the pentagon to remove some military assets and forces from the gulf, that is according to a report by the "the wall street journal." at least three patriot antimissile batteries have reportedly been withdrawn including one from a base in saudi arabia. biden has pledged to recalibrate u.s.-saudi ties since taking office in january, including freezing the sale of some weapons used by the kingdom and the war in yemen. his administration says it does not want to destroy the relationship. it says it will still continue to help the kingdom defend itself against increasing attacks from yemen and the rack. saudi officials have not commented on this, and why the american say the decision was taken to meet military needs elsewhere. we will bring in our panel shortly to discuss this further, but first, let's take a closer look at the u.s. military presence in the gulf. as of late last year, there were about 15,000 american troops across the region and that is down from 90,000 at the height of donald trump's administration. in october 2019, the u.s. floyd nearly 3