‘Morning Joe’ Panel Blasts Obama’s ISIS Strategy, Behavior at Press Conference

Geist: ‘There are moments when people want to see little emotions’

[RUSH TRANSCRIPT]

BRZEZINSKI: “And here’s how the president responded if he was asked if he underestimated ISIS to this point.”
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OBAMA: “No, we haven’t underestimated our abilities. This is precisely why we’re in Iraq as we speak, and why we’re operating in Syria, as we speak. And it’s precisely why we have mobilized 65 countries to go after ISIL and why I hosted at the United Nations an entire discussion of counter-terrorism strategies and curbing the flow of foreign fighters. And why we’ve been putting pressure on those countries that have not been as robust as they need to in tracking the flow of foreign fighters in and out of Syria and Iraq.”
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BRZEZINSKI: “But a look back at an interview the president did with the ‘New Yorker’ in January of 2014 tells a different story. In the same interview in which he used the same JV team analogy, President Obama went on to say ‘I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.’”
SCARBOROUGH: “Roger Cohen of the ‘New York Times’ wrote ‘where was the anger in that Obama press conference? I’m in Paris. His words fell shamefully short of sentiment here.’ ‘Washington Post’ editorial board wrote that ‘...a petulant- sounding President Obama insisted...as he has before, that his critics have offered to concrete alternatives...the president would be wise to set aside his defensiveness and reconsider them.’ Charles Krauthammer said there was passivity and annoyance in the president’s voice. And Eugene Robinson writes ‘Obama’s tone in addressing the Paris atrocity was all wrong. At times he was patronizing, at other times he seemed annoyed and almost dismissive.’ Mika, it was shocking. And the reaction from the people who work for other governments find it shocking what others define as an act of war, the president defines as — he said I’m too busy for that, people can pop off if they want to, he was petulant, he was clearly irritated through the entire press conference and I think most frightening is the fact that he seems disconnected from reality, the reality on the ground in Paris, the reality on the ground in Syria, the reality on the ground. He is the opposite of a neocon that is more wedded of the ideology on the ground and taken the world around for a while.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Do we have the Dianne Feinstein bite ready to go? I’d like to play this. Take a look.”
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FEINSTEIN: “I’ve never been more concerned. I read the intelligence faithfully. ISIL is not contained. ISIL is expanding. they’ve just put out a video saying it is their intent to attack this country, and I think we have to be prepared... There’s only one way we’re going to diminish them and that is by taking them out, because they are growing. They are in more than a dozen countries now. They are sophisticated, they have apps to communicate on, that cannot be pierced, even with a court order. So they have a kind of secret way of being able to conduct operations and operational planning. So we should take this very, very seriously.”
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SCARBOROUGH: “And I’ll tell you Willie, a lot of people in New York City very, very concerned at the president’s passive response to Paris.”
GEIST: “We had commissioner Bill Bratton seated there yesterday, and we gave him the comments from the White House that the ISIL doesn’t have the capacity to reach the United States and the look on his face said it all. He said, excuse me? He said of course this is very real, of course we need to be more aggressive, of course we need to do more than we’re doing right now. It’s been a hallmark of President Obama’s presidency to be cool, show no drama, show no emotion. But there are moments when people want to see little emotions. I know he was asked about critics of his program. But he seemed more emotional annoyed and aggressive about that than he did about the problem in front of him.”
SCARBOROUGH: “And I heard that, the only time he ever showed passion was when he was attacking Republicans, not when he was talking about ISIS.”
GEIST: “Does that lack a matter of strategy. He’s taking new measures? Is there new strategy and we just haven’t heard that?”
SCARBOROUGH: “Mike Barnicle?”
BARNICLE: “I’ve been told by several people that the president of the United States has been told repeatedly that the strategy being employed right now is not nearly as effective as he, the president, wants it to be or thinks it is. This could have played a part in his reaction yesterday. Because now it is very clear that the strategy is not effective. You cannot defeat ISIS with a bombing campaign.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Even men and women who we speak to say the bombing campaign is a joke. It’s for show. What he said yesterday is I’m not going to do anything, I’m too busy. His entire bombing campaign, he’s posing through a bomb being campaign.”
BARNICLE: “More than half the planes that take off in our bombing campaign. Come back —“
SCARBOROUGH: “Without dropping the bomb.”
BARNICLE: “Yes.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Mark Halperin what’s your take on the president press conference, and where the United States policy is and where it’s going.”
HALPERIN: “The country and the world on have one president of the United States at a time and that posture that he had yesterday is not going to satisfy large numbers of people on the planet, large numbers of people in the country and, as you suggested, Joe, not just Republicans but a lot of Democrats. The president is a very rational guy, he’s very frustrated by the options that he has, he’s very frustrated by the criticism that he gets. But as Willie and some others have suggested, there comes a time when the intellect and the black and white and gray as opposed to the black and white has to be put aside to say the world needs American leadership. And again, the performance yesterday baffling I think is about the nicest thing you could say about it, from the point of view of a lot of people who expected a much different approach.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Well Gene, obviously the usual suspects, the Republicans were attacking. But also, you have the French deeply concerned, Roger Cohen saying it was shameful. The ‘Washington Post’ editorial board calling the president ‘petulant’. And one more failure from Washington, D.C. from the Democratic president and some lose on the far right on immigrants. You had a Republican actually attacking Republicans on the ‘Washington Post’ editorial board, editorial page talking about how their reaction is all wrong as well.”
ROBINSON: “Well, you can say the U.S. reaction in general has been muddled to say the least. You quoted from my column earlier in which I clearly said the president’s tone was all wrong. He sounded defensive, he sounded annoyed at the whole thing and one understands his annoyance, but he shouldn’t have projected that. That said, the substance of what said is something we should also focus on and he asks a very good question, which is what is the alternative policy? What is the realistic alternative policy that is going to have more of an impact on ISIS and I think he confronts the central question, which is are you going to send U.S. ground troops? And how many are we going to send? I have been told by people who really know and who follow this carefully, people in the region, that you’re talking 30,000 to 40,000 minimum ground troops.”

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