if mr. hartung is in support of chemical weapons, i don't understand the point of the logic there. now we have north korea on the korean peninsula threatening three of the world's largest economies. the republic of korea and china and japan. bowing down to our enemies and apologizing and giving billions of dollars to iran which is funding hezbollah who has 160,000 new missiles. i don't understand why we're saying that president trump is not acting decisively here. >> point. counter point. response? >> let's look at north korea. you know, to threaten preemptive strike has no impact on north korea. if you don't have strategy to back it up, you don't get anywhere. under clinton, they had threats, but they froze his program for the bulk of that administration. as soon as the bush administration stopped talking, that is when the threat continued. it cares only about survival. i think it is a pipe dream. s as for the larger picture, it is president trump trying to put the larger message. not that this is tactical, but he is a different person. president obama dropped 12,000 bombs on syri

how pervasive is this sentiment in washington, amanda, or is mr. hartung more cynical than most? >> he was getting bipartisan praise at first, even members of the democratic party were saying this seems like it's good. we may want to see more. we would like to see him consult with congress. but at first a lot of the response was praise and obvious obviously there's nothing that donald trump likes more than hearing him praised. this is something that maybe isn't going as badly for the trump administration as all of the domestic policy and it's a bit of a distraction. but i don't know yet -- i don't think we know whether there is any foreign policy doctrine other than unpredictability. errol was talking about how allies don't like this. china said, don't start this because if world war starts, this is on you. >> it's important to point out that this is a different type of fish and the different weapons that they are working on. it may not fit so neatly into the theory that he writes for afghanistan and syria. >> that's right. look, it's always been a puzzle because you have nuclear