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BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And that was President Obama wrapping up
remarks on his strategy against ISIS following
a rare meeting with his National Security Council
at the Pentagon.
Olivier Knox is chief Washington correspondent for Yahoo News.
Matthew Olsen is the former director of the National
Counterterrorism Center.
They're joining me both here live in New York.
Gentlemen, thank you so much.
Matthew, I want to begin with you.
This comes a week or so after the President
addressed the nation.
Any other news, aside from having more specific details,
that you've heard from the President today?
MATTHEW OLSEN: I think what I just
heard was very focused on, obviously,
the military side of this and the President
giving this talk from the Pentagon,
emphasizing the people taken off the battlefield,
emphasizing the battlefield gains
that the coalition has made.
This was really to send that message,
it seemed to me, that we are at war with ISIS.
I mean he basically said, this is our war against ISIL.
And so nothing really new, but a very strong emphasis
on the military side of this.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And Olivier, he
mentioned that Secretary of Defense Carter
will be traveling to the Middle East,
Secretary Kerry will be going to Russia tomorrow.
How rare is the fact that the President has now made
two sort of impromptu addresses to the nation
where no specific details or new change in strategy
has been revealed?
OLIVIER KNOX: Well, I guess it's fairly rare.
It's also fairly rare to see the President do a National
Security Council meeting physically at the Pentagon,
rather than doing it from the Situation Room in the basement
of the White House.
That was fairly unusual.
I thought the announcement that he
was sending Secretary Carter to the Middle East
to talk to Arab countries was very, very notable.
There has been dissatisfaction-- you could even describe it
as mounting dissatisfaction-- with the way America's
Arab allies are contributing to the campaign, whether in air
strikes or in ground forces or in some cases in taking
in refugees.
I really want to see whether Secretary Carter stops
in Turkey.
There have been some tensions over whether Turkey
is doing enough to seal the border with Syria, preventing
foreign fighters from coming in or out.
I thought that was a pretty notable announcement.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Yeah.
Secretary Carter had said last week
that Iraqi progress in retaking the city of Ramadi
had been disappointingly slow.
So he'd been vocal about that.
But how much of this has to deal with optics and how
this is playing out to the American public?
Because you look at the polls, President Obama's handling
of the threat of terrorism, 57% of Americans disapprove.
Was this just to minimize that number itself?
OLIVIER KNOX: I think that a lot of this
is conceived as a rebuttal to those public opinion polls,
to tell Americans that no, no, no, we really
are doing everything we can against the Islamic State.
We really are trying to knock them out in Iraq and Syria,
we really are trying to keep the homeland safe,
we really are aware that they pose a threat
in the form of attacks like San Bernardino,
potentially inspired by the Islamic State.
So I think a big part of that was
conceived as a rebuttal to those polls, absolutely.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And Matt, the President
did mention San Bernardino.
As we know, there's no specific threat to US soil, however,
San Bernardino happened when there was no specific threat
to US soil, as well.
Do you think the President's handling of the situation
now that he's made two of these public announcements
in speeches before the American public is
the right thing for him to do?
MATTHEW OLSEN: I mean I do think it is right for him
to be out there talking about this.
There's definitely a sense of anxiety and concern
around the country, and no doubt the White House sees that.
And doing this from the Pentagon,
emphasizing the military effort, emphasizing actually
that these are efforts that have taken place
before Paris and San Bernardino and now are intensifying.
I mean I agree with you, Olivier,
that's an effort to really reassure the American people.
But I do think, as you're saying,
Bianna, the harder part of this is the homeland side,
where ISIS has been able to recruit and radicalize people
in the United States.
We saw that with San Bernardino.
He mentioned the Department of Homeland Security in his talk,
but it was really just a brief mention about the threat level.
So I think that's an area where we're
going to have to hear more and we're
going to have to see more from the government
to really address the threat here at home.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And the President took a lot of heat
a few weeks ago when he said that ISIS had been contained.
This was just days before the attacks in Paris.
Here today for the first time we heard
him list a number of ISIS leaders
that had either been captured or killed or had fled.
What was the purpose of that, because none of these names
are really familiar to us as viewers.
MATTHEW OLSEN: Right.
I mean I thought that was a really interesting aspect
of what he just said.
It reminds me of the way the White House used
to talk about Al Qaeda in Pakistan--
naming the individuals, naming the leaders
and ticking them off as they were
removed from the battlefield.
And he actually referred to ISIS core,
which is a term that we often use for our Al Qaeda core.
He referred to ISIS core leadership.
And so I think it's an effort to really say,
we really are on these guys, we know who they are
and we are taking them off the battlefield
just like we did with Al Qaeda.
It's the same playbook.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Yeah.
He mentioned 9,000 air strikes thus far.
He also reiterated the four fronts in combating ISIS.
And Olivier, I want to ask you because we mentioned
that disappointing approval number, that 57% of Americans
disapprove of how the President is handling
the threat of terrorism.
You say one thing working to his benefit, though,
is that there's no consensus on how ISIS should be handled.
OLIVIER KNOX: Right.
There's not one standard bearer among his critics behind whom
everyone can rally and say, yeah, let's do that over there.
You've seen some of the Republican presidential
contenders, Lindsey Graham in particular,
lay out a very precise, specific strategy for going
after the Islamic State.
But others have limited it to really what I
would call borderline bumper stickers statements-- we win,
they lose.
That's not really a strategy.
So he's benefiting from this fragmented criticism
from people who still aren't totally sure whether they want
to see more American ground forces, much
less those forces in the lead, in the front lines.
The American people haven't yet coalesced around any one
alternative to his approach.
And I think on a purely political level,
I think that plays to his advantage.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And you mentioned
political candidates, presidential candidates,
having a plan.
Hillary Clinton also has been outspoken.
She's been historically more hawkish
in how to deal with ISIS.
Matt, I know you're informally advising the Hillary Clinton
camp now.
She's expected to give a speech tomorrow
on dealing with combating homegrown terrorism here
in the US.
How is her plan going to differ from what we just
heard from the President?
MATTHEW OLSEN: Well, I think we've
heard a little bit from Secretary
Clinton over the past few weeks in a prior speech
and she's talked about establishing a no fly zone
and being more aggressive in terms of the airstrikes.
So I do think there are some differences
between the candidate Hillary Clinton and the President.
But largely, there's a lot of agreement.
One of the things the President just said, he
talked about precision strikes.
And that's that point that we're probably still taking
strikes in a way that are more limited than the laws of war
would allow.
And I know he's received some criticism on that score,
but it seemed from his talk just now
he's committed to staying the course there.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: This is expected
be the last public address that we know of, thus far,
from the President for the year before he
leaves for his holiday vacation in Hawaii.
That was another important reason for the President.
He felt that he had to come out and address
the American public once again.
But of course, we're going to see
how all the presidential candidates react to this.
We have two big debates coming up this week.
We'll be following them here on Yahoo News.
In the meantime, Matt and Olivier,
I want to thank you for joining me.
MATTHEW OLSEN: Thanks.
OLIVIER KNOX: Thank you.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And we always look forward
to hearing what you have to say.
You can follow me on Twitter at biannagolodryga
and use hashtag Yahoo Live to let
us know what you think about the President's
strategy against ISIS.
Thanks for watching.
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