Joining today's show are Mike Barnicle, Richard Haass, Chris Jansing, Bill Neely, Harold Ford Jr, Evelyn Farkas, John Heilemann, Michael Schmidt, Graeme Wood, David Rothkopf, Ari Melber, John Della Volpe, Sara Eisen and more...
First things first, on day 81 of the Dolphin hunt season, there is a storm in taiji. Waves are about 2 metre high while 2 Pilotwales still sit there barely alive in a pen in the bay off taji, Japan. After 5 days since being captured by these people.
And, regarding the Brussels lockdown: Belgian police arrest 16 in anti-terror raids. Belgian police have made 16 arrests in anti-terror raids, but suspected Paris attacks gunman Salah Abdeslam remains at large, the authorities have said.
Some 22 raids were carried out Sunday across Brussels and Charleroi, the federal prosecutor's spokesman said.
Brussels remains on the highest level of terror alert. Universities, schools and the metro system will stay closed on Monday.
More than 130 died and 350 were injured in the Paris attacks 10 days ago.
Police fired two shots at a car during an operation in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, injuring one suspect who was later arrested.
No weapons or explosives were found during the searches on Sunday, spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told a news conference.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron is in Paris for talks with French President Francois Hollande, where he said the two leaders had agreed to step up co-operation on countering international terrorism, including increased data-sharing and sharing of airline records.
"I firmly support the decisive action taken by President Hollande to strike Isil in Syria, it is my firm belief that we should do so too," Mr Cameron said in a statement.
Mr Hollande said France planned to intensify its air strikes on Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria.
"We will intensify our strikes, choosing targets that will do the most damage possible to this army of terrorists," Mr Hollande said.
The French president kicks off a week of diplomatic efforts to rally support to crush the group: after meeting Mr Cameron on Monday, he will meet US President Barack Obama on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
Earlier, Mr Hollande and Mr Cameron visited the Bataclan concert hall, where at least 89 people were killed.
The French government says the aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle, will be operational in the Mediterranean on Monday and ready to act against IS militants in Syria.
Brussels has been on lockdown all weekend amid a manhunt for Abdeslam, who is suspected of being among the assailants who killed 130 people in Paris on Friday.
Mr Michel told reporters that authorities feared "an attack similar to the one in Paris, with several individuals who could also possibly launch several attacks at the same time in multiple locations".
Meanwhile, the BBC understands that another of the suspected attackers - pictured in a new French police appeal issued on Sunday - arrived in Greece under the name of M al-Mahmod.
The BBC's Ed Thomas has matched the image released by French police with a photo on the arrival papers of a man who reached the Greek island of Leros on 3 October.
French police have asked for more information about the man, who they say was the third suicide bomber to strike the Stade de France on 13 November.
Earlier, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said the danger to Belgium was not tied to Abdeslam alone.
Police have released an image of one of the attackers, asking for more information about him
"The threat is broader than the one suspected terrorist," he told Flemish broadcaster VRT.
It was not clear if Mr Jambon was referring to those involved in the Paris attacks, or others who might be planning attacks in Belgium.
Soldiers joined police officers on patrols in Brussels over the weekend. Many public spaces in the usually bustling capital were deserted, as people heeded official warnings to avoid crowds.
Mohammed Abdeslam, the brother of Brahim Abdeslam who blew himself up in Paris and Salah Abdeslam, spoke to Belgian TV on Sunday to urge his fugitive brother to hand himself in.
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The Belgian authorities have so far charged three people with involvement in the Paris attacks, claimed by Islamic State militants.
French media have reported that nine militants carried out the attacks, and seven died on Friday night.
Obama calls ISIS 'killers with good social media'. U.S. President Barack Obama toughened his rhetoric against ISIS at a weekend press conference in Malaysia that concluded his nine-day trip abroad.
The group responsible for the Paris terror attacks is "a bunch of killers with good social media," he said. "They are dangerous and they've caused great hardship to ... an overwhelming majority of people."
The global coalition formed to destroy ISIS "will not relent," he vowed. "We will not accept the idea that terrorist assaults on restaurants and theaters and hotels are the new normal, or that we are powerless to stop them."
Obama's stronger language on ISIS came after days of criticism for his response to the tragedy in Paris but did not signal a policy shift by the administration.
"They can't beat us on the battlefield, so they try to terrorize us into being afraid, and changing our patterns of behavior, and panicking, and abandoning our allies and partners, and retreating from the world," Obama said. "As president, I will not let that happen."
Obama seeks tricky balance in fight against ISIS
It's "absolutely false" that "we are somehow at war with an entire religion," he said. "The United States could never be at any war with any religion because America is made up by multiple religions. We're strengthened by people from every religion, including Muslim Americans. So I want to be as clear as I can on this -- prejudice and discrimination helps (ISIS) and undermines our national security."
Obama says ground troops to fight ISIS would be a mistake
Obama was hit with a wave of criticism in the wake of the terrorists' attacks in France and Lebanon, which left hundreds dead. At a press conference a few days after 130 people were slaughtered in France's capital, Obama described that burst of violence as a "setback" in the battle against ISIS.
Why did Obama declare ISIS 'contained' the day before the Paris attack?
He also addressed the backlash in the United States against accepting Syrian refugees after it was widely reported that one of the Paris attackers may have entered France among a group of refugees.
The Obama administration had said it wanted the U.S. to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next year.
On Thursday, the House swiftly passed a bill that would suspend the program allowing Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the country until key national security agencies certify they don't pose a security risk.
More than half the nation's governors say Syrian refugees not welcome
"People have understandably been so concerned, given how similar Paris is to many American cities, that I get why legislation in the House moved forward quickly," Obama said Sunday. "My hope though is, now that we have some time to catch our breath and take a look at this carefully, that people understand that refugees who end up in the United States are the most vetted, scrutinized, thoroughly investigated individuals that ever arrived on American shores."
Obama calls caring for refugees 'American leadership
The process that has been "constructed over the course of several administrations, on a bipartisan basis, is extraordinarily thorough," he said.
It already takes between 18 and 24 months for someone to be approved, he noted.
The legislation that passed only "gums up the works so much" that "effectively, you don't see any refugees being admitted."
No confidence: Disapproval of Obama’s handling of terrorism reaches 54%, highest of his presidency.Only once before, in late fall 2014, did he even graze 50 percent disapproval. (That was probably a reaction to ISIS beheading Americans James Foley and Steven Sotloff.) Now? Clear majority.
Having no strategy on Syria or ISIS and sounding like you’re on your “man period” at press conferences when pressed on that fact can do that to you.
I wonder if that’s a pure reaction to Paris, driving home the fact that more than a year of bombing ISIS hasn’t stopped them from launching major attacks in the west, or if it’s also a backlash to Obama wagging his finger at Americans who are nervous about admitting Syrian refugees. I’d guess it’s some of both. Americans are ready to crack down on the jihadis: 73 percent want the U.S. to participate in a military response to the Paris attack and 60 percent support increased use of American ground troops, although obviously an “increase” can mean a lot of things. There are 50 Special Forces troops in the field in Syria now; would people be okay with 50 more?
How about 5,000 more?
Meanwhile, on Syrian refugees, ABC/WaPo finds almost the same number in opposition that Bloomberg found. Bloomberg saw 53 percent against accepting more refugees; ABC/WaPo has it at 54 percent, with 52 percent now less confident in America’s ability to screen refugees than they were before Paris. YouGov also conducted a poll this week on whether we should take more refugees from Syria. Guess what:
Another majority opposed. Democrats, although in favor on balance, can’t muster a majority to support Obama’s position. In fact, when you ask people specifically whether Syrian refugees should be welcomed into their home state, opposition rises slightly to 54 percent — the NIMBY effect in action, and precisely the same number that ABC/WaPo got. Nor is that any sort of historical outlier. Pew has taken polls during several major refugee crises over the past 60 years and usually (although not always) found that a majority of Americans are opposed to accepting people from abroad. Opposition to taking Syrian refugees right now is actually less strong than it was to taking Hungarian refugees in 1958, Indochinese in 1979, or Cubans in 1980. Maybe that’s a small concession to how brutal Syria’s war is or maybe it’s a function of the fact that 10,000 refugees is a comparatively small number. Either way, a majority opposed accepting refugees in all four cases. The next time Obama tells you that it’s un-American to not want to take refugees, ask him which America he has in mind.
One more poll for you, just because we’re on a subject that touches heavily on cultural assimilation. Today WaPo dusted off this graph from Pew from earlier this year to remind readers that most Muslims are not, in fact, terrorists or pro-terrorist:
Glass mostly full or glass a tiny bit empty? On the one hand, Muslims overwhelmingly view ISIS unfavorably. On the other hand, as Graeme Wood (who wrote an excellent analysis of ISIS for The Atlantic earlier this year) put it: “Alternate headline: tens of millions openly support the Islamic State.” Apply the same percentages here to the nearly one million migrants who have flooded into Germany this year. How many new ISIS fans is Deutschland housing these days?
In Polls: Donald Trump leads, Ben Carson slips. Donald Trump has a double-digit lead over Ben Carson in the Republican presidential race and voters say they prefer change over political experience, two new national polls show.
Trump leads Carson 32% to 22%, in a new poll by The Washington Post and ABC News.
And the real estate mogul leads the retired neurosurgeon 28% to 18% in a new Fox News poll.
The two are trailed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
In the Washington Post/ABC News poll, Rubio is in third at 11%, followed by Cruz at 8%, Bush at 6% and former tech CEO Carly Fiorina at 4%. In the Fox News poll, Rubio and Cruz are tied at 14% and Bush has 5%.
In both polls, no other candidates top 3% -- a crucial marker, since debate sponsor CNN has announced that a 3.5% national average (or a 4% average in Iowa or New Hampshire) is necessary to make the cut for the next GOP presidential debate on December 15.
Trump has increasingly confronted Carson in recent weeks, highlighting media reports about his struggles to grasp foreign policy and difficulty documenting his stories of a violent youth.
In the Washington Post/ABC News survey, 52% of respondents said the attribute most important to them personally in selecting a candidate was that the person would bring change needed to Washington, while 28% said they prefer the most honest candidate and 11% said experience is most important.
That first segment is where Trump finds his support: 47% of those surveyed said Trump is the candidate best able to bring change to Washington, while 22% said Carson.
Carson is viewed as the most honest at 34% to Trump's 23%. And Bush was picked as the contender with the best experience to be president at 33% to Trump's 21%.
The Washington Post/ABC News poll surveyed 1,004 adults from November 16-19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The Fox News poll surveyed 1,016 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and the Republican primary results has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Trump retakes lead, Cruz surges in IA; Rubio second in NH. Donald Trump has returned to the lead in Iowa while Ted Cruz has now surged past Ben Carson into second place. Carson has slipped from a first-place tie into third.
While Iowa's Republicans generally feel Trump is ready to be commander-in-chief, Cruz scores even better on this measure, boosted by support from very conservative and Tea Party Iowans who feel he is ready to assume the post. That's more than say so about Trump, Carson, Rubio and Jeb Bush.
Since last month, Ted Cruz has gained ground -- and Ben Carson has lost ground -- among some key voting groups in Iowa: evangelicals, Tea Party supporters, those who are very conservative and older voters. And while Trump still leads among some of these groups, it's Cruz who is ahead among the very conservative, and Trump leads Cruz by just two points among evangelical voters.
Cruz's move has come directly at the expense of Carson, as nearly one-quarter of his voters switched.
In New Hampshire, Donald Trump keeps his commanding lead, keeping up support from conservatives, Republicans and the independents who say they're coming into the GOP primary to vote for him. This month finds Marco Rubio nearly doubling his support and pushing into second place -- albeit far back of Trump -- at 13 percent now, up from 7 percent, enough to edge past Carson and Cruz in the nation's first primary.
In New Hampshire, even as he's moved up, Rubio draws mixed evaluations on whether he's ready to be commander-in-chief. But he still bests Jeb Bush and Ben Carson on the measure; Bush is narrowly viewed as not ready, and Carson is overwhelmingly seen as not ready by New Hampshirites.
Almost all of each candidates' own supporters feel he is ready to be commander-in-chief, so these numbers also reflect differences driven heavily by perceptions among non-supporters. But among non-supporters, Cruz still does well. Carson, less so among those not already backing him.
Importantly for Trump: Most of his voters believe he can do all the things he says, much more so than Carson's voters believe about Carson. Their voters were asked how confident they were in their ability to get done what they say they want to. For Trump, 61% of his voters are confident in New Hampshire, but also in Iowa and South Carolina, patterns are very similar.
And when Trump backers are asked their favorite thing about him, the top answer is that he says what others are afraid to say - a key explainer of his support even as others find some of his statements controversial.
ISIS, the impact of Paris, and immigration
Handling ISIS has become a litmus test for candidates: at least two-thirds of Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina all say a candidate must agree with them on this topic in order to win their vote.
A sizable percentage of GOP primary voters in all three early states said their decision as to who to support was at least somewhat affected by the Paris attacks.
Republican primary voters are hawkish on confronting ISIS abroad. Significant majorities of Republican primary voters in all three early voting states favor sending U.S. troops to fight ISIS in the Middle East.
Immigration and the GOP Race
Immigration policy has become a deal-breaker in the Republican race: voters say a candidate must agree with them on it in order to earn their vote. This is markedly different from issues like same-sex marriage, on which Republicans are willing to disagree with their candidate, and more similar to handling ISIS. It also greatly outpaces matters of faith and religion, including in Iowa, where Republicans are more willing to compromise. 61% of Iowa GOP voters say their nominee must agree with them on immigration, as do 63% in New Hampshire.
Large majorities of Republican primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina express tough views toward illegal immigrants, including eight in ten who view them as harm to national security. More than four in five say that they have broken the law and should be penalized or deported.
These voters also perceive negative economic consequences as a result of illegal immigration: about three in four say illegal immigrants drive down Americans' wages.
But Republicans' perceptions of illegal immigrants in these states aren't entirely negative: majorities in each state also view illegal immigrants as hard-working, and about half say they fill jobs that Americans won't do. Many who voice these descriptions simultaneously feel that illegal immigrants have also broken the law or pose potential harm, suggesting that for many Republicans, views on this are more nuanced than straight up-or-down approval on candidates' proposals might suggest.
In Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire, voters who support the Tea Party and those who are more conservative express the most negative views of illegal immigrants. About nine in ten voters in these groups see illegal immigrants as driving down wages and threatening national security, and think they should be penalized or deported.
In New Hampshire, where independents typically play a large role in the primary, independents are only slightly less likely than Republicans to view illegal immigrants negatively.
The Pentagon is investigating accusations from analysts that supervisors revised conclusions to mask some of the U.S. military’s failures in training Iraqi troops and beating back the Islamic State.
When Islamic State group fighters overran a string of Iraqi cities last year, analysts at U.S. Central Command wrote classified assessments for military-intelligence officials and policymakers that documented the humiliating retreat of the Iraqi army. But before the assessments were final, former intelligence officials said, the analysts’ superiors made significant changes.
In the revised documents, the Iraqi army had not retreated. The soldiers had simply “redeployed.”
Such changes are at the heart of an expanding internal Pentagon investigation of CENTCOM, as Central Command is known, where analysts say supervisors revised conclusions to mask some of the U.S. military’s failures in training Iraqi troops and in beating back the Islamic State group. The analysts say supervisors were particularly eager to paint a more optimistic picture of America’s role in the conflict than was warranted.
In recent weeks, the Pentagon inspector general seized a large quantity of emails and documents from military servers as it examines the claims, and has added more investigators to the inquiry.
The Nov. 13 attacks in Paris were a deadly demonstration that the Islamic State, once a group of militants focused on seizing territory in Iraq and Syria, has broadened its focus to attack the West. The electronic files seized in the Pentagon investigation tell the story of the group’s rise, as seen through the eyes of Central Command, which oversees military operations across the Middle East.
The exact content of those documents is unclear and may not become public because so much of the information is classified.
But military officials have told Congress some of those emails and documents may have been deleted before they had to be turned over to investigators, according to a senior congressional official, who requested anonymity. Current and former officials have separately made similar claims, on condition of anonymity, to The New York Times.
Although lawmakers are demanding answers about those claims, it is not clear the inspector general has been able to verify them. A spokeswoman for the inspector general declined to comment.
Staff members at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence are also poring over years of Central Command intelligence reports and comparing them to assessments from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and others. The committee is not just examining reports about Iraq, Syria and the Islamic State group, but also those about Afghanistan and other areas under Central Command’s purview.
An insurrection
The insurrection inside Central Command is an important chapter in the story of how the United States responded to the growing threat from the Islamic State group. During the summer, a group of Central Command analysts took concerns about their superiors to the inspector general, saying they had evidence senior officials had changed intelligence assessments to overstate the progress of U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS.
The analysts said problems in Iraq were rooted in deep political and religious divides that could not easily be solved with a military campaign, current and former officials have said. Yet Central Command’s official posture remained generally upbeat.
It is not clear whether the Central Command assessments significantly changed the Obama administration’s views about ISIS. While Central Command was largely positive about U.S. gains, other agencies have been more pessimistic. The Obama administration has generally been measured in its assessments.
But President Obama and senior intelligence officials have acknowledged that the Islamic State group’s rapid emergence caught them by surprise. At the least, the prospect that senior officials intentionally skewed intelligence conclusions has raised questions about how much Obama, Congress and the public can believe the military’s assessments.
Those questions have taken on a new urgency since the Paris attacks, which signaled a new determination by ISIS to carry out terrorist attacks beyond the territory in Iraq and Syria it has declared its “caliphate.” Pressure has grown on the Obama administration to articulate a more muscular strategy for dismantling the group, and a chorus of Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates has called for a U.S. ground campaign in Syria.
Senior lawmakers have begun their own inquiries into the military’s intelligence apparatus. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said his committee was examining intelligence assessments from Central Command and other military commands to see if there was a systemic problem of dissenting voices being muffled by senior military commanders.
“Any time there is an allegation that intelligence is being shaved in a certain way, or distorted in a certain way, that’s a cause for serious concern,” he said.
Thornberry said that Congress has to be careful not to impede the progress of the inspector general’s investigators, but that lawmakers “also have a job to do.”
Foreign Policy magazine reported Thursday that a group of Republican lawmakers will be focusing on whether Central Command also skewed intelligence assessments about Afghanistan.
Congressional action
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has been eager to expand his panel’s inquiry into the Central Command assessments. He is planning to send a letter to the inspector general on Monday asking if emails and documents relevant to the investigation have indeed been deleted. He is also asking for copies of any deleted materials that investigators might be able to retrieve from Central Command servers.
For the moment, Nunes is making the request without the support of his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff said questions about skewed intelligence needed to be taken “very seriously,” but the inspector general should be allowed to finish the inquiry before the House Intelligence Committee considered expanding its investigation.
The committee has asked the Pentagon for permission to interview officials, including the two most senior intelligence officers at Central Command, Maj. Gen. Steven Grove and his civilian deputy, Gregory Ryckman. The request was denied by Pentagon officials, citing the ongoing internal investigation.
That investigation was prompted by complaints in the summer from Central Command’s longtime Iraq experts, led by Gregory Hooker, senior Iraq analyst. In some ways, the team’s criticisms mirror those of a decade ago, when Hooker wrote a research paper saying the Bush administration, over many analysts’ objections, advocated a small force in Iraq and spent little time planning for what would follow the invasion.
Lawmakers originally said the Central Command investigation would be completed in weeks. But Pentagon investigators have found the work painstaking and it could span months. In addition to determining whether changes were made to intelligence reports — and if so, who ordered them — the investigators are studying reports from other intelligence agencies produced at the time to determine what was occurring in Iraq and Syria when the reports were written.
Col. Patrick Ryder, a Central Command spokesman, said the command welcomed the inspector general’s oversight and would respond to requests from Congress for information. He also said Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the Central Command commander, would “take appropriate action once the investigation results have been received and reviewed.”
Regardless of it all, please stay in touch!
