[Jim Sciutto, Cnn Chief National Security Correspondent:] That it's not a priority when he wants to seek a that that public bully pulpit of Twitter of the Twitter world. But I'll tell you, watch North Korea, watch how they react to this stuff, because I'm sure they are following the president's Twitter comments very closely.
[Alisyn Camerota, Cnn Anchor:] Karin, there is so much stuff for us to watch right now we need more than two eyes, what's happening in North Korea, what's happening in Syria. And then, you know, people are on tender hooks trying to figure out if Secretary of State Tillerson is going to actually be met by Vladimir Putin, who at one time called him a good friend. What do we expect today from that?
[Karoun Demirjian, Congressional Reporter, "washington Post":] Right. I mean we don't know exactly what to expect there. And I think that is in a way tactical by Russia to not answer that question and leave us on the tender hooks trying to figure out if that's going to happen or not. And and that that just is another kind of power play here that's happening and and you can basically trace this meeting to those same sorts of origins. Are is Lavrov going to have the upper hands coming out or is Tillerson? He's the more experienced diplomat. But as we just said, you know, the United States just did make a strike in Syria, which probably did rattle Moscow quite a bit. So who comes out of this being the stronger party? And that is certainly part of it, even though there are diplomats trying to kind of come to an accord, there's certainly a lot of, you know, whose weight is going to be thrown around more and be more influential on the ground.
[Chris Cuomo, Cnn Anchor:] John, help me with this one. Riddle me this. Tillerson seems to have a harder line on Russia when he heads in there, you know, about what's going to be acceptable, what isn't. But, before he gets there, he's at the G-7 with a group of people who are very concerned about what's happening in Ukraine and he says, why would the American taxpayer care about what's going on in Ukraine? What is that about?
[John Kirby, Cnn Military And Diplomatic Analyst:] Yes. I I don't know. I'm absolutely befuddled by that comment. I just don't understand it. I mean, look, what Russia is doing in Ukraine, which we don't talk about a lot, is still very serious. They have violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine. They continue to do that. They continue to foment instability there. And it does matter. It matters to our allies and partners in Europe. And it matters to the American people because it matters so much to our allies in partners in Europe. And now we have, you know, troops that are deploying more to Balkan countries. So this is not this is not a conflict, frozen though it may be in the headlines, it's not a frozen conflict on the ground in Ukraine, I can assure you that. Also back on the Putin thing, it's not untypical atypical for them to kind of keep you on the string here with a Putin meeting. There were times when Secretary Kerry would travel where we weren't even sure when we got on the ground whether it was going to happen or not. Most often it did. You heard Peskov say earlier today, yes, it's probably going to happen. I wouldn't be surprised if he meets with Putin but I also wouldn't be surprised if they if they drag it out to the last minute and then it's like a late-night meeting kind of thing, which is typical for President Putin. He likes to do that.
[Camerota:] Very oh, that's good to know. That's good context. Panel, thank you very much for all of the information.
[Sciutto:] Thank you.
[Camerota:] All right, so President Trump is not ruling out some kind of action in Syria again. What is the plan? What about the plan to pay for it? We're going to ask White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney next.