joining us. we beginning tonight with three words and the work under way that could turn those words into action. something should happen. those were the words president trump used when talking about bashar al assad's nerve attack that he perpetrated. when that happens, if it does, who it involves, it could be the first large scale force of the american presidency and already has russia forces eyeball to eyeball. we have two reports where members of his national security are on hand to brief the president. we want to start at the pentagon. what's the latest you knsnoknowt what the defense secretary could be telling the president? >> the joint chiefs of staff were briefed at the pentagon about military options and defense secretary mattis bri briefing the president at

mar-a-lago about what the options are. there's basically two ideas, a limited strike against the airfields of bashar al assad's warplanes to launch that attack on those people in northern syria. that would only be sending a message to bashar al assad and the world that donald trump wants this type of behavior to change. if he wants to have a broader action, to take out assad's chemical weapons capability, that is a much larger list of targets. that is airfield, aircraft, helicopt helicopters, barrel bombs, artillery rockets, all of that is used to launch these chemical attacks. you have to take out the entire supply chain, entire delivery system chain all together. that would be a very significant propositi proposition. tonight, where we are is the president is being briefed. i think it is fair to say once

the president is briefed, that means the u.s. military is in fact ready to go awaiting his orders. the u.s. military doesn't do these things from a cold start. they will be ready to go but they are waiting to see the decision that mr. trump wants to make. anderson. >> barbara, in terms of options, there's a potential missile strike and using aircraft, you risk pilots, that's the advantage i assume of something like tomahawk missiles. >> that's right. let's take a quick look at the map. exactly right. in the mediterranean there are two u.s. navy warships atop the cruise missile unmanned. they fly low and fairly fast. they can invade syrian air defen defenses. that might be one of the key weapons that would be used, these tomahawk cruise missiles. the other might be the b2

stealth bomber that can get in at high altitudes and not readily seen. the big question is what about the russians? there are russian military forces, russian equipment, aircraft, ground weapons all over the place in regime held areas in syria. the pentagon knows it wants to make sure where it strikes, if it does they don't inadvertently strike the russians. nobody is looking for a wider war. >> if they strike the airfield, it's possible there are russian personnel stationed there all over the place. >> exactly right. let's look for a second the common sense view here. if you start with the proposition the u.s. military is ready to go tonight if the president were to give the order, that would mean they've done the overhead reconnaissance, they have a pretty good idea where

everything is. if they wait much longer assad begins to move his stuff around and russians move theirs around and makes it more challenging to locate these targets and have that precision you want. it's a difficult proposition because we have seen this before, any military force, you can strike a building and have all the satellite imagery for days on end and you may not know exactly who's inside, they don't want to strike the russians. >> barbara starr, thank you, we'll check back with you in the next two hours, this all folding along side china's visit to mar-a-lago. and it has been upstaged and jeff joins us with his repo reporting, have there been si t sightings of the president on mar-a-lago? he is booked this afternoon.

>> he is having the dinner at mar-a-lago. this is overhanging at mar-a-lago. he is not able to have full discussions with his advisors. he may meet with them after the dinner here. this certainly is weighing heavy on him. when he was flying here from washington on air force one i was aboard the plane and the president was asked about syria. he spoke out with the most explicit words he has said yet about bashar al assad. it took about three different times asking him if he should leave power before he said something has to happen. let's watch. >> i think what happened in syria is a disgrace to humanity. he's there and i guess he's rung things, so something should happen. >> he said i guess he's running things, something should happen but did not say what that

something should be. that is what he is going to be hearing from his advisors on. secretary mattis here on the ground. as his secretary of state, rex tillerson spoke with very harsh sharp language direct language on the ground in palm beach, florida. he said this is a serious matter that calls for a serious response. >> jeff, just in terms of logistics in mar-a-lago, where do we know about where the president would actually go over military options with his team? is there a mobile "situation room" on site, i assume? >> reporter: there is. every time the president travels anywhere there certainly is a mobile "situation room," if you will, a secure facility, tear g particularly here in mar-a-lago he's been coming here so often. remember back when he was hosting the prime minister of japan, when there was a threat from north korea as well, they were out on the patio having dinner in public display. i'm told that will not happen

tonight. his dinner is indoors but he is also meeting indoors for security briefings and things. do not look for a repeat of this very open type of briefing room here. he has all the capabilities here in florida as any president does when they travel any place here. he has a large number of advi r advisors with him here. the question is would he want to interrupt this very important meeting with the chinese president with some other kind of air strike. we don't know the answer to that. he he certainly will be getting the options this evening. >> talking about the options to the president, joining us retired rear admiral john kirby, cnn military analyst, mark hurtling and retired rick francona and gloia bore ga. you know this area very well. i have map of syria and the

capitol and the area the gas strike took place and possible targets. explain what we have here. >> obviously, it will depend on the kind of message the u.s. wants to send. a lot of these areas are not as used as others and air paces been abandoned for a number of reasons. this in particular, this is where the reports say the chemical attack took place at the province. you also have this area, that's significant such as aleppo and other places in the country took place and very important for these hearings where they have a significant number of aircraft they use in defense. as we heard barbara starr rep t reporting they are spread out with the main russian naval base here. it depends what they want to send. israelis have bombed in the da

mass scus area in the past when they wanted to point out out. >> the pinkish areas are isis control and more dark areas, isis report. you point out there are not only russian military in a lot of these place, russians have their own military installations in syria. how does their presence complicate this entire operation? >> that naval base at tartus is almost a sovereign area. the base is solely used by the russians and to protect their assets there they put in state-of-the-art s200 defense system that covers the northern half of syria. this is a complicated factor for a u.s. air strike if we will mount one. you have to consider will the russians oppose an operation there and complicates the

planning. >> we heard the operation is one concei conceived by the obama administration. what is your biggest concern? >> for me, he's getting briefs on pros and cons and conseque e consequences. what they need to be thinking about, what about the day after? maybe you hit the targets you want to hit and maybe you send a strong message. there will be expectations about what happens next? it's important for everybody to be think through that. how will the russians react and iranians react and assad. and now you put your thumb on the scale on the civil war in syria we haven't done before. that could send messages to the opposition groups in terms of what kind of support they want to see from the united states going forward. >> general hurley, always, it depends what kind of message. is this sending a message to

bashar al assad, a warning? that would be one sort of strike. is it actually to destroy air capabilities, that would be a more sustained sort of strike. >> what you want to ask is the key phrase end state. what do you want to accomplish? that was brought up in your earlier reporting, in terms of is this a poke in the eye or sustained air campaign going after a bunch of different targets, a one time shot with cruise missile, as my good friend, rick francona pointed out most of the targets are in regime controlled area. arwa showed that they hit where most of the rebels are but they came from the regime area. you're literally shooting into an area russia has been helping them. this targeting at the end state piece, the targeting is against

assad and his regime. what i would question and i know mike kirby has comments on this. this has been supported for the last year plus by russia. we would not be in this situation, assad likely be gone had russia not supported him a little over a year ago and supported him with airport and those air fields. i'm concerned what will happen and the designed end state. the american military can hit any target you want and cause a great deal of destruction. it's what comes next particularly for the iranian and cuz force fighters throughout syria. >> i think ronald reagan send missiles to hit gadhafi attempt in libya and a strike in the clinton administration largely symb symbolic, more-or-less, people deriding it as sort of pounding

the sand. is that a concern? that is one option, sending a message with the strike without it having much actual impact on the ground. >> i'm sorry. me? >> sorry. go ahead. >> you're absolutely right. whatever they strike has to be related to the sarin attack, airfield, storage facility. i have no doubt the military planners are thinking through collateral damage and definitely thinking through presence of russian an iranian forces. no question they will do that. no matter how precise or effective it is in proportion to the sarin effect. they have to think of the repercussions after that and reactions internally. it may not have the deterrent

effect they want. i think they should be looking at the options. if it doesn't have the deterrent effect they have to be prepared to follow it. that runs a greater escalation in this civil war we haven't seen. >> colonel in terms of targets, if bashar al assad is the problem, why not target him in a heavily populated area, i would assume. >> i think you just answered that. it's too heavy populate d there. the palace is in the city of damascus. he doesn't live there. trying to take him out will probably kill a lot of his family and civilians and too hard to know where he is at any particular moment. to send a message, you have to go after the military target, as arwa was mentioned, one

associated with this air strike. knockdown something on the base and send a message as the admiral general said, do we really want to get into a sho shooting war with the russians over this incident. we may want to but someone has to answer. >> and some calling for president trump to get authorization. you look back at the tweets then civilian donald trump sent to president obama, he was saying the president had to go to congress to do anything monet y monetarily. >> president obama did go to congress with his famous red line and didn't win and ended up not striking assad as a result of that. interesting to me we're all talking about military strikes now. it seems to me while congress would like the president to go to congress, it seems to me he's not going to want to repeat anything barack obama did.

we know there was the 2001 war authorization, anti-terror authorization against isis and al qaeda that is often used and if this president were to do something against assad, i believe he would probably use that and say he has the authorization under that piece of 2001 piece of legislation. i can't see him repeating what obama did because they all understand barack obama was stopped after he went to congress. >> we're talking about the possibility of civilian casua y casualties. you point out a lot of the arsenal, not just air fields, a lot of the arsenal for assad is near civilian areas. >> that's one of the key issues, air to tufrz capability are -- to surface capability are civilian area, mobile and can be moved around. one thing the u.s. can't do at

this stage is kcausing significant damage. military taking action is one thing. if they do something, will they change and say assad must go. right now we're not talking about isis. isis is an entirely different aspect of this already very complicated map. we're talking about the leader of the country who is gassing his own people. >> there is no easy solution. the problems if assad does go, what happened in syria? you have different warring facti factions, the allies, if there is a leadership vacuum, who fills that vacuum and does that mean greater u.s. and western involvement. we will continue to talk about this as we continue to monitor developments throughout the next two hours. we will look how the current administration has largely been blaming the prior administration for this crisis and house

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tonight the man in charge of the house investigation committee is no longer in charge. he stepped away and under investigation for his actions, some say antics. he ran to the white house and ran back the very next day to brief reporters about and reporters as well information the white house already had because that's where he got it from. as it became clear to all concerned we were witnessing some kind of kuboki theater, sean spicer said --

>> what happened was 100% proper and legal and appropriate and clear and legal. he came over which happens daily. there's nothing problematic i see in him conducting an investigation and running an investigation. he has met with people cleared to discuss classified information. regarding a review he is cond t conducting. that's how it's supposed to work. >> at the same time, sean spicer is anything but forthcoming on who let him into the white house and talked to reporters a day later. here's what he said when a reporter brought it up. >> i never said i would provide you answer, i said i would look into it. >> a lot we don't know about the meeting and the benching. he said he was targeted like everyone else, about as clear as a bowl of guacamole. >> reporter: leaving the capitol, devin nunes refused to

answer any questions and released a statement blaming left wing groups for making false political accusation. he said it was in the best interest s to let mike conway lead the investigation into the trump campaign. the news stunned members of the intelligence committee who only learned of the decision after staff handed them nunes' statement once he abruptly left the closed door meeting. >> we were caught a little off guard and now the investigation can proceed. >> reporter: a dramatic shift from a week ago ar aftfter he canceled a closed hearing about information from trump and his soerbtsz. >> are you going to stay and run this investigation? >> why would i not? you guy nesd to ask them why these things are being said. >> they said they cannot do it with you as chairman.

>> you have to talk to them. >> mehouse speaker ryan met wit chairman nunes last night. >> chairman nunes doesn't want this to be a distraction to such an important investigation. >> did you urge him to step aside, sir? >> reporter: nunes had grown weary as his explanation shifted whether the white house gave him intelligence as to his unsubstantiated charge whether president obama wiretapped him. >> we will not talk about anything to do with this investigation. >> reporter: today, democrats praised nunes' move. >> i'm sure it was a very difficult decision for him. as he mentioned, in the best interest of the investigation. >> where does chairman nunes go? will he get access to classified information after recusing himself from the investigation?

>> as chairman of the house intelligence committee he still has access to the top secret information, the gang of eight, top leaders in congress would get. that's made by speaker paul ryan and people in the white house to deny him clearance to get that information. we're not getting information he will get the clearance vote speaker ryan saying he is still chairman of the committee and have access to the information. still, whether this can proceed in a bipartisan matter and one big sign, whether mike conway can schedule a public hearing of the former obama justice official, sally yates, warned before michael flynn, the former national security advisor may have been susceptible to black meal by the russians. you will probably see a lot more

partisan bickering if that does not happen. >> congressman from connecticut, i want to ask you about chairman nunes stepping down, is your confidence restored about the house's ability to conduct an independent investigation? >> from the inside the investigation was actually proceeding pretty well. as late as yesterday or the day before, we had reached agreement on a witness list. inside we were doing pretty well. very clearly, chairman nunes ability to lead this in a way that would be perceived as impartial was badly damaged by the whole white house ex sca paid. i do think mike conway assuming control is a good thing. i have a lot of faith in congressman conway and very fair in my experience and we can proceed with a public perception

of impartiality. >> have you figured out a timetable for james comey, james clapper and sally yates and the comey interview supposed to still be behind closed doors. have there been any agreements on the timetable? >> that's one of the interesting things about this change in leadership in the investigation. remember the comey-rogers meeting so urgent was proposed to be scheduled right on top of that open hearing exactly at the same time the open hearing the deputy attorney general was supposed to testify. that had the effect of canceling the open hearing sadly i think was part of the intent. in my mind, in fact was that closed hearing with rogers and comey really that ur 2gent.

we'll see where he goes with this. >> paul ryan said he had confidence in nunes and now he says he respects his decision to step aside as the issues become a distraction. >> chairman nunes, where he goes from here is in the hands of the ethics committee. we will see where they come out and we'd like that to proceed in as nonpartisan a fashion we can. one characterization i'd like to take issue here, you were running comments of sean spicer characterized chairman nunes' behavior, going the white house and taking it back and it was routine. it was anything but routine. having reviewed those documents myself i would concur with ra ranking member adam schiff who said there was nothing there that would warrant anything as

unroutine as chairman nunes chose to react to those docum t documents. >> the chairman said his st stepping down was temporary. do you actually think he would reassume his position at some point leading the russia investigation? >> i think you have to play this out. there's an ethics investigation under way. hard for me to see any circumstances he would reassume leadership while that investigation is under way. if the ethics committee fully clears him and we all got some explanation again for the very strange way in which he dealt with these documents and that explanation made sense maybe then but seems like a long shot to me. >> i want to be clear. you viewed the documents chairman nunes had gone over to the white house grounds to view, you actually viewed the docum t documents? >> as of today, those documents were made available to the broader membership of the committee and i had the

opportunity to review them today. >> obviously, you can't talk much about the details of them but you say it basically confirms in your opinion what chairman schiff said, ranking member. >> maybe some day. i completely concur with adam's conclusion, there is nothing there for either one of us ju jumped off the page to say this has to be handle in some unusual foundation. >> what will change in terms of partisanship on the committee? we saw in the first open session, questions by republicans all seem to be about leaks, questions by democrats on russia connections and russia involvement in the election itself. it almost seemed like two different committees. would that really change? >> i think -- first of all, we shouldn't confuse the different approaches to this investigation

with partisanship. that's a committee historically operated in very bipartisan fashion. i continue to be puzzled by chairman nunes' behavior with respect to this white house investigation. that wasn't a republican way of acting that way and when we questioned him, it wasn't base we were democrats. i want to give mike conway a lot of room. he may change the approach a little bit. as you saw in the open hearing the democrats did focus on what the headline was, there is an investigation into the mobility of collusion hand links of the trump campaign and the investigation much more focused on the leaks. and coming up, the turning point of congressman nunes and he said he saw no need to step aside.

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xfinity watchathon week! now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. we are waiting tonight for possible word outside of mar-a-lago where the pentagon is pondering military action tar t targeting syria. while we wait we're following

tonight's breaking news on capitol, house chairman devin nunes no longer leading and he stepped aside, he is under investigation himself. he did a huge 180 and until today he was unbending in front of accusation of bias. here's what he said last week. >> reporter: are you going to stay as chairman and run this investigation? >> why would i not? you guys need to ask them why these things are being said. >> reporter: they said it cannot run with you as chairman. >> you have to talk to them. that sounds like their problem. my colleagues are happy with the investigation and we will continue. >> they will continue without chairman nunes. kirsten, do you think this is temporary? he says he ae's temporarily st p stepping down. >> i don't know but republicans says that good idea and say they

support and trust him and it's a good idea because it's a skrakz, the ethics investigation created a distraction, i suggest, if he was cleared by the ethics committee he could come back but he already made it such a circus, it makes sense. >> he met with speaker ryan the night before and ryan approved the decision, do you think he suggested it? >> my inclination when people want to spend more time with their family, maybe he was nu e nudged. this was a cumulative thing. the straw that broke the camel's back was probably this ethics thing. we have a series of incidents, where he doesn't brief ranking member schiff about this and the second thing, he tells speaker paul ryan this information came from a "whistle-blower" type

person and it came from the white house. i think he misled speaker ryan and now you have this emerging. seems like maybe three strikes and you're out. >> it is interesting nunes is blaming several left wing act activist groups when what he's investigated for -- because you're investigated doesn't mean you're guilty of anything but the congressional ethics looking at misuse. >> the left wing activist group sent a letter saying, hey, devin nunes said what they said he said. they said, we're charged with crediting congress with this classified investigation. let's take a step back. for three weeks now, devin nunes has been running around, doing press conference, coordinating with the white house, hammering

people on his committee saying the scandal in washington is leaking classified information and he is now being investigated by the ethics committee for l k leaking classified information. if they say there's really nothing here, he didn't do that. i think he will be back running the investigation. >> do you agree with that? >> congress, when they investigate themselves, one of the irony, congress is a very small town. and mike conaway who is taking over is the former ethics chairman. either there is a quick investigation, small scope and nunes will be cleared and back at the full committee running the investigation or they will take a broader scope and investigate democrats and we will see this go on a lot longer. two republican members i spoke to today close to working with ethics staff they say the second scenario is very possible, democrats will be investigated.

>> you don't think it's an opportunity for republicans to move nunes out of the picture? what's the benefit of bringing him back? >> it depends how it goes. we have two different dynamic, the house, members on both sides on television holding a lot of press conferences in front of the television. and versus richard burr, i worked for him, you don't see mark warner or richard burr in front of tv. >> and for nunes, it's good if you're a republican and like donald trump. >> there's a sense for a lot of people on the republican side this will be a mammoth investigation, this whole leak situation with susan rice there is more there. therefore, they don't want anything to screw this up. they view this as an unneeded distraction, get somebody in there and plow ahead so that doesn't become the subject. >> it will go on, susan rice, it will go to donald j. trump.

we have a national security advisor, general flynn disgraced kicked out 24 days into his term for lying to the russians. an attorney general who had to step aside and recuse himself from an investigation because he lied to the senate about contacts with the russians. and devin nunes had no contact with the russians but they need an independent nonpartisan investigation. >> that's why nunes had to go. >> i thought he sounded really bipartisan. i'm embracing congressman conaway who will now run as a republican for texas being praised by a democrat from connecticut, fine. it's not going to work. conaway, too, had ties to the trump campaign. he said get this the russians trying to tilt the election is the same asmar yachi singers performing at a hillary rally.

they can't perform an independent investigation. >> i don't think that disqualifies him. >> an independent bipartisan investigation. >> there should be an independent -- >> get in professional investigators and prosecutors. >> fine. let's get to the bottom of the russian thing. there's no there there in my view. let's find out. get president obama, susan rice, ben rhodes, john brennan, director clapper, anybody who touched classified information in the obama administration in terms of this, get them in front of the committee. >> how about the people who tried to hack our election? the russians, we know the beneficiaries of the trump campaign. i'm trying to say something good. >> yes. for you. >> there is no conclusive proof they colluded. i want to know if there is any. the only way is to have an investigation. everybody is lying about their contacts with the russians, but there's no collusion. >> the argument folks on capitol hill use against having an

independent investigation, it will take a lot more time. you have to get security clearances for people and get people together these committees already cleared. they can already look at information. >> that's true. it would take many months to get that off the ground, but they would have a budget and according to how the legislation is put together. the senate and republican commissions don't have the budget the 9/11 commission had when they investigated something, a similar idea. if it were a few months, would that be the worst thing in the world compared to the credibility a commission like that would have? you're starting to see republicans and conservatives starting to say maybe this is the best thing. then they can investigate both things. republicans seem obsessed with u.s. intelligence and most democrats care about what the

russian agencies did. a commission could look into both of those. >> cnn is reporting the intelligence committee actually had concerns about sharing intelligence with these committ committees. they have more confidence, according to this official in the senate intelligence committee. does that argue for an independent investigation? >> i think it speaks how the senate regardless what happened on the senate floor today the senate has handle this process in a much less political fashion. >> their hearings are behind closed doors by and large. >> we have seen the working relationship with senator burr and warren much more professional. >> and it seems like the adults entered the room. >> i talked to warren who love vished praise on burr. keep in mind the top three critical of devin nunes in this process are eric, schiff, and

one other, democrats. having worked in the california delegation six years there's no more poisonous political place than that. this whole thing is infected with politics. >> is it affected? >> it is. our election was hacked. did it affect the outcome of the election, we know they did to it hurt hillary and help trump. did the trump campaign collude? no evidence of it. i don't want to get over my ski tips with it. but everybody is lying about it. >> you do want to get out on it. >> not to wax tom cruise's, i want the truth and i can handle the truth. >> and president trump previously blamed his predecessor on the crisis in

syria and if he launches a strike, what will that mean from here on out? knowing where you stand has never been easier. except when it comes to retirement. at fidelity, you get a retirement score in just 60 seconds. and we'll help you make decisions for your plan... to keep you on track. it's your retirement. know where you stand.

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eye. chemical attack on civilians. earlier the president went as far to say quote something should happen. gave no specifics. we know the joint chiefs of staff met this afternoon to discuss syria options. president trump hosting the china president is expected to meet with the national security team and after president trump acknowledged that the mess in syria is his responsibility and almost in the same breath he blamed his predecessor. >> the obama administration had a great opportunity to solve this crisis a long time ago. when he didn't cross the line after making the threat i think that set us back a long ways not only in syria, but in many of the parts of the world because it was a blank threat. >> lots to discuss me. joining any is former white house communications director and cnn political commentator.

president trump argues he inherited a bad syria policy saying that president obama said he would establish a red line against chemical weapons and failed to do anything about it. does he have a point here. there's been criticism within the administration about that. >> a lot of people were offering the president advice in 2013 after the last major chemical weapon attack by assad. some of them urging him not to do anything. one of them offering that advice was donald trump which undercuts his credibility now. here's what i learned very quickly when we went to the white house and that was we walked into the worst economic crisis since the great depression and involved in two

wars, but nobody wanted to hear about what the last administration had done and nobody wanted to hear us pointing at the last guy. everybody wanted to hear what we were going to do. donald trump is president of the united states now. an attack has occurred. i think most americans looked at that with horror and he now has the responsibility to do something about it and i think he's going to find that people's patience are going to wear thin if his answer is, well, it's the last guy's fault. >> to kind of point out what david was saying, back around that time in 2013 donald trump sent repeated tweets about president obama telling him not to have military action in syria, that there's no reason to do that. we have one we can put on the screen. that one said the only reason president obama wants to attack syria is to save face over his

red line statement. do not attack syria. fix u.s.a. we should stay out of syria. the rebels are as bad. what will we get? it goes on and on. it is different obviously when you are president and suddenly it is your responsibility as it is now for president trump. >> that's absolutely true. i think what should be concerning to people is he also left out 3 1/2 years of events there. as you know president obama didn't move forward in part because he didn't have the support from the international community. the parliament had voted against using military action and he decided to go to congress. republicans at the time didn't even bring up a vote because there weren't enough votes to move forward. there's a lot that has happened over the course of time and i think campaigning is very different from governing. what you saw donald trump do yesterday was go back to his safe zone during the campaign, a time when he also cuffed president obama and hillary

clinton of co-founding isil. so clearly this is a different time. i hope he's asking some of the questions when he's meeting with his military advisors that president obama would have, which is what next, what then, what will strikes do and how will that impact our overall strategy in syria and in the middle east. >> it's interesting because from what we're hearing a lot of the potential strikes, the potential options are options that president obama looked at or that the pentagon under the obama administration drew up for just this sort of scenario. >> yeah, i think what president trump's going to find out as he did on health care is that syria's very complicated and reacting to this kind of aggression, this war crimes frankly, is very complicated. it involves your allies. it involves the actors in congress. it also is a little more complicated now because of the

involvement of the russians and the calculation about how far you can push this before you're in a face-to-face confrontation with the russians. it's curious that the president hasn't really mentioned the russians much in his discussion of syria, but russia is really the guarantee or of assad. they're standing by with their troops. if you launch a military attack, you have to work that into your calculations. he is coming face-to-face with the reality of being president as opposed to running for president. every american, and i feel this way strongly, i hope he comes to the right answer on this. i'm not rooting for him to fail on this. i hope whatever he does is the right thing. i hope it does hurt assad and discourage him in some way from doing this again.

but it's tough stuff. >> you also as president learn not only the capabilities of the u.s., but also the limits of u.s. power in some cases. >> that's exactly right. and i'm certain if they were to move forward with military action, they would say they have legal authorization for that. i defer to lawyers to confirm it that's accurate or not. one thing that's been sitting out there is reauthorization of an aumf. he could ask for a reauthorization to get republicans and democrats at the table to do that. i don't have -- i'm not predicting he will, but there are a lot of components of this that require legal authority from an international body or from support from your own congress and i'm not sure that he and others are thinking about that or at least not that we've seen. >> jen mentioned something that is so important, which is it's the second level questions that

are always the most difficult. there's the decision to go ahead and take an action and then there is the assessment of what the consequences of that action would be, how are the -- how would assad react and how would the russians react, how would the world community react, how would it impact our efforts vis-a-vis isis and would it contribute to some of the radicalization. there are so many questions that one has to ask one's self before you take an action like this. i'm sure that these are some of the things or at least i hope these are some of the things that are being discussed right now at mar-a-lago. >> given what you said, the complex nature of syria itself, the different groups and ethnic and religious groups and the different alliances and sort of

shifting alliances. the question of course is how read in is president trump on syria on the entire region. during the campaign in an interview to me he said there is no iraq, there are no iraqis and he talked about taking the oil. one wonders if he does understand the complexities of it. certainly there are people around him that do, but that's a huge concern i think probably for anybody watching this. >> this is obviously a baptism of fire for him. this isn't real estate or branding. this is deadly serious and it's going on by the way at the same time that he's sitting down with china to talk about another mortal threat to the u.s. or potentially mortal threat to the u.s. which is a nuclear north korea. so there is a lot going on right now and one hopes that he is

getting briefed up rn, but the administration itself has to speak with coherentsy because this week he had secretary tillerson speaking in tough words today saying essentially that assad is not our concern and nikki haley did the same at the u.n. and this came at a time when the president was meeting with the general sisi of egypt whose human rights record has been very very dubious. if you were sitting there and you were assad what would you be thinking if you heard those things? it's important for the administration from this point forward to speak with one voice on this and not send confusing signals. i want to bring our viewers up to president trump weighing military action against the

assad regime. let's go to barbara starr. the president's being briefed at mar-a-la mar-a-lago. what's the latest on this. >> reporter: all of this moving forward tonight with briefings, updates, options being looked at. late this afternoon here at the pentagon the joint chiefs were called in and they were briefed on the options. these are some of the classic signals that one would see before military action is taken. these things tend to have a pattern of activity. any president will get one last briefing from his commanders about what they want to do and what they hope to achieve. it's been our understanding here at cnn through most of the day that there are basically two options on the table for the president. a limited option if you will. strike perhaps the airfields that the s