aircraft carrier into the north korea peninsula. these moves set the table for secretary of state rex tillerson who heads to moscow tomorrow. this is a critical day. let's begin our coverage with joe johns live at the white house. >> reporter: good morning, chris. tough talk for sure. the strategy is not clear. administration seemingly sending mixed messages. one step forward. two steps back. on the issue of regime change in syria after the friday night bombing run that sent a message this president is not afraid to use force. >> every time one of these horrific attacks occurs, it draws russia closer in to some level of responsibility. >> reporter: secretary of state rex tillerson talking tough of the russian role in the syrian

chemical attack on the eve of the first diplomatic trip to moscow. >> regardless of whether russia was complicit or incompetent, clearly they have failed in their commitment to the international community. >> reporter: slamming the kremlin for allowing syria to house chemical weapons. >> how can they with a straight face cover for assad? >> reporter: nikki haley and h.r. mcmaster keeping the door open for keeping sanctions on russia and iran due to the support for assad. >> i don't think anything is off the table. >> reporter: the officials sending conflicting messages of the future of the syrian dict e dictator. america's first priority is the fight against isis. >> through the political process

that we believe the syrian people ultimately decide the fate of bashar al assad. >> reporter: as ambassador haley insi insists. >> there is no option with assad at the head of the regime. >> reporter: reversal from positions articulated last week and it has not gone unnoticed by tillerson's critics. >> i think the strategy he is outlining is based on assumpt n assumptions that will not work. there is no thing as assad, yes, isis kn isis, no. >> reporter: days after kim jong un tested another ballistic missile. sending another aircraft carrier toward the korean peninsula. >> north korea has been engaged in a pattern of provocative behavior. this is a rogue regime which is

nuclear capable. president xi and president trump agreed. it is unacceptable. >> reporter: the joint command with russia and iran putting out a harshly worded statement warning the united states of crossing red lines. they will support syria without any consideration of reaction for consequences. alisyn. >> thank you, joe. the pentagon is investigating whether russia was involved in the horrific chemical attack in syria. the u.s. military deploying more ships to the korean peninsula in the show of force against north korea. cnn's barbara starr is at the pentagon. >> reporter: you will remember that trump said he did not want to be visible about the use of force on what he would signal by using the military. in both cases, visible messages

in syria. the airfield that the u.s. struck is back up and running because the u.s. military had clear orders. they were never aiming at destroying the airfield, but sending a message. heavy price to pay if you use chemical weapons. assad's bombing continues dropping conventional weapons. a message, but limited one. united nations ambassador nikki haley talking about regime change. no strategy to get assad out of there. in north korea, one reason they sent the aircraft group off the peninsula was out of concern over what kim jong un might think about all of the messages with the attack in syria. they have again very visibly put ships out there. a u.s. missile defense now just offshore north korea. a message of what the world is

re really hearing here. >> barbara starr. thank you. this is escalating tensions. pyongyang says the strikes in syria justify their efforts to bolster a nuclear arsenal. cnn's will ripley is live with more. interesting. they say we are not getting a deterrent message, but a message to go further. >> reporter: that's right. if the attempts by the trump administration have north korea stopped developing nuclear weapons, it is having the opposite effect according to north korean officials in pyongyang. we were with officials when news came in about the carrier strike group. they said it is another provocative act on the part of the united states. they say it will only cause their country to speed up testing of nuclear weapons and missiles. kim jong un has launched more missiles and his father and grandfather combined. if you look at the latest s

satellite imagery, the country could push the button anytime. and in the form of higher sanctions, they are willing to accept that. they say they would tighten their belts and cut every other program before the nuclear missile programs. chris and alisyn, the weapons of mass destruction are the key to survival for this nation. >> will ripley in north korea. thank you for that. we have a lot to discuss. let's bring in the panel. we have political analyst david gregory and david drucker and april ryan. david gregory, virtually one day after the u.s. launched its missile strike, bashar al assad's military was back at it bombing their own people. what was the point of u.s. action? >> let's find out over time whether there was a point. here's what we don't know. we don't know if this was a

one-off show of strength by president trump and in an effort to show the russians and bashar al assad that chemical weapons is a red line, but everything else is fine. >> barrel bombs okay. chemical weapons, not okay. >> right. if you are a victim of a barrel bomb, that is of no consolation. one reason we don't know is the administration is still talking out of both sides of its mouth. tillerson is being tough with the russians. that is a notable change in posture. a lot of republicans and democrats will welcome from president trump on capitol hill. they told me so on friday. we listen to ambassador haley. she says there could be no solution to syria without the removal of assad from power. if you listen to the critics of the administration who were happy with what they saw last week, they don't believe you can actually solve the isis problem if you don't get rid of assad.

they believe he radicalizes people and sends them in the arms of isis. it is upon the president to establish the foreign policy and to put together a strategy in which he also leads. this is something that was interesting about his statement the other night. he couched his actions not just in security terms, but moral terms. if this is going to be a strategy and if he is going to lead, he has to talk to the american people more about that. it is something he has been hesitant to do. >> you have policy and politics. the letter, david gregory, that he sent to congress, is not justify indicatijus justificatio justification. they will have to decide to own the constitutional duties. how much of haley and tillerson and silence from trump is part of the chaos that is described within the white house about competing factions. >> i have been thinking about this, chris, over the weekend.

i am more positive to the administration on this. i don't see this as talking out of both sides of its mouth. they are saying something consistent. which is we set out a goal of sending a political message that the use of chemical weapons is not okay. that is moral leadership on the world stage. an important statement. they gave themselves room to ramp up other strikes as well. maybe targeting the syrian air force. more particularly if and has happened, the attacks continue on civilians there. yet, they are also saying we agree with the bahamobama administration. we want assad gone. they are not coming in guns blazing and saying we are decapitating the leadership. force assad out or commit troops. they are giving themselves room. is there a bit of chaos?

is it worked out? probably not. you have a combination of a president who likes some element of surprise, clearly. then you have guys like mcmaster and haley and tillerson. all of whom i thought came off well yesterday. i was impressed to see the white house deploy some pretty strong foreign policy and national security voices on the sunday programs to layout where they are strategically. >> you like surprise, but not surprise they didn't tell russia they would drop bombs. that surprise is okay. >> let's listen to some of the voices and various messages from the sunday shows. listen to this. >> there's not any sort of option where political solutions will happen with assad at the head of the regime. >> other than that, there is no change to the military posture. >> he will act against president assad if he goes against civilian no matter what weapon? >> the president will make whatever decision he makes is in

the best interest of the american people. >> april, how do you parse all that? >> well, one, again, it's very interesting to see the evolution from tuesday when the president found out about the chemical attack on the people of syria. the next question is how will this president remove bashar al assad? we are not a nation that assassinates leaders. how will this take place? the presidents has talked about going in and talked about security. david said this is a moral issue, but also a security issue. how do you do that and not deal with a war with russia and iran. that still remains to be seen. it is a very intense issue right now. >> the big issue is russia right now. they are really in a showdown and it is notable while the president's not doing it, nikki haley's doing it and tillerson

do it. how is it russia didn't know ors was it complicit in the chemical weapons being there when they were supposed to work with the u.s. to get them out and the fact he was going to use them again? this is now a diplomatic showdown with russia that begins with tillerson meeting over there. backed by more force. what obama couldn't do, trump is willing to do. we see how that changes with putin. >> we need to be prepared to go all the way with possible could you. there is no way they were not aware. they have been proppropping him. it is to show the world over the past four or five years, washington might lose interest and go home. we stick no matter how bad our allies. >> go all the way withes mo mos? >> we have to be prepared putin

may not blink. whether it is ramping up sanctions or critical of what russia is outside of the middle east with ukraine. we need to be prepared for the fact that they might not just go, oh, we have a tough guy in the white house. we'll start playing nice. putin knows how to play this game. >> we know they will not do that, april. you know, they came out clearly and questioned the sourcing of the attack. they question eed what was done. what i don't get and give us insight. this sounds like a very obvious situation. you cannot think assad is being bad for his own people. the question is what do you want to do about it? that seems to be the difficulty in the mixed messages from the would you say. they know they can't say anything. they just don't want to do anything about it because you can't go one and done and have regime change. >> chris, this is the issue. the devil is in the details.

you have to look at the meeting with tillerson and russia. you said to president obama that there were no chemical weapons and now what is going on. you start from that base and ramp up. what will it look like once tillerson leaves with the counterparts in russia? right now, again, the situation is tense and if indeed there is an effort to remove bashar al assad from syria, russia has already said it is not going to happen. there is a concern of war with the united states and russia if this happens over bashar al assad. >> the other thing to look at here is the more limited goal. it is still a big goal of making sure assad doesn't use chemical weapons again. i think what goes along with that is do you have more protection of syrian people and creation of safe zones. trump spoken positively about.

do you have that working do bei done. do you have that policy with the refugees coming to the united states? we need that first stage. >> if you have safe zones, you have boots on the ground. we lost one in afghanistan. are you willing to make that sacrifice? that was a good tease. >> i liked it. >> we have more questions. there is a reported rift in the white house. chief strategist steve bannon is butting heads with son-in-law jared kushner. what is the president saying about the feud? all of that is next.

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all right. so what do you think of this? white house strategy steve bannon and son-in-law george h.w. bush son-in-law jared kushner is in a power struggle.

he looked at both of them and said boys, work it out. we talk about this with our panel. david gregory and david drucker and dana jacobs. >> we know they were asked to iron out the disagreements. we know that h.r. mcmaster we know went on the sunday shows to talk about he moved steve bannon from the role on the national security council. you have mcmaster saying he is still in a significant role. don't read too much into the change. he is providing the president with advice on a range of issues. you have people out in defense of steve bannon. you have people saying they are willing to work out differences. if the president loses faith in either of his people, we will know about it. this is a young administration. we have seen him shift people

out of roles. katie moved out. i am told they are planning on working things out. they have respect for each other. expect them to stay in place. >> david drucker. they have different world views. jared kushner and steve bannon have the president's ear and different world views. >> stop and think about that. a republican president, and who is fighting over him? liberal new york democrats and right wing nationalists on the other hand. none of whom who have interests in furthering the goals of the republican party. they do have an interest and care about president trump. it creates a very interesting dynamic from the policy perspective. especially when you look at what the president did in syria which is 180 degrees away from the

steve bannon nationalist america first policy line of thinking. that is when we think about who is going to win the intra-family duel here in the white house, it matters. a lot of time the power centers are about power. the chief of staff going to survive? or is the chief political adviser have the president's ear? if bannon sticks around, he is the populist. he is the voice on immigration and economic policy. is someone like gary cohn going to survive? a traditional american thinker with policies. this is fascinating and significant. >> if it is intra-family, david gregory, bannon loses. once again, this white house leaks. >> exactly. s despite the disdain for the

news media. people waiting to call their favorite reporter. all white houses have this kind of drama and confrontation and tension about whose views hold the most sway. you go back to the bush 43 white house. the tension between rumsfeld and chaney. and condoleezza rice's white house was abilile to assert its. you know, that tension was very much in play. that was dangerous ultimately because it undermined the interagencies. it undermined the information flow that led to poor decision making at times. here, family is going to win. here it is interesting because trump apparently likes everybody to play off each other. he has different people with different impulses. bannon helped him appeal to the

fringe populous conservatism. around which he would like to define the republican party. kushner keeps him in control and he trusts him and he helps manage the unpredictability. this tension will go on. it is playing out publicly. in the end, i think family wins, but in the end, i think trump wants to keep this balance. unpredict able balance. i think he likes to be seen unpredictable. >> jen, we have a fascinating window in the steve bannon's world view. there is a book called "the fourth turning." it is by neil howard and william strauss. it talks how america cycles in the 80-year erase s the 80-year erasea0-year erase s the 80-year eraseeras.

if you believe this, we are headed forcatastrophe. some time before the year 2025, america will pass through a great gate in history. one with the american revolution, civil war and twin emergencies of the great depression and world war ii. that's a dark image of what is about to befall us. apparently steve bannon has read this three times and is a student of this. >> interesting, right? the idea is winter is coming and the administration needs to do something about it. something toward this off. it is not the idea this is inevitable or horrible will befall the country. it is the idea you can do something to weigh lay it. it is building the southern

border wall. ramping up the fight against isis. taking steps against north korea. the administration would argue that is what they are doing. this is not inevitable. they can do something towa ward off the cycle of doom. >> i think that part of bannon's views are what is sowing this thinking. the views and actions he proposes to take and urge the president to take further along a scenario where that kind of crack up is possible. i don't think left to its own, america is headed in that direction. >> what david said is so important. if you look back at these turning points that the country has had and why we survived is because we had political figures that brought the country together. abraham lincoln and fdr. ronald reagan. you want to get over this stuff. being a president that trump has

been from the style view is not the way to go. >> panel, thank you. you heard the reports from egypt. bloody palm sunday. dozens killed. this is a big week for christians. holy week leading up to easter. we will take you live to the scene next.

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all right. the numbers are still coming in about how many were murdered on palm sunday. two bombings of coptic christian churches. 49 is the latest number. isis anxious to claim responsibility for the attacks and churches. alexandria and tanta in egypt. this is a big week leading up to easter, ian lee. obviously no coincidence. >> reporter: that's right. easter coming next week. isis vowing this is just the beginning. there seems to be, chris, a fundamental disconnect with the

people and security services. when i speak to people here, they say the government doesn't provide enough security. yes, there are a couple of guards, but they are not checking people. they say it is the veneer of security. when i brought that to the police here in expre expressed that. he said who told you that. he said people are safe here and safe to pray. a different of what you hear from the people and security services. i was here for the funerals. thousands of people gathered for the funerals of those killed taking place. i spoke with one man inside the church when that bomb went off. take a listen. >> we were just singing and suddenly in a blink of an eye, smoke. >> reporter: what happened to

your friend? >> he was killed. >> reporter: president trump has offered his condolences to president sisi. president sisi declaring a three-month state of emergency which gives security forces extra power to go after isis and perpetrators of the attack, but with holy week coming up and the pope visiting later this month, it is to be seen if the security measures will actually work. alisyn. >> ian, the numbers there are staggering. thank you for that reporting. president trump's missile launch in syria. do members of congress think it worked? senator angus king joins us with his thoughts next. your insurance company

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president trump defending his decision to order that missile strike in syria. in the letter to congress, i acted in the the national secur interests of the united states to conduct foreign relations as commander in chief and chief executive. the united states will take additional action as necessary

to further its important national interests. will congress approve the mechaninext move? joining us now is senator angus king. good morning, senator. >> good morning, alisyn. >> do you agree with president trump's letter to you that this was in the vital national security interests of the united states? >> well, it's a close call. if he is narrowly construing it as the dealing with the issue of chemical weapons, we're a member of the international agreement on chemical weapons not using them for over 100 years. i think he can make a legal case. the question is what happens next and are we talking about a broader engagement in which case the president doesn't have the authority. that's when we get down into what's congress responsibility here? they so far avoided over the last three years. >> before we get to what's next,

i want to ask about the missile strike on thursday night, friday, accomplished? when we had experts on friday morning before the damage known to the air base, they said one of the things you would do if you wanted to stop future chemical weapons on civilians, is crater the runways. that debilitates the airport. you can't launch future missions from there. that's not what the u.s. did with those 59 tomahawk missiles. president trump talked about that. he tweeted. the reason you don't generally hit runways is they are easy and inexpensive to quickly fix, fill in and top. that's different than what so many of the military experts said. thens basically the day after the u.s. missile strikes, bashar al assad was back at it and laufrn launching more strikes.

what did it accomplish? >> they were launching more strikes from the same airport on the same city they had been attacking with the chemical weapons. you are right. it did not seem -- again, let's see what they do with chemical weapons. if they launch another chemical weapons attack, then it was ineffective and didn't send the proper message. >> to your mind, this was only about chemical weapons? >> maybe it made sense. >> there you go. that's the point. what the u.s. did was just as a deterrent to chemical weapons. not to the barrel bombs or attacks on innocent civilians. >> that's right. that's one of the dilemmas here. s assad has been attacking his people for five years. the chemical weapons are clearly violation of international law. but they're notes necessarily

the worst of what they're doing. that is a problem with syria. syria is a complicated situation. a civil war. you now have the russians and iranians involved. it is a sectarian war. it is very, very complicated. s as i think the administration over the weekend. the disarray indicates there is no clear way forward. they are right. you will not get to isis until you get rid of assad. you will not get rid of assad unless you can work with the russians. they are the people with the influence over assad. you know, i'm not sure whether this strike was a strong reaction to chemical weapons, but strategically, i'm not sure it really will accomplish the goal of furthering the downfall of assad which can allow us to turn attention to isis. >> okay. that leads us to the original question of what's next. do you understand today what the

u.s. policy is on syria? >> no. do you? no, i don't think so. you know, it was hard to understand what the obama administration policy. this is a complex situation. if there is going to be further involvement -- by the way, i think it would be a mistake. by the way, to tell you how complicated it is, there are 1,200 opposition groups to assad. 1,200 groups vying for power and trying to overthrows assad. all the way from moderates to el nusra. it is a come poliplicated situa. if we try to go in with troops, some people have advocated that, i think that is a huge mistake. isis wants to bog us down in a land war, if you will, in syria.

i think that would be a huge mistake. all of this is leading up to saying i do think the administration needs to form a strategy and i know the president likes to be unpredictable, but there has to be strategy and come to congress. clearly the authorization from 2001 doesn't apply in the situation. we are going into another country. against a sitting government. they need to come to congress. i talked to john mccain and tim kaine at the end of last week. they are working on authorization. i don't know if we can come together on something. we should. this is congress responsibility. chris cuomo and i have been talking about this for three years. it is time for us to step up. not just sit on the sidelines and criticize, but say what is the u.s. policy and the president has our authority. >> senator angus king -- >> or not. >> thank you for explaining this to us. nice to see you. let's get to chris. >> big story from the world of sports. you see what happened at the

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so a major warm up is in store for the northeastern u.s., but strong storms threaten the great lakes to texas. we have cnn meteorologist chad myers with the forecast. >> hi, alisyn. 80 degrees in new york city tomorrow afternoon. it's already 68 in chicago right now. it will be 81 in nashville this afternoon. obviously spring in full bloom. so all of the pollen is out there with the big warm up. warm for the next few days. along the front is storms. not the severe weather tornado outbreak the past couple cold fronts, but a chance of a strong storm. look at the temperatures. d.c., 83. new york city, 80 tomorrow afternoon. it will feel like spring. down south, temperatures are

warm back into the 80s again. 80 for atlanta. rare, chris, you get the same temperature in new york that i get here. this week, you've got it. >> you're still better looking. you see the masters? what a finish. chad, thank you for the good weather. sergio garcia, historic finish. andy scholes live with the bleacher report in augusta. this could have gone the wrong way, but he was always a kid in our eyes. now he's a big man and big title. >> that's right, chris. what a finish to the masters. i followed sergio for a while yesterday. nearly everyone in the gallery was rooting for him. he appeared in 73 majors before winning one. he got it done. it was a battle with his friend justin rose. sergio, it looked like things were going bad on the back nine until this eagle on 15. you see he was pumped up.

he knew that may have been the putt of his life. it goes to a playoff. on 18, sergio with the birdie putt to win his first major. his fiancee runs out to give him a big hug. the 37-year-old from spain getting that monkey off his back. he did it on the 60th birthday of spanish golf legend seve. >> major, no major, i said many times. i have an amazing life. i have so many people that care for me and love me and support me. this is something i wanted to do for a long time. you know, it never felt like a horror movie. it felt like a drama, maybe. s obviously a happy ending. >> a happy ending for sergio. alisyn, the lesson is if you don't succeed on the first, second, third, 10th, 20th, keep

going. on the 74th try, you might get it done. >> that's why i continue to play miniature golf on the boardwalk. i hope it takes. >> you'll win. >> thank you, andy. he did not consult congress or the u.n. before launching missiles into syria. was president trump's action legal? or e our experts break it down next. when heartburn hits, fight back fast with tums smoothies. it starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum -tum -tum -tum smoothies! only from tums

did you know that president trump can bomb anyone anywhere he wants if he feels like it's the right thing to do? seems to be the case on what we saw in syria. congress for the most part seems to be okay with it. let's discuss with senior legal analyst jeffery toobin and general mark hertling. you saw the letter. this was really bad what they did. we had to send a message. i sent it. figure out what happens next. congress members on both sides of the aisle saying what he did was okay, but he has to consult. where in the law, any applicable law, is what happened in syria okay? legally? >> the constitution says only congress can declare war. the last time we declared war was world war ii.

>> romania. >> world war ii. we have had a lot of wars since world war ii. the bar for congressional authorization of war has been dropping and dropping and dropping. we had the tanta gulf resolution in vietnam. we had after 9/11 which led to afghanistan and iraq. now we are leaving it up to the president. as a legal matter, there is virtually no authorization for what president trump did. as you seen in congress, as you saw with senator angus king who caucuses with the democrats, there is no political opposition to this to speak of and that means the presidents has a free hand. >> general, when something like this happens, you know, it was articulated in the letter this is about our national interests. that's why we did this in syria. that's different than saying in defense of this country, of is s

possessions. that is different. >> it is, chris. i think many americans would be surprised as a military commander at the two-star level or three-star level, there is always a lawyer right next to me. it is hard to believe, but it is true. in combat, in interesting strikes or certain strikes, i got the advice of legal counsel. that may seem strange. the guy who lived in the 18th century, he said before the nation goes to war, they should assure of three things. the capability of the military. we have that in the united states. number two and three is more important. the will of the people that is represented by congress and support of the government. that is the support of the president and congress coming together. we have not had that for a long time. that may contribute to some of the confusion in strategy. the will of the people,

capability of the military and the support of the government. that's what you need to successfully execute combat. >> it seems that congress decided this being in the business of owning what we do militarily, dans danggerous. bad for re-election. if this president wants the power. good. give it to him. if it turns out bad, shame on me. >> in 2006, you saw the democrats retake control of the house of representatives because the country rebelled against the iraq war. now we have by and large, popular support for the one move against syria. if it becomes a bigger commitment, then you may see the politics changes. the only person in the congress who seems to care is senator tim kaine of virginia. hillary clinton's running mate. said to barack obama, i am tired

of the military ventures with no authorization. kaine is alone on that. >> few pop up. tim kaine and i had a discussion on "new day." we got sideways whether or not he should stop if it he cares. russia knew. members of congress didn't know it was coming. general, is it an interesting part of the dynamic of political and military when something like this gets ordered up? do the military share any of the burden of saying i wonder if this is legal. i wonder if this is done the right way or do you do what the commander in chief says? >> not at all, chris. it gets back to the first point. there is always a lawyer next to us. saying this is a legal action. it is admitable by the constitution. you can do this. as a military commander don't want to commit war crimes. it goes back to the point, every level of strike and this weekend, a military commander is

saying okay, mr. president, let me check that. you can bet military commanders do get the okay before executes strikes. >> quickly on this one, general. what made this okay? >> well, by the wording that the president sent over saying this was in the interest of national security. it was an attack against a country using chemical weapons. there are conferenventions agai that. >> none that allow the united states to police them unilaterally. >> that's true. every country is responsibility for ensuring this never happens again. that is my wording of the constitution that occurred in 1925 after the devastating damage by chemical weapons in world war i. all of that is consideration. by the way, there is u.s. service mechanimbers in syria t could be affected by a chemical attack. >> general, i appreciate