welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thanks for sharing your day with us. a president who prides himself on being flexible is more than proving his point. on the world stage vladimir putin now gets scorned, not praise. nato is suddenly essential and china moves from campaign enemy to new global partner. >> right now we're not getting along with russia at all. we may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with russia. >> and here at home, more big shifts. kind words for obama's -- and

tea party views as corporate welfare. the corporate rstrategy is gleeful at the shifts. >> we are in a big, fat ugly bubble and we better be awfully careful and we have a fed that's doing political things. this janet yellen of the fed. >> plus more twists in the russia election meddling spy novel. a trump campaign adviser says he has no idea how the fbi was able to convince a court he might be working as a russian agent. >> this is just such a joke that it's beyond words. all of the false evidence that you've been hearing about myself with the dodgy dossier and other false reports going back through most of last summer, well, that will have very different implications. this is a real game changer if it turns out to be true. >> with us to share their reporting and their insights,

julie pace of the associated press, jonathan martin of the "new york times," jackie and y abby phillips. satellite images suggest a nuclear test could be imminent. as president trump sends a carrier region with the hope of discouraging such a provocation n. syria dictator bashar al assad denies any role in the deadly gas attack last week. >> so there was no order to make any attack. we don't have any chemical weapons. we gave up our arsenal three years ago. even if we have them, we wouldn't use them and we have never used our chemical arsenal in our history. >> assad speaking to afp tv there. i'm certain you have not forgotten these. assad calls it 100 % fabricatio

by the united states and its allies. >> the west, mainly the united states, is handing it to the terrorists. they're fabricating the whole story in order to have critics for the attack. we don't know whether the children -- were they there at all? who -- what method? you have no information at all. nothing at all. >> were they dead at all? were they dead at all? you just heard bashar al assad say that. he is denying any involvement here. that a day after the pentagon and the british government said there was no doubt, no doubt it was a gas attack by regime aircraft. number one, just to those words, it's the first we have heard from bashar al assad. we should note to you as journalists, we're reluctant to show you that because the syrian regime put so much control over that interview, over the cameras

in the room and how it was conducted. but because it's the first we've heard from bashar al assad, we decided to do that and because what he says is pretty outrageous. the key thing here as you listen is we're going to talk a lot in the hour about donald trump changing his positions, but when we go through the last several days, besides the air strikes, has anything changed? russia still stands by assad. has anything in terms of the policy changed when you listen to that? >> well, the policy change in the sense that the u.s. now has launched air strikes in response to chemical weapons which is a shift from where we were under the obama administration and you have seen a shift in the rhetoric of the trump administration where they are where obama was talking about assad needed to go, no peace is possible in syria with him still in power. but in terms of the situation on the ground and in terms of the roles of these other key players, iran and russia, nothing has changed. and what the trump

administration needs to start trying to figure out an answer to is this t.. it's not in russia's interest not to align itself with assad. >> and so in that context, none of the positions of the key players outside of the united states have not changed. assad still says i'm innocent. this is my country. i haven't done anything wrong. the united states is siding with terrorists. go away. putin says we're with assad. so the part is what changes. donald trump seems to think, if you look at donald trump's words yesterday, president trump's words yesterday, what his secretary of state was saying, you do see the change from let's try to be friendly with putin from the campaign. i didn't see any evidence yesterday the russians were willing to change their positions and move. but the president tweeted out this morning things will work out fine between the u.s.a. and russia. everyone will come to their senses and there will be ever

lasting peace. >> based on optimism? >> i have to think it's based on optimism. i think this president from the very beginning has always thought that if we can just establish a personal relationship with putin that that will sort of ease his way into a better diplomatic relationship with him. the world is a lot more complicated than that. i think he's learning that pretty quickly. but there is some optimism. the president, if people are paying attention, keeps saying i don't really know vladimir putin. he's sort of laying it out as if he hadn't begun to establish this relationship. putin is not dealing with par personal level. he's dealing on a geopolitical level. >> we're seeing this education in other ways with other countries. he said in regards to china that when he talked to the chinese president, he said that oh, it's

a lot harder than i thought for them to control what's going on in north korea. so we're seeing the progress and some of these other very important international relationships and it seems like he hasn't gotten there yet with vladimir putin. people are very much counting on his secretary of state rex tillerson to make some inroads with putin and we haven't seen that yet on this issue. >> every scholar of putin will tell you that, that he is driven, consumed by a view that the dissolution of the sof yovi was a historic mistake that led the weakening of russia's hand in the world. he is determined to restore that kind of standing. to ab bb's point, he wants to me good deals. at a political level here in

america t kind america, it kind of reminds me of truck dealing with the faks in -- factions in congress. they're driven by ideological views. trump has a hard time wrapping his head around that mentality because it's so unlike what drives him. >> yesterday was a very important day you look at the symbolism and the words of it in the sense he called bashar al assad a butcher. he said that vladimir putin is aligned with an animal. this is what he said, i'd like to get along with this guy. he still says that. maybe that will come about. but he as a lot more tougher language that makes republican hawks a lot more happy. and on the day his secretary of state is in moscow, donald trump is in the oval office with the secretary general of nato which is the thorn in putin a side just as much as the united states because of the neighborhood. we all lived through the campaign. listen to donald trump, now president trump then and now. >> nato is obsolete. it was 67 years or it's over 60

years old. it is -- many countries doesn't cover terrorism. >> i complained about that a long time ago and they made a change. and now they do fight terrorism. i said it was obsolete. it's no longer obsolete. >> where does this come from? is this from -- is it from the meeting with the secretary general? the president was now saying nato now fights terrorism. nato members are willing to contribute more of their dues. the secretary general was very diplomatic about it but he said wee been fighting terrorism since the terrorist attack on 9/11, nato's been involved since then and we started in 2014 passing -- making sure putting more pressure on our members. but what caused this rhetorical policy shift in the president? >> i think there's two things on the nato front in particular. one, it is that he has been getting a lot of pressure from republicans and from people who are now in his national security orbit to say nato actually has been quite a positive influence on the world. two, this is the positive side

of donald trump being someone who actually does listen to a lot of voices and actually doesn't come in with a really rigid ideology that if you come in and you meet with him and you m make a compelling case, he is very likely to come to your side. he just got out of a meeting of nato secretary general. he is open to making the change. he talk to the chinese president and suddenly he realizes that the situation in north korea is a lot harder than maybe he thought. >> are these new news, views formed in cement or are they views that are formed based on this conversation or that meeting and that next week we could be in a different environment? is this learning on the job? look, whether you like this president, like the last president, every president learns on the job. every president deserves some grace to know a candidate cannot know the depth of this job. is it that he's learning and is this where president trump is or where he is today? >> i think that's a really critical question.

the corollary to this whole idea of trump going into meetings and changing his mind? he had a meeting with angela merkel and came out of that meeting not quite as far along this road as he is now. the question is what has happened between now and then. the only thing i can think of is this moment in syria has really clarified something for trump that he's never expressed an interest in prior to this point, which is that the united states has a role in the world that is unique in that we are sort of responsible for kind of keeping it together. and there's nothing like, as he pointed out, seeing children dying in the streets to really clarify that in one's mind. the presidency changes people in that way. >> it's certainly the flexibility that we all know, but it's also something else. it is coming to this job with no or very little historical perspective. there was a striking report that we have here at cnn last night that he was so struck by the use

of chemical weapons in syria that he requested actually the history of the using -- >> and yet he slash today to president obama very forcefully when it happened before and there were images a few years back saying don't go in. >> but he doesn't know about the world war i and the use of mustard gas. this is all kind of a revelation to him. it reminds me of the great mark twaine line which i'm going to paraphrase that he left home at 18 and came back at 20 and couldn't believe how much his father learned. >> to that point let's listen to the voice of the man who had the job. a governor from texas that came to washington. wanted to keep his hands off the rest of the world. >> our country goes to these kind of i guess mood swings is the right way to say it and it seems to me that in both parties there was an isolationist and

protectionist sentiment. on the other hand, the realities of the job sometimes undermine sentiments. >> fair point? >> last year when he was on the campaign trail holding fund-raisers for a lot of senate candidates, basically doing jobs folks in this party wouldn't do, he had this line and he said it over and over again. he was troubled by the kind of rising isolationism in both parties but he kind of meant trump it was pretty obvious. but being in the job kind of undermines those sentiments. >> i think it's too -- i'm going to be the pes mist at the table. i think it's too change to change, because -- >> there's no cement here. >> exactly. there is no trump doctrine yet, so this is a very much evolving -- >> is it that michael flynn is gone and steve bannon is

diminished or president trump is just changing his ways? we're going to say. hold the thought. we'll come back to these changes later in the program. up next, spy games. i a former trump campaign adviser says no and then i'm not sure when asked if he might have discussed lifting u.s. sanctions in conversations with russia during last year's campaign. how the fbi just might know the truth. if you have medicare parts a and b and want more coverage, guess what? you could apply for a medicare supplement insurance plan whenever you want. no enrollment window. no waiting to apply. that means now may be a great time to shop for an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan,

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daily life a guessing game. and bloating made will i have pain and bloating today? my doctor recommended ibgard to manage my ibs. take control. ask your doctor about nonprescription ibgard. aby. a twa . welcome back. russia's unwielding influence on the 2016 election still very much on the minds of the fbi director. >> we'll do everything we can to identify, investigate and call out foreign efforts to influence our electoral process. >> as we learned yesterday from the "washington post," part of

that investigation includes a court ordered warrant to surveil carter page. he's a former trump policy adviser. the campaign once promoted his involvement but now says he was a nobody. yesterday in an interview with jake tapper, page firmly denied his talks with russians ever included the possibility that candidate trump, if he became president trump might ease sanctions on the krim leemlin z did you ever talk with anybody if candidate trump then elected would be willing to get rid of any of these actions? >> never direct conversation like that. >> what do you mean direct conversation? i don't know what that means. >> i'm just saying that was never said, no. >> you never said that to anybody, that you think that donald trump might be willing to get rid of the sanctions against russia? >> no. >> well, now listen again. this morning as never becomes well, i don't remember. >> i never offered that, no,

nothing along those lines, absolutely not. i mean, it may -- topics -- i don't remember. we'll see what comes out in this transcript. something may have come up in a conversation. i have no yrecollection and thee is nothing specifically that i would have done that would have given people that impression. >> talk about being flexible. >> gumby like. >> that's why you don't do interviews when there's a fisa warrant out for you. or the center of an fbi investigation. >> you make a key point. here is someone who, you know, wants to blame president obama for this warrant and if he can prove that some day, you know, let's see the evidence. but it's very hard to go to the fisa court, the foreign intelligence court, and get a warrant on an american citizen. the fbi has a pretty high bar to make the case to get this extraordinary power that we believe and here's probable cause this this person is acting

as an agent of a foreign government. that's a big deal. to your point, if you look -- the answer with jake last night which became a different answer with george this morning it sounded to me like somebody talked with his attorney. >> is this the third one that talked with russia? i guess these conversations are so forgettable. i think you're right. he talked to his well are and he can't say never. >> if you are carter page, you probably shouldn't be on television talking about this. but also it's important to know that this is the person we're talking about, the white house and the trump campaign have been trying for a long time to get rid of carter page because he's a problem for them. and it's pretty apparent why he's such a problem. but the question remains why was he brought in in the first place? did he come to them? did someone go to him? he said with jake yesterday in an interview that the last time he talked to trump associates at the white house campaign,

whatever, was january 20th. why so late if the campaign and the white house had distanced themselves from him since last summer? so a lot of unanswered questions. the white house knows that he's a problem. i remember early in january sean spicer saying we've put carter page on warning for so long. that's the kind of language that you use when you're trying to get someone to be quiet and stop incriminating themself. >> so this point, the first face-to-face in moscow, the secretary of state met with vladimir putin the president of russia yesterday. the secretary of spent spent four plus hours with the russian foreign minister. as we know the president of the united states call its a hoax. secretary tillerson said that asked and answered, he believes there's no reason to discuss with the russians because he's seen the evidence and it's true. listen to the russian foreign minister saying no, we don't think so. >> translator: i can only say once again that the case for the

so-called russian hackers and the mem cchemical incidents in , we would very much like to get some evidence, not just words. so far we have not seen any facts. >> i couldn't quite make out the translation there, but i think he said foreign guy in new jersey? >> has seen no facts, no evidence. >> i mean, look, it's deadly serious business, but what's so striking about this whole story is that whoever the russians were paying was giving them some bad political intel. they invested a lot of capital in trying to get the platform changed at the rnc last summer. as all of us know here and a lot of the folk at home know, the platform above a party has zero impact on actual governance in this country. it means nothing. now here we are and you've got this cold war level hostilities back and forth when the

president and russia less than 100 days in. it strikes me as the russian money was not well spent. >> maybe the objective here was signal sending to sort of send a broader signal beyond the united states political scene about where the republican party or perhaps the trump administration is heading. it's a little unclear what that was about. but, you know, even if it was sort of misguided effort, it's really puzzling why the republican party would allow themselves to be used in that way. a party that for many, many years has had a very hawkish view of russia, changing on a dime like that is something that should raise a lot of eyes. >> and sort of shifting sands of the party. nobody knew who actually was in control and you had trump's staff was constantly moving around and they were kind of vulnerable to this. >> i need to stop the conversation. we have some break news. i need to go cnn barbara starr

at the pentagon. apparently the united states military has used an extraordinary military ordinance in afghanistan. >> hello, john. we are just now learning and cnn has exclusively right now a short time ago the u.s. air force dropped a 21,000 bomb in eastern afghanistan. the first use ever of this weapon in combat. this is a weapon called the massive ordinance air blast bomb. it was dropped in eastern afghanistan against a complex of isis tunnels personnel that had been assembling in that area. the u.s. military had this weapon in development for years, but now today just a few hours ago dropped the bomb in combat according to u.s. officials for the first time ever. this massive 21,000 pound bomb, we have video we're showing of the testing of the bomb, but again, not used in combat until

today. we are told. this is such a heavy bomb. such a large bomb. it is put in the back of a cargo plane, a special operations cargo plane, and basically pushed out the back of it. now they've drop today on this isis complex of fighters in eastern afghanistan. this is an area where just a few days ago a u.s. special operations soldier was killed in action in a fire fight with isis fighters. it's an area the u.s. has been trying to go after to clear isis out of. it an extraordinary use of this weapon to put mildly how seriously the u.s. air force takes this bomb, the official name is the massive ordinance air blast bomb, moab, the nickname inside the air force for this, quite seriously is the mother of all bombs. >> and barbara, we're watching the testing video. you watch the impact of this play out. you mentioned this was developed

some time ago. is the fact that it hasn't been used before because there was not an oper tune target or is it controversial? they have to sign off on the stakes of what they're doing? >> indeed they do and i would think it's very fair to assume it's a combination of both things that you just mentioned. this is a bomb that was designed years ago when the u.s. was at war in iraq and they were looking at going after a number of targets of saddam hussein type targets. they never had the opportunity to use it in part because they could never match up just what you said, the right target with the right weapon. plus it's no small proposition to drop 21,000 pounds at one time. so clearly for reasons that we're still trying to puzzle out here, they felt that this was the right target. if you want to go after isis tunnels in eastern afghanistan

which is a very remote area, this might be the weapon that you would choose because you can assure destruction of the tunnel. if they're in a rock area, in a hard dirt yararea, this is si b where the target is killed off by air blasts . it's not like a penetrator into a tunnel. the air blast is essentially what kills the target. they would have been very concerned about civilians in the area. civilian casualties and presumably they felt that they could use this without risking civilian casualties in the are . again, it was just a few days ago that u.s. troops were there, special operations forces engaged in combat with sis fighters there. a u.s. soldier killed in combat. once that happens, they do look for a way to try and go back and finish what they were doing there. they decide to use this. we know by the way from our own

pentagon reporter ryan brown that this weapon had been in theater, had been in afghanistan for some time. so they had it on stand by. they were obviously waiting to find the right target to use it and today they did. dropping this bomb we are told just a few hours ago. they are conducting battle damage assessments. they are flying over the target to see if they caused the exact damage they want to cause or whether they will have to go back and restrike again, but it's very early into this extraordinary mission and we don't have an answer yet. >> i appreciate the breaking news. i'll let you go for a minute to come back to your reporting. come back as soon as you have new information. as we let barbara go back to her reporting. let's bring in lieutenant mark hertling. you're familiar with this weapon. what does it tell you? what is the significance of this breaking news barbara starr just brought to us?

>> the air force is very good at using the right weapon for the right target. truthfully, i haven't heard the term moab since about 2003. i was in the pentagon as a joint planner before we went into iraq and there was discussion of using a moab not only in iraq against potential saddam har get wh but also in the fight in afghanistan when we were just entering that battle field going after osama bin laden. it is a concussive weapon which means the blast is what is the main effect of the weapon. it isn't like dropping a bomb and you're hoping to blow something up. you literally have the concussive effect of going into caves or buildings where you have a very good analysis of the area and you know that it is a very large area that you want to destroy because of enemy

activity there. this bomb has been tested. the air force has look ed at it for over a decade, actually, and it quite frankly surprises me that they used it now. but it must mean that they had a very good target to use it against. and instead of using artillery where you have an area fire weapon and multiple rounds or you drop a lot of either dumb or what we call dumb bombs which are not guided tour to target or precision bombs which are guided precisely to a very small area, this is something you would use for a very large area like a camp or a building that has a lot of targets in it or something where you want to cause not only a destructive effect but a huge psychological effect as well. >> you said you were surprised, general hertling. sprain that for us. surprise because it has been in the inventory but hasn't been used or surprised because there's a certain threshold for

using this particular weapon? >> no's no threshold for using it. it is a conventional munition. but you have to ensure when you drop it somewhere, john, that there is no potential for collateral damage. when you drop this thing, it is going to destroy everything in the -- what they call the circular area of probability. the place where you drop it and the radius around that place you drop it, you've got to make sure you don't have any kind of friendly collateral damage or any kind of civilian casual tea -- saz y casualties. the only reason i say it's a surprise because normally more precise weapons can be used if you have a smaller target. this must have required a large piece of munitions for a very large target. and i would think it's probably some type of base camp or training camp or some type of

facility that is doing something very unusual. >> general hertling, stand by. i want to go back to the point about the context. back to barbara starr live at the pentagon. now information about why? >> i just wanted to point out as general hertling knows a lot better than i do, he's absolutely right, of course. this is a weapon that would be used against a large footprint on the ground. we know there were tunnels there. likely other facilities. but it is the location also in eastern afghanistan. this is very close to the pakistan border. this is an area where after so many years of fighting and operations by u.s. forces, it's still a border that is not really controlled in a very substantive way and they have seen isis develop along the afghanistan side of this border. so i would think there would be some concern about people moving back and forth into pakistan.

now, this is an isis affiliate, if you will. these are people who identify themselves as isis adherence, isis fighters along the pakistan border. as i think general hertling can explain probably better than i, these kind of fighters identify themselves at different times with different loyalties. the fact that they say they're isis, it's still going to be the case that the u.s. doesn't want these type of unsurgents, these typical of terrorists going back and forth. the fokt that they're watching nangahar, that's why they've had troops there and when a special operations soldier died in a gunfight, it's why you have them up there. it may well be that this remote area, you get to the point where operations on foot just aren't going to make it if the fighters

retreat into their complexes, into their mountain hideouts, into the very, very remote areas . it becomes much tougher for u.s. and afghan forces on foot to be able to operate there for long periods of time. it may be the case they looked at it and decided this was the way they wanted to get rid of this target once and for all and it also, again, we've talked about it so much in syria and iraq, it sends a message tch. it sundays a message that the u.s. military will come after them. >> stand by if you can. if you need to sneak off to do reporting let our producers know. nick payton walsh. nick, you're obviously very familiar with this region and more bradley with the fight against isis. when you hear barbara starr talk about the use of this weapon that the pentagon has never used

before thr before, this giant bomb on what they believe a camp and ten you wills of an isis a fiffiliate, t does it tell you about this area of afghanistan? >> i think it gives you a snapshot really of quite how separate the fighting has got in afghanistan. this is no small measure for the u.s. military and the collateral must have weighed heavily on the minds of those deciding whether or not to use this. action in the area we're talking about has been populated, but it also a place that isis has moved into and kicked people out of their homes. in fact, i actually interviewed a while back in taliban fighters who had been recruited to fight isis in that area. it's very remote. one of the remotest parts of the world. nangahar is a place where we've tried to hold bases. an action itself has been the sort of main focal point and stronghold of isis since they sort of first raised their head about two years ago now.

they kind of began it seemed to come across the border from pakistan. many afghan analysts suggested they sort of harnessed the sort of young angry energy in afghanistan that was dis illusioned with the taliban that's been going for years, decades almost, and began to build up in numbers, to get a following, to get money. they had a lot of cash to attract people to their ideas. action became one of their key areas. they moved to other villages around there as well. they've been there long enough to grow. we've seen here in authentic how tunnels are such a vital part of keeping away from the drones, the coalition or the u.s. and afghanistan will fly to try and hunt them out. but last year the afghan army with an awful lot of u.s. support moved into action, did a pretty good job of kicking a lot of isis out there, put them on their back foot, but then isis have returned. and they're not just returned in terms of territory. they've returned as an

ideological brand with some force in afghanistan. the taliban isn't as popular as it used to be. i think to some warped minds the purity of the isis brand has appealed. we've seen them attack a key hospital in central kabul right across the u.s. embassy in the last month or so and more recently a bomb near the defense ministry. they're probing into the capital. this is a sort of historical name for afghanistan and pakistan where this extremist group wants to plant its roots. we don't always know who they are. i should bear in mind, too, there's an awful lot more al qaeda concerns in afghanistan than there were two or three years ago. back in 2010, 2011, they suggested they got the al qaeda and under control. that's different from the noises you hear now.

the taliban rank, the military commander, i think that's got many concerned that al qaeda are getting breathing room again. we say isis. there may be other extremists in there. but the fact that such a massive bomb is being dropped in action presumably shows they felt they had little choice. it perhaps shows the nature and extent of the threat they thought this tunnel comp possiblily posed and it also shows almost the gloves are off but potentially the ideas which under the pain staking rules of civilian casualties would have been inconceivable. we know when you a drop a bomb that size you don't get to pick and choose who you hit. this kind of firepower is on the table in a weapon in a war as exhausting as fractured and staggeringly complex and for the u.s. financially exhausting. it's still their longest war.

combat operations haven't really ended there. >> combat operations really haven't ended there. president trump, the new president facing big decisions about continued u.s. military presence. the nato role in afghanistan. i want to quickly recap for our international viewers, breaking news, the united states has dropped its large est none nuclr bomb. right there you see it in afghanistan. it is a moab. guided munition, most powerful nonnuclear bomb in the u.s. air force dropped on what the pentagon says it an isis camp complete with tunnels underground in this area of afghanistan. we'll continue to gather new information on this breaking story and we'll take a quick break. we'll be back in just a moment. connected business world. e at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time

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. break news here for you. in receipt hours the united states air force has dropped its largest nonnuclear bomb on what's believed to be an isis camp. right there you see the red drop, nang ga har province in

afghanistan. let's go straight to bar ra starr. you broke in news. you've been doing spisadditiona reporting. what's the latest? >> the authority to conduct this air strike had to be approved at the four star level. the head of the u.s. central command. someone very familiar with afghanistan. this area in nangahar, quite close to the pakistan border, wu n we now have additional information. they went against a tunnel and cave complex in this remote mountain region that isis had basically retreated to. they were able to strike the tunnel and cave complex with this largest nonnuclear bomb the u.s. has in its inventory and still be assured they weren't striking civilians and other afghan or other special operation forces still in the

nangahar region. the u.s. has been in that region for several weeks now trying to work to, as they say, clear out the isis forces there. it has been a deadly operation for them. so i think clearly the military objective was to drop this bomb and basically get it over and done with and get the isis forces killed off in that region. not let them escape back across the border to pakistan. a little bit unusual i still have to say. we have not ever seen this bomb used in combat. as general hertling was saying a short time ago, this is something the u.s. had worked on for probably a decade. there's video of the extensive testing of it, but they've never used it. it had been secretly in afghanistan for some time we are told. our pentagon reporter ryan broubrown finding out it had been there. it had been stationed there

waiting for the right target to come along to use it. and when they flew the mission, it didn't come from overseas. it was already located in afghanistan that they used. so they obviously had in mind to keep this secreted away, if you will, and be able to pull it out of inventory and use it when they found the right target. apparently a few hours ago they felt that they did. >> barbara, just from your experience or from what sources are telling you, obviously you have to let the event clear and then you do a battle damage assessment to see what you've got on the ground, how success you will. any sense of how long it will take for that assessment to be made? >> well, i think in the daylight hours, they will be flying. looking at the clock over here, it's nighttime now. dark in afghanistan. they will flying recon -- they

will want to take a close look at it in the daylight hours. i think for two reasons, john. one, to absolutely see that the target is destroyed and that they were able to destroy it. but again, because they've never used it in combat, this will be something that intelligence analysts will want to really pour over and make sure the weapon actually worked as designed and as expected. this is a first. so they're going to want to take a very close look at it and get all the intelligence they can, analyze exactly what damage they were able to inflict. >> an important point. barbara, thank you for the fabulous reporting. we'll get back you to. i want to bring into the kf conversation military analyst rick francona. if you're sitting there planning an operation and people are bringing you your options and you decide to use this, the mother of all bomb as it's known

in shorthand, largest nonnuclear bomb the air force has in its convinces. >> well, this bomb is 11,000 -- it's 11 tons of tnt, so it's going to set off an enormous blast. it will feel like a nuclear blast to anyone in the area. there's the psychological thing. you have to figure out what weapon you want to use when a target presents itself. in this area, mountains and caves and this tunnel complex, you want something that's going to be able to get a blast effect into those caves, into those tunnels. this is the weapon to do that. the pressure from this weapon will send shock waivves through this tunnel system and kill everybody in there. it is an untested weapon. we never used it before, so it will be interesting to see how

it actually works in a combat environment. basically pushed out the back of a c-130. i think it weighs out at about 25,000 pounds when it comes off the aircraft. >> when you're talking about a big underground tunnel complex, describe for me if you're sitting in this room, if you're in a tunnel, no matter how far underground or deep, the capacity, you can kill everybody? >> well, it depends on the proximity of the blast to the tunnels and how extensive the tunnel network is. but when you drop this thing in the middle of an area where you've got tunnel exits, that blast is going to ripple through this and cause such an overpressure that it will kill everybody within a certain range. it will be hundreds of meters. >> we appreciate your expertise and insights. quickly in the room. dramatic breaking news changing our conversation. what does it tell us about the

new commander in chief and the questions he's facing. he said he's sending his national security adviser to afghanistan to make big choices. >> and interesting because we haven't heard much from trump about afghanistan. it's the country's longest war and yet one that hasn't gotten a lot of attention compared to isis and some of the other conflicts that he's talked about. clearly it shows that he is as we know after the syrian strikes, he is willing to use force in quite dramatic ways. >> one of the things the president has done according to folks in the middle east region and also according to military officials is given the military more agency over combat decisions, allowing them to do more and not sort of holding back. i mean, the obama administration really had a very high bar for engagement in part because what he wanted to do was withdraw from some of these wars. trump is very much allowing the military folks on the ground to make decisions about what's

necessary to defeat isis which in some ways you look at this sz a fulfillment of his promise to really prosecute that war in a more aggressive way. >> he has surrounded himself by generals and he listens to them. it will be fascinating to find out in the coming days the kfgz th -- conversations that were held in advance and who he was listening to. >> if there's anything that trump promised during the campaign is that he was going to bomb the stuff out of isis. he didn't use that word. this is not a kind of new occurrence here. this is something he's talked about. his policy views issue often incoherent, but he generally does not like land wars and does prefer projecting american power when it comes to folks who are hard threats to this country. and if he can by, again, using from the air and the sea rather than boots on the ground and

doing it in a very demonstrative way and clearly that's what's happening. >> dramatic breaking news the pentagon using for the first time it's largest nonnuclear bomb. that's it for "inside politics." a reminder standing by for the white house press briefing, no doubt this will come up just moments ago. dramatic move by the pentagon in afghanistan. wolf blitzer is in the chair. he'll pick up our breaking news coverage right after the break. so they scheduled with safelite. our exclusive trueseal technology means a strong, reliable bond, every time. at safelite, we stand behind our work. bye, bye. because the ones you love, sit behind it. (parents whisper jingle) safelite repair, safelite replace.

wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks for joining us. we're following breaks news right now as we keep an eye also on the white house briefing room. at any moment we expect to see the white house press secretary sean spicer come to the microphone to brief reporters. there's a lot for spice tore sift through today for president trump's change on nato, the threat from north korea and the expected cooperation with china. plus the fallout from secretary of state tillerson's meetings with the russian leader vladimir putin. and reaction to an interview

released this morning with the syrian president bashar al assad. but first i want to go to our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. she's at the pentagon. also standing by our senior international correspondent in this case payton walsh from iraq and our cnn military analyst retired general james fighter. we're now learning about a major change in u.s. military action in afghanistan with the dropping of what's described as the largest nonnuclear bomb ever used in combat. you broke the story. tell us about it. >> wolf, quite an extraordinary and sudden turn the events here at the pentagon today. we learned a short time ago for the first time in combat the u.s. military dropped a 21,000 pound bomb in eastern afghanistan to destroy a complex of caves and tunnels it says was being used by isis fighters in this area of afghanistan close to the pakistan border in an

area called nangahar province. let's talk about this weapon for a minute. its formal name is the massive ordinance air blast bomb, moab, but inside the air force, inside the military it is referred to as the mrt other of all bombs. 21,000 pounds. it is an air blast weapon. it penetrates a little bit, but this is not the typical bunker buster that we've all known about for so many years. it basically detonates and the damage is caused by massive blast in the air. this bomb is so heavy it is put on board a special operations cargo plane and basically pushed out the back. they dropped it. they've been look at that target for some time. it's an area where u.s. and afghan forces have been trying to get rid of, kill off the isis fighters in this area. a u.s. special operations

soldier was killed there in combat just several days ago. this is an area they wanted to get after very badly. very remote. very mountainous. isis retreating into caves and tunnels so it's becoming clear this is a weapon they thought they could use here and get the effect they wanted. all of this, wolf, comes as the trump administration, in fact, is considering the possibility of sending additional troops to afghanistan, u.s. troops, to help train the afghan forces even more, advise and assist them. they've been making progress against the taliban, making progress against isis. but still it is a very -- after all these years, it is a very long road ahead for afghan forces to take all of this on themselves. and we saw today that the u.s. was able to deliver what it believes was a very decisive blow to the isis forces there. but there will be reconnaissance missions over thi