hi there. i'm brianna keilar in for wolf blitzer. happy fourth of july to you. it's 1:30 wednesday morning in pyongyang, north korea. wherever you're watching from around the world, thank you so much for joining us. start with an unprecedented launch by north korea. a successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. a missile capable of reaching the united states. the type of missile has not been confirmed by the u.s., but the launch is still causing concern

throughout the region. also here in the united states, prompting a tweet from president donald trump who said this -- ishs north korea has just launched another missile. does this guy have anything better to do with his life? hard to believe that south korea and japan will put up with this much longer. perhaps china will put a heavy move on north korea and end this nonsense once and for all. i want to bring in our international correspondent paula hancocks in seoul for us and pentagon koecorrespondent barbara starr from the pentagon. paula, what do we know about the launch and what's the reaction in seoul, not too far from it? >> reporter: well, brianna, north korea says it was successful. they say it was an icbm. they've said in a special broadcast kim jong-un was there, ordered this and at the test site and delighted with its success. as far as north korea is concerned, they say they can now

hit anywhere in the world. i don't think experts take that as face value, but there are many experts assessing with the altitude, the distance traveled, and the time that it was flying from north korea also data from japan, south korea and the u.s. as well. assessing there is potentially an icbm. some saying potentially it could hit parts of alaska, but at this point, the official word is what we're waiting for. the south korean joint chiefs of staff saying they are still analyzing the data with the united states, but specifically saying they are not denying this at this point. so certainly officials are trying to fig are out exactly what it is. they do say, though, it has an improved range compared to the may 14th launch. now, this may 14th launch was significant, because all experts said that that was the biggest advantagement in the nuclear missile program that north korea has had to date, and if the jcs says, this is even better

than -- then it really shows south korea and the united states there is significant progress being made by north korea at this point. brianna? >> barbara, still, as the u.s. and south korea works to confirm, they're clearly concerned it is, however. if this is an icbm, this really changes the calculus. what are you hearing from the pentagon? >> reporter: brianna, it changes the security calculation, really, across the asia-pacific region, canada, the u.s. really, across the world about the capability of kim jong-un. and u.s. officials are saying, look, this is no surprise. military officials warned for years now here in washington, on capitol hill, everywhere, that this north korean test program was moving forward. that kim is testing and testing and testing, and that his goal was for an intercontinent a ballistic missile and nuclear

warhead on top of it and he may be getting close to the capability to do that. first, no surprise. what we are seeing today, it's july 4th. no one was supposed to be at work. right? everybody on holiday. i can tell you, here in the pentagon there has been a series of meetings. meetings including officials across washington, talking, huddling, trying to figure out what the trump administration may want to say about this, and what it may want to do about it. i think it's fair to say no one's looking for a shooting war with north korea. you know, that would be a disaster. but military options, they could send additional troops, aircraft, have more of a presence's they could ramp up yet again sanctions and diplomacy. the real question is what would really work? right now you see russia and china pushing back, saying they do want to see a freeze on north korea's program, but the price they want for that is for the u.s. to give up military exercises with south korea. that's a non-starter. so at this point, we see

tensions rising everywhere. a july 4th perhaps no one really expected. >> paula, what about the timing of this? of course, it's no coincidence coming here as we head into were independence day in the u.s. >> that's right. it was actually july 4th already in north korea when they launched this missile. that timing hasn't been lost on anybody. also, bear in mind, it's just a few days after prood president moon jae-in came back. disappointed it came just after he had been there and bear in mind, he was standing in the rose garden next to president trump saying that he wanted north korea to come back to the negotiating table. was certainly moving further away from that position, it appears. then you have the g-20 meeting a little later this week where there were going to be many things on the ajind genagenda. north korea made sure it will be talked about by every single

leader in germany. timing is everything when it comes to north korean missile launches. >> sure is. thank you both. i want to talk more about the threat. kimberly dozier is with us, we have cnn military and diplomatic analyst john kirby and cnn major general james spider marks. i want to start with you. talking, general, about an intercontinental ballistic missile with our without nuclear capability, seems writing on the wall that is the direction north korea will be able to go unimpeded. right? what does this mean? >> there's no mystery they want the ability to have a nuke with a warhead on the top to reach the united states. base and intelligence collection, and there is aggressive layered intelligence collection. we have capabilities in space. capabilities in the air.

we have xpablcapabilities on th and ground and will get into the telimetry. if that was achieved, now we need to be concerned. that's an additional significant step that the north korean have not achieved yet. also they have to marry that up with the nukes they have. this is very, very significant for the united states. we've been at the precipice a number of years. the time to act is increasing. north korea will inevitably be able to link this you. an entire array of capabilities we have available to us, diplomatic, economic, isolation, increased pressure from beijing and the united states certainly retains the military option, which is really the last resort.

we've got to keel all of our options available. >> donald trump, john said in january, it's not going to happen, but it looks like that statement, should we re-assess that statement? where he said it's not going to happen? >> yes, i think so. >> what does that mean? if you're donald trump, what are the options? >> as the general said, an array of options to explore. look, he has been racing towards this capability. if it's true he has it, then he has it. obviously they've crossed a threshold. out in the options become more limited for the administration than before. it's just a matter, a fact. he has to look at the range of options and see how to apply them. there are military options short of conflict to explore. barbara touched on those. diplomatic ones and frankly economic ones, but obviously, what he can't take off the table, continued pressure in the international community particularly on beijing. can't take that off. >> you mentioned a military option. kim, is there really a military option here that is -- ah --

that would really cause something short of potentially catastrophic? >> as the other two gentlemen at this table note, every military option has major down sides. the majority one being that, you've got 28,000 u.s. troops plus the south korean allies just over a border within artillery range of the north korea military. so anything you do, there's that immediate risk of massive retaliation that could kill tens of thousands of people, within a day. so that's why in terms of ramp itting up the pressure. what the trump administration has to do, re-assess it's policy relying on china to use economic help against north korea. with this technological advance, they've got to be thinking, this is not working. >> and as the president is going

to be in germany, he's going to be meeting with south korean leaders, japanese leaders, chinese leaders, what can he do that kim mentioned some things might move too slowly, but what is he going to be seeking from these leaders? >> i think he needs to reassure them, quite frankly. step one, letting them know we're going to take tour treaty alliance seriously. he has to press them, number two, implement fully the sanctions in place. the big problem with china, they haven't fully implemented sanctions put on them, and there are options he can take in terms of exercises and overt sort of military readiness posture things that he can do that are well short of any coukinetic or conflict sending a strong message to pyongyang we mean business. >> if president trump needs to

reassure south korea, japan and you have a tweet saying, south korea and japan aren't going to put up with this much longer even though they're pretty reliant on the u.s. for holding the dloub is the club to support that? what message does that send? >> get inside the psyche. >> a lack of understanding where the u.s. is with these countries? >> no. going to use that tweet, "we" should not stand for this anymore. the united states relationship with south korea and japan is strong, viable, a strong relationship in the region. we have been very true to them and they have been very, very supportive of us for decades. that's the approach we need to take, which is, folks, we are in this together. we can't afford to allow this to occur. everything that kimberly says happened a good deal of my life on that peninsula. what concerns me, the artillery range seoul is within and the north koreans, we can't attack that artillery in advance.

the discussion is, look, guys, we can't afford to have a nuclear north korea. we all agree? great. we agree. here's what will happen. either challenge his ability to achieve that capability very, very ay gresi ivaggressively an to allies, our friends, hopefully the chinese, to really apply this pressure's we can't allow it to get there nap is an unacceptable option. if we see it getting closer, closer, closer, there will be a military strike and nothing else we can do as that window gets closed and closed and closed. there are actions we have to take that are very, very painful right now. >> kim, so those actions are very painful. have china and russia agrees jointly that north korea should not be a nuclear entity. should not be nuclearly armed but also saying that south korea and the u.s. shouldn't be

engaged in these joint military operations's we heard barbara's report. that's not going to fly. what are they really expecting? is that just posturing? >> another option you can see is china and russia offering pyongyang a sort of diplomatic half measure way out to slow everything down. convince pyongyang to freeze its program for talks, who knows how long those could go on, and what that would also do is in terms of china and russia and their geopolitical battle with the united states, to become the super powers that decide the course of things across the globe, they would be seen as the ones who were solving this crisis. not the white house. not the united states. >> why would north korea agree to that, though? >> they won't. >> they won't. i don't take, the joint russia/china statement shouldn't be taken seriously by anybody. a show to tweak our noses where things stand, but, no. look. he -- kim -- has been racing towards this capability.

it gives him the ultimate bargaining chip if and when there's ever any return to the negotiating table. right now had has no incentive to sit down and talk to anybody. >> you don't this moscow and beijing could come up with some incentive to slow them down? >> no, i don't. >> and the united states could jump in the middle of this. we haven't talked about. what a notion of some form of recognition. we don't diplomatically recognize him. that would give him the stature. aggressive preconditions but that could happen. kind of makes you want to throw up in your mouth, but it could happen and that could be the way out other than a nuclearized north. and i think, also, we should put on the table and i think we have, regime change is unimportant. we should not care whether kim's in place for another 1,000 years, provided he doesn't have a nuke. and we need to tell the chinese

that. that's the message. >> and stunning we're having this discussion. thank you all. coming up, amid new tests from north korea, the white house now says that president trump is going to hold form's talks with vladimir putin at the g-20, not an informal pull-aside as previously expected. and now the pope is weighing it on a terminally ill baby. what the pope is offering the child's parents, next. as a micro-biologist i ensure that dog chow leads with high quality ingredients. won't replace the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, you won't have to worry about replacing your car because you'll get the full value back including depreciation. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance.

call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. there's nothing more important so when i need to book a hotel, i want someone who makes it easy. booking.com gets it. and with their price match, i know i'm getting the best price every time. get up to 40% off now on booking.com. booking.yeah!

ready to of your back pain? new icyhot lidocaine patch. desensitizes aggravated nerves with the max strength lidocaine available. new icyhot lidocaine patch. we've got important new details on the meeting between president trump and russian president vladimir putin set to take place friday at the g-20 summit in europe. both the white house and the kremlin are confirming just a short time ago here, that the two leaders will sit down for an

official bilateral meeting while at the summit. it's the first official meeting between the two leaders. the first face-to-face meeting, period, between these two men and i want to bring in cnn's ivan watson in moscow. ivan what do we read about this, that this is a full meeting? this is a formal meeting, which is significant to say this is a bilateral meeting instead of what we referred to as a pull-aside meeting in the hallways on the sidelines of this summit? >> reporter: really important because you haven't had the u.s. and russian president in a bilateral meeting since approaching nearly two years. the list of areas where moscow and washington have tension, it's really long. it includes the ukraine conflict. includes the syria conflict. includes fighter jets buzzing each other in many different theaters, and it includes more recent kind of examples of tension, just a couple weeks ago

the u.s. slapping sanctions on dozens of additional russian people and entities in relation to its annexation of crimea in 2014. cancelling a meeting between u.s. under secretary of state and russian foreign minister a day after that in a tit for tat move. it includes russian anger at the u.s. shooting down a syrian warplane a couple weeks ago and ongoing anger about two russian diplomatic compounds seized by the outgoing obama administration over allegations that russia was intervening in the u.s. electoral process. so the list is a mile long and you have a top kremlin official saying relations now are at zero, and that hopefully from the russian perspective, that a meeting could help protect basically international stability at this stage. that's how dire they say the

situation and the bilateral relations are right now. brianna? >> the personalities in this, ivan, are going to be -- i think they're going to contribute a lot to the outcome of this meeting. i talked to one republican lawmaker yesterday who said that he's expecting these two leaders to try to out alpha each other. how much of that do you think we'll see? >> yeah. two men who like to play up their macho personas, but there's another element to this, too. you have donald trump, who's a relatively new president, who's going to be meeting with vladimir putin, who, this will be his fourth u.s. president that he'll be meeting with. the levels of experience here, the difference here is massive. putin's been playing at this game. he's been a commander in chief, a head of state, for quite a long time, and he's also coming from a position of strength. his base here, his support on

the domestic political front is very solid. yes, russia has economic problems. it is suffering from sanctions, but he doesn't have a real challenger here on the domestic front. whereas, the trump administration is quite new at this, facing challenges in the courts, in congress. on the streets. and -- trump has record low, you know, public opinion figures as well back home. so the big question, one big question, will be, will putin try to take advantage of his vast experience and his position of relative political strength coming in to this meeting? you know he certainly will try. ivan watson, thank you for your insight in moscow for us. i want to talk about this big meeting. we really can't overstate that. bring in our political panel to discuss this. rebecca berg, cnn political analyst and a national political reporter for real clear politics. again, retired admiral john

kirby, cnn military and diplomatic analyst and also the former pentagon as well as the state department spokesman. and jackie kucinich, cnn political analyst and washington bureau chief for "the daily beast." i want to ask you, with your extensive experience with protocol with the state department and executive branch, if you have these two leaders, initially supposed to have an informal pull-aside, which signaled something. says, we're just going to get together in a more casual way. now it's been upgraded, we learned today, to a bilateral meeting. a formal meeting's what do we take away from that? >> you can take away a couple things. first, agenda more specific and much more formal. in other words, a list of topics for both sides to engage. opening statements by both guys. cameras in the room for those opening statements. maybe even some press statements afterwards. those are possible. more importantly, more people at the table, more people in the room. certainly more formal

note-taking and a more, hopefully, more comprehensive discussion about some of these big issues that a pull-aside doesn't give you the option. usually very small, a small room, only a couple of staffers there, and usually no big record of what was discussed or any outcomes thereof. i think it's just -- more formalizes it and frankly, this is good for the president. if he's well briefed and well prepared, ivan's exactly right. putin has a very experienced hand at this. this formality, the structure, can actually work to the president's advantage. >> rebecca, we heard from the national security adviser h.r. mcmaster. john kirby is saying if this is structured, this can play to his advantage, but mcmaster saying no specific agenda. he'll talk about what he wants to talk about. what are some of the concerns that folks have if the president goes into this and is winging it? or does this sort of eliminate the chance that he will be

ad-libbing? >> color me skeptical, brianna, the president would actually be winging this meeting. what h.r. mcmaster said publicly might be him being diplomatic towards the president. giving the president his ultimate authority to talk about what he wants to talk about and set the agenda. we know donald trump is not a president who likes to feel constrained or too tightly tethered to restrictions. this could be just his advisors trying to give him as much flexibility as possible. you can bet before this meeting there is a great deal of preparation going on. running down the thing hess can address and certainly issues you cannot avoid addressing and the president needs to address no matter what including north korea, syria. potentially election meddling, although the white house indicated he would not bring that up in this setting. >> and the kremlin wants to talk about the compounds seized, talk about sanctions. >> by the obama administration in december. >> yes.

>> when they booted out russian diploma diplomats/intel folks. >> exactly. they want to talk about the crisis in syria. one of the places they could find common ground, fighting international terrorism. the kremlin has sort of set out their parameters. what we haven't seen and the would us has, seemed to have indicated that is not going to be brought up is election meddling, and while the president is under pressure here at home to discuss this and perhaps look putin in the eye and pull an obama and say, cut it out, he might leave that meeting and not do that, and what will be the fallout there? we don't know. >> playing devil's advocate, would he be the best messenger to say cut it out when recently he grudgingly accepted this occurred? >> go point. really good point, but we're talking this is bigger than donald trump. always been bigger than donald trump about the russia election meddling. so could he step back from that and perhaps confront putin?

we don't know the answer to that question. it doesn't seem like they're going there, though, at this point. >> even unpalatable for him to talk about from 2016's perspective, look, going forward a midterm. another one in 2020. going forward, this is unacceptable. he doesn't necessarily have to fall back on what happened in 2016. >> right. >> another question, of course, from this meeting is, does donald trump offer the russians concessions? offer putin any concessions? russia has been asking for this compound back taken from them as part of sanctions against russia. will donald trump offer that as a peace offering? we're not sure. >> we know he's asked staff for options among those include sanctions relief. looking back at the meeting with the russian ambassador and russ foreign minister, talks about jim comey. calls him a nut job. reveals classified information he should not have. information that was technically the property of the israelis. it was sort of a two-for-one

misstep made there. if you are staffing president trump and getting him ready for this, looking at that meeting, what -- how do you try to redirect him going into this? >> first thing you do is determine, as jackie rightly says what matters to us. what major points do we want to get across to them? then you need to kind of red team it. think about what they're going to come at you with. here's what we expect putin to complain about. what we expect him to offer you. sort of figure out how to go forward from that, but you've got to -- not only play offense. got to play defense in a meeting with 2450esds gthese guys. they're very crafty. plenty of them with kerry and sergey lavrov. they know what they're going. go in with a game plan and a sense of -- when we walk out here's what we want to say we did, what success looks like. >> always an unpredictable nature. president trump likes to be

unpredictable. >> that's the wild card. i'm sure his staff as this point is hoping he sticks to the script. you have to imagine they're going through a lot of briefings over this fourth of july period. at this point. >> you know he wants to do well here. he wants to be perceived done well. we will see. thank you so much, panel. i appreciate it. thanks to all of you. coming up, isis on the run. u.s.-backed forces getting closer to driving the group out of two strongholds. what this means for the war or terror, next.

i even accept i have a higher risk of stroke due to afib, i accept i take easier trails than i used to. a type of irregular heartbeat not caused by a heart valve problem. but no matter what path i take, i go for my best. so if there's something better than warfarin, i'll go for that too. eliquis. eliquis reduced the risk of stroke better than warfarin, plus had less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis had both. don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily... ...and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. i'm still going for my best. and for eliquis. ask your doctor about eliquis.

looking for a hotel that fits... ...your budget? tripadvisor now searches over 200 sites to find you the hotel you want at the lowest price. grazie, gino! find a price that fits. tripadvisor. pain is sometimes in my hands, be a distraction. right before a performance especially. only aleve has the strength to stop minor arthritis pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. this is my pain. but i am stronger. aleve. all day strong.

yogig-speed internet.me? you know what's not awesome? when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids. and these guys. him. ah. oh hello- that lady. these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh. sure. still yes! you can get it too. welcome to the party. introducing gig-speed internet from xfinity. finally, gig for your neighborhood too. isis is running out of places to go.

[ gunfire ] this here is the scene in raqqa, syria. a stronghold for the terror group. coalition troops are pushing into the center of the city. they just breached the city's a rafiqa wall and in iraq this. a similar scene, u.s. forces pushing out the last of the isis fighters. these twin de facto capitals raqqa and mosul initially declared cal aphates. and correspondent for the daily beat kimberly kosher and nick paton walsh with us. a tweet that syrian democratic forces late tonight entered the old city in central raqqa. key milestone in campaign to leberate the city. how significant is this?

>> reporter: we don't know the scope of the progress elsewhere around the city, but the fact, according to this coalition statement, they seemed to manage to get past the fences of the city easily. according to the coalition. blowing through substantial holes in the about six-mile perimeter wall around the old city, therefore enabling them to bypass the boobytraps isis put in place that could save them a lot of time and potentially marks a significant moment of progress. they seem to be moving quickly around raqqa. a lot of coalition ground and air support speeding them on and face potentially a lesser challenge. certainly mosul referred to earlier, the largest ever held in iraq. raqqa a de facto capital declared in syria. raqqa potentially at this point only 50,000 civilians in it. some suggest more. 150,000, but nothing compared to the problem iraqi special forces face when they moved into the populated areas of mosul. an easier tack.

up against 2,500 isis fighters. the coalition only a few hundred the diehard foreigners as far as we understand and at this point seem to be three kilometers from the city center. where the tough et fighting will be in the built up urban scroll. do they have go meant momentum? >> nick's saying there, you know, raqqa is no mosul. yet we see just how tightly isis will hold on to an aenclave lik this. what does it mean it appears they are on the verge of losing both of their de facto capitals? they have already sort of planned for this, or as best they can by moving some of their leadership, the majority of senior leadership down the

river. to other cities. you're seeing the coalition step up strikes in those cities and in recent days, and recent weeks, they've taken out some senior-level leadership. one baghdad official i spoke to said that now they're getting down to the fourth and fifth levels of leadership because the second and third tier, they can't -- isis can't replace them fast enough. at the height of this crisis back in 2015, they had something like 1,500 foreign fighters coming in to iraq and syria a day. that's down to a trickle of 100 or so. so you see isis getting burned out of its last strongholds. it's transition plan is to move elsewhere, but they'll have this great loss that, of losing both capitals and have to find a way to keep winning supporters despite that. >> we've seen, nick, they start look in other directions when losing territories. whether claiming influence abroad and of course, lone wolf

attacks inspired by isis. also, just looking for very visual, terrible attacks. we've seen one, for instance -- some in turkey, for instance. does this at all impede their ability to do that? >> reporter: hard to tell. i mean, bear in mind, isis is really an idea. we've seen a lot of these attacks around the world. inspired by things online and told by the isis spokesman they shouldn't wait for instructions. go ahead and do things that came to mind in that kind of sick call to inspiration he put out to terrorists around the world. losing territory, yes, potentially inhibits them to have a sense to plan, train individuals and are certainly on the run. bear in mind, too, simply the fact they lose main cities doesn't stop them being a problem in iraq and syria. more so in iraq, too. there's a very disenfranchised sunni ethnic grune in the population, a distrust and distrusted by the shia ethnic

group, who predominantly run the government and the military now. that's always been at the heart. that hasn't gone away. finding shelter many fear and that will continue with inspiring these bomb attacks we've seen. car bombs. suicide bombers, against soft civilian targets around iraq. the bloodshed hasn't stopped. just seen them lose territory quickly. the fight for raqqa, i have to stress, moving quickly but could still take months. we simply don't know how willing they are to resist. they've been encircled a few weeks. >> good point. this never seems to take a shorter time than expected. i think we see that. the bigger pig chcture. so many facets to this conflict. the assad regime, russia's involvement. if isis' stronghold in raqqa

impose dow goes down what does it mean? >> u.s. and russian-backed forces coming into closer proximity hunting down the last of isis. we've had one clash with the u.s. shooting down a syrian jet that was menacing what it called isis forces, what the u.s. called syrian defense allies. so it's a chance for a greater friction ahead. look to the putin/trump meeting. >> that's right. >> at the g-20. this is a topic that's got to come up. we're probably going to hear putin offer to cooperate on isis as we have before, but talks towards a political solution have been stalled or moving at a snail's pace for some time, and this loss of these capitals isn't going to change that. >> a real cooperation on isis, though when you look at russian involvement and how it seems to target anti-regime forces instead? >> u.s. military officials tell you there's been no real cooperation so far.

they said, say that the russians have been helpful in certain areas by passing on messages to other forces pro-assads fors on the ground saying stay away from this area to avoid conflict nap tactical cooperation worked in a few instances but we haven't seen the u.s. and russia work together towards ending the fighting there or -- because they disagree on the future of syria and who should ultimately rule. >> right. kimberly dozier, thank you. nick paton walsh as well. appreciate it. coming up, the pope and president trump stepping in to the middle of the dispute surrounding a terminally ill baby in london. what the vatican is offering to the parents. next.

the heartbreaking story of a british infant garnered worldwide attention including that of president trump and pope francis. little charlie gard, the right to die with dignity amongst other rights. give us background on this and how the president and the pope became involved? >> reporter: brianna, a painful story and hits really the country's top pediatricians, a range of medical experts, all of whom submitted evidence to the british courts against two very desperate parents, and on the basis of medical ethics, medical science, they have all reached very different conclusions about what's in charlie's best interes interests. the tubes that keep him alive will be turned off soon. his parents' last hope, to take him to the states for highly

experimental medical treatment, blocked by the british and european courts. their last wish, refused to take him home to die. >> a true soldier and will fight. he fights to the very end and is still fighting but we're not allowed to fight for him anymore. our parental rights stripped away. we can't even take our own son home to die, and they don't think we've been through enough. >> reporter: born healthy but diagnosed the following month with a rare disease, a form of might mitochondrial disease. >> all: save charlie gard! >> reporter: at the weekend, protests in london against the decision to turn off life support and after the pope sent a message from the vatican saying he was praying for them in the hope that their desire to

accompany and be with their child. now donald trump weighed in as well. charlie's case is extremely complicated. the treem is u.s. is offering callinged nuclearside bypass and never tested 0 on a disease as rare as charlie's is and the physician offering it think it's unlikely to reverse the brain damp and why the british courts ruled the way they did. they didn't want charlie to be the subject of medical experimentation if there was no chance of him getting better. that his right to die with dignity must come first. but that's not the way his parents see it. sadly for them, the pleas of a pope and a president already too late. >> you've got to ask, brianna, however well intentioned the

intervention of president trump and the pope may be, does it give the parents false hope? because this is the end of the road in terms of legal recourse. they have taken this case to the high court, to the court of appeal, the supreme court, the european court of human rights, because in this country, if parents and doctors disagree on what is in the best interests of the child then it has to go to the courted as and they've all decided it's in charlie's best interests to have treatment withdrawn and for him to be able to die with dignity. >> why is his family not allowed to take him home to die? >> reporter: well, so -- this is probably when you consider pallettive care options in hospitals i.e., best course of treatment for an end of life plan that will make it bearable for the child and for the parents, it may be that the hospital thinks he is too fragile to move. that may also be why the

hospital is not allowing him to go to a hospital in rome. the vatican hospital which said, look, we'll take little charlie. so i think there are many, many factors that go into the end of life plan that pediatricians will be drawing up's where basically the child has to be the focus and the minimization of suffering the child the focus. but you also have to bring the parents on side and onboard and it has to be a process that everyone really agrees on. and considering they come from such different ends of the spectrum, the parents and the doctors on this one that is clearly a complicated issue. they were supposed to be turning off the life support machines friday. has hasn't happened. i imagine, though, the hospital doesn't disclose individual details because this is such a complicated process and they need to try and get the parents onboard. >> what is the vatican hospital saying? >> reporter: they've said they were in touch with the hospital here where charlie's being

treated and great almond street said we can't transfer the child to you because of the court's decision. he has to be kept here for treatment. now, i imagine, also, that the courts made that decision based on what they consider to be charlie's very, very fragile situation and great almond street is one of the top hospitals certainly in the uk, in the world, to treat children with terminal illnesses. they must have confidence he's getting the best possible care there, even if the parents do not. >> your heart breaks on this story. thank you so much from london. we're going to be right back.

breaking news here at cnn, a u.s. official telling us that north korea's missile test was of a probable intercontinental ballistic missile. cnn's ryan brown has the latest on this.

>> reporter: we're starting to hear that the initial assessment that the missile was an intermediate range ballistic missile was to the correct and they have revised the assessment and deemed with high confidence that it was a probable icbm capable of traveling a significant distance further. one other thing that was noted was that this missile had two stages and so basically the initial missile was launched and then a second booster fired, propelling the missile even further for another, about, 30 seconds we're told. this is a significant technological capability that north korea hasn't demonstrated in previous intermediate-range missile tests until the past so this has played into this revised assessment that u.s. officials are making. they're meeting today to assess this north korean most recent north korean missile launch and part of that assessment now is this new determination that they have high confidence that this was, in fact, a test of an icbm. >> all right, ryan brown with the latest there for us. i want to bring in now retired

admiral john kirby. so this is very significant, right? because we know that while north korea may not have nuclear capability to couple with this icbm, it seems very likely that they could, then, move in that direction. >> sure. >> that that almost they may be unstoppable at this point in time and this changes the entire situation as the u.s. relates to north korea as a nuclear power. >> right. i mean, an icbm capable, pyongyang, that's a game changer. this is a capability that the regime has been trying to perfect and to get fielded. it looks as if they've done that. that certainly does change the calculus. it also limits the kinds of options that the administration has going forward. it's not like we didn't see this coming. this has been a long time in development, but now it does more sharpen the kinds of options that the united states can take in concert with the international community. kim sees this kind of capability as a bargaining chip.

it's his ultimate way of ensuring the regime's survival and that's what he's really after here. obviously, it poses a real threat, a threat we all need to take seriously but it is, for him, a chance to make sure he survives. >> what are the options that would have been on the table before that are eliminated by what seems to be an icbm? >> i think it now makes it, not that he didn't have capability before to wreak havoc and violence on the peninsula or even in the region but this means now that he can do that with a longer reach so the calculations, the cost of military intervention, of a kinetic sort, open combat, that now has graver potential consequences. so it limits, i think, a little bit. not that anybody was ever, i think, seriously thinking about a new war on the peninsula but certainly this makes it that much more dangerous to do it. >> so, ryan brown, if we're this is a probable icbm, is there another step where they're going to say, definitively, yes, this was one?

>> reporter: there's a potential where they release that assessment. in the past, the united states military, when missiles have been launched, they miscategorized the initial launch, they'll release a revised assessment publicly. they have done that in the past. there is precedent for this. but as you mentioned again, military not making any comment on whether this missile could be fitted with a warhead of a nuclear warhead, perhaps, that would be another technological leap way beyond what we've seen but this is the constant testing, the frequency of the tests has gone up a lot in the last year, and this is just another example of advancement of the north korean technological capability. >> and all of this happening on the fourth of july, no mistake there, and all of this happening as president trump looks towards very important meetings at the g20 summit in germany. john kirby, ryan brown, thank you so much. that is it for me. i'm going to be back at 5:00 eastern in the situation room for our international viewers, amanpour is next. for our viewers here in north

america, "newsroom" with brooke america, "newsroom" with brooke baldwin is next. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

hi there, i'm brooke baldwin, happy fourth of july. thank you for tuning in to cnn on your holiday. we have to talk north korea. north korea's claimed that it successfully launched its first icbm, that's intercontinental ballistic missile, something a u.s. official now says the probable. it would be a significant advancement in the regime's effort to build a nuclear weapon capable of actually reaching u.s. soil. the launch triggering an emergency meeting of president trump's national security team. you have japanese officials saying the missile may have landed in their exclusive economic zone, some 200 miles from japan's coast. after this launch, president trump