facing down a nuclear armed adversary who has intimidated its neighbors, divided its adversaries and bedevilled more than one u.s. president, we'll get to vladimir putin in a moment. president trump meets with him on friday. the more immediate concern is the other nuclear armed adversary who has bedevilled u.s. presidents, kim jong-un. yesterday north korea tested a long-range missile capable perhaps of hitting alaska. today the diplomatic version of all hell breaking loose as the u.s. convened an emergency session of the u.n. security council. the president threw up his hands with china. china and russia tried to forestall military action against the north and america's top commander on the korean peninsula fired a verbal warning shot at kim jong-un. the latest on all of it news from cnn's michelle kosinski who joins us live from the state department. michelle, where is the u.s. with this crisis right now diplomatically speaking. >> yeah, well, nothing the u.s.

has said, and we're talking over the last few years, has made any difference obviously to north korea. but the u.s. does have this military option. it's been there, it's always an option. north korea is the reason why the u.s. has these military alliances in the region and keeps working on them, so that is why you see the u.s. now repeatedly put that out there as a threat. put out the visuals, the capability right in north korea's face. the leverage, though, seems to lie with china economically. it is 90% of north korea's trade. it hasn't been so willing, though, to tighten the screws just yet as the u.s. wants it to do. so that is why today you hear the u.s. not only strongly rebuke north korea, but issue this warning to other countries, especially china, if they continue to do business with north korea. the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. nikki haley saying today that the world is on notice and the u.s. is willing to follow its own path if necessary.

listen. >> their illegal missile launch was not only dangerous but reckless and irresponsible. it showed that north korea does not want to be part of a peaceful world. their actions are quickly closing off the possibility of a diplomatic solution. the united states is prepared to use the full range of our capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies. >> in this same meeting you heard russia and china together criticize the u.s. for those kinds of statements and threats, saying that's only making the situation worse. the u.s. response, though, is that nothing is working so it's time to act. making it very clear that the u.s. will act against other countries. so what we're likely to see in the near term is not the military option, since that is so risky and is so much of a last resort, but we're likely to see sanctions on other countries entities doing business with north korea, a greater military presence in the region and more

sanctions on north korea itself. the u.s. has been encouraging other countries to try to limit their diplomatic engagement with north korea. john? >> michelle kosinski at the state department for us, thank you so much. digging deeper now, tom foreman has the facts and figures. tom, what does this test launch tell us about kim jong un's capabilities. >> what this tells us, john, is that the north koreans are going full steam ahead. they are on course to have a record number of missile tests this year, more than a dozen already. and each one is steadily expanding our sense of how far they can probably send some part of their arsenal. the latest one is a real milestone. analysts saying now for the first time they believe that they would be capable of actually reaching onto u.s. territory somewhere up here in alaska. so let's take a look at this missile and talk about what we're deal with here. this is a life size model of it. not terribly tall.

a little more than 50 feet, so it's about as tall as a basketball court is wide. even if you believe what the north koreans said about it, it didn't fly that far horizontally, less than 600 miles. so why is everyone so excited? because of how high it went. the altitude of this thing took it way, way, way above the international space station. and if we believe everything we've seen here, it came back under some sort of control to a splashdown. that speaks an awful lot about their advancements in propulsion and in guidance. so where do we stand now? in terms of range, we have to give them a green light because they have shown now for the first time they can launch an intercontinental missile of some sort. they'll have to replicate it. but yeah, if they keep going this way, they could hit places in hawaii maybe eventually, and maybe in the lower 48 if they keep making progress.

what about accuracy. this is a yellow light, a caution light here. they have not yet proven that they can make something fly this far and necessarily hit what it is aiming at. that is also a big hurdle to get over there. remember, they had some big failures in their missile tests earlier this year as well. and the real stopper, of course, is the last one here. the purpose of an icbm quite frankly is to carry a nuclear warhead and there is no indication that they have been able to miniaturize a warhead and make it reliable enough to be carried by any of their missiles. but still, consider all of this, put it altogether, and you still have to say they are making progress on all these fronts in a very worrisome way for the rest of the world. john? >> right, tom foreman, thank you so much. so given the military hardware, given the way kim jong-un operates and given the state of play and power dynamic in the region, what are the options right now for president trump? questions all for georgetown university's victor cha, former ambassador to nato, nicholas burns and cnn military analyst, retired air force lieutenant colonel rick francona.

ambassador, let me start with you. the ambassador to the u.n., nikki haley, said today, quote, time is short, action is required, the world is on notice. what did you hear from that? what are you hearing from the trump administration? >> i'm not sure what the trump administration means by the world is on notice. we are the victim here. we and the south koreans and japanese. the north koreans have done something quite significant technologically but i'm not sure there's an easy fix here for the united states. we're going to have to take a series of measures designed to put more pressure on them, so that's why you saw the security council action, the call for more sanctions. certainly president trump needs to continue to make it absolutely clear that we are committed to the defense of both south korea and japan. i think he's well within his rights to rem month straight with the chinese, but we know the chinese will only help so much on this. they won't go as far as we'd like them to go. we have to work on missile

defense long term. so a series of things we can do, but there's no quick fix. it's going to take principled consistent american diplomacy to try to get the north koreans into a place where they can at least perhaps freeze their nuclear tests and their missile deployments. >> victor, let me ask you the same question a different way. again, nikki haley says the world is on notice. how does kim jong-un take that tonight? another way of asking that, has anything that the united states has said or done in the last 24 hours deterred north korea in any way from doing this again? >> well, i would say the answer to that question is no. but nothing that this administration or the previous administrations have done have been able to deter north korean missile testing. over the past nine years, north korea has done well over 75 ballistic missile tests and four nuclear tests. so we haven't been very successful at deterring these

sorts of exhibitions by the north koreans. having said that, i do think that this missile test, this icbm test as well as the treasury reaction that was taken against a chinese bank last week does provide a platform for the trump administration to go into the g20 and really put pressure on the chinese and the russians to do more. you'll have five permanent members of the security council there, their leaders there, so there's an opportunity to try to work quickly on a resolution that would put more sanctions on the regime. so, you know, you always try to make lemonade out of the lemon. in this case the fact that there also was a treasury action is a shot across the bow to chinese banks that if they don't cooperate, they could be listed by the treasury department as well, hurt their financial reputation. so i think they just have to keep working at it. >> colonel francona, ambassador

burns brought up missile defense. people talk about military options in dealing with north korea and often they're talking about offensive military options. now that they have tested successfully apparently an icbm, the defensive options here aren't that great either. >> well, they never have been. until we get a viable ballistic missile defense system, we're going to be vulnerable as they continue to develop this icbm. looking at their engineering and physics capabilities, it's only a matter of time before they get that warhead for the icbm and put the west coast of the united states at risk. so there are no real viable military options right now. we could launch some sort of strike, a conventional strike against north korea, go after these facilities. the problem is you have to assume that you're not going to get them all because the koreans have spent years, decades, burying all of the stuff. they have got bunkers, caves, everything like that. it's a very, very difficult target set. you also have to assume that there will be some sort of retaliatory action. the koreans have also planned for that for decades. so there's nothing easy about this.

the military options we have right now are not good. but if ordered to do them, of course, the pentagon would do it, but the consequences would be, i think, tragic. >> victor, you say one of the most alarming things here is that it is more proof of how quickly the north koreans are advancing with their technology. >> yeah, i really think that since december of 2012 where they were able to put a satellite into orbit, there has been a rapid acceleration in their passing key technical thresholds to field an icbm with a nuclear warhead that can reach the continental united states. i think they beat every timeline that the experts, at least in the outside community, have come up with to try to determine how fast they have gone. they still have a way to go. there's still certain things we don't know that they can do in terms of their targeting capability, the re-entry vehicle. there are a variety of things they still have to perfect, but there's no denying that they are

on a path that is quite rapid and there's nothing that's stopping them right now. >> colonel francona, no doubt there will be people that watch this and say i've seen this movie before. north korea has tested plenty of missiles before. the international community always responds and says, hey, stop that. what's going to be different this time? >> well, this time they have actually reached the goal of an icbm. now, we don't know the exact range of this. it depends on which analysis you read. but they're getting close. they may be able to reach alaska, maybe hit the pacific northwest. it's really immaterial because at some point they're going to have the range to strike the united states. it's just a matter of time. so this clock is ticking. where we used to sit back and say they're not there yet, they're not there yet, well, they're there and now we have to address it. our ballistic missile defenses have not kept up. we've always said we've got time, we've got time. we're out of time.

>> victor cha, ambassador burns, colonel francona, thanks for being with us. we have plenty more to talk about because there's plenty more on the president's plate. we'll look closer at the upcoming trump/putin meeting, one we are told by the way that has no formal agenda which is in itself pretty notable. also the g20 summit and the question of the president's relationship with long-time allies who have begun reassessing those relationships. and in this simple everyday act, we see. when we give, we receive. ♪

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closer to midnight than it has been in decades. part of the reach is vladimir putin's drive to reassert russian power. and the challenge of dealing with him. here's what president trump and before that candidate trump has said about vladimir putin. >> i spoke indirectly and directly with president putin who could not have been nicer. putin did call me a genius and said i'm the future of the republican party. he's off to a good start. i like him because he called me a genius. he is really very much of a leader. he said nice things about me. i have nothing to do with putin. i've never spoken to him. i don't know anything about him other than he will respect me. if he says great things about me, i'll say great things about him. it would be nice if we got along. if we don't, we don't. but it would be nice. he could not have been nicer. he was so nice. if putin likes donald trump, guess what, folks, that's called an asset, not a liability. i hope we have a fantastic relationship. i don't love, i don't hate, we'll see how it works. we'll see. >> fast forward to friday and the meeting in hamburg. let's talk about it with jim

sciutto and david gergen. david gergen, any and every meeting between the leaders of the united states and russia always fraught with tension, always huge expectations, but here i think they're even higher. you can't overstate how closely people will watch this meeting, what is said and not said. as you sit here tonight, what do you think will happen at this meeting? >> well, i'm not -- i'm not really sure what's going to happen at this meeting. it depends if they go off script or not. if they stick to the script, then i think you're going to have the president only press lightly on the question of meddling with many people in the united states think he ought to push very hard. i think he may make a couple of concessions, minor concessions to the russians, which again will not be greeted well here. the big question is, is he going to get serious cooperation on syria, isis and fighting isis. it's not at all clear putin wants to give in on that. putin has made big gains in the

middle east. there's also the question of north korea, can the russians help with the chinese, can they help with the north koreans. i doubt the president will get much from this. the big, big issue is whether the president comes out holding his own or whether putin will manage to shove him around, and whether donald trump holds himself in check, sticks with the talk points, keeps pressing ahead, makes some small progress, but not big headlines. >> jim, on the issue of election meddling, which david just brought up there, aside from whatever domestic political concerns he might have or personal issues he might have with the russian meddling story, is there any geopolitical strategic reason not to bring it up? from everyone i've spoken to, the one thing president putin responds to is strength. >> right. listen, you hear from democrats and republicans, bipartisan concern not just about russian meddling in the 2016 election but by current probing attacks

by russian hackers setting up for possible interference in 2018 and 2020. it's not an old issue, it's a current issue, it is a future issue. and from them -- and again, it's bipartisan. they want further pushback against russia. >> david gergen, donald trump, he's used to meetings. he's used to meeting with cagey people over the course of his business career and he's won many of them over. he's a good negotiator and he is a showman. vladimir putin isn't just a russian leader, he's a former head of russian intelligence. this guy's on a different level than the characters that president trump has met before. is he ready for it? >> you're absolutely right, vladimir putin represents the big leagues. and president trump in terms of international affairs, international security has not been playing in the big leagues. vladimir putin has a strategy, he has a game plan that he's been pursuing with considerable success, i might add. it's not at all clear that donald trump has a game plan going into this meeting. so it is -- it would be easy to

understand why this could not go well, but on the other hand this will appeal to trump -- trump doesn't like to lose. and i think he will push back in some degree. i don't think on the meddling, but i think he'll push back on some other things. what you would fear as an american is the first kind of meeting jack kennedy had when he went overseas and met with krush khrushchev in vienna right back in '61, and he just beat him up in the meeting. kennedy left there saying we've got to find a way to get back at him and i think we need to do it at vietnam. it was the roots of vietnam pushing back. so these can be very consequential meetings. >> jim, one of the things that's interesting and you know this from covering this is after this meeting, there will be the u.s. readout and then there will be the russian readout. we'll hear from both sides about what happened on the inside. it will be really interesting to see how much these two versions align. >> no question it will be.

you'd expect differences. what's interesting is that the u.s. side has not been particularly forth coming with details about meetings that trump has given in the past. oftentimes some of those details leak out from the other side, if it's not russia, from u.s. allies, et cetera, other leaders, those kinds of calls. it is interesting that this is a formal bilat. because of that you will have no takers in the meeting. you will have a whole host of record keeping that wouldn't be the case if it was just a pull-aside on the sidelines of the g20 meetings so that gives you more opportunities to actually chronicle what happens inside that room. >> i just want to say having been in bilaterals between the united states and russia with the heads of state of each country, the fact that it's a bilateral is more formal, it's a safer venue for the president. it's not an open-ended conversation. they'll have three or four things on the agenda. and i think the white house is trying to play this one safe as best we can tell. >> david gergen, jim sciutto, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> thank you.

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so you've heard correspondents and guests lay it out all night, what a big week this is for the president of the g20 summit, the meeting with vladimir putin, china, ally, global challenges and crises. you name it, we've got it. before we take it all up with a panel, a quick roundup from cnn's sara murray. >> reporter: president trump leaving the white house behind as he embarks on his second overseas trip and faces a new round of challenges on the world stage. the most vexing issue may prove to be growing tensions with north korea. trump indicated last week he's prepared to take a tougher line with kim jong-un. >> together we are facing the threat of the reckless and brutal regime in north korea. the nuclear and ballistic missile programs of that regime require a determined response. >> that was before north korea's latest missile test, all but ensuring the issue will be a

central focus in trump's meeting with chinese president xi jinping at the upcoming g20 summit in germany. while the leaders of the world's two largest economies appeared to hit it off at an april summit in mar-a-lago -- >> the relationship developed by president xi and myself i think is outstanding. >> reporter: the relationship has since cooled, as trump grows impatient with china for failing to significantly step up pressure on north korea. on wednesday, trump tweeted, trade between china and north korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. so much for china working with us, but we had to give it a try. the dynamic between china and north korea is just one of the sensitive issues trump will face abroad. trump has irked some european allies by withdrawing from the paris climate accord, but also for failing to offer a full-throated endorsement of article five, nato's mutual defense pledge on his last overseas trip. even putting allies like germany on edge.

>> translator: the times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out. i have experienced that in the last few days. we europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands. >> reporter: but before trump heads to germany for the g20, he'll first stop in poland where eastern european leaders are sure to brief trump on the ongoing threat from russia in the balkans and ukraine. that summit here in poland coming ahead of trump's highly anticipated meeting with russian president vladimir putin on friday. all eyes will be on whether trump keeps up the warm tone he used toward russia on the campaign. >> if putin likes donald trump, i consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with russia. >> reporter: or whether he surprises even some of his own advisers by taking a tougher line with putin. now, president trump's national security advisers say there's really no set agenda for this formal bilateral meeting with putin. they say it's really up to president trump to decide what

he wants to bring up, but of course everyone will be watching to see if he does bring up russians meddling in the u.s. election in 2016. back to you, john. >> sara murray, thanks so much. lots to discuss with our political panel. with me alex burns, matt lewis, kirsten powers, margaret hoover, steve israel, scott jennings, an all-star group of people. a big week. kirsten powers, first to you. a big week. we've been talking all night. what do you expect we will learn about president trump this week? >> well, i don't know. i mean i think he's coming into this after obviously the first meeting with the european leaders not going very well. he's somewhat isolated. and so the question is, is he going to go there and continue to remain isolated or is he going to do something to try to, you know, soothe the relationships a little bit and try to get, you know -- not be on the outs with our allies. you heard angela merkel there basically saying we don't have the kind of relationship with the united states we used to have, and i think they're at a point where they're about ready to start looking other places for people to partner with. >> alex, that's a great point.

all of us, we like being around people who like us. president trump is about to go somewhere where those people might be few and far between. it might be hard to find them right now, even though these are allegedly some of america's great allies there. how do you think that will color how he tries to navigate it? >> that's part of what makes our republicans, including republicans who are supportive of the president, nervous about his meeting with vladimir putin. that of all the leaders he is going to be meeting with this week, putin is probably the one who's been most favorable to president trump in his public comments. also president trump is not a tremendously careful improviser, and so when he's in a situation with the other g20 leaders, including a number of european leaders like angela merkel, who have their own home country politics to think about, that do not tend to point them toward accommodation with donald trump, it's not clear that he's terribly at ease in navigating that kind of situation. >> you know, scott jennings, alex just mentioned republicans are nervous.

well, we're joined by a republican tonight, scott jennings. it's great to have you here with us tonight. when you look at this, one of the things "the new york times" is reporting that vladimir putin and donald trump might talk about, their shared disdain for the media. well, they could talk about that or what i consider to be a layup, the president could bring up russian election meddling. he can bring it up right now and that would pass, you know, a fairly low bar for a lot of people watching this meeting. why not just do that, scott? >> he could bring it up. what could would it do to say, hey, stop doing that. vladimir putin will deny it and we'll go on about our business and the russians will go on and do what they do which is meddle in elections around the world. look, they know that we know, and they know that most likely we're going to respond to it in some way in the future. the pressing issues that i think the american people care about, the syrian issue has not gone away, this north korean issue is dominating the news today. president trump in the past has shown that he can rise to the occasion on some of these foreign stages. he did it a couple of times during the campaign. he's done it in the first six months as president.

i think the american people want to see a strong american response to these international issues and i think he'll give it to us. >> there are plenty of americans that think an international issue is russian election hacking and they'd like to see a strong response to that also. congressman israel, his last foreign trip to the middle east and then to europe as well, it was a bit of a respite from the russian crisis here in the united states and all the questions about the election, various investigations and what not. do you think he will escape that this time? >> well, it remains to be seen. look, any time a president arrives on the international stage, you want that president to be projecting a foreign policy that is clear, consistent and credible. this president arrives at the g20 lacking all three. last time he went to the nato summit, he as we just heard alienated our allies, he wouldn't endorse article five, the entire premise of collective defense, he complained about the cost of the appliance. on north korea, the trump doctrine as candidate was we'll let china take care of this for us.

today he did a tweet that essentially admits the failure of that policy. when a president arrives at a summit, you want that president to command respect and even awe. not the scratching of heads and the raising of eyebrows. >> look, the stop in poland may be an answer to the article five question. he's going to poland, that sends a message he's standing with nato right there. as for north korea, the white house says, you know what, it was worth a try with china. they had the right to do that. they say the beginning of the administration, it didn't work and now they'll try something else. matt lewis, that meeting was really the tale of two trips when he went to the middle east and went to europe. by the time he got to europe, you saw the pictures of the president pushing aside the leader of montnegro. other things. this time the weight of the issues seem so great between north korea and syria and ukraine and trying to get back with the other european leaders that maybe those less consequential things will drift to the side. >> yeah, donald trump inherited a very dangerous world. he has not done a terrific job

with it, but he inherited it. and, look, i think a ton of problems, right? but to me it's russia. i think russia is the key here. and i even think russia is the key when it comes to article five. i don't think that donald trump needs to reassure germany so much as he needs to reassure vladimir putin that aggression against nato members will be greeted swiftly. and i think that's the key. i think george w. bush looked vladimir putin, the kgb agent in the eye, and saw his soul. i think that barack obama said there was a red line and he allowed it to be trampled. i think vladimir putin said barack obama can be pushed around. i don't think we want our president pushed around by this guy. i think that's the big thing. that's what we need to do. that's what donald trump needs to have come out of this. >> so he's got to prove that to vladimir putin. he may need to prove that to the other g20 leaders, certainly the nato leaders. >> it's about machismo.

that's more important than any deal. >> so handshaking, frowns, smiles and the like. there's an audience there, a national audience but also a domestic audience for president trump here. what do you think he needs to do for the domestic audience? >> he needs to appear strong and in command of foreign policy. the challenge is it reminds me of this line that roger ailes has. you are the message. for trump, he is the message, he is the policy. it is all about his ego. it's important to keep in mind that vladimir putin has bested two previous american presidents, one that i worked for and president obama. he is a high -- he is excellent in the spy craft of sizing up his opponents and then figuring out how to exploit their weaknesses and their strengths against them. >> what about the america first message? how much of the steve bannon message will he bring with him, do you think? >> i think with vladimir putin he's not going to lead with that, right? that's what he does in warsaw. this is what he has in common with the polish government but

not what he has in common with vladimir putin. with vladimir putin what he's convinced the american base of is that russia should be our friend. i highly doubt he mentions anything about the election. i think he wants to try to build a friendship, a relationship, but he has to risk looking like he's being duped like previous presidents who he said he would be better then. >> alex burns, i saw you jumping out of your chair a moment ago. >> i think margaret largely said what i wanted to say. but the part of the basic proposition that president trump sold the american people was that if only we had a president who had a clue. if only we had a president who knew how to make a deal and work with people who we have shared interests with, we would knock off these problems one after another, right? he's acknowledged that that has not really panned out with north korea and china. in a lot of ways, i think the biggest test of encountering vladimir putin, it's not can you show him that you're tough in the way that a conventional american president is tough, it's can you convert this sales job that you've made that a

nicer, warmer, more cooperative relationship with russia will get results into actual results. if he came back from the trip able to say, yeah, i'm softer on russia than my predecessors and here's what we have to show for it, that would be a huge change for him because so far he has no results to show for all that softness. congressman israel has a lot of easy attack lines to use for his side. >> and we heard them moments ago. kirsten powers, a quick closing thought to you. nato aside, russian security aside, anything he could give to the european leaders who are really mad about the paris climate accord and the u.s. withdrawal? >> well, the problem is he's at odds with them on a lot of important issues, so i don't know -- he doesn't want to substantively -- he doesn't agree with them on climate change. he doesn't agree with them on migration. i think with climate change, they're ready to wash their hands of him at this point and just start working with other countries. >> thanks, guys. so much to watch over the next few days. that's the understatement of the week here. up next, a major milestone in the fight against isis. tonight coalition-backed forces are pushing further into raqqah

and syria, completely surrounding isis fighters. the latest on the battle when "360" continues. ♪ if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's, and your symptoms have left you with the same view, it may be time for a different perspective. if other treatments haven't worked well enough, ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio works by focusing right in the gi-tract to help control damaging inflammation and is clinically proven to begin helping many patients achieve both symptom relief as well as remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. while not reported with entyvio, pml, a rare,

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a critical moment tonight in the fight against isis. u.s.-backed forces are closing in on the terror group's last two major cities. only a section of mosul in iraq is still under isis control and isis fighters are now surrounded in their self-described capital, raqqah in syria. not too far from there is where we find cnn's nick paton walsh. >> reporter: i'm about 40 miles away from raqqah city itself and how things have changed since we were here 18 months ago. this used to be the front line but now isis surrounded entirely, cordoned off in what they still call the capital of their self-declared caliphate. coalition backing the kurdish syrian and arab fighters behind me here and moving into remarkably they said in the last 48 hours the old city area of raqqah itself, pushing through the substantial wall around it using air strikes and trying to bypass the mines and defensive positions isis have put in place to slow this attack down. it seems they're moving very fast indeed. we've seen american military vehicles moving around here at a reasonable frequency.

this fight is moving fast and it's the last population center isis really control because they're pretty much days away from losing the largest city they ever had, which was mosul in iraq. there's literally a matter of hundreds of meters now for iraqi special forces to clear. they smell victory, but it's pretty far away because the people there facing suicide bombers with civilians being used as human shields. a very difficult task there, but still a difficult task later after that when they try and rebuild. iraq fractured as a society between the sunni ethnic group that backed isis, many of them, and the shia that dominate the military and the government. they need healing so they could rebuild. here in syria too, the broader question of what happens when raqqah is finally liberated of isis, who rebuilds it, who moves in. not really answered satisfactorily. the u.s. have a plan to move in quickly and try to get things going but probably haven't got the budget or patience to stick it out to the end and the syrian regime is close by with an eye on getting back as much territory as it can.

>> nick paton walsh reporting for us from outside raqqah in syria. is a lot to discuss with pentagon correspondent barbara starr. and michael weiss, co-author of "isis, inside the army of terror." barbara, if or when isis does lose control of raqqah and mosul, what kind of an effect will that have on its overall strength? >> well, look, it takes away one of its biggest propaganda values to radical people around the world, people who radicalize. it can no longer really claim it's an islamic state. it takes away their state. but they still have considerable propaganda value. people get inspired by them. they can still recruit overseas potentially. they can still inspire terrorist lone wolf attacks, if you will, in europe. we're already seeing that of course in recent weeks and months. so it takes away sort of their military state in iraq and syria, but it doesn't take away

the fact that they can still be a potent force. they can be a guerrilla movement essentially in many places in the world. >> michael, is isis still a caliphate if it has no real territory under its control? >> no. i mean it wasn't a caliphate to begin with, even when it had raqqah and mosul and dozens of other population centers. barbara is right, we've been at war with this organization for 14 years. leon panetta stated it very well when he said this is going to be a 30 years war. if anything, i think he undershot the bar. i think it's going to take much longer than that. they have a very strong ideology. they are changing and evolving as they have done throughout the course of their history into something now that is actually not all that arab in composition. i mean the trend that i've been noticing for the better part of two years is what i would call the europeanization of isis. you see people from western european countries, germany, britain, belgium, france coming over. they don't have a word of arabic, you know, to speak.

and also the more prominent and i would say potent phenomenon, former members of the soviet republics, russian-speaking jihadists, many of who served in the country's military, in some instances counterterrorism, strike forces ironically enough who are battle hardened, well trained and considered the worst of the worst in terms of their zealotry and enthusiasm for holy war. a lot of these guys will end up back in europe or western countries, and they blend in. they're white. they don't look arab. they're not swarthy. they're not the people that will be pulled out of lines in international airports. isis has been preparing for the loss of its caliphate even before it established its so-called caliphate so let's not underestimate the resiliency of this organization. >> barbara, what about that. u.s. officials, intelligence defense officials, are they preparing for what could be an influx of trained fighters at this point who had been in syria and iraq or who may now be

returning to europe or even the united states? >> well, possibly an influx but also the so-called homegrown. people who are radicalized where they live, radicalized online. we're shifting very much into a cyber movement here. and think of it this way. donald trump campaigned that he would get rid of isis by, paraphrasing the president, bombing the heck out of them. well, an f-16 doesn't do much good when you have terrorists walk into an airport with suitcase bombs in europe. an f-16 does you absolutely no good. so the u.s., the world, has to prepare for that. it's a very different circumstance. it's a very different set of threats that's really emerging now. >> what kind of a step, michael, to wrap it up, how significant of a step will it be in the longer term battle against isis if or when these cities fall? >> well, let's put it this way, john. if the loss of a population center meant the death knell for

isis or al qaeda in iraq as it was formerly known, it should have been destroyed in 2004 during the first battle of fallujah, then again in the second battle of fallujah and when it took and lost the city of mosul. so this is sort of my way of saying we've seen this movie before. as i say, just because they lose ground, just because they're caliphate shrinks does not mean that they are still not a lethal and long-term deadly insurgency. this is the -- their bread and butter is resorting to guerrilla warfare. it's not governance, it's not administrative services, it's not all of the things i've spent the last four years writing about. it's being a terrorist organization the way that abu al zarqawi founded it out. >> barbara starr, michael wise, one step, but a lot more to go. appreciate it. up next, a new york city police officer shot and killed while sitting in a marked van. why the police commissioner is calling this an assassination when we come back. adapted to my weight and shape, has so i sleep deeply, and wake up ready to perform. right now, save up to $500

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>> reporter: heart breaking pleas from help coming from an nypd officer after he witnessed his partner getting shot. authorities say 34-year-old alexander bonds walked up to this police van and fired through the window. striking the officer in the head. on twitter the police commissioner call it had killing an assassination. kansas we are conducting an ek tensive search on video at the time. based on what we know it is clear it is -- >> reporter: tracked down bonds a block away and shot and killed him. a police source close to the investigation says the revolver was stolen in west virginia in 2013. bonds had previously been sentenced for a shooting in new york according the local

district attorney. it's upclear why heing targeted police but faphilia and her parental was stationed in that neighborhood. she was 48-year-old and mother of three. her family grieving and in shock. devastated says her brother-in-law. a neighbor described familia as a happy person. she served in the nypd for 12 years. the killing similar to an ambush of two police officers both fatally shot in their probation in brock lin. by the afternoon, the police commissioner and mayor vised the squad. offers hugged, others joined in prayer. >> she was on duty, serving the city, protecting people, doing what she believed in and doing the job she loved. >> reporter: now at this point tonight it is still unclear why

bonds carried out this killing. we do know detectives were at his home here in the bronx talking to family members. we also know they have been combing through his soebl media site and they have found rants against the police. >> all right thanks so much. we'll be right back. s. yes, nice pop toss! flag dancing? we've been there. and with free hot breakfast and a warm welcome, we'll be there for you. hampton by hilton.

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thanks for watching 360. time to hand it over to don lemon. "cnn tonight" starts right now. this right here. this is the kind of moment that could make or break a presidency and change history. this is "cnn tonight," i'm don lemon. president trump and kim jong-un in a show down that has the whole world watching, and fearing the unthinkable. north korea armed with a missile that could strike alaska. so what would it take to stop kim jong-un, who will blink first in this? then president trump's first meeting with face to face meeting in vladimir putin. we know what they probably won't be talking about here and that's russia's meddling in the election. will u.s. moscow be an ally or enemy in