our town hall special with the house speaker paul ryan begins later tonight, 9:30 p.m. eastern right after our special coverage of president trump's address to the nation outlining his new afghanistan strategy. stay with us for complete coverage. that's it for me. thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in ""the situation room."" "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. out front next, breaking news. president trump about to address the nation in his first primetime policy speech. what is his plan to win america's longest war? plus, steve bannon back at breitbart and already targeting his old boss. and the city of phoenfiftee bracing for possible violence. that city's mayor telling the president, please stay home. he's my guest tonight. let's go "out front." good evening, i'm jim sciutto in for erin burnett. out front tonight breaking news.

the president confronts america's longest war. just a short time from now mr. trump will use his first primetime address on a national security issue to lay out his plan for the deadly war in afghanistan. he is the third american president to wrestle with an afghan strategy. and he's taken his time. after weeks of consideration, trump huddled with his senior advisers at camp david this weekend to come to a final decision. the pentagon has presented the president with options ranging from a complete withdrawal to the deployment of up to 4,000 additional u.s. troops to join the 8,000 american troops there now. trump is said to be conflictive, skeptical of a continued u.s. presence in afghanistan but fearful that withdrawal would allow al qaeda and isis to fill the void. five years ago then reality television star trump made his position on the afghan war very clear tweeting, quote, why are we continuing to train the

afghan afghanis who then shoot our soldiers in the back? afghanistan is a complete waste. time to come home. since then trump has continued to question the u.s. military presence there. >> we made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place. it's a mess. it's a mess. a total and complete disaster, and i'd like to see money spent on this country. we're on track now to spend, listen to this, $6 trillion, 6 trillion. could have rebuilt our country twice. altogether on wars in iraq and afghanistan and the middle east. >> so will trump reverse course on afghanistan tonight? two months ago defense secretary james mattis testifying to the senate armed services committee hinted that trump's thinking might be changing. >> we're not winning in afghanistan right now, and we will correct this as soon as

possible. >> the president is right. afghanistan has been a very costly war. since the invasion in november 2001, more than 2300 americans have been killed there. more than 17,000 wounded. the financial cost, an estimated $841 billion. that's just so far. tonight the president will be at fort meyer in arlington, virginia, to ask american service members and the mesh peop american people to trust his strategy at a time when americans are publicly questioning his leadership. jessica is out front. what more are you learning about what the president will announce tonight regarding afghanistan? >> reporter: jim, it's likely the president will present a plan that will present up to 4,000 additional troops in afghanistan. that's on top of the roughly 8,000 troops already there. but we know the president has been presented with multiple options, including a full withdrawal. now the white house not giving any hints as to this. they haven't released any

excerpts from his speech. they haven't delved into any of the details that we might hear from president trump when he does go before members of the military at fort meyer in virginia in just about two hours. we know, though, this was a lengthy and very delayed deliberation. we know that the president convened his national security team multiple times over many months to get details. defense secretary james mattis saying that the president asked for many details wanting more and more depth each time he met with his team. president trump did meet with his national security team at camp david on friday and on saturday president trump took to twitter saying he had made his decision. something he's kept under wraps for the past few days and will finally disclose in that speech tonight but the question is, if president trump does choose to send more troops, could his background actually create a backlash with the american public? we know president trump has repeatedly spoken out against the war in afghanistan. we heard it repeatedly during

the campaign saying that the war in afghanistan and all military presence in the middle east was a waste of money. president trump or then donald trump had taken to twitter beginning in 2011 saying that afghanistan was a complete waste and he stressed no more wasted lives, saying it was time for all of the troops to come home. so the question is, if that's the strategy, sending more troops, that the president ultimately picks, will the american public back him? combine that with the fact that there has been a lot of internal turmoil here at the white house with the staff shakeup. also plunging poll numbers out of the midwest. those most recent poll numbers coming from wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania showing that around 55% of voters there disapprove of the president's job performance. jim, the question tonight, whatever plan president trump picks, will the american public be behind him? jim? >> jessica schneider, retired u.s. army major general james spider marks. kimberly dozier and mark preston

is our senior political analyst. mark, i want to begin with you, if i can. the president's first major primetime address to the american people since his address to the joint session of congress in february, and he's really asking for the most sacred thing that a commander? chief, a president can ask for, that's troops going into battle, possibly to die. but this happens at a time when even members of his own party are questioning his moral authority. how much is this a challenge for him? >> well, it's a very big challenge, not only what we're going to hear from him tonight but in the coming weeks when we actually see some of these troops get prepared to get moved into afghanistan. the biggest problem right now, jim, as you know, is that when you look at the trust level, you talked about this just a short time ago, 73% of americans either don't believe anything that's coming out of the white house, they only believe just some things that are coming out of the white house. that's an astro no, ma'am anything call number. more than seven in ten americans

believe had a they're hearing from the president. when you're sending young men and women into combat, in some ways many of them might not come home, that's a lot to ask. and at the same time, jim, when we look globally when we're talking to our allies, there is a question about whether our allies can trust donald trump as well given some of the things that have happened over the set of months that he's been in office. >> yeah, there's no time when trust is more important than when a leader asks citizens to die for their country. kim, president trump, he spent a lot of time criticizing president obama for not bringing the troops home from afghanistan. here are just a couple of his tweets over the last several years. this from november 2013. we have wasted an enormous amount of blood and treasure in afghanistan. the government has zero appreciation. let's get out, exclamation point. do not allow our very stupid leaders to sign a deal that keeps us in afghanistan through 2024 with all costs by u.s.a. make america great. now, to be fair, trump has

seemed to change his tune or at least moderate his message a bit in recent months and years. here's what he told cnn in october of 2015 about why he might leave troops in afghanistan as president? >> we made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place. it's a mess. it's a mess, and at this point we probably have to because that thing will collapse about two seconds after they leave. i would leave the troops there begrudgingly. i'm not happy about it. >> kim, you've been speaking to people inside the pentagon, elsewhere, military officials. do you sense that the president is going to reverse from that earlier criticism and make a greater american commitment to afghanistan? >> well, a slight increase in troops is what officials expect to hear tonight, and those tweets show you the kind of skepticism they had to fight their way through and help explain why it's taken so many months to come up with this strategy. i understand that a lot of the cabinet members were settled on a strategy several months ago

but donald trump kept sending them back to the drawing board asking what will be different this time? how is this not groundhogg day. and what they explained to him, this is the anti-obama plan. obama put a deadline on it. we're not going to put a deadline on it. we'll make it condition based. when it's stable we'll draw down troops. so you don't give the taliban how long they have to wait until they just come back, which is what they did. they also sold him on the idea that they could do this more cheaply. in order to keep the troop numbers under the 8400 troop cap established by obama, that meant the pentagon had to send in contractors instead to do jobs like repair helicopters as a way to send in just combat troops but not any of their support troops to artificially keep those troop numbers low. those contractors can cost three times as much. what you might see tonight is

trump selling to the american people that my plan is going to be smarter and cheaper. >> general marks, you know a thing or two. you've commanded troops in war zones before. let's be honest about these numbers here though. if it is true that we're talking about 4,000 troops or so, 8400 there right now, i'm going to remind the american public there was a time when there was more than 100,000 coalition troops in afghanistan. when president obama came into office, his afghan surge and had that time line was in the order of tens of thousands of additional u.s. troops. are 4,000 additional soldiers going to win the war there? >> here's the difference. i think what we're seeing now is when the surge occurred in afghanistan several years ago, the afghan government and the afghan military and security forces were ill equipped to step up and so the united states filled the void with the surge. we're now at the point where the afghan government and the security forces arguably are not where they should be but are

getting closer to a point where -- >> do the commanders on the ground say that? the ones who really know are the forces fighting with them. >> it's general mick nicholson who will tell you there are challenges that exist today and aren't going to go away any time soon, but there has been progress. my point is what's different is members of the afghan security forces have increased. there has been an increase in quality that you see. it's still not where it should be, so what the united states going to do is essentially take a page from what we did in iraq, which is we're going to support the training effort. we're going to get the afghans out front. the united states will continue to lead in terms of command and control at the highest levels with intelligence, with medical support, with logistics support. there will be some contractors. there always will be some contractors in neat ter. but what i'm -- i guess what i'm saying, jim, is it's not an ideal solution because you don't -- if you cannot advance the policies of what the afghan

government is trying to do, and also let's be frank, the taliban owns more of afghanistan than it did before 9/11 so there are elements of work that need to be done. >> not to be skeptical -- >> be skeptical. >> -- i know there are a lot of smart people working on this with a lot of battlefield experience. i've covered iraq and afghanistan. i've been there a dozen times in each place. i've heard this argument, local forces are standing up, they're better now, we need fewer of us, its, et cetera, but this is a plan that you've heard proffered to president bush, to president obama -- >> sure. >> -- and now president trump. why should the american people, why should the parents of these forces who will be going into battle, why should they believe the commanders today when before it didn't turn out that way? >> well, there clearly is skepticism for this. the argument could be made and put on the table. it's been dismissed. you go big or you go home. we've tried that. i don't know that the united states -- certainly the american

public is not ready to embrace a surge of numbers like we saw -- >> tens of thousands. >> that's not going to happen. so how do you take what you have, which is certainly less than half a load, and try to make the best out of it so that you can give the afghans an opportunity to stand up on their own? it is the same. it's the entire argument that exists before, but it's the solution that we go forward or we completely walk away. >> we saw the dangers of that in iraq when president obama pulled the troops out of there. kim, you've been talking to a lot of commanders. how do they answer those doubts, that skepticism, particularly with the kind of numbers that we're talking about here? how is this going to turn the tide in your view? >> well, they say when you look at the situation on the ground now, you see the afghan government and security forces losing territory every day, and what that could lead to is a quagmire that produces isis plots that attack the united states back here. so the option is to let the

place fall apart versus having this long standing but smaller investment of troops to serve as a sort of intelligence and support backbone. >> the afghan troops are losing territory every day? i thought they were ready to stand up and fight? >> they're ready to stand up and fight, but their losses at this point according to. s. o u.s. officials are greater than they can replace which is why you need trainers because they're losing them on the battlefield. >> mark preston, part of this is always a political consideration, but president trump in danger here facing the same -- similar decision that bush and obama faced before him. i mean, you can say that afghanistan is where american president's foreign policies go to die, right? carry that back to british history there. how much of a political challenge is this for president trump going forward? he campaigned on getting out of foreign entanglements, and yet

he's facing the same pressure to jump back in, even more. >> you know, in some ways doing this here in the middle of august while congress is out of session where you don't have members of congress who are doves or those who don't believe we should be interventionists going to the senate and house floor, making speeches, being covered, in many ways he's very lucky because of that. we'll get a little bit of breathing time. you will see people who come out in congress, republicans as well as democrats, who don't agree with this decision, but he has surrounded himself with some very smart people including jim mattis and h.r. mcmasters. as we leave this, i think it's worth noting that the chief of staff, john kelly, he lost a son in iraq back in 2010. he knows, you know, the horrors of war personally. i think that's pretty compelling certainly when he's giving advice and counsel to the president. >> that's a great point, mark preston. he is a gold star father in the white house, the chief of staff, retired general kelly. spider marks, kim dozier, mark

preston. thank you as always. remember to tune in at 9:00 eastern of president trump's address. don't miss cnn town hall with paul ryan. that is at 9:30 eastern only here on cnn. out front next, we're awaiting trump's first primetime address on national security. this as a leading republican senator makes a stunning admission, that trump might not be on the ballot in 2020. plus, breitbart attacking national security adviser h.r. mcmaster. is steve bannon out to settle old scores now that he's out of the white house? and it seems that everyone in america was looking up at the sky at that eclipse, even if some of us didn't follow all the rules. jeanne moos will have that story. s of drowning people are numbered. same goes for you, budget overruns.

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hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. just managing your symptoms? ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. breaking news. looking at live pictures from fort meyer in arlington, virginia. in less than two hours the president will announce his plans for the path forward, the strategy forward in afghanistan. it comes as more members of his own party are calling him out for his response to the violence in charlottesville and questioning his leadership. >> i think in my view that the president's comments about both sides were a mistake. the statement's just wrong. there aren't good people on the neonazi side. >> now the former democratic mayor of philadelphia, michael

nutter, and the former republican governor of north carolina, path mccory. thank you for joining us. both sides of the aisle represented. governor mccory, governor christie was a vocal supporter of the president. he's not alone. you had senator bob corker question the president's competence, his stability. he questioned the president's moral authority yesterday saying it was compromised by his comments regarding charlottesville. does the president need to apologize for his handling of charlottesville to truly move beyond this? >> i think tonight during the speech not only should he talk about afghanistan, which i consider to be the forgotten war and a lot of our soldiers have been forgotten over there, too. i'm glad the president has the courage to reset to an area that for the last nine years we haven't talked about it, but i do think he has a chance to do something which he didn't do, which i feirmly believe he shoud

have called this domestic terrorism in charlottesville as he has called domestic terrorism out in other areas that he's criticized president obama for not doing it. i think one of our great challenges and international challenges to our safety is international terrorism and domestic terrorism from groups like white supremists and the neonazis. they are an arc kanarchists alo other left wing communist groups are doing some of that, too. but you have to call these groups out and be consistent in doing that. i think tonight he has the chance to reset that. i also hope tonight he talks about how they're going to make decisions in the white house in the future. now that they've had some staff changes with general kelly in charge, i think they've got a great chance to say this is how we're going to make decisions. i hope it's more decentralizing in making decisions and giving

power to the cabinet secretaries and get this debate off stat. >> on that statement about calling out domestic terrorists, i imagine that's a statement you would welcome, mayor nutter? >> it's one of the statements. i think as the governor said, certainly the president should apologize. there's no indication so far the last even two years that we've closely watched donald trump that he has any ability to actually apologize for anything because he's never apologized for anything. he didn't apologize for birtherism, he didn't apologize for central park 5, he didn't apologize for the discrimination suit that he and his father had to settle with regards to preventing african-americans from renting from him. all of the stuff throughout the course of the campaign, not one apology. i don't know what he can pack into a speech about what we're doing internationally. he has a lot to apologize for and clean up, but if you have no

credibility and the only way that you can say things that are close to sane is when you're speaking from a teleprompter, then that doesn't tell me that you have it actually in your heart. >> you mentioned those questions there. president trump already signaling that he wants to run for re-election in 2020. he's held rallies. there's another one tomorrow in phoenix, but a republican senator, susan collins, said something remarkable. she said she's not convinced that trump will be on the republican ticket in 2020. have a listen. >> he's already running for re-election. what happens then? >> it's far too early to tell. it's a long ways between now and that point. >> do you think he will end up the party's nominee in 2020? >> it's too difficult to say. >> that's a remarkable thing for a republican senator to say about a republican president of the united states. >> well, we have a lot of elections where incumbents are challenged within their own party, and this is a senator who i respect but made one of the

crucial votes just in the last two weeks against repealing obamacare. so i think there's a little tension between senator collins and the president, and a lot of other people, but -- >> she's not along among republicans. >> she's not alone but, again, tonight is an opportunity for the president to not only talk about domestic security and calling people out who need to be called out, but we also need to start focusing. we've got korea. we've got iran. we've got syria. we've got some major issues, and the forgotten war of afghanistan. in north carolina where i was governor, we have soldiers, men and women who feel like, you know, we're talking about all of these other issues, why aren't you talking about us that are in a foxhole in afghanistan? >> the problem though is, he has antagonized, if not i could use another "p" word. but he has ticked a whole bunch of people off internationally who also don't trust him much

like many americans. he's isolated himself so badly that it is difficult to believe virtually anything that comes out of his mouth. he's moving to the point, you know this, donald trump is moving to the point that the only time he's not lying is when his lips aren't moving. >> that's a remarkable charge. >> i'm not going to respond to that because this is where we need to have a conversation instead of attacks. every president in our nation has gone through some difficult periods, and he's going through a difficult period now, but now more than ever republicans and democrats, we've got to deal with domestic terrorism. we've got to deal with health care. we've got to deal with jobs. wi we've got to deal with iran and north korea which we've ignored for so long. there are no easy answers to these i shall us ossues. i'm not talking as a republican or democrat -- >> this nation needs to be healed. no question about that. >> i think with a new chief of

staff, i think with the vice president pence who i know extremely well, served with as a fellow governor, i think with others around him, now that they're reorganized, get some of the immaturity out of the staff. >> there's only one piece of it. you hired your staff. you are responsible for your staff. >> that's correct. >> he hires every one of those folks there. jim and the news media did not put those people there. democrats did not put those people there. he has to have a responsibility for his team. >> you as mayor and i as governor i'm sure have had to fire people before. >> every now and then. >> i had to fire some people and i had to do that as a governor and mayor. you make mistakes. you correct the mistakes. >> and move on. >> the president made a tv career out of firing people. >> we'll see what changes filter up to the top. governor, mayor, it's nice to have people from both sides here. thank you very much for the conversation. out front next, steve bannon back at breitbart news and back on the attack. who will be his number one target? president trump heading to phoenix for a campaign rally.

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breaking news.

a little more than an hour from now the president will announce his strategy for afghanistan, but already the president's just ousted chief strategist, steve bannon, is attacking the president's plan through his website, breitbart. the lead articles on the site right now happen to be america first? with steve bannon out, globalists push for more war abroad. and mike allen, trump's afghan plan will have the u.s. not winning but not losing. out front now chris buskirk who knows bannon, spoke to him over the weekend. he's the editor of "american greatness." and chris is editor of cnn at large. chris buskirk, if i could speak to you, you spoke to bannon days, hours after he was fired. did he speak about his opposition specifically to the afghan war? >> well, steve has been -- has been outspoken in his policy with regard to the afghan war for years now, so his position on this really has not changed. he's highly skeptical of increasing our foreign military

commit over seas specifically, specifically in syria and also in afghanistan. so that really has not changed over the weekend. the fact that he was in the white house, is now out of the white house, he's a guy to stick to his guns. he's got his principles. he's got his ideas about a populist nationalist. >> i think he referred to himself in one interview as bannon the barbarian. >> the president has been critical of the war in afghanistan. he said it was a waist ste of l and money. does breitbart have a point? >> well, yes, frankly. donald trump has been remarkably consistent about afghanistan until, it sounds like, the reporting they're getting, until his plan here on the way forward. he has been universally opposed to it saying we continue to spend money, we continue to put troops there. to what end? he will now be the third

president, jim, to try to deal with this. america's longest war. it's the difference between campaigning and governing. cliche but true. barack obama said many things in the campaign trail, particularly as it related to foreign policy. he got into office, it was much harder to do. he often found himself in some was echoing george bush's policy. i think trump is running into something similar here. >> chris buskirk, bannon said he is now out to build support for trump's agenda. his website though seems to be taking clear aim at the president. bannon said on an interview as well that the presidency that he fought for is effectively over now. how could breitbart -- what kind of damage could breitbart and bannon do to the president's agenda if they're not happy with it? >> well, i don't think they want to do damage to the president's agenda. i view it as being just the opposite. the president was very clear on the policies he wanted to govern on during the campaign and those

why consistent with the policies largely that bannon and breitbart were advocating prior to bannon being involved with the president's campaign last summer. i think we're going to see more of the same. bannon wants to be a friend and ally to the president just as he's been the last couple of years. now having said that, there's also going to be an element where i think breitbart will be an effective counter weight to some voices that oppose those things. sort of an accountability partner, if you will. these are the things, these are the policies that you advocated on the campaign trail. the things people voted for. are you going to do those or has something changed? if something has changed, you need to make the case for that. is there new information? is there something you learned having become president? nonetheless, this is where the rubber meets the road. this is where bannon and breitbart, anybody really who voted for donald trump has to say, this is how you campaigned. are you going to govern that way or is something different now? >> you should trademark that phrase accountability partner to describe what's going on over at

breitbart. chris, you want to say something? >> i think that's a really savvy lead on things, frankly. i think what you have in donald trump, particularly go back to june 2015, what you had is a candidate who didn't really know -- he had some basic ideas, some thoughts, but had no policy structure around them. breitbart and steve bannon helped provide the meat on to those bones to give it -- here's -- donald trump has a sentiment. what can it be turned into from a policy perspective? so i actually think steve bannon and breitbart gave trump a lot of the policy structure, policy background that he ran on. remember, this is not someone in donald trump who is fundamentally ever been particularly ideological. he's been a democrat, he's been a republican, he's a republican in the white house now, but steve bannon in particular has been advocating and consistently advocating a set of policies for much longer than donald trump

has. he knows trump/pence will go to whoever has last had his ear. breitbart will let him know these are the promises. >> we don't have much time. chris buskirk, a quick word. when you spoke to bannon this weekend, was he angry? was he frustrated with his departure? >> no. in fact, it was just the opposite. very energetic. very enthusiastic. very willing to get back in the saddle and get to work. you get the situation where people want to go from one job to another, they move, it gives them a sense of freedom and energy that you haven't seen before. that's the take away i had from steve over the weekend, the past few days. this is a guy who hasn't missed a beat, ready to get back at it. >> we see some of that energy in the headlines. thank you very much. >> thank you. out front next president trump is set to hold a major rally next in phoenix and the city's mayor doesn't want him to come. why? i ask him. he's out front next. and the collision of the

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breaking news. president trump right now preparing to address the nation on his plans and his strategy for the war in afghanistan. he'll be making the speech live in front of service members in fort meyer, virginia. tomorrow he's heading to arizona for another in a series of campaign-style rallies. this one in phoenix. but not everyone there is welcoming him with open arms. out front now, the democratic mayor of phoenix, greg stanton. mayor stanton, thanks for joining me tonight. >> jim, thanks for having me on. i appreciate it. >> you've urged president trump to delay this visit to your city arguing it's too soon after the violence in charlottesville, that the country is still healing, rather. have you heard from the white house at all as you've expressed this opposition? >> well, first i want to correct your statement earlier. you said a campaign-style rally. in phoenix this is a campaign rally. it's not a campaign-style rally. it is the presidential campaign that has rent the out our

phoenix campaign. this is not an official white house visit, this is a campaign. i did speak strongly and say this is not the time for a visit of this nature. it is too close to the time that a young woman was murdered by neonazis and white supremacists. he failed the country, failed the people of charlottesville, failed that young lady's family and failed the people of the united states of america by failing to unequivocally condemn the white supremacists and neonazis and so shortly thereafter to have a campaign rally in phoenix, in which he's openly discussed the possibility of pardoning our sheriff, joe arpaio, i don't think it's appropriate. that's why i stepped forward and said this is not the right time for this rally. >> you mentioned the speculation about the president pardoning

sheriff arpaio. trump retweeted a fox news story saying that he is considering that pardon and arpaio told -- himself he told npr, quote, i didn't ask for it but i will accept it. if he does do it, the president understands what i've been going through. as you said, you oppose the pardon. why is that? >> well, you know, sheriff arpaio may be talking about what he went through. let me tell you what he put the people of this community through. for years latino residents of our community had to live in fear. just going to the grocery store, dropping their kids off at school, that they may have been pulled over under false pretenses to have their civil rights summarily violated. people had to live in fear for such a long period of time. i don't think sheriff arpaio should ever be pardoned, but particularly to have a discussion of a pardon where the sheriff systematically violates people's civil rights so shortly after charlottesville in which

the president failed us by failing to unequivocally condemn white supremacists and neonazis, you put it altogether and it's a very volatile situation and the timing could not have been worse. >> let me ask you, the president is going ahead with this campaign rally as you describe it tomorrow. is there something that the president could say in that speech that would help heal the divisions? >> yes. the president blew it, and blew it significantly after the tragedy of charlottesville. again, murder of a young woman by a white supremacist and a vowed nazi. he blew it after that, but you know what, now the president should try to make right. now the president should come to phoenix and say -- say the words of real meaning about bringing this country together. he should take the opportunity to unequivocally condemn and disavow any support of the so-called alt right, white nationalists, white

supremacists. america is begging, starving for that leadership. the president failed the first time around. instead of discussions of pardoning sheriff joe who was criminally convicted for contempt of court as part of a civil rights trial in which he systematically violated people's civil rights. instead of talking about pardoning people, instead of getting into intra-party fights, the president should take the moment and speak directly to the american people, unequivocally condemn that sort of white supremacy that we saw in charlottesville which is disgusting for all-americans to see and for once try to bring this country together. it's an opportunity for him tomorrow. i hope he takes it. >> we'll be listening and watching as i'm sure you will be, mayor stanton. thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you. out front next, the frantic search for ten sailors missing after a navy destroyer collidewicollided with a navy tanker.

jeanne moos, a little less than overwhelmed by the most anticipated event in america today. >> is that it? >> yeah. what do you mean, that's it? it's so cool. maybe be worried...really, really, really worried. uh...do you want me to go back and look for it? i will. i mean a lot of bad things could happen. you need to call the bank. i don't know how else to tell you, you need to shut that card off-- [woman 1] it's off. [woman 2] what? [woman 1] i can turn it on and off in my wells fargo app. [woman 2] huh! i feel better already. [woman 1] good. - i love you. - love you too, dad. ♪ i will love you ♪ in the morning ♪ when the dew is

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macing after the "uss john s. mccain" collided with an oil tanker off of the coast of singapore. this is the fourth incident involving u.s. warships in the pacific just this year. the second collision in just over two months. a reminder these are the naval forces monitoring the grave threat right now from north korea. retired rear admiral john kirby, now a cnn national security analyst. truly amazing events here. how can you explain this series of accidents? >> that's the thing, i don't think we can. we need to be careful we don't try to you saw the head of the navy come out and say i don't know if we have a systemic problem here or not. i don't know if we have a fleet

problem in the pacific that we don't know about. he's ordered a comprehensive review across the region, and operational pause across the entire navy to take a knee and try to figure out whether we got our training in place. >> this a highly volatile area with the north korea threat. do these incidents undermine u.s. military readiness in the region? >> when you have three ships now that are out of commission, as we do now, certainly there's a gap there in capability. that said, the navy has redundant capabilities out there. they have 14 other ships that can pick up some of the slack. i'm not worried about the navy not being able to answer all bells or meet the threat from north korea or any other threat in the region right now. they'll deal with. but look, when you lose three

warships, that's a big blow. and that's something they need to take seriously. >> final question, i took notice when the chief of naval operations in a tweet said to clarify the possibility of cyber intrusion or sabotage, no indications right now but review will consider all possibilities. is there any concern that these incidents were not entirely accidental? >> i don't think they know completely what happened here. and that's why they're leaving the window open for all manner of possibilities. you have to look at it all. i would find it unlikely that would be the cause here, just from my own experience. but they're not wrong to rule anything out right now. they want to look at it all and they should. >> it sounds like they're going to give him the space and time to do this. admiral kirby, thank you very much, as always. "outfront" next, jeanne moos on the eclipse, and the president going rogue. electric light orchestra ]

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all eyes in the u.s. on the sun and the moon today. jeanne moos, though, will not be eclipsed. >> reporter: silly glass. who cares? everyone from superman to president trump donned them. >> there he is. it is incredibly dark. it's very eerie. >> it's a spooky, spooky experience. >> i may be speechless. >> i see a shadow covering the earth. >> reporter: it was the blanket news coverage covering the eclipse. >> so happy i could cry. >> reporter: coverage ranged from the couple that found ecstasy, getting married during the eclipse. >> two hearts align today. >> reporter: to "the washington post" live streaming the eclipse's effect on fainting goats.

when scared, they sometimes do this. during the eclipse -- >> they almost didn't move. >> reporter: bonnie tyler sang her signature song on an eclipse cruise. ♪ eclipse of the heart >> can you stair into a total eclipse of the heart without glasses? >> look into my heart. i wear it on my sleeve. >> reporter: people sure were scared into wearing those glasses. >> you're not supposed to stair into the sun unless you hate your ice. >> that's concentrated energy that cannot only burn your glass but your eye. >> reporter: the guardian pranked readers with how can you tell if you damaged your eyes article that was intentionally blurry. the 71% eclipse of new york was underwhelming. does it work better if it's organic? >> i think it does.

>> reporter: and the president glanced up without them, landing him on the cover of the new y"n york daily news". this newborn was named eclipse. others were dressed in eclipse outfits. and nasa released a photo of the international space station silhouetted against the one, photo shopped from chris christie to e.t. during the last solar eclipse over north america in 1979, a network anchor spoke of the next one. >> that's 38 years from now. may the shadow of the moon fall on a world of peace. >> reporter: there was no peace, even from cars this time around. >> can you hear the car alarm? apparently the car is excited about the eclipse. >> reporter: jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> i wthought it was pretty special. don't forget to watch the president's address to the nation 9:00 eastern time. we'll be covering it live. after that, a cnn special town

hall with house speaker paul ryan, moderated by jake tapper. that starts sharp at 9:30 eastern, only here on cnn. that's it for us now. i'm jim sciutto in all week for erin burnett. watch "outfront" any time, anywhere. "ac 360" starts right now. good evening. president trump speaks to the country tonight about the war in afghanistan, america's longest war to date. he'll unveil his strategy, which is widely expected to call for additional troops. whatever the decision, it comes six months since his last major address in 16 years since the war began. the u.s. and its allies brought down al qaeda and the taliban and despite years of training forces and hundreds of billions of dollars, the government of afghanistan is still not strong enough to fight on its own. american combat operations ended there two years ago but the fighting continues. tonight, the president is expected to call for additional tr