>> all right. >> one canadian city in the top ten, toronto, 7-1 odds. >> if the canadian cities, they say they can get high skilled visas in like two weeks. that's a real draw. >> i like denver. >> you would. squl thanks for joining us. >> i'm dave briggs. "new day" starts right now. see you tomorrow. we'll see you tomorrow. what was the mission? why was there a lack of support? >> we owe the american people transparency and we intend to deliver just that. >> the ambush came despite intelligence that enemy contact was not likely. >> the armed services committee is not getting enough information. >> once sergeant johnson was missing, we brought the full weight of the u.s. government to try to recover his body. >> i want answers, most importantly for the families. the president and congress are laser focused on making sure middle income wage earners

actually benefit. >> president trump sitting down with senate republicans to chart the path forward on tax reform. >> they're doomed to fail if they do not make a bipartisan effort. >> reporter: this is "new day" with chris cuomo and alisyn camerota. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. we're doing a lot of talking. it's all real what you see here. this is your "new day." it's tuesday, october 24th, 6:00 here in new york. and here's our starting line. new details are emerging about the ambush that killed four american soldiers in niger nearly three weeks ago now. america's top general says the u.s. special forces did not call for help until an hour after the firefight with islamic militants began. this is described as a reconnaissance or an intelligence mission, but the question now is, did an intelligence failure lead to the deadly attack? joint chiefs chairman, general joseph dunford said the pentagon owes answers to the families and vows to double efforts to ensure that lawmakers are getting

information, despite repeated denials from senators on both sides of the aisle, cnn has learned that members of congress were told about the niger mission, at least twice this year. president trump, meanwhile, continued the condolence call controversy monday with a gold star widow. the president disputes her count of the call, which she says left her in tears. all of this as president trump heads to capitol hill today to sell his tax plan. mr. trump will meet with senate majority leader mitch mcconnell and have lunch with gop senators. can this divided party somehow unite around tax reform? that's the question this morning, so we have it all covered. let's begin with cnn's michelle kosinski. she is live in washington for us. hi, michelle. >> reporter: his, alisyn. this was remarkable to see the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff take dozens of questions, repeatedly saying that the public is owed more information. but what also stands out is how many questions and basic ones remain unanswered. things like how many u.s. troops searched for sergeant la david

johnson. where, exactly, were u.s. troops when they came under attack, were they wearing body armor? and we're now three weeks, almost, after this happened. america's top general providing some answers, but not many. detailing a revised timeline of the ambush in niger that killed four american troops. >> we owe you more information. more importantly, we owe the families that have fallen more information. >> reporter: october 3rd, 12 members of a u.s. special operations task force leave the capital of niger with 30 nigerian troops. their goal, a reconnaissance mission in a village about 53 miles north. >> the assessment by our leaders on the ground at that time was that contact with the enemy was unlikely. >> reporter: but the next day, on their way back to the capital, mid-morning, they came under fire by around 50 local fighters with ties to isis, carrying small arms, machine guns, and rocket-propelled

grenades. nbc reports u.s. officials are looking into whether the militants were tipped off by someone in the village. the special forces team engaged in the firefight for about an hour before requesting help. within minutes, a u.s. drone was overhead. french jets were scrambled, but took another hour to arrive to the remote location. >> i don't know that they thought they needed support prior to that time. i don't know how this attack unfolded. i don't know what their initial assessment was of what they were confronted with. >> reporter: the french did not drop bombs. u.s. officials said friday the pilots had the authority, but could not readily identify enemy forces and did not want to risk hitting u.s. or nigerian allies. it was evening by the time the french could evacuate the injured and bodies of the dead americans. but it remains unclear how sergeant la david johnson became separated from the group and why it took two days to locate his body about a mile away. >> did the mission of u.s. forces change during the operation? did our forces have adequate intelligence, equipment, and

training? was there a pre-mission assessment of the threat in the area accurate? >> reporter: this as a white house official confirms to cnn that the administration expedited condolence letters to families of fallen soldiers, after president trump made this remark last week. >> i've written them personal letters. they have been sent or they're going out tonight, but they were during the weekend. >> reporter: the following day, the president going a step further, making this false claim. >> i have called, i believe, everybody, but certainly, i'll use the word virtually everybody, where during the last nine months, something's happened to a soldier. i've called virtually everybody. >> an e-mail exchange between the white house and the pentagon, first reported by "roll call," showed that the president's aides knew these remarks were not true. the aides rushing to be learn the identities and contact information from the defense department. senator john mccain, who's a chairman of the senate armed services committee, has been

particularly outspoken about the need for more information here. well, now there will be a closed briefing for his committee on thursday. alisyn and chris? >> okay, michelle, thank you very much. so let's bring in our panel to discuss all of this. we have cnn counterterrorism analyst, phil mudd, and cnn military analyst, general mark hertling. general, i want to start with you. what did you hear from general dunford yesterday that surprised you or stood out? >> not much surprised me, alisyn. i think he actually did a very good preliminary brief or an interim brief in terms of what was going on. he gave as much information as he could to the press. remember, his priority is getting information to the family and to his bosses, in that order. and then the press comes third. and i know the press wants a lot of information, journalists want to find out what happened, but he wants to get it right for the family, first. i've been in situations like this before. if you get it wrong, if you tell the family something inaccurate, in the way things developed when their loved ones are killed,

it's really hard to walk it back. and we owe the truth to the family more than anyone else. so wherethat didn't surprise me all. he gave the absolute details that he could, and it was very insightful. the thing that did surprise me, though, was when he made a nuanced remark saying, we evidently have to work a little harder at telling members of congress what's going on on the african continent or other places because they didn't pick it up the first time we gave it to them. that's what i heard in general speak. he basically said, we told you what we were doing in africa and you must not have heard us. >> and thank you for what you're doing on twitter, discussing why this matters. there's a clear disconnect, because our congress has not been appropriately invested in monitoring these missions. they don't debate it, they don't talk about it. that's something we have to keep bringing up. phil mudd, when you look at this situation, the idea of, we owe the families more information,

and there seems to be an effort to gather information. is this unusual that three weeks after something like this, an event like this, they still don't seem to know everything about what happened? >> no, it's not. there's a couple of reasons for that, chris. first, you've got to look at the volume and variety of information in 2017 that you've got to collect. it's not simply interviews with individuals on the ground or radio transmissions, you want to overlay that with what kind of drone footage you may have gotten, what the french are saying, they're the air response for this. then you have to look for anomalies, for example. the drone footage is saying something at a certain time period and the soldiers are saying something else, you have to go back and say over repeated interviews, why is there an anomaly there? i think there will be anomalies we can never answer, partly because on the issue of what happened to the body, we're not going to be able to interview the isis soldiers. i remember going back to the post-9/11 environment, we had questions about the 9/11 hijackers that we could never

resolve, years after. and we had thousands, tens of thousands of man-hours on it. so i think the american expectation in this digital age of a perfect picture of the battlefield is mistaken. some answers we'll never have, chris. >> but general, how about the answer to why they were engaged in a gun battle, as we now know, for something like an hour before they called for backup or cover? is that typical? >> it may be, alisyn, truthfully. and again, i'll add to what phil just said about all of the anomalies. one more thing you have to do is interview everybody that was there. not only the american soldiers, but the nigerian soldiers. and in terms of the battle, it develops. the enemy gets a vote. you don't sometimes know that you're in a massive ambush when it first starts. and you have to look around and find out what's going on. there may be engagements with two or three enemy as the battle starts and suddenly you realize you're overwhelmed. i've been in situations before where it's always been too late to call for air cover, because you don't know what you've gotten yourself into.

that, again, goes back to the investigation. what did they know? how did the command and control take place? i'm not ready to blame this all on a failure of intelligence. i'm sure there were some other factors that were involved. and that's what general dunford said yesterday. he's going to get all the facts before he says anything to anybody. but anybody that jumps on, this is an intelligence failure, immediately, that automatically gives you some cognizant dissidence and you don't start looking at other things. so the investigation will point out everything that occurred from start to finish and everything in between. >> phil, what are your concerns here early on? and you know, you said something that we haven't heard from the administration yet. you said, you know, these isis guys, for all of the gusto that the president discusses isis with and wanting to discuss radical islamic terror, they haven't said "isis." he hasn't said "cyisis." so why do you say "isis" and what are your open questions here? >> i have one simple open questions.

i say "isis," because if you look at the type of people who would engage forces here, let's be clear here, these are people who might have isis ideology in their baghdckground. i'm not saying they're directly connected to someone in syria or iraq. but let me pick up on something what general hertling said. the past few days is why people like me are so ticked off at the government of the united states. they can't do health care. they've completely hosed up the russia investigation. and now the questions are what happened in the tragedy of a tactical firefight. the real question is, 17 years after 9/11, we are engaged in places like the philippines, yemen, iraq, sahel, that is the area between north africa and africa. we're engaged against isis or isis affiliates, al qaeda affiliate who maybe threats to the united states in years to come. right now, they're more insurgencies threatening local governments. is that where america wants to be? is that where you want to lose the life of an american child? the congress won't debate that, but they'll debate a finger

point about whether someone made an intelligence week three weeks ago. it's really frustrating, chris. >> general, what are your biggest concerns in the war? >> i'm with phil on that. we see a lot of congressmen and senators coming on cnn and other stations saying what should be done. let them go back to congress and debate this and get an authorization for the use of military force. i see it differently than chris does. chris sees is t as a constitutional requirement, which i agree with. but it's also an indicator of support for what we're doing around the world. phil hits it on the head. we've had a global war on terror for the last 17 years. there are soldiers, sailmen, airman and marines throughout the world doing this. it's not just in iraq and afghanistan. and i think the congress of the united states should vote on this and show support for what our foreign affairs and what our national security policy is around the world. >> i'll tell you why that this needs to get some energy. one, because it doesn't have any, you know? we were loud and proud on it yesterday, we've talked about it many times on the show. nobody picks it up.

they want to talk about the back and forth between trump and wilson. that's what they want to talk about. but this matters, because if congress sees hungry for accountability, that's why they're digging, they should point the finger at themselves. they don't weigh in on it, don't want to debate, don't want to own it. and then you lose american lives, it's on them. that's where it should start. >> luckily, we have lots of members coming up, that we can ask directly. >> and they'll all say, yes, alis alisyn, we should debate, and then it will never happen. that's all. >> thank you, gentlemen. >> even phil mudd agrees with me. >> that's weird. >> he doesn't even agree with me on when i was born. >> weird. president trump heads to capitol hill to sell his tax plan. the president is going to have lunch with gop senators with hopes of getting on the same page and remembering that they're supposed to be part of the same team. the two big issues, the tax plan and what they can still do about health care. cnn's joe johns is live at the white house with more. joe, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, chris. the president headed to capitol hill to participate in the

traditional tuesday policy luncheons with a clear message for senate republicans and the congress at large pass a tax plan or go down to defeat in the mid-term elections. he also has another message he would very much like to see, a bill on his desk by thanksgiving, which, to put it charitably, is a heavy lift for the congress. in part, because things that could be used to pay for the tax cut plan keep coming off the table. the president has indicated he wants to protect 401(k) plans. here is the tweet. he says there will be no change in your 401(k). this has always been a great and popular middle class tax break that works and it stays. there had been talk about reducing the amount of pre-tax money workers could save in 401(k) plans in order to keep deficit spending down, which is a requirement in the senate if you want to pass a bill with 51 votes. there's also concern on capitol

hill about taking away other deductions in tax reform, like the mortgage deduction, which is popular with so many americans. a working draft of this bill is expected to be released around capitol hill some time next week. back to you. >> okay, joe. thank you very much for all of that. so the pentagon will brief lawmakers this week on that deadly ambush in niger, but some senators are already working to limit the war powers that congress gave the president after 9/11, everything we've been talking about. so we will discuss the political fallout from this tragedy, next. ♪ (vo) do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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filtering it out to help you continue enjoying your screens. or... you could just put your phones down and talk to each other. [laughing] nature's bounty lutein blue. because you're better off healthy. if the congress doesn't believe that we're getting sufficient information, than i need to double my efforts to provide them with information. >> joint chief chairman, general joe dunford, promising to give lawmakers more details about the ambush in niger. the pentagon is going to hold a classified briefing for members of the senate armed services committee on thursday. this, as senator john mccain calls on congress for an updated war powers measure. let's bring in our panel, cnn political analyst, john avalon and cnn political commentator, errol louis. so what needs to be said first, john, this idea of the senators having the high ground and i sa

the military needs to get on their game. they were told about these missions. they didn't pay attention, because they don't own what happens with our military. they punt to the executive. they don't want to debate. they don't want to do an aumf. they don't want to own it. they got burned in 2002. it's safer this way. it's the only thing the left and right seem to agree on is, let's not do our job here. so mccain is saying, hey, let's look at the war powers act. let's get more information. what is the political reality of what needs to change to create a better connection between the american people and what our men and women are doing and giving their blood for? >> as you point out, the congress has punted war powers for decades now. and it's going to be a matter of them straightening their ba backbone again and demanding that be looped in as part of the process. that means ownership. and that's going to be unpopular. >> and they were briefed. >> they were briefed, but they were not sufficiently paying attention. not only the american people, but members of the congressional leadership don't realize that we've got twice as many servi

servicemen and women in niger as we do in somalia, that's a problem of oversight and a problem of separation of powers. so they're going to need to start, especially as they have throughout the trump presidency, to start asserting their real power constitutionally as a co-equal branch of government. >> do you see any fallout from niger? as you know, congresswoman wilson has called this trump's benghazi. is that an apt comparison? >> i certainly hope not. it was such a tragedy what happened with benghazi. we all remember mitt romney rushing before the cameras and it was politicized almost immediately. but i think in this case, the game that john just described is going to be played out sort of on troisteroids, with mean inme not a war, this is training missions, asymmetric warfare. this is stuff in the shad dose. these are young men and women who are really risking their lives in a very sketchy kind of

long war against these shadowy forces. so nobody wants to be part of trying to get a hold of that and owning that. it is much safer to let the pentagon do what it does best. >> so, then, does that make it more controversial? is there controversy around niger that we should all be focused on? >> there's controversy, unfortunately, and this is the hard politics of the situation. there's controversy when something like this, a disaster like this, happens and then we as the public are forced to sort of confront something that we would rather not know about. all of a sudden now, it looks like a shooting war. all of a sudden, it looks like somebody wasn't doing their job. >> and the hyperpartisan impulses that dumb everything down and make us stupid and distract us, like we saw with benghazi, where it was not fact-finding, it was fault-finding driven by bipartisanship, that can't continue here. the situational ethics, when it's the other people in part, all of a sudden people flip their attitude, needs to stop. the real questions, what happened to sergeant johnson, how was he separated. was this actually a patrol or were they pursuing a known terrorist? were there eyes in the sky?

they're basic questions we need to know the answer to. that can inform the larger debate. but it was a mistake to politicize this, like it was a mistake to politicize benghazi. >> you hear phil mudd and general mark hertling, these were guys who were engaged in the mission. this is what they did, as we're seeing happen in niger and other places. and they say that congress doesn't own what happened. they haven't debated it. the american people don't know what's going on and how the war has changed. this isn't 2001. because you'll hear these lawmakers say, you know, legally, we're basically in the same ground of 2001, so it's still okay. that is a punt. it's bs. and that is the true answer here. this was an advise and assist mission. we say advise and assist, like that manes it's okay. they're going to die, our men and women, in these situations. that's the reality of war. but our politicians don't want to own it. what do they want to own? wilson versus trump. that's what they're talking about. >> it's easier. >> sure. nobody wants to step back and away from that situation.

so where are we right now, errol, in terms of the state of play about how to treat the fallen family and who's winning in that battle? >> you know, the fact that there's even a question of who's won and who's lost and who's going to apologize and who's not going to apologize tells you that sympathetic very valuable has been lost and that we sort of have sunk to a low point when it comes to this stuff. i think if we can get, in sort of putting aside that, because the white house is not going to back down. the president doesn't apologize for any reason, even when that would clearly just disperse all of the bad energy. >> even after the widow confirms everything that wilson said, except for her insults of the president and her characterizations of him and how he's doing his job, but the facts of the call itself. >> the facts, i think, are known. anyone looking at this with any kind of objective eye knows exactly what happened. and anybody who's been watching this white house knows exactly why the president, even in the face of all of these facts, will not apologize. and so there we are. and it sort of kicks it back to this larger and in some ways,

more important question, how many folks are at risk in central africa. why is it niger and not somewhere else? where is this going to go? is this going to be just be sort of a long war of attrition? is there going to be some larger sort of battle? you know, what's really at risk here? is this sort of analogous to afghanistan in 2002, 2001? is this a real sort of haven that we have to be worried about? those are the kind of questions we're going to have to talk about and leave all of the ugly domestic politics alone for now. because we're at a stalemate. >> so, john, it seems the chief of staff, john kelly, general john kelly's reputation has also taken some hits during this, ever since he took the podium and talked about his own son's death, of course, and then congressman wilson. so "the new york times" today has an editorial about this. they say, on thursday, mr. kelly said that he was speaking up to defend this maybe last thing that's held sacred in our society.

the sacrifice of an american soldier's life on the battlefield. this nation is in crying need of a demonstration of virtue and public life. and mr. kelly seemed, until now, like a man for the job. but he is not honoring sergeant johnson's sacrifice by insisting on falsehoods and stretching out this sordid spectacle. what are we expecting from john kelly? >> first of all, it's extraordinary and extraordinarily bad for this administration and the country that we are on week two of this, because the president keeps digging. john kelly is an honorable man and that press conference, nobody of goodwill has anybody but deep respect for his service and his sacrifice and the loss of his son. the problem is that he was self-evidently pushed out to defend the president's indefensible actions. >> you don't know that. he said -- hold on. the president, wii think, said john kelly was so livid himself after hearing all of this -- >> unfortunately, i don't believe the president. and there's plenty of reasons not to believe the president. too often, we have seen people

pushed out to do his dirty work and defend his tangents. >> i don't know. it seemed to me like john kelly who was somebody who wasn't there of his own free will. he seemed to take that podium and have something to say. >> i think it was a bifurcated message. first was, representing gold star families. second was attacking the congresswoman. that politicization of it was so stark, the two-tiered message. one was political, one was personal. eminent respect for the personal, but the political ends up diminishing his moral authority, both as a gold star parent and as somebody who is bringing an adult sense of discipline to this white house. because it's beneath him, it's beneath the office, it's beneath the sacrifice to start attacking the congresswoman, inaccurately, as it turned out. and also to, all of a sudden, start raising these virtues of, we used to respect gold star families. well, that was before the president, as a nominee, attacked the khan family. we used to respect women. we could go on and on and on about that. so, too often, if you're going

to raise these sort of standards that we have apparently fallen from, and serve this president, that's a fundamental contradiction that's evident to everybody not in the room. >> also, just to thread together what you're both talking about, he is a general, he has his own strong convictions. he's also a politician. you know, people at the head of the military, they have political skills, even though they have a military title. and i think kelly was putting those on display when he did his presser. gentlemen, appreciate it, very much. so, we have to pay attention to what's happening down in florida. there is a neighborhood there that is just paralyzed by fear. they've had three deadly shootings in 11 days and the police are wondering if they have a serial killer on the loose. they're trying to identify the person you see on your screen right now. this is surveillance video. why do they believe that this person is someone they have to find? we have a live report, next.

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in florida after three people were gunned down in a tampa neighborhood in less than two weeks. cnn's kaylee hartung is live in tampa with all of the latest details. what's going on there, kaylee? >> reporter: well, alisyn, a community scared and on high alert with many more questions than answers after three people have been gunned down in the course of 11 days within just a half mile of one another in the seminole heights neighborhood in the tampa area. now these three victims don't appear to be related in any way, except for the fact that they were alone at night and near bus stops when they were gunned down. so buses in the area have been rerouted. police are escorting children to their school bus stops now, as they blanket this neighborhood day and night. and last night, officials met with more than 400 concerned citizens, as they expressed their fears and the police chief explained to people, he's not using the term "serial killer," because for one, they don't have enough information to determine that, but, two, there are labels that come with such stereotypes,

and they don't want anyone's vision boxed in, as to who this killer could be. they want people's minds open, as they search for a lead, a motive, a suspect. they do have this video, police have been circulating. it was video captured the night of the first murder, october 9th, when benjamin mitchell was gunned down at a bus stop outside his home. people watching this video say the man you see there has a distinct walk and yet police haven't had anybody come forward with any information. so, now, chris, the police chief saying, everyone is a suspect. he told those folks last night, if you were outside and alone, you were a potential suspect or a potential victim. >> and they are really asking that community to step up and help them, which shows the urgency and shows how early on they are in their understanding of this homicide spree. kaylee, thank you very much for the reporting. we'll stay on it, as well. so some lawmakers were caught off guard by the u.s. military presence in niger, but

they should not have been. so let's start with the facts. how many american troops were actually on the ground? what is their mission? why is there this disconnect between our elected leaders and our military? we'll ask the former command of u.s. special ops forces in africa, next.

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did the mission of u.s. forces change during the operation? did our forces have adequate intelligence, equipment, and training? was there a pre-mission assessment of the threat in the area accurate? did u.s. force -- how did u.s. forces become separated during the engagement, specifically sergeant johnson, and why did it take time to find and recover sergeant johnson? >> now, the four men that were lost, you just saw their faces on your screen. everybody saying that they support these families, they want them treated with respect. is that really being done? here's why i ask that question. general joe dunford, you just saw him there, the head of the joint chiefs, he was revealing new details and said there are questions that we need to know. he also didn't say something that he should have, which is the idea that congress was

unaware of what was going on in niger is not true. let's bring in retired brigadier general, donald bollack. he was commander of u.s. special operation forces in africa until june of this year. it's good to have you on the show, sir, and of course, thank you for your service. >> well, chris, thank you very much, and please let me express my sincere condolences to the families of our lost heros. >> and let's show them some respect by telling the truth about this situation. the idea, to your ears, when you hear senator saying, had no idea, had no idea we had these kind of people in niger. we need better information from the military. do you buy that congress had no reason to know what was going on in niger with these advise and assist missions? >> no, it would not be my opinion that they are unaware of the activities going on in africa. the four years that i spent in africom, two as the deputy j3,

and another 26 as the soc africa command, special africa commander, we hosted numerous staff delegations from both the house and the senate and they are kept very well informed by the africa command. i can't speak to how the pentagon does that, but having worked in the pentagon four times, i can tell you that there is open communications and i would have to agree with general dunford that it would be -- it would be not typical for the, for the congress not to be informed about what is going on in africa. >> in march, general waldhouser went before the senate armed services committee and gave them a preview of what was happening in niger and what this was about. that was just back in march.

so the political reality is, they know, it's whether or not they want to own it and debate it. is that a fair statement? >> that's a fair statement. you know, general wald hahausse gave a very good, excellent detailed rundown on the activities in africa and what his command is doing. and of course, what special operations command africa is doing to support that. i think that's a fair statement. >> the american people have largely bought on to these missions, because they're called dw advise and assist. and you know, the deadly reality is what we just saw in niger, you can call it whatever you want, but we'll have men and women in harm's way, wherever they're on the ground. what can you tell us about how many of our men and women are in different areas in africa and how many different missions they are and what the nature is? >> well, basically what i can tell you is, what's going on in africa right now is part of a larger campaign plan that has

been approved by africom and by the pentagon at all levels. and informed both to the national security council staff and to congress. so there's no secret as to the campaign plan. and this is a department of state led campaign, the military is in support. there's also operational plans that are put in place by the individual components. special operations command africa has an operational plan to support this. niger sits right in the middle of two key operational areas. one, lake chad basin, in which boko haram and isis, west africa, is actively, is actively fighting in nigeria, chad, cameroon, and niger. and then niger, with isis al qaeda and other affiliates in mali, baa kbu kina faso, all connected to algeria.

this is a hugely ambiguous and complex area, but what special forces are doing is appropriate special operation force missions. >> what does that mean, general? what does that mean? what kinds of missions? how many are there? what kind of manpower is on the ground? >> well, as general dunford indicated, there's about 800 and the reason there's 800 is you're confronted the security issues that isis and boko haram and al qaeda cause for nigeria. so there's a larger concentration there than you would find in other countries in africa. they're doing civil military operations, they're helping our partners understand how to operate in and among the populist. they are accompanying them when appropriate, and i think general dunford laid those criteria out very accurately and succinct yesterday, on patrols to develop information, to support our partners and enable our partners

to be able to conduct operations against isis. this is african-led. it is not u.s.-led. our african partners are at war here. not the u.s. government, which creates a, you know, a political and a policy challenge. so there is a wide variety of missions that you would find special operations forces doing, and it runs the gamut, from civil military operations, supporting international organizations, supporting ngos, supporting usaid, to, you know, the combat operations that our partners do in advising and assisting them, not doing the fighting, but advising and assisting, and enabling and supporting. and also working very closely with our other international partners with, the french and the uk and others in this area. >> well, as we just saw, though, the reality is you can call the mission whatever you want. if you're on the ground there, you come into contact with these isis affiliates, you could wind

up like these service members, dead. and that's why our congress has to own their responsibility of debating this. and talking about it, and letting the american people know that they put their stamp on it and they haven't done that to date. general bolduc, thank you so much for your perspective on this. very helpful, because we're largely in the dark about this. >> well, you're welcome, chris. and thank you very much and god bless you and i just want to say one more time, god bless the men and women serving in africa. they are doing god's work in a very volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment. thank you. >> thank you, sir. alisyn? >> okay. so can president trump's border wall stop the flow of drugs coming in from mexico? dr. sanjay gupta went to the and he tells us what he found, next. hello, i'm an idaho potato farmer.

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now i'm in control of my ibs. nonprescription ibgard- calms the angry gut. president trump is expected to officially declare a national emergency over opioid -- over the opioid epidemic some time this week. but up until now, the cornerstone of the president's drug policy has been building his signature wall across the mexican border. would a wall work to stop drugs? cnn's dr. sanjay gupta traveled to the u.s./mexico border to find out and he joins us live now. sanjay, what did you see? >> good morning. well, the war on drugs is a totally different war than i think people really think about or what they imagine. the drugs are different. the potency of these things are different. and the way to try to stop these drugs coming across is totally different. so whether or not a wall would make a difference, well, take a look and decide. what is the first thing that

sort of flags this? >> sometimes it's just the driver's behavior. they're unnaturally nervous for crossing the border. sometimes it's the car hasn't crossed the border a lot, or sometimes the car has crossed the border too often. what you' >> what you're witnessing are efforts in trying to stop drugs crossing the u.s./mexico border. >> almost every car is crossing for a very specific reason. a small percentage that comes in carrying contraband. >> when you tell the dog to sit down at the back of the car, that's how that particular dog alerts. >> reporter: staff rand oversees the homeland field office and drugs are a big part of what he does. this is how it happens. what we're witnessing here is -- >> is what happens every day along the southwest border of the muu.s. and the officers at the ports of entry are phenomenal. they're fantastic at identifying fresh tool marks that shouldn't be there.

a screw that's recently been turned that there wouldn't be a reason for it being recently turned, they can pick up on that. they're experts at what they do. >> human art and intelligence togeth togeth together. >> absolutely. >> reporter: what they find, about 24 key lows of hard drugs. minutes later, field testing reveals cocaine. >> this is a win today? >> this is definitely a win. >> reporter: in the midst of the country's opioid epidemic, president trump has made building up the wall a cornerstone of his agenda. >> the wall is going to get built, folks. just in case anybody has any questions, the wall is going to get built and the wall is going to stop drugs. >> reporter: but i wanted to learn just how effective the wall would be at accomplishing tha that. this literally is a physical wall in between two countries that we're looking at here. >> the vast amount of hard narcotics don't come through at places like this. the vast amount of hard

narcotics come through at the ports of entry, where we just were. >> reporter: and besides meth, cocaine, heroin, or marijuana, it's fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin. it's the biggest challenge nowadays. the most recent numbers from the center for disease control found that overdose deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl rose over 72% in just a year. in the past, cartels might try and smuggle 100 kilograms of drugs across the border. it wasn't easy to do. they were likely to get caught. but here's part of the problem. nowadays, they can smuggle across something that looks like this. this is just a one-kilogram bag of flour. but if this were street fentanyl, it would cost about $8,000 to make, could be turned into 1 million pills and sold for $20 to $30 million on the black market. all of that from a small container that looks like this. >> the vast majority of fentanyl is produced in china. it comes into the u.s. two ways.

it comes into mexico, where it is pressed into pill form or combined with heroin. the other way it comes in is american consumers buying it direct, oftentimes from vendors out of china. >> then it gets mailed in? >> u.s. mail, which is the most common, a very small quantity of fentanyl is very hard to detect in the masses of letters that come into the u.s. everyday. >> reporter: how effective is a wall at preventing drugs from getting into the united states? >> in terms of hard narcotics, i don't know that it's over hard narcotics. as of right now, the vast majority of hard narcotics comes in through the port of entry, in deep concealment, or come in through mail-order consignments. >> so, sanjay, listen, about that bag you just showed us of fentanyl, ever since prince's death, i, for one, have thought a lot more about fentanyl. i'm sure a lot of people have. is that the most dangerous drug that you saw coming across?

>> reporter: yeah, fentanyl is 100 times stronger than morphine, 50 times stronger than heroin. we couldn't even imagine drugs of that own tenancy that long ago, and they could modify the fentanyl to things like carfentanyl, people have described it as an elephant tranquilizer. that's the kind of stuff that's getting o out there, as well. so you've got that potency, totally different and the economics. $8,000 of the raw ingredients being turned into $30 million of product. people just trying over and over again. the back of a car, you know, some sort of deep concealment. because the incentives are just so strong, alisyn. >> oh, my gosh. it's so scary, sanjay, but it's so helpful to have you there and give us that sort of firsthand look at what's happening at the border. thanks very much for all of your reporting. >> thank you. so america's top general revealing new information about the deadly niger ambush, but many details, of course, remain unclear. so we have all of the latest developments for you, next. fromthe new egos in cobackpack blower.y. blasting 600 cubic feet of air per minute.

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why it took so long to get help. why the body was left. these are all questions that need to be answered. >> the assessment by our leaders was that contact with the enemy was unlikely. >> reporter: troops first requested air support a full hour after initial contact with approximately 50 isis affiliated fighters. >> americans should know what kind of operations we're engaged in. >> we owe you more information. more importantly, we owe the families of the fallen more information. >> we need to find out what happened. the families will tell you, they don't want a political football. anytime we touch this tax code, we need to simplify it, we need to make it more fair. >> what we want to do is provide tax relief focused on the plamie class. >> republicans have to get a tax plan passed. they're probably going to need john mccain's vote. >> announcer: this is "new day" with chris cuomo and allisisyn camero camerota. we have revealing new details about the ambush in niger that claimed the lf