both on the issue of syria and the border wall. this morning he's praising mexico of breaking up the caravan. he tweeted moments ago, the caravan is largely broken up thanks to the strong immigration laws of mexico and their willingness to use them so as to not cause a giant scene of or border. because of the trump administration actions border crossings are at an unacceptable 46-year low. stop drugs. the president's fixation has caused his aides to try to figure out how to get national guard troops at the border to deal with what they're saying is a surge in illegal immigrants crossing over this spring. >> until we can have a wall and proper security, we're going to be boarding our border with the military. that's a big step. >> reporter: president trump officially signing a memorandum to deploy the national guard to the border with mexico, calling the situation a point of crisis after fuming about immigration for days. >> it will take time to have the

details in place. but we are beginning today and moving quickly. >> reporter: the memorandum declaring that the security of the united states imperil by a drastic surge of illegal activity on the southern border. >> why is this such an urgent priority right now for the president to sign? >> i think what i would say is the numbers continue to increase. april traditionally is a month in which we see more folks crossing the border without a legal right to do so. >> reporter: data from a department of homeland security study last fall indicated illegal border crossings through 2016 were at their lowest point in nearly five decades, a continuing trend mr. trump has repeatedly bragged about. >> i'm very proud to say that we're way down in the people coming across the border. we have fewer people trying to come across because they know it's not going to happen. >> reporter: late wednesday, new statistics show a 37% spike in attempted border crossings in the last month. the secretary of homeland security saying this when

pressed about president trump's suggestion that the military pay for the border wall. >> what he meant for is that there are some lands that the department of defense owns right on the border that are areas where we see elicit activity. we're looking for options for the military to build wall on military installations on the border. >> reporter: the "wall street journal" reports u.s. officials are planning to build a wall along part of the bombing range along the arizona-mexico border. the military installation only covers 31 of the nearly 2,000-mile-long border. this as cnn learns new details about president trump's tense meeting with his national security team tuesday. sources say the president grew irritated with his military brass when they advised him against immediately withdrawing u.s. troops from syria days after mr. trump said this. >> we'll be coming out of syria very soon. let the other people take care of it now. >> reporter: senior administration officials say the president complained at length about the amount of money being

spe speent in the region, telling advisers he wants troops out of syria within the next six months. press secretary sarah sanders releasing a statement wednesday night insisting that the administration won't rest until the syrian regime is held accountable for chemical attacks after saying this about the president's desire to pull troops out of the country. >> we want to focus on transitions to local enforcement as well as have our allies and partners in the region who have a lot mover at risk to put more skin into the game. >> reporter: the president is going to be trying to pivot back to taxes today. he's heading to west virginia for a tax roundtable. all of this, the border, syria, taxes, an effort for the president and republicans to focus on republican voters ahead of what could be a very difficult 2018 midterm election cycle, alisyn and david. >> thank you so much, abby. let's bring in senior political analyst ron brownstein and associate editor of

realclearpolitics a.b. stoddard. a.b., the president has, as of this morning, tweeted 13 times about caravans of central americans heading to the u.s. border, 13 times since sunday morning. sunday morning, interestingly, was the morning that "fox & friends" weekend first talked about the caravans of immigrants heading towards the u.s. border. what's interesting, a.b., is that we often talk about, well, do the tweets matter? are the tweets just venting? it has actually turned into policy. the president is now sending national guard troops to the border either because people got in his ear -- we know he dined with fox news hosts, or because he's seen an uptick in march of illegal border crossings, which is true, there has been a 37% uptick. how do you see it, a.b.? >> it's interesting. if you watch the tweets, and the

tweets are official policy, alisyn. you can see there was a response on easter sunday from a foreign minister in mexico pushing back on the fact that the president is suggesting that mexico was letting in all these droves of people and wasn't enforcing their lawyers. clearly someone got to trump and you've seen in the subsequent tweets he keeps praising their strong immigration laws. now what will be interesting is we know he wants to keep the focus on this topic. he wants to talk about the danger of the caravan, the statement about bringing the national guard to the border. talks about a drastic surge. the surge numbers are real. this is the time of the year where they do increase. but once he takes credit for convincing the mexican government to mid gate the threat of the caravan and reduce the number of people coming, will there be a need for the national guard? it will be interesting to see how he keeps the political focus on this topic, which he's very

keen on doing, while he discusses what a real crisis we have at the border. the last point i'd make no one is talking about which is this puts incredible pressure on congressional republicans to come up with something while they still have the majority, to pass some kind of immigration law that clearly they have no intention of doing. >> ron, if you look at the history of this going back two administrations, it's always set against a backdrop of either a failed comprehensive immigration bill or some demonstration of force to be able to get something. >> right. lo look, he's in the position of rejecting a daca deal for the border wall because he also wanted reductions in legal immigration where he's unlikely to have any legislative progress on this key campaign promise. he's moving juunilaterally to sd a signal in the same direction. the idea that there is a crisis, though, just simply does not hold up. yes, there is an uptick in march. but if you look at the bigger

picture here, for the first five months of this fiscal year, border apprehensions are lower than they were in 2016 and 2015, that the overall trajectory is that in the early part of this century we were running at about 1.5 million apprehensions a year at the southern border. we are now down to about 300,000. that's occurred across multiple administrations, important to point out. the best estimates are that the undocumented population peaked in 2007 and is now somewhere between 1 million and 1.5 million below its peak in 2007. two-thirds of the undocumented in the u.s. have been here for ten years or more. the idea that there's some sudden collapse of security on the southern border that requires this step i think is very difficult to sustain. i think it is also a mistake to see this as an individual kind of episode. it has to be seen in the context of the moves he is making on

trade at the same time with the tariffs on china and the aluminum and steel imports. it's just a reminder of how central to his political project this kind of insular nationalism is that views the world as a threat to american security and prosperity that essentially has to be walled off. >> the secretary of homeland security sees it differently. she did provide what she says is some evidence, at least verbal evidence in the press briefing yesterday that they're seeing, she says, an uptick in advertising from traffickers. >> they are. >> listen to the secretary of homeland security. >> why is this such an urgent priority right now for the president to sign? >> i think what i would say is the numbers continue to increase. april traditionally is a month in which we see more folks crossing the border without a legal right to do so. we are seeing more and more advertising, very unfortunately,

by the traffickers and smugglers to our south, specifically how to get around our system, enter our kunlt and stay. why today, not yesterday, tomorrow. today is the day. >> a.b., any thoughts? >> again, those numbers are real. it is the season where there's an increase in attempted crossings. again, the onus is on the republicans who control the entire government to come up with something if it is not an actual wall. there is 1.6 billion for some wall in the last spending bill. there's going to have to be some other terms of enforcement that president trump and the republican congress can say they have put into place so they can stop blaming the obama laws or obama-era laws that president trump keeps talking about. the pressure he's putting on republicans by blaming them and saying it's all on congress is going to come at a great political cost. ultimately the onus is on the republican party which controls the entire government to come up

with a solution and not blame prior administrations. >> where this gets really illogical real quick, when you look at the tweets, the threat from the president has been if mexico doesn't crack down now we're going to rescind or revoke nafta. you cannot imagine a more counterproductive action if your goal is to reduce pressure on the south earn border. as i said, the big decline in border crossings came in the period from 2005 to 2015. part of that is smarter and tougher enforcement. a big part of that is nafta created more economic opportunity in mexico so there are fewer people crossing the border and looking for work in the u.s. if you did rescind or hobble 1/2 t that, you would create that supply side push from mexico that has largely been substantially reduced. it's one reason why apprehensions at the border are down 80% from what they were at the turn of the 21st century regardless of the uptick we're

seeing now. we want to turn quickly to syria. here is a president who says i'll do everything it takes to defeat isis, not going to telegraph my plans, publicly he's saying troops are going to come out soon. now we know from our own reporting he says he wants them out in six months. quite a shift. >> listen to this. >> i'm not going to tell you anything about what response i do. i don't talk about military response. i don't want to be one of these guys that says, yes, here is what we're going to do. i don't have to do that. >> the late great general douglas macarthur and patton are spinning in their grave on how we announce exactly what we do. >> i don't want to broadcast to the enemy what my plan is. i'm not going to call you up and say, matt, we have a great plan. this is what obama does. >> there's the switch, a.b. >> president trump is not the first president to learn that campaigning is different than

governing. i will say this, what we know is they've been talking about syria all along. this is not a new discussion. he's heard from advisers, the different ones that have come an gone about why we must remain in syria and the handoff to local forces in iraq is a subject that's not comparable to what our situation is in syria. what's interesting here is that we know from president trump, there's two themes he always strikes. he likes victories and doesn't like the feeling that other companies are ripping us off. rhetorically i think he's going to continue to keep talking about the idea that we should leave while the most important part of the reporting is that secretary of defense mattis has not drawn up any official withdrawal plans. >> real quick, connect the dots. troops at the border, tariffs on china, withdrawing from syria, it is a reminder this insular nationalism is so central to his world view and many of the restrangts on it, the voices of the traditional republican international engagement have been removed from the

administration. this is probably what republicans in congress can look forward to more than not over the remainder of this presidential term. >> ron brownstein, a.b. stoddard, thank you both so much. up next, the trump administration pushing back on china trade war fears. are the tariffs just a negotiating tactic? we'll ask treasury secretary larry summers what he thinks about that coming up. s, it's time to wake up to keurig. wakey! wakey! rise and shine! oh my gosh! how are you? well watch this. i pop that in there. press brew. that's it. so rich. i love it. that's why you should be a keurig man! full-bodied. are you sure you're describing the coffee and not me? tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management. to help you grow and protect your wealth. i look like most people. but on the inside, i feel chronic, widespread pain. fibromyalgia may be invisible to others,

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down playing concerns of a trade war with some officials suggesting the proposed tariffs on china are just part of negotiations. >> could we lose the trade war? >> no. how is that? i'll accede to you. i don't see it that way. this is a negotiation using all the tools. >> even shooting wars end with negotiations, so it wouldn't be surprises at all if the net outcome of all this is some sort of a negotiation. >> so let's discuss this with larry summers, the treasury secretary under president clinton. secretary summers, thank you very much for being here. what do you think of this negotiating tactic? >> i don't think much of it. i think you've seen in the market response to it, a judgment that it's playing with fire. that it's dangerous. look, they may think it's a negotiation and it may turn out

to be that, but the uncertainty and the risks around protection will cause businesses to pull apart, will cause businesses not to produce in the most efficient way, will cause businesses to look for other than the most efficient business partners. so the climate of uncertainty that's created is pretty dangerous, and the strategy they're using which is to go at products that are imported by american manufacturing companies is almost calculated to make american producers less competitive. for example, 40 times as many people work in steel-using industries as work in the steel industry. so when you put it to steel, you're hurting a lot more people than you're helping. frankly, this is a bit of a "stop or i'll shoot myself in the foot" strategy. >> at the moment, these are just threats. nothing has been imposed yet.

if there were the imposition of tariffs, then are we in a trade war? >> yeah. i think when you're making these kinds of threats and businesses responding, you're kind of in the early stages of a trade war when you declare your attention to attack somebody you're in a war before the actual invasion. so i don't think the semantic question of whether this is yet a trade war is the important one. the important one is are we helping or hurting the economy. look, it's absolutely clear what the market thinks. every time it looks like we're pushing ahead, the market plummets. when it looks like we're retreating from our policy announcements, the market rises. that doesn't seem like the way you want to make policy, especially if, as is the case with this administration, it prides itself on being a business orient ed administratin and it's got a president who is

always talking about the stock market. so i have trouble seeing the logic of the way they're going about it. yes, we should go after china. yes, we should be in dialogue with china, but a much quieter, firmer strategy with much less bluster and much more following through. >> what's firmer strategy that imposing a tariff on them? >> the problem is, we say we're going to impose the tariff. when the market goes down, the white house economic adviser comes out and says we're a long way from imposing any tariff. nobody quite knows what's going on. much quieter kind of diplomacy focused on very specific objectives involving technology and crucially complemented by strengthening our own hand. look, what we need to do is figure out how to win at artificial intelligence.

that's about our programs, our research and development here, the kinds of people we let into the country to work as entrepreneurs in artificial intelligence. we need to win in pharmaceuticals. that's about the kind of medical research base we support here. we need to win in logistics. that's about the kind of infrastructure we have. if all we do is bluster about beijing, that's not going to be a strategy that works. that's the strategy the british tried for many years in different ways about germany and the united states, and it cost them their leadership in a global economy. >> as you know, president trump has been saying for a long time, even before he was president that china doesn't play fair. they have stolen intellectual property. it's time to level the playing field. this is a tweet he put out about a possible trade war about a month ago. this is where his head was and seems to still be.

when a country, the usa is losing billions of trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good. example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don't trade anymore. we win big. it's easy. exclamation point. your response to that. >> nonsense. he measures whether we're winning or losing from trade by the trade deficit or the trade surplus. when americans all across the country are getting access to chooper computers, cheaper clothing, cheaper steel as inputs into our cars, i don't call that losing. when i go and buy something at walmart at a lower part, i don't call that losing. mr. president, notwithstanding, when i buy something at a lower price than i could have imagined five years ago from amazon, i don't call that losing. so the whole idea that when you buy, you're losing, seems to me

to be a profound confusion. and an especially dangerous one. as with these tariffs, when it's our businesses that are buying and buying input in order to compete with businesses all over the world. i can't imagine a greater gift to businesses from korea or germany than for us to say that input from china are expensive when they're saying that input are cheap. this is a policy to reduce american competitiveness, not to increase american competitiveness. >> you just brought up amazon, and i do want to get your take on what the president is doing from amazon and jeff bezos since the president who has been tweeting about him, who of course owns "the washington post," who we believe the president thinks has done unflattering coverage of him. their stock is down 7%. what do you think about a president picking winners and losers, going after particular

companies? >> picking winners and losers is problematic. going on jihads with the power of the federal government against companies whose ceo's private activity he doesn't find congenial, that's not the stuff of democracy. that's the stuff of much more totalitarian countries. we've got all kinds of safeguards here and i don't think we're going to become a fascist country, but make no mistake, that's a mussolini tactic, not an american tactic. it's one that's potentially quite dangerous for our business confidence. are there issues about predator pricing or whatever that appropriate experts should be monitoring with respect to

amazon? of course. but for the president of the united states to go on an attack against a particular company motivated by a private holding of its ceo, that is not the american way, and that is something that should make americans, and frankly, it should make pro business republicans who seem most strongly the benefits of american corporations, it should make them most nervous. it's a kind of thing that, if a liberal progressive democrat did, they would be berserk about how dangerous it was for the economy. this is something that's very problematic. >> former treasury secretary larry summers, thank you very much forgiving us all of your perspective. >> thank you. >> david. so is president's tough talk

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a lot of talk this morning about a caravan coming out of central america. president trump again tweeting about that caravan of more than 1,000 central americans seeking refuge in mexico and the u.s. saying, the caravan is largely broken up thanks to the strong immigration laws in mexico and their willing to use them so as not to cause a giant screen at our border. joining me is buzzfeed's national correspondent adolfo flores who is traveling with the ca caravan. what is the point of the caravan? these are activists, aren't they? >> the people themselves,

they're migrants. the organizers are also activists, so the caravan serves two purposes. one so get people safely -- >> go ahead. >> one is to get people safely through mexico and help them not get caught by immigration, and the other is to highlight why they are leaving in the first place. it's poverty, violence and political instability. >> what is the truth as you've seen it traveling with these migrants about what's happening. have they dispersed, is this as a result of some crackdown as president trump says? >> before the trump tweets and everything, the plan was to go all the way to the border area, but people are going to start going to other parts of mexico

as the caravan went up. several of the group -- a lot of people in the group are going to stay in mexico. others are going to ask for asylum at the border. other people, slightly smaller, were going to try to cross. but those numbers right now are very in flux so i don't know. to be honest, i don't know how many of these people are left at this point, before the trump tweets. >> it's very easy when we talk about these matters, we do have laws that have to be enforced. the asylum-seeking process is complicated, resulting in short term stays on our border before ultimate adjudication and resolution of these matters. you also have so many people who are coming from really tough circumstances, both economic -- as you say, there's domestic situations that are violent,

there may be violence in their communities that they're fleeing. so the plight here is serious. >> yeah, yeah. you talk to these people and they'll show you scars from bullet holes, tell stories about having family members being kidnapped, not being able to protest. there's lots of instances of violence and threats and these people -- especially the ones with kids, they don't want their kids to grow up like that. >> there is talk of migrants feeling fearful because of what president trump is saying, because of what the administration is talking about as new policy. what has the impact been? >> of the administration's policies? >> from their policies but also the president's rhetoric about this going all the way back to the campaign and more recently since he started tweeting about it over the past few days.

>> these people, they're concerned. they know that they're not welcome by the administration. they say it's not like we want to go, but they don't see another option in their lives. they are very aware of what's coming out of the administration in the u.s. and the shift in the policies. >> adolfo florez who is in southern mexico reporting to us on this caravan of migrants moving through the country. the president saying they're dispersing, being broken up. it's a more muddled picture as they make their way, some of them at least, to the border with the united states. thank you for your reporting and your time this morning. >> thank you. we'll talk to our leyla santiago about all this as welcoming up. meanwhile, president trump and his national security advisers are not on the same page when it comes to syria.

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as we told you all morning, the president is at odds with his military brass, national security team over syria. cnn learning the president became irritated with advisers who warned him about the risks of immediately withdrawing u.s. troops from syria. joining us brigadier general, author of "direct fire" tony tatum and retired general james spider mark. good morning to both of you. spider, let me start with you. you had a president who made a commitment to defeat isis at all costs. isis has certainly been dialed way back and eroded. he also said he would not telegraph what his military moves would be and in uncharacteristic fashion is saying privately and publicly these guys have got to get out of there and even suggesting a six-month timeline. understandable this would carry tension with the military.

>> absolutely, david. i would say what the president is doing right now is laying down a marker, and clearly every president has the authority to do that. maybe his intentions are aspiration aspirational, in other words, he's laying out what he thinks should be done and he wants his department of defense and national security leadership to come back to him. as a soldier, my view is, i would want the president to say i've got a word picture in my mind. this is what i'm trying to achieve. come back to me and let's figure it out. it never comes across like that. it comes across as very provocative, kind of in your face. the discussions that take place within dod and the national security apparatus, all those players, this is a healthy input, and it's apparent that the case has been made from both combatant commanders, the other dog in the fight, special

operations command and certain the national command authority within the jcs and dod, they've said, president trump, let's not be too hasty. we've been down this road before and have seen the consequences. >> it's very cos confusing on a policy matter when a president says we do everything we can to fight radical islam, everybody should use that term, we'll fight isis to the death and never stop. yet he becomes this isolationist, we have to retreat from the world. isn't it fair to say we cannot allow states to fail and become a security vacuum. here, the vacuum we know is even worse than isis returning or at least as bad. when russia fills that vacuum, when iran fills that vacuum, doesn't all that suggest he's got to be more open to the fact that he's got to be open to the idea of residual force. >> let's think about the

discussion we're discussing. we're talking about event-driven success based on the president and loosening the rules of engagement and allowing commanders to do their job on the ground instead of the micromanagement we had before. this is a conversation that probably couldn't be envisioned under the previous administration where we're close to success and the president now understands we have peer-to-peer competitors out there like china and russia, that we need to be prepared to take on in a variety of different ways. i don't know that taking them on in syria with 2,000 troops is the right manner. the issue was to defeat isis. that has pretty much been accomplished there. i think it's time to start talking about wrapping up that mission and beginning to redeploy those forces. out can't have troops on the ground with one mission in mind and then suddenly say, you know what? we're going to keep you there

because turkey, iran and russia are suddenly -- not suddenly, they've been involved in syria for decades, and it would just not make a lot of sense to me to keep those troops there beyond their very identifiable mission of defeating isis which has lrjly been accomplished and now bring in the u.n., get the u.n. in the arab states to then help with the transition. this is what joe votel was talking about the other day, the commander of centcom, let's get folks back into their homes and do a handover. that does take about six months. >> i just recall all the criticism of a precipitous withdraw of forces from iraq because the united states was not appropriately, forcefully involved in a political solution which you're not saying, and general marks, your comment on this, that we don't have to be a part of anymore because the mission has been accomplished. >> the mission i think has not been accomplished.

clearly we have done an incredibly phenomenal job against isis, not without the help of the kurds. let's be frank in terms of their contributions which have been significant. my concern is syria, a very doctoral term that we see, a little tongue-in-cheek, it's a mess. we're not there to do anything with assad. assad is a dictatorial leader, he's been brutal. we have seen that in living color for the past decade. my concern primarily is turkey's role, its interventionist role now that exists in that northern border in syria and the fact that tur ki is a nato ally and the united states is not a part of the discussions taking place. you saw the front page of the "wall street journal." you have erdogan, rouhani and putin standing together with smirks on their faces. that's fine. erdogan can meet with whoever he

wants. the concern i have, if we depart precipitously from syria, we can change our involvement and what the force posture looks like, but putin will win tremendously. he has the strategic advantage and we shouldn't cede that at this point. >> gentlemen, this debate will continue that the president has started with his national security team. we appreciate your time this morning. >> thanks, david. president trump has been tweeting this morning about the so-called vary khan of central americans coming towards america. he's been tweeting for the past couple days. is what he's saying true? we give his statements the facts-first treatment next. we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. -whoo! while saving for the things looking for a hotel that fits... whoooo. ...your budget? tripadvisor now searches over... ...200 sites to find you the... ...hotel you want at the lowest

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in a tweet president trump told congress to do something about our, quote, country being stolen. he claims he took matters into his own hands by pressuring mexico to break up the caravan and sending troops to the southern border to handle the crisis, something he said no president had done before. but much of that is incorrect. it is true that apprehensions at the southern border went up from february to march. here is march 2018. look at march 2016, march 2014. here is march 2013, remarkably similar numbers. march 2017 was lower, but that appears to be an outlier. the truth is illegal crossing attempts appear to be at historic lows. consider this, in 2000, 1.6 million people were apprehended trying to enter the country illegally. compare that to 2017 when just 310,000 tried to do so. but homeland security secretary nielsen focused on the supposed

uptick from the white house podium wednesday even though her own department last fall said the southern border wurz the most secure and impervious to crossings it has ever been. what about the caravan that one fox news host called an army. it is roughly a thousand people taking part in an annual process designed to call out humanitarian rights abuses. mexico never broke it up, as they confirmed on tuesday. the caravan split up into smaller groups once it reached mexico as it does every year. what about president trump claiming the caravan was lured here by the promise of daca. daca doesn't apply here. president trump said no president had deployed the military to the border. that's not true. president obama sent 12,000 to the border. all this has people questioning

whether this is an attempt to fire up the base and/or cover up the fact that the big, beautiful wall only exists in sound bites. those are the facts. just this morning president trump tweeted about the caravan again saying the caravan is largely broken up thanks to the strong immigration laws of mexico and their willingness to use them not to cause a giant scene at the border. what is really happening with that caravan? cnn's leyla santiago is live in pueblo, south of mexico city, where some of these central americans are gathering this morning. leyla, hat is the situation on the ground? >> reporter: alisyn, we've already seen part of the group starting to make its way north. just last night when i was here at this very church, we talked to about 20 central americans arriving at this church. they were once with the caravan. but yes, they did break off and get a head start. in terms of this group is

breaking up, some have broken up and gone on their own. all but two of the folks we talked to here said they have absolutely every intent to get to that u.s.-mexico border whether there is national guard or whether president trump likes it or not. so what's the plan for the big chunk of the caravan that is right now on its way from about six to eight hours south of where we are now to come here. i just spoke with the priest at this church. he tells me today he expects 20 buses of people, women, children, family, men, to arrive as part of that caravan. when we spoke to the organizers of that caravan, they tell me they're still 1,000 strong, this caravan still very much the heart of it is intact, will continue. they will get to mexico city and many of them will break off on their own, hoping to get to the

border to seek asylum. >> is that the goal, leyla? first of all, how many are there, do you think? are they all going to attempt to seek asylum in the u.s.? >> reporter: how many there are, that depends on who you talk to. a bit of conflicting reports. according to the organizers with a big chunk of the group, they are saying we have about 1,000 people. we will see today. we'll find out today in puebla. the priest at this church says they have a small group of about 30. some of the women and other groups are being housed in other churches around here. in terms of how many there are, i think we'll get a better grasp today. how many plan to continue to the u.s.-mexico border, again, of those who spoke to here, all but two of the 30. many have been granted permission by the mexico government to stay here in mexico. so that is what some folks are

doing, they are staying in mexico given that they have permission. i spoke with one man from guatemala yesterday who said, look, i don't like the situation in the u.s., i don't want to go there. i'm going to stay in mexico, and he is afraid of what president trump said. but the overwhelming majority, alisyn, they're saying, huh-uh, can't stop us. that's the goal. that's where we're going, u.s. >> so interesting leyla. have they heard about president trump's plans to send national guard troops to the border? >> reporter: every one i spoke to said they knew of president trump's tweets, that he's not happy about the caravan heading north. some knew about the troops. those that didn't, when i mentioned them, they said that can't stop us. if there are troops on the border, we'll wait it out and find another way. >> so great to have you on the ground so we know what's happening. thank you for that reporting.

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you wouldn't accept from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase. time for "the good stuff." officers jump in to help a woman

in labor on easter. this happened in new york city. the father-to-be flagged down the officers. he and his wife were on their way to the hospital, but the baby could not wait. it took all of five minutes for baby claire of labor for the baby to enter the world. her name is claire. her mom and dad are grateful for the officers' help. >> don't normally handle these kind of situations, and it feels great to help directly bring a new life into this world. >> that is wonderful. thanks so much. see you tomorrow. time for cnn "newsroom" with erica hill. good morning. i'm erica hill in to day for john and poppy. less than a wall but more than tweets. after days of fuming and venting about undocumented immigrants pouring across the border or threatening to come in the caravan, president trump calling on the national guard, signing on order to send troops to the southern border.