>> security is important but sometimes fewer laws, less policing make life better. that's our show. thanks for watching. charles: all right, folks. lou dobbs. lou: good evening, everybody. a defiant north korea issuing more threats against the united states as gee no political experts -- geopolitical experts warn the rogue nation is primed and ready to conduct what would be its sixth nuclear test. that test could come as early as tomorrow. celebrating the 105th birthday of kim jong un's grandfather. the rhetoric from pyongyang has risen exponentially over the past week. a north korean official today warning of a preemptive strike against the united states if america takes what it called reckless military action. the north korean vice minister telling the associated press,

quote: we've got a powerful nuclear deterrent already in -- on our hands, and we certainly will not keep our arms crossed in the face of a u.s. preemptive strike. north korea is the only country to carry out nuclear tests since 1998. pakistan conducting two tests in 1998, india one in 1998, china one in 1996, france in '96 as wel china's foreign minister onding to the provocations by urging both the united states and north korea to, quote, refrain from inflammatory or threatening statements. apparently, the word didn't get coto pyongyang, and the united states is responding with a show of force. the powerful aircraft carrier carl vinson strike group is rushing to get on station in the sea of japan off the korean peninsula. it is scheduled to arrive in that region around april 24th. vice president mike pence also

scheduled to be in seoul, south korea, by tomorrow -- rather, sunday to kick off a ten-day trip to asia-pacific countries. this has been a busy week for the trump administration, its officials traveling all over the world. it's confronted global threats not just from north korea, but also syria, russia, iran and the islamic state. the pentagon today releasing video of the so-calledç moab bb that it dropped on islamic state tunnels in eastern afghanistan. the afghan officials now are saying between 36 and 70 islamic state terrorists were present at the time of the strike. it had a blast radius of one mile, and according to the top u.s. military commander in the, in afghanistan, the decision to drop the largest bomb ever deployed in combat came from decision makers on the ground in

the theater, not washington. >> we had persistent surveillance over the area before, during and after operation, and now we have afghan and u.s. forces on the site and see no evidence of civilian casualties, nor have there been any be reports of civilian casualties. >> joining us tonight to discuss what the united states should do if north korea were to conduct a sixth nuclear test this weekend, fox news military analyst general jack keane. general, good to have you with us. let's start with that bomb, the moab, the ssive ordnance air blast bomb called the mother of all bombs. its impact is extraordinary. never used before, and it looks like it's the choice to use it now was the perfect time and the perfect place. >> yeah, it's a nasty bomb, lou.

obviously, it has a tremendous blast effect, but it's got incendiary fuel as well, and that goes into these caves and tunnels. it's a fiery, devastating death for those people who are in it, to be sure. we haven't used this bomb, obviously. we have the technology to support it. there's another bomb that we have as well, it's a deep penetrator that goes down to get secret sites that are 200 feet or whatever. it's classified how far that bomb goes. this is advanced technology that other countries truly do not have. >> and this not only, of course, devastating to the islamic state, and i would think would put pakistan on notice as well that refuge is no longer going to be permitted. that's an inference on my part. your thoughts. >> yeah. well, that's part of it, to be sure. what this is, this was an isis safe haven. and we've got to go after safe

havens. the biggest mistake of 9/11 was not taking down the safe haiive in afghanistan. by the way, for our viewers to understand, not too far from this location is where usama bin laden and his thugs were. we let that stay, and we got 9/11. so when we find safe havens like this, we've got to go after it. this is isis, it's called the coreson group -- core zahn group, they travel freely back and forth from pakistan to afghanistan. some of them are former pakistan taliban, now longing to isis. so this is -- we had good intelligence, it's a good target. and nicholson did not want afghaninfantry having to go in there. they tried it once, took casualties, and this was a much better answer than that. so his message was to destroy isis. other people certainly seeing weight of military power by the united states get other messages from it, to be sure. lou: the rhetoric, however, from

north korea rising. it is more bellicose, if anything, more threatening. how -- is there a red line here? if kimç kim jong un is to set a sixth nuclear test, are there to be repercussions? what will occur? >> there'll be no military repercussions for that. that'll be number six. we've endured five before that. lou: right. >> a lot of the language, i think, is leading up to him doing something like that. the aircraft carrier and the strike force that's there, it's largely there really to reassure our allies, the south koreans and the japanese be, that we do have their back. vice president pence going there for the same reason. there's political instability in south korea. we're a little worried about it. we had a president this who was corrupt but strong on north korea and strong on defense. we're likely to get another president that's, hopefully,

less corrupt, but we believe is not going to be as strong on defense and not as strong on north korea. so part of this is strengthening the spine of the south koreans as well. lou and as we go into this weekend, china issuing a warning to both north korea, it seemed, and the united states, suggesting that any party that permits this to spiral out of control -- that is, the threats, the escalating threats and the rhetoric -- would have a historical responsibility. a clear warning the both countries, but at the same time it was not a specific warning to north korea, nor is there the focus on cotraining north korea that i'm sure the president would have liked to have seen. >> well, you know, china may play a responsible role here for the first time. as you know, we've had three presidents who have tried to leverage china to coerce the north koreans to denuclearize.

all of that failed. but on wednesday night president xi called our president, spoke for an hour -- it takes a little time going through interpreters -- and he told our president as a follow-up to the mar-a-lago bilateral discussions they had something that was pretty stunning. he said i'm willing to move and take some action to help to denuclearize north korea. if that turns into action is and it's not just rhetoric, that is a major, major foreign policy achievement. and, certainly, that would change the whole security situation in that part of the world. we have to see if that really turns into implementation which will get some results. but that statement alone is something his predecessors haven't made. lou: all right. and as you say, now all that has to happen is it be turned to action, and we'll know in relatively short order, it seems, given the way things are going between north korea and the united states right now.

general jack keane, as always, great to have you with us. thanks. >> good talking to you, lou. lou: we're coming right back. much more straight ahead, stay with us. what was the obama administration thinking? caught spying on a former trump adviser. >> i'm very encouraged by all this new information that's coming out about some of these unethical practices and potentially illegal practices. lou: we take up the deep state with randy evans and fred barnes. they join me here next. and lansing, michigan, rescinding its sanctuary cities status after just nine days. we'll take up the monumental