humanity. >> that's all for this edition of "date line." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. it is 7:00 in the east, 4:00 out west. and here's what is happening. getting to the bottom of the u.s.-led strikes in syria. they call it a success, but what did they accomplish? new insight into president trump's decision to strike. one day to go, the president's attorney gearing up for a court hearing after the fbi raid on his home and office. and the report about a congressman who in private calls the president a stupid forerest gump. we begin with a live picture of the white house and new details in president trump's decision to punish syria for its use of chemical weapons. "the washington post" says, trump's apparent announcement of

a misjuly attack surprised and rattled military leaders. though the strategy talks were moving in the direction of military action, no decision had been made about whether, when or how to strike syria. it was not until thursday that military leaders presented trump final options on targets. meanwhile, "the new york times" zeroing in on president trump's tweet yesterday declaring mission accomplished in syria, to ask, what exactly is the mission? members of the trump white house are now making the rounds to defend the president's tweet in u.s. strategy in syria. nbc's kelly o'donnell has the story. >> reporter: after the air strikes, the trump administration unleashed a round of fresh warnings. >> chemical weapons are a threat to us all. >> reporter: from the united nations security council -- >> when our president draws a red line, our president enforces the red line. >> reporter: to a summit in peru where mike pence filled in for the president. and justified the use of force as --

>> the morally right act to take. >> reporter: the vice president thanks other leaders for supporting action to iran and russia as patrons of the dangerous assad regime. >> our message is you are on the wrong side of history. it's time for russia to get the message that president trump delivered last night. that you're known by the company you keep. >> reporter: the president was visible only on twitter where he called the action, a perfectly executed strike. thanking his counterparts in france and the united kingdom for their wisdom. though the administration says it is prepared for a sustained effort, president trump declared mission accomplish ed after baghdad fell but the iraq war was far from over. the pentagon provided new

details on the targets making the public additional images of the power displayed by air and sea. most, if not all, offer is ya's chemical capability has been degraded. following the air strikes, president trump was on the phone with manuel macron and theresa may. they agreed on a military response within the week of the original chemical attack. now, the policy toward syria is unchanged with the questions that do not seek to oppose assad but to determine him from future use. >> let's bring in julia and

chad. we'll start with you, sean. >> the president according to officials was very bothered by the images he saw in the aftermath of this suspected chemical attack. and they really, really deeply bothered him in a personal way. what we also know is that as the president is weighing his options. he's looking at what his attorney is doing, michael cohen. and the reaction to james comey's book. so he's juggling both this tumultuous personal turmoil that he's looking at from afar and trying to react to. but he's also looking at this very situation situation. and the third thing that the

president is offering up is if there's a clear strategy of what to do among syrian officials. there's a sense that even the president said, police accompli accomplished -- mission accomplished. it is not clear what the next steps will be. >> and let me play for you what the u.n. ambassador nikki haley said yesterday during a meeting. take a listen. >> we talked about the victims in douma. we talked about the patrons of russia and iran. we spent a week talking about the unique horror of chemical weapons. the time for talk ended last night. we are prepared to sustain this pressure if the syrian regime is foolish enough to test our will. >> julia, did you get a sense from hailey's remarks what the

red line is? or if there's an actual strategy now? >> right. i think the red line comment was definitely taken as a bit of a jab at the obama administration on their strategy on syria. but it is interesting to look at what the potential strategy is. many of his defense officials say they knocked out a great majority of the chemical weapons facilities and have hindered the assad regime's ability to produce the chemical wes. bashar assad is still in power. this bitter war is going to rage on. is this an issue of chemical weapons or the future of the syrian regime, which is a fair

term. but mission accomplished is a tricky term to use right now. and this is continuing. i don't think this is really going to end. and there is clearly tension ramping up between the u.s. side, the french, the british, ending with iran and syria. bashar al assad released a video of him walking carefully into the government attacks yesterday. so i didn't see that happen so we'll see how that depose. >> russirussia's desperate atte at deflection cannot change the facts. the pictures of dead children were not fake news. they were the result of the syrian regime's barbaric in humanity. and they were the result of the

regime and russia's failure to live up to their international commitments to remove all chemical weapons from syria. >> sean, your colleague focused on this, but the turning point for him and his inability to call to the vladimir putin, meaning the way that the president and administration talks about russia, i think for hawkish republicans, particular lay on this capitol hill moment that this is something that hopefully convinces president trump to take a harder line and in policy to warn the rush --

russians, we have to see if this hostile pressure towards russia holds, or whether we see the president return to a more welcoming stance and something akin to the posture that he took in the campaign and the policy he's taking toward russia earlier in his presidency. >> julia, the strike here include ed included a -- "the new york times" says president trump sees the inquiry into cohen a greater threat than special counsel mueller. julia, can you talk about how serious the president is taking this? >> right. i think the president is taking this very seriously. michael cohen has a very close relationship with the president. he's seen as his fixer, his personal lawyer, and now he's losing that relationship because michael cohen is under

investigation and at a lot of risk. it will be interesting to see how michael cohen conducts himself. the decision he makes as the investigators to get more information. it is important to point out that michael cohen dedicated. we have seen hope hicks lead the white house. so is the same thing with the relationship with michael cohen. so i think the president is concerned about this. and we'll have to see what has been said between the two of them, what was said on the tapes. and it will be interesting to see what happens next. >> let me play for you what my

colleague joy reid was told yesterday. take a listen. >> it's pretty outrageous you have an attorney that is engaged potentially in illegal recording of conversations, not only that, it's stupid. it's just flat-out stupid. i am constantly amazed with each passing day of the lack of intelligence that has been demonstrated by this man, this attorney, michael cohen. and i'm even more amazed that this is the guy that the president of the united states would pick as his fixer. >> sean, you touched on there, so many things to remember right now. is there a chance they are juggling all the lawyers in this investigation? >> there are so many lawyers to this investigation. there are so many different aattorneys and different party that is are under scrutiny right now. so it is very difficult to look at the situation and make sense of what the clear strategy might even be for the first and time.

we hear about getting close to the president, there's nobody closer to the president than michael cohen. and the fact that now he's facing such a high-level of scrutiny, that certainly has to be working for the president. >> i talk about using the president's plan. what do we expect from tomorrow? >> i think that michael avayetti does like to meet trump eye-to-eye and use his tactics. we have seen him tease a lot of things on twitter in the investigation. and i this i this is almost a response to cohen not showing up

in court on friday because he was smoking cigars on the side of the sidewalk, so that ticked a lot of people out as well as in the daniels camp. we'll see what happens there. >> julie manchester, sean sullivan, stay with me. we have much more to discuss. coming up, too soon. how effect i have was the syrian strike that has the president already saying, mission accomplished? - anncr: thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory. - dad's got all the answers. - anncr: prevagen is now the number-one-selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. - she outsmarts me every single time. - checkmate! you wanna play again? - anncr: prevagen. healthier brain. better life. in the 2018 lexusxus saes and es hybrid.standard

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christopher, great to have you here this morning. a total of five sites were targeted. how viable is it that they struck the heart of the syria chemical weapons program? >> well, the first thing we need to know is what chemical weapons program? the most -- the we used most frequently in syria is chlorine. chlorine is an industrial chemical. chlorine is what is in laundry bleach, it's what is in swimming pools. if you cops trait i concentrate release it as a gas, you can kill a lot of people, which was the case in ghouta and in douma. but we haven't seen much evidence, solid evidence, that there's any sophisticated chemical weapon being used. so to say you have attacked and eliminated the heart of the chemical weapons program does beg the question, what do we know about that program? and very little evidence has been presented about that. >> well, pentagon officials took

credit for successfully destroying three buildings in metropolitan damascus, saying it is one of the most heavily defended air spaces in the world. but is that a legitimate brag? when russian forces were forewarned, they would have been able to track incoming missiles and take action if they desired. >> well, that's probably true. sometimes you can lay a trap for fighters or even for cruise missiles. we saw that happen with the israelis a few weeks ago when one of their f-16s was shot down over syria. but in this case, we were using very high-technology and were able to penetrate the defenses pretty easily. but with a very limited kind of strike against relatively insignificant targets. so i think that is definitely a brag. the pentagon wants to show that it's spent $50 million or however much money doing something worthwhile. and what is worthwhile and up to

snuff. >> what do you mean of assad refuting the strikes? he released video of himself showing up for work as usual? >> look, dara, i was been on the ground many times when the u.s. was attacking tyrants. and what i have learned over the years is that what doesn't kill them makes them stronger. and if you kill them, you could wind up with a disaster like libya. and then if you try to bring order to the situation, you can wind up with a disaster like iraq. so all of these measures are of dubious words, and particularly limited strikes. they always make the dictator stronger than they were before. >> president trump tweeted yesterday in the words, mission accomplished. what would you say that these strikes accomplished? >> i think the headline in "the new york times" or "the washington post" was exactly right, what mission? we don't know what the mission is. a couple weeks ago the mission was to get people out of syria.

there are about 2,000 american troops in southeastern syria. so is that the mission by attacking these sites? no. is this going to get rid of bashar al assad? no. the only mipgs is to keep him from using chlorine as a chemical weapon. if that's the idea. it is kind of irrelevant. he doesn't need to use chlorine, he's winning the wall already. >> real quick if i can ask you, christopher, what has this done before the relation schiff --

for the obvious involvement over the years, the more hethe president has had to prove. >> thank you for your perspective on this, christopher dickey. and one congressman is calling the president a stupid forrest gump behind doors. that's up next. together, guaranteed to produce three times the harvest. more to enjoy... to share. three times the harvest. one powerful guarantee. miracle-gro. ♪ i've always wanted to have a photo exhibit of the faces of our community and those people that

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a new poll out just a few minutes ago shows president trump's approval rating barely budgeting from his levels from his 100-day levels. the approval in the abc/"washington post" poll is down two points from measured last april. we'll bring in sean sullivan and julie manchester again.

can you put these numbers in order for us? >> it is hard to tell ahead of the midterm elections how things will be. i think after the syria strikes and the mueller investigation and all of that, it's really going to affect in the long-term his poll numbers. >> and sean, i want to play for you what conservative blogger eric ericson who is secret lly frustrated with the president. >> he went on a tirade with the president. he's tired of defending the guy, even though he does because he doesn't want to lose the primary election or have challenges, but it is kind of indicative of the problems. >> erickson said the lawmaker has called him an evil, stupid, forrest gump. is this one house member or is this more widespread? >> these are really strong words, obviously, but i think in more broadly, certainly in private, republicans are more

critical and more concerns about the president than what they say in public. and the reason why they don't want to say these things publicly is, less about trump and more about trump's voters. they know if they criticize him, it's very possible the president calls them out. and then trump supporter who is are very loyal to show up to vote in primaries may turn on them. so we don't see this said in private, but there's more clearly being said. >> any indication who the congressman is? >> it is not clear to me who it is. it could be anybody. as i said, given the fact that in private, a lot of republicans are more candid and more concerned about the president suggests it could be anybody. >> julia, your take on that? >> to sean's point, a lot of republican sources tell us that they are very frustrated with the president. i have not seen it to the extent that eric erickson said this congressman, but they are frustrated.

>> julie manchester, sean sullivan, thank you for joining me. >> thanks, dara. that will do it for me. at the top of the nation, "politics nation" as he speaks with the host of "hardball with chris matthews." up next, "your business" with jj ramberg. oh, sorry i'm late, sir. when you said you were at the doctor, but your shirt says you were at a steakhouse... that's when you know it's half-washed. add downy odor protect with 24-hour odor protection. downy and it's done.

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