rick francona and mark maccarley and christiane amanpour. the president ordered this air strike before sitting down to dinner. does this now change the dynamic of their relationship? do the chinese have a different view of the u.s. president? >> i think it's important and fascinating in geopolitics and how leaders react to each other. you have the president of china, the second-most important leader in the world right now, sitting with the most important leader in the world right now, having come all the way from china, to the united states. having studied, we understand, from all our chinese experts. they've been studying president trump, all of the things he said about them. and now, they arrive. and this totally different dynamic is taking front and center stage. why is it important? it gives xi a more focused view of trump. and it says a template or a bar for how they all must start to deal properly with north korea. how does one deal with a nuclear-armed north korea? that's the fact of the matter right now. and north korea has many war

let's discuss with errol lewis and lieutenant colonel rick francona on the phone with us, a cnn military. errol, as soon as i saw this bit of footage, it reminded me of this moment from the campaign when a supporter gave then candidate trump his purple heart. watch. >> now i said to him, i said to him, is that like the real one or is that a copy? and ed, that's my real purple heart. i have such confidence in you. and i said, man! that's like big stuff. i always wanted to get the purple heart. this was much easier. >> i always wanted to get the purple heart, this was much easier, given to service members who are wounded or killed. i almost hesitate to ask the question. does the president not understand how service members are awarded a purple heart? >> well, no. look. he understands the basics of it, but i see the point you're getting at which this is the first commander in chief in the history of the country who was never elected to any office and also never served in the military. you know? everyone else, all 44 of his ce predecessors were elected to some office. others were military le

. >>> rick francona joins us from la quinta in california. you've been looking at and analyzing this strike for the last 24 hours, what do you think was moist effective about it, what was the whole point of it? >> well, the whole point was to send a message to the bashar al assad regime, you cannot use these banned weapons without paying a price. i think it came as a surprise to the syrians that the united states actually reacted. because, you know, we had the debacle with the obama red line in 2013 and the new regime -- the bashar al assad regime was not sure where the trump administration was. i think they found out the other night and i think they're a bit surprised. everyone's wondering why assad felt he had to use chemical weapons. there was no need. he's been very effective on the ground as of late. he's got russian air power. militarily he has the upper hand. what was the impetus for him to use chemical weapons, for whatever reason, i think the evidence is pretty overwhelming it was the assad regime. the strike itself fairly accurate.

so colonel francona, according to the "washington post," administration officials have said that that airfield was successful in destroying refueling stations, hangars and some planes, effectively making the base inoperable. but you see that it is very much up and running. and when we heard from john mccain today and he said somebody said that the damaging the tarmac, we'll just go back and refill it, that somebody was actually the president of the united states tweeting from mar-a-lag mar-a-lago, "the reason you don't generally hit runways is that they are easy and inexpensive inexpense i ive. to quickly fix, just fill in and top." so was this a mistake in this strategy of bombing this airfield that the tarmac that the air strip would not be also destroyed or cratered? >> okay, here's the rationale for not hitting the runways. the tomahawk missile system is not the ideal weapon to do that. the warhead just is not big enough. it can put small holes in the runway and as the president says, they can be easily patched. patching runways is something that all air forces practice extensivel

lieutenant colonel rick francona. dan rather who hash to afghanistan 16 times. all of you know so much about this, the context we all need so much tonight. general heart ling, it is a massive bomb. we heard about it. we know this was targeted at a remote area. that were the point. if it were dropped on a city, to give us a sense of how big this is, what would it do? >> well, to a city, erin, and that's why it hasn't been used in the wars in iraq and afghanistan is a lot of combat has been in the cities. it was use against the position, a very good combat commander in afghanistan said i can destroy cave complex in a defensive area but most importantly he can also get after the i.e.d.s because the overpressure of this bomb. it doesn't penetrate a cave wall but it provides overpressure to knock things down and provide the i.e.d.s with a means of exploding. you can clear an entire area of about 15 to 20 football fields in radius. so it will be significantin terms of the area of the blast and the concussive device. >> the city you would be talking about a huge part o

joining us retired rear admiral john kirby, cnn military analyst, mark hurtling and retired rick francona and gloia bore ga. you know this area very well. i have map of syria and the capitol and the area the gas strike took place and possible targets. explain what we have here. >> obviously, it will depend on the kind of message the u.s. wants to send. a lot of these areas are not as used as others and air paces been abandoned for a number of reasons. this in particular, this is where the reports say the chemical attack took place at the province. you also have this area, that's significant such as aleppo and other places in the country took place and very important for these hearings where they have a significant number of aircraft they use in defense. as we heard barbara starr rep t reporting they are spread out with the main russian naval base here. it depends what they want to send. israelis have bombed in the da mass scus area in the past when they wanted to point out out. >> the pinkish areas are isis control and more dark areas, isis report. you point out there are not only russian

colonel rick francona and also ryan lieza, you will be staying with us and be back in a bit. thanks. >>> meanwhile coming up the man widely credited with helping get president trump to the white house, now seemingly fighting to keep his own place in the west wing. why power is slowly slipping away from steve bannon. and the question, who could be stepping into fill that void. that's next. he's the green money you can spend now. what's up? gonna pay some bills, maybe buy a new tennis racket. he's got a killer backhand. when it's time to get organized for retirement, it's time to get voya. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on all of my purchasing. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... which adds fuel to my bottom line. what's in your wallet? you know win control? be this guy. check it out! self-appendectomy! oh, that's really attached. that's why i rent from national. where i get the control to

want to bring in cnn chief national security correspondent tim sciutto, and lieutenant colonel rick francona. the mother of all bombs. largest nonnuclear bomb the u.s. has ever used in combat. the president is calling it a success. let's take a look first. >> you look at what's happened over the last eight weeks and compare that to what's happened over the last eight years. you'll see there's a tremendous difference. tremendous difference. we have incredible leaders in the military, and we have incredible military. and we are very proud of them. this was another very, very successful mission. >> it's important to note here this is the second major military strike by the trump administration in a week. >> that's exactly right. the mother of all bombs, the nickname, actually an acronym for massive ordnance air blast, a bomb designed to explode before it hits the ground, but then destroy underground structures, tunnels, et cetera. it's huge. biggest under a nuclear bomb. let's be clear, it's about 1,000th the size of a smaller nuclear weapon. so this is not close to a nuclear weapon, but it's a

i want to bring in our global affairs analyst david rhodes and rick francona. david, you've been working your sources and you're hearing what we're reporting about the president considering some sort of military response to this brutal attack thr, this gas att against civilians including kids in syria. >> i heard from a separate member of congress than the person dana bash referenced. i heard from a separate member of congress that trump called them said. said he was considering military action in syria and he wanted to speak to secretary mattis. again, a separate member of congress saying the president told them that he is considering military action in syria. >> colonel francona, what kind of military options do you believe the president will have if he gives the go ahead for some sort of military option? >> well, what we're hearing is that they would like to close down the operations of the syrian air force. the syrians operate out of about four or five major airfields. closing them would be not a challenge so much, but keeping them closed would be. we could

rick francona (ret.) / cnn military analyst:"we were trying to send a message and take out some of thees we believe were involved but knowing full well we were not going to be able to shut down operations at this air base. it wasn't just a few hours after the strike that syria television was already showing aircraft taking off from that base."indeed, a reporter for russian state-run media posted this video showing a jet taxiing -- purportedly at that air base -- with the caption: "return to work at shayrat." syrian state-run media also released video of military officials touring the base. meanwhile, well north of the base, activists say the same town that was targeted by a chemical attack on tuesday started getting hit by a series of airstrikes less than 24 hours after the u-s operation......though it's not clear who conducted the most recent strikes.while the russian government continues to deny the syrian regime had any involvement in tuesday's chemical strike, senator rand paul -- who has been critical of the president's decision -- says u-s officials are convinced.sen. rand paul /

. >> colonel francona, what do you say? the fact that no one is impressed, do you agree? >> i don't know and i don't think any of us know. we don't know what goes on in the mind of kim jong un as this progresses. when we dropped 59 tomahawks there, i don't know if the message will be received in afghanistan with the isis. what i'm concerned about is we're sending the messages and as the colonel says, why are we sending them. what's the overarching strategy that drive the messages. >> thank you both. >> ok. thank you. >> next, the trump administration saying guess what? we're not going to tell you who comes to see the white house. no logs. not going to be public anymore. the reason they say is grave national security risks. really? is this just another layer of secrecy? and barb ar -- barber al assad. t any of these 9 lobster dishes could be yours. so don't resist delicious new lobster mix and match or lobsterfest surf and turf because you won't have this chance for long. but with my back pain i couldn't sleep or get up in time. then i found aleve pm. the only one to combi

rick francona (ret.) / cnn military analyst:"we were trying to send a message and take out some of the airplanes we believe were involved but knowing full well we were not going to be able to shut down operations at this air base. it wasn't just a few hours after the strike that syria television was already showing aircraft taking off from that base."indeed, a reporter for russian state-run media posted this video showing a jet taxiing -- purportedly at that air base -- with the caption: "return to work at shayrat." syrian state-run media also released video of military officials touring the base. meanwhile, well north of the base, activists say the same town that was targeted by a chemical attack on tuesday started getting hit by a series of airstrikes less than 24 hours after the u-s operation......though it's not clear who conducted the most recent strikes.while the russian government continues to deny the syrian regime had any involvement in tuesday's chemical strike, senator rand paul -- who has been critical of the president's decision -- says u-s officials are convinced.sen. ran

let's bring in lieutenant colonel rick francona. the u.s. action has destroyed about 20 airplanes.short time ago president trump tweeted this, saying, the reason you don't generally hit runways is that they're easy and inexpensive to quickly fix and then he writes, fill in and top. is the president correct about runways there? >> yeah, the reason we don't hit runways is because of that. every air force in the world practices repairing runways. as soon as their carat, you fill them in and top them. there are steel plates you can put down. something that all air force do the weapon we chose to use in that strike the tomahawk cruise missile isn't effective against runways. it better at striking the fuel points the ammunition points, maintenance facilities, the aircraft themselves. >> now, russia has suggested just today there's still no solid evidence that chemical weapons were stored at that air base. lavrov had said the allegationsover chemical weapons aren't correspondent withry alty. they're skeptical that assad is responsible for the chemical weapons attack. we know what what hap

i'm joined by rick francona, senior international correspondent arwa damon fresh off a plane from mosulovering the air strikes there. thank you so much, as always, with regard to what's happened in syria, we remember the chemical weapons attack from 2013 under the obama administration and you have talked for years, having been in syria with these activists who are beyond angry. >> they are devastated. and i've said this before but i truly think we're going to need to invent new words to describe what's happened in syria and the emotions that it generates because imagine being syrian. imagine going through all of that cycle of violence and having the united states of america and say chemical weapons is a red line. i remember an activist calling me and saying, arwa, do you think they are going to come save us now? that didn't happen. in fact, the violence there was allowed to be perpetuated with impunity and now we have it being repeated again. little children suffocating to death. it wasn't just the poisonous gas attack afterwards, according to activists on the ground and doctors. hospit

cnn military analyst colonel rick francona spoke to us earlier about what this means for pyongyang. >> there is not just an aircraft carrier, it's an entire strike group going there. so it's quite potent and it does send the message to north korea that we are serious about defending our allies in the area. it comes at a time though as you say right after this strike on syria. so the north koreans have to be watching us and they realize maybe donald trump means what he says when he says if you do something, i will react. >> and i'm joined by distinguished professor emeritus. when you consider the options on the table, what do you think is the most likely response? would it be words, would it be perhaps more missile tests or even does he have it in his arsenal to carry out some sort of military strike against u.s. aggressi aggression? >> april is celebration for north koreans. april has in the first day of north korea and also has founding anniversary of north korea's peoples army. if north korea has been showing some kind of military event such as the launching of aboutballis missiles

we have our cnn military analyst, retired air force lieutenant colonel rick francona with us.nn global affairs correspondent alyse and cnn correspondent dana bash. how would you describe the u.s./russia relationship so early in the new trump administration? it was not supposed to be like this. >> right. it is scrambled and tense. it wasn't supposed to be like this, but as we wait for the secretary of state, what i'm thinking about and remembering about, it wasn't that long ago that the president fell over and republicans were reluctant to confirm rex tillerson as secretary of state because they were concerned he was too cozy with vladimir putin and other russian leaders. and that's because he did deals with them when he was ceo of exxon. now fast forward to not even 100 days into the administration, he's on his first trip to that very country meeting with the very leader. and it's almost like the notion that he's too close with the russians is ancient history because it happens all the time with presidents. events that happen to them as opposed to events they tried to create a

. >> back with us now, john kirby, rick francona and aaron david miller.e start with you here. one question a lot of people are asking is why did assad risk this? why this week? when assad seems to have been getting what he wants in syria, why would he carry out a chemical attack on his own people? was it something domestically? was it the thought expressed by rex tillerson and nikki haley that maybe the policy lad chaha changed. >> there are a couple of explanations. first of all, you have to assume that this was basically sanctioned by the regime and not under a sort of again operating order to use chlorine gas, which is syrians have been doing, or in this case a nerve agent, probably sarin. if they did authorize it, then it is part of the same sugar high. the man has a sense of immunity and let's be clear no one anticipated seven years into this war alone among those ch challenged by the arabs, the only guy left standing is assad. that's largely because he's backed by the russians and by iran. i think there is a sense of immunity, a sense of confidence,

former counterterrorism analyst for the cia, buck sexton, retired air force lieutenant colonel rick francona and nic robertson. nic, let me begin with you in terms of why this target. we've covered the war on terror and isis and one often thinks of iraq or syria. you don't think afghanistan. you, sir, know this area of the country quite well. this is a couple of miles, i understand, from where you say osama bin laden and al qaeda made their last stand in afghanistan. >> yes, this is the vicinity of where this bomb was dropped. it's hard until we know the precise location of the bomb but a few miles from where bin laden was hiding out. he had a set of cave complexes that were being targeted by bombs at the end of 2001. we spent a lot of time on the mountainside there. we went up to where the bombs were targeting these cave complexes, saw the damage. i think at the time, these were thousand pound bombs, perhaps the largest being dropped, smash being the mountain, ripping apart some of the cave complexes. but bombs that size, you could go in some of those caves and at the back of those cases, a

rick francona (ret.) / cnn military analyst:"we were trying to send a message and take out some of theanes we believe were involved but knowing full well we were not going to be able to shut down operations at this air base. it wasn't just a few hours after the strike that syria television was already showing aircraft taking off from that base."indeed, a reporter for russian state-run media posted this video showing a jet taxiing -- purportedly at that air base -- with the caption: "return to work at shayrat." syrian state-run media also released video of military officials touring the base. meanwhile, well north of the base, activists say the same town that was targeted by a chemical attack on tuesday started getting hit by a series of airstrikes less than 24 hours after the u-s operation......though it's not clear who conducted the most recent strikes.while the russian government continues to deny the syrian regime had any involvement in tuesday's chemical strike, senator rand paul -- who has been critical of the president's decision -- says u-s officials are convinced.sen. rand paul

i want to bring in retired general mark hertling and retired general rick francona. rick, you've been to the al shayrat air base. tell us a little bit about this base. >> it's not one of their larger air bases. it's pretty utilitarian. it's got two runways, two squadrons area. they have two squadrons there. they have an older, reliable russian air-to-ground bomber. it's the back bone of the syrian air-to-ground effort. they've got a lot of them and they fly them every day. and this base here is a very great location because they can get from this base up into that idlib province. after the fall of aleppo, almost all of the bombing shifted. it doesn't surprise me at all this was the base used to launch this attack the other day. so you've got two squadrons there and also your administrative area, your refueling area, armament area and all that. it's kind of isolated. there are only a couple of small towns around it. so the chances of civilian casualties in neighboring cities would be very minimized. 59 tom haw 9 tomahawks will def have is an -- have an impact. >> "rus

. >> colonel rick francona and will riple y, thank you both. >>> 25 people are dead in an egypt church blast, north of cairo. a state cuba say thousands were inside celebrating palm sunday service. >> you're looking at the first video from inside the church when the explosion happened. we want to warn you, this may be hard to watch. ♪ >> so someone was taking video of the ceremony and then at that blast, you see it go to bars. security officers are digging through the debris right now. it may be little difficult to make out what you're seeing here, but concrete, wood, paper, it's all part of what is left behind after the bombing. cnn senior international correspondent and former cairo bureau chief ben wedeman is live near the turkish/syria board. >> reporter: we can see from the pictures the bomb was chose to the front of the church when it happened. rather, the front rows of the church. more than 2,000 people in this st. george's church that is 60 miles north of cairo when the blast happened. of course, it's palm sunday so the church was full of people. i should also add we are just l

want to bring in cnn chief national security correspondent tim sciutto, and lieutenant colonel rick franconaer of all bombs. largest nonnuclear bomb the u.s. has ever used in combat. the president is calling it a success. let's take a look first. >> you look at what's happened over the last eight weeks and compare that to what's happened over the last eight years. you'll see there's a tremendous difference. tremendous difference. we have incredible leaders in the military, and we have incredible military. and we are very proud of them. this was another very, very successful mission. >> it's important to note here

and francona from the u.s. attache in syria. i don't think anybody could avoid tearing up seeing that boy at the end. he is among the lucky, if you can say that, living. when president trump says this crossed a lot of lines, beyond a red line, what does that mean? >> it's hard to know whether he was just spouting rhetoric or whether he is telegraphing something. i took away from that that he's drawing a line now about what he's going to do in the future. what i hope it means, erin, is that this administration will get serious about the civil war in syria. hitherto, they really haven't. i hope he was listening to king abdullah standing next to him when the king says there has to be a political solution and we have to work as an international community towards that solution. i hope the president's team will continue to explore all options, diplomat and military as well. >> so is crossing red lines a declaration of war. >> i'm not sure it's a declaration of war but i think it's going to force a real decision inside the donald trump

. >> let's discuss this with cnn global affairs analyst elis elise labott and rick francona.iously is the u.s. taking these threats to north korea striking and sinking a u.s. aircraft carrier? >> well, fred, i don't think they're taking the threats very literally, but they're taking them seriously. you heard a -- we saw a statement just a short time ago from pentagon spokesman gary roth. let me read a little bit to you. it said we call on the dprk -- that's the official name for the democratic peoples republic of north korea -- to refrain from provocative destabilizing actions and rhetoric and to make the strategic choice to fulfill its international obligations and commitments and return to serious talks. you have to traake this into context of the threats and the missile tests north korea has had over the last several months. this administration taking sh very seriously. president trump is expected to speak later tonight with the president of china, xi jinping and prime minister shinzo abe. the u.s. obviously working on a very tough strategy to try and force north korea bac

i want to bring in our military analyst, retired colonel rick francona. did you hear these two men, did you hear anything to suggest that the u.s. and russia are getting closer on issues as critically important, for example, as syria or is the gulf deepening? >> well, as the great correspondents, they have taken all of my talking points, wolf. so i think the key here was the common ground that they are not -- if they have a regime that they can influence that is not bashar al assad, we may have talking points there. but as far as the investigation into the attack that happened on the 4th of april, we're so far apart on that. each side is holding to its positions. if there's going to be an independent investigation, it's going to be just what we saw in august 2013. the u.n. will come in and make their investigation and list a whole string of findings but will not assign blame. we don't need a repeat of that. plus, the area in which this chemical attack took place has been bombarded daily by incendiary weapons. i don't know what kind of physical evidence we

i want to bring into the kf conversation military analyst rick francona.'re sitting there planning an operation and people are bringing you your options and you decide to use this, the mother of all bomb as it's known in shorthand, largest nonnuclear bomb the air force has in its convinces. >> well, this bomb is 11,000 -- it's 11 tons of tnt, so it's going to set off an enormous blast. it will feel like a nuclear blast to anyone in the area. there's the psychological thing. you have to figure out what weapon you want to use when a target presents itself. in this area, mountains and caves and this tunnel complex, you want something that's going to be able to get a blast effect into those caves, into those tunnels. this is the weapon to do that. the pressure from this weapon will send shock waivves through this tunnel system and kill everybody in there. it is an untested weapon. we never used it before, so it will be interesting to see how it actually works in a combat environment. basically pushed out the back of a c-130. i think it weighs out at about 25,0

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. >> colonel francona, just in terms of the syrian air force itself, how large is it? you were pointing out there are basically about two squadrons, in normal times would have been two squadrons are relatively old aircraft, as you said earlier, at this base that was hit. given that this was the base that the gas attack took place from, it's very likely those jets may have been scrambled to elsewhere because this would have been an obvious target in the days since that attack. do you know how large the syrian air force is if there was -- if the u.s. and coalition partners really wanted to eliminate the air capabilities of bashar al assad? >> it went from a large air force to a relatively small air force just over time, atrophy and lack of new equipment. they've got on paper maybe 300 aircraft. that's not the number up neyou to look at. it's the number of effective and modern aircraft. is the question would they be a match for the u.s. air force, u.s. navy airaircraft, no. they're not in that league. they have two squadrons of mig 29th that are fourth generation fighters

we have lieutenant colonel francona who served in syria. lieutenant colonel, i know you have even been to that air base that was struck. you know about the area there. looking at the photos of the damage, are you supplirprised t airfield is back in operation today? >> not really. if you look at how many hardened aircraft shelters are there, 59 tomahawks would not have shut down the base. wouldn't even have destroyed all of the aircraft. although i'm reading different numbers. we're saying 20. syrians say ten. either way, it's a loss of some aircraft. the mission was actually to send a message. shutting down the air base entailed cratering the runways. the tomahawk as you mentioned earlier is not the best weapon for that. you probably want to bring in manned aircraft and drop specific weapons for that. tomahawk they were taking out other facilities on the base. pri primarily to send that message and timing done not to kill people. it was trying to destroy material. >> i was speaking to senator mccain yesterday. he mentioned that as well. he

rick francona and national security analyst, juliette kayem. rick, the national security adviser to the president, general mcmaster, h.r. mcmaster, he put out a statement, telling reporters, quote, there were measures put in place to avoid hitting what we believe is a storage of sarin gas there at that air base that was targeted. so, that would not be ignited and cause a hazard to civilians or anyone else. how precise are these tomahawk cruise missiles? >> well, precise enough not to hit a warehouse like that. and, you know, these storage areas would be protected and, of course, they wouldn't just be in a regular building, so, they would be under some sort of shelter. you just don't hit them. hopefully. and i don't know what the syrians are using, but hopefully these are binary-stored weapons and they have to be mixed before they create a toxic substance. even if the warehouses were struck, it would not trigger that kind of reaction, hopefully think kind of explosion would burn off the gas, but it's best just not to hit them. i'm surprised that

. >> a greaterry francona story. >> >>> joining us now publisher and editor of crane's detroit businessbook "love that boy" is out in paperback. great book. we have a piece of paper here with ron's thoughts on them. >> all of your thoughts can be contained on one single piece of paperer? >> it's a small list. >> ron, it's great to have you here. you have eight thoughts from trump country. number one, don't forget why he was elected. why was he elected? >> because most of this country desperately wants change in politics. this election was about people's hunger for change versus their fear of this particular change. that itself, that dynamic -- >> hunger for crane, too. >> crane detroit business. >> great business. >> when i came back here after spending the summer in michigan. so many people in trump country would say that donald trump, he's crazy, he's crazy but he's pissing you guys off. he's crazy, but better than those democrats, better than those republicans. that was baked in the cake with a lot of people. >> that leads to number two, why he survived when other normal politicians