night, traveling with and covering the president nbc's chris jansing from palm beach florida, barry mccaffery, a ground commander in desert storm, combat infantry in vietnam, three purple hearts, two silver stars, two distinguished service crosses and our terrorism analyst malcolm nance is here in new york with us. a 35 year veteran of that trade, including naval intelligence, special operations and homeland security. chris jansing, to you in florida first. in a way, starting this morning, this changed everything. it changed the optics, and it changed the discussion. >> reporter: without a doubt. i mean, they feel it is an overwhelming success. it's no secret this has been a very tough run for this president. he had approval ratings in the mid 30s. now he has taken what they believe -- this white house has been decisive very measured actions. they have hinted to what the allies have been saying, praise from the uk, from germany, from france. you heard what has been largely approval from members of congress, even those who think that he should have had congressional approval, many of those fol

navy. >> general barry mccaffery joining us from seattle. he has been with us for hours as part of our coverage of the air strike tonight. general, thank you very much. >>> another gentlemen who we call upon a lot around here who has been with us for many hours as we've been developing what it is we are covering tonight, washington editor at large for the atlantic, steve clemens. start wherever you wish, what you make of the news we got from overseas tonight. >> thanks brian. i think the first thing that occurs the me is, you know, slightly what kevin barron laid out although i have a slightly different take. we don't know by donald trump taking this action whether in the long run this looks weak to the rest of the world or strong. what i mean by that is that barack obama when he took action in libya or in december 2015 when he aligned 34 islamic nations to join other european allies in attacking isis and bombing them in just as spectacular a raitt raid as the attacks that you have been showing frequently in that department of defense clip.

night, traveling with and covering the president nbc's chris jansing from palm beach florida, barry mccaffery, a ground commander in desert storm, combat infantry in vietnam, three purple hearts, two silver stars, two distinguished service crosses and our terrorism analyst malcolm nance is here in new york with us. a 35 year veteran of that trade, including naval intelligence, special operations and homeland security. chris jansing, to you in florida first. in a way, starting this morning, this changed everything. it changed the optics, and it changed the discussion. >> reporter: without a doubt. i mean, they feel it is an overwhelming success. it's no secret this has been a very tough run for this president. he had approval ratings in the mid 30s. now he has taken what they believe -- this white house has been decisive very measured actions. they have hined to what the allies have been saying, praise from the uk, from germany, from france. you heard what has been largely approval from members of congress, even those who think that he should have had congressional approval, many of those folk

we're back with ambassador nancy soderberg, goran chang and barry mccaffery.assador, is unpredictable a foreign policy? >> no in particular the syria strike has broad support. no one knows whether there is a plan to back it is up of it's fine to be unpredictable and not show your cards but you have to have a plan. i think that's the question with this president, what goes with these actions, military actions alone don't work. you have to marry force and diplomacy, that's the prescription for success. he has time to do it. on north korea he asked for options the full range of options i think he needs to have a deliberate discussion of those and a plan. he can keep his cards to his vest, but what's causing some concern among foreign policy experts is is not a lot of assurances there is real strategy that's going with some of these military action. he has time to get them but we want to see a little bit more on the planning side to accompany some of these actions. >> david, americans heard him say who knew health care was this complicated? the world heard him say

let's bring in general barry mccaffery. general, how significant is it for the trump administration to use such a weapon at this time? >> pretty significant. you know, i was looking at jack jacobs. both of us have spent a lot of time crawling around in the mud with some machine gun hammering by your ears. we love the united states air force. when they use these significant munitions, they have a whole series of them, as jack says. some of them are nuclear development facilities, but something similar has been used since vietnam in a smaller size. they're just devastating. they're a terror weapon, so i think it's another signal to isis, to the taliban, to al qaeda in afghanistan that you can burrow in the rocks, but we'll come get you day or night without warning. good signal to these insurgent forces. >> general, what do you make of the white house passing off all inquiries of this to d.o.d. that the -- at this time? >> again, it's another signal. a problem is a lack of forces. you have general mattis, who is experienced in

retired four star general barry mccaffery, nbc news chief richard engel, courtney can you bey, and traveling in west palm beach, florida. you've been covering that part of the world for such a long time. how much of that statements, essentially north korea saying if trump wants war, he'll get war, how much of that is a real threat? >> oh, i think it's a very real threat. north korea has missiles deployed all along its border. they are pointing at seoul. and if north korea feels that it is being attacked, that its grip on power is being threatened in any way, it will launch those missiles or launch some of those missiles. so, i think the u.s. needs to proceed with a great deal of caution here. if that report is, in fact, accurate and the u.s. plans to launch some sort of preemptive military strike, things could escalate very, very quickly and quite -- in a quite predictable way. north korea feels threatened, it attacks seoul, and then the entire korean peninsula goes up in flames. so, i think it is not a blank threat if they feel threatened >> general, nbc is reporting they are prepared to la

we're back with ambassador nancy soderberg, goran chang and barry mccaffery.sador, is unpredictable a foreign policy? >> no in particular the syria strike has broad support. no one knows whether there is a plan to back it is up of it's fine to be unpredictable and not show your cards but you have to have a plan. i think that's the question with this president, what goes with these actions, military actions alone don't wo. you have to marry force and diplomacy, that's the prescription for success. he has time to do it. on north korea he asked for options the full range of options i think he needs to have a deliberate discussion of those and a plan. he can keep his cards to his vest, but what's causing some concern among foreign policy experts is is not a lot of assurances there is real strategy that's going with some of these military action. he has time to get them but we want to see a little bit more on the planning side to accompany some of these actions. >> david, americans heard him say who knew health care was this complicated? the world heard him say abo

. >> you're on armed services and general barry mccaffery got our attention a few days back.aid in his view we should kind of switch our priority to defense, and that is protecting seattle, l.a., your district, all our population centers within range of whatever munition they come up with next, protecting our people and places from stuff that may already be a loft and launched. >> well, it won't be a missile. missile [ inaudible ]. so we need to assemble the power of the world, put all of that pressure on north korea and move them away from being a nuclear weapons nation. it's not going to be easy. three administrations previously have tried to do this. they have not succeeded. will this administration succeed? we certainly hope so. but at the same time, be careful about drawing a red line that may draw us into a major conflict on the korean peninsula. and as has been said many times in this evening, when the president was on the campaign trail he was saying, i will blank and bomb them, blank, blank. so, what is north korea hearing? they're hearing the rhetoric of the campaig

and we have to keep going forward. >> rebecca grant, steve clemmon, general barry mccaffery, thank you thank you. >>> let's check out the red carpet at the washington hilton. you'll be heading over there, mr. clemmons, yes? >> hoping, yes. >> there's where the white house cor correspondents' dinner will be arriving later tonight. you can see a few people arriving for the pre-parties. a few hot-button issues during president trump's first 100 days has been immigration, after a series of failed policy initiatives, where does the president go next? it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three-quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do? drive three-quarters of a car? now if you had liberty mutual new car replacement™, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels. smart. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, we'll replace the full value of your car. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. at planters, we put fresh roawhich has its drawbacks.an, guys, know anything about this missing in

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army general barry mccaffery. gentlemen, welcome to you both. just to start off, your take on what we just reported. >> yeah, i just reviewed the tillerson letter. it's basically three terse sentences. it says that iran has complied with the nuclear deal. that's something that democrats and other people who supported the deal will say, aha, see, they are in compliance. but the second sentence says, notwithstanding that,he president has determined that iran is a major state sponsor of terrorism, which is something that isn't in fact the case. and third, they say in the letter, the secretary of state says, and, therefore, we have directed the president has directed nse-led review and inter agency review of all the cabinet departments and agencies as to whether we should stay in the deal, whether we should continue to waive the sanctions on iran. so, i think the main headline is as andrea noted, that there is an evaluation underway as to whether or not the administration will stay in the iran nuclear deal. >> i want to illustrate the reason that mo

general barry mccaffery remains with us from seattle tonight. of course the retired four-star u.s. army general combat veteran in vet nam, combat vet plan desert storm. general, it' been hours since we last spoke. we were just learn being what had transpired. what have been your thoughts in the intervening hours? >> i think this was a definitive move on this chess board of dealing with syria. it probablieny enciency encienc enhanced our ability to talk to russia and demand some action. it probably had an kbag on the

we're with the senior fellow at the brookings institution and barry mccaffery, former gulf war division commander in the army. general, let's start with you. this is scary stuff, to put it mildly. what are the risks of even talking about a preemptive strike? >> well, you make a good point. we're not quite sure what this very young, very insecure, murd murderous kim jong-un gets his information. does he process it? does he think there's a real threat? there is a moderate uptick of military in the region. some b-52s on alert. i think there is zero likelihood of us conducting a preemptive conventional strike on north korean nukes. it would invite a general ground war, an artillery bombardment of the 25 million people in seoul. the south koreans will never sign up for it now, nor would the japanese. so i don't think it's going to happen. but it is a tricky situation. you know, 20 years from now, looking back on this, katy, we may decide that it was a mistake to not have conducted a preemptive strike on north korean nukes. but for now it's off the table, in my view. >> there's been a suggest

now i want to bring in four-star general barry mccaffery and nbc military analyst. and chris haas, a former personal assistant to george h.w. bush. he is also the author of "a world in disarray." richard, let's start with you. talk to me about what this means diplomatically. this is what the united states is calling the least invasive and most limited strike they could have done in syria, but certainly a sensitive place to do so, especially with the ongoing drama between this country and russia. >> katy, it's a lot of things. i think it was a signal that the united states is now more prepared than it has been over the last eight years to use military force. it's, though, still limited. i think people who are saying this is getting us involved in some kind of an open-ended quagmire in syria are way off base. this was a discreet military action. i think the next emphasis is going to be much more what it is we do when we liberate territory that is currently controlled by isis. i think it's also the beginning, perhaps, of a long conversation with russia about under what