new reaction from green beret ben collins, . harris: the "fox report" interview now. iraq forces launching a major air and ground offensive to retake western mosul from the isis savages. let's bring in ben collins, a green beret who served three tours of duty in afghanistan. i have afghanistan questions for you a little later, i want to get to the news developing on this sunday. and you know, we thought that this would take a shorter period of time, you didn't, taking back mosul. what's complicateed? >> mosul is effectively a city separated by the tigris river, you have the east and the west. the east has been difficult because of the buildup that isis had. they had two years essentially to prepare for this fight. the western part of mosul and by the way, they started and took about 100 days or so to clear the east. the western portion of the city is a much older part of the steeshg the streets are much narrower, much more densely populateed. >> this is urban combat. >> they have to get out of the vehicles and go door-to-door to do it. harris: i remember you said we'r

. >> neil: ben collins, we were going to talk to you on other developments here. this is something we're focusing on now. thanks for indulging us. ben collins, a former u.s. green beret. blake burman at the white house right now. obviously these kind of things are hush hush ahead of the fact until word gets out. do we know how this all came about with the president getting the family's permission to come or how it all broke down? >> you're right. a very secretive thing here at the white house throughout the day. the family has requested privacy. so we believe at this point when president trump gets to dover if he's not there already, we don't believe this is an event that will be captured on video. the family has requested privacy. of course, we in the media and everybody can imagine why that would be respected at this time. the president left here at the white house aboard marine one, probably within the last hour. it is not a far trip to delaware up the east coast. the details on this throughout the day have been kept very quiet. clearly we expect the president

green beret ben collins was on "fox report" saying this is going to be a long process. >> the concern here is if it took essentially 100 days to retake eastern mosul, it could take up to three times as long. harris: that's a year! >> we could be looking at months that the civilians are stuck. harris: isis also is using more and more armed drones in the area. the bombs not causing much serious injury but disrupting operation for iraqi forces in the fight. iran has begun conducting annual naval drills off the country's southern coast. it's tehran's first major military exercise since president trump took office and comes as iran's hard-line president penned a long bert to our president. conor powell has the story from our mideast bureau. >> reporter: iran's naval exercises come amid growing tensions between the trump administration and tehran. in just three weeks after his administration put iran on, quote, notice after the islamic republic test fired a ballistic missile, iranian state tv said the drills near the strategic strait of hormuz and the strait of horman are against threats of

we will take you to ben collins, yes or meet special forces in former green beret who served three toursduty in afghanistan. a lot to get to, the president talk a little bit about what he is asking for. just to put it in context for our viewers, $54 billion sounds like a lot of money, but those people out there it may say we need more money. what goes through your head when you hear that? >> i think it has to come down to where is that money going to be spent? we've had a lot of cuts obviously over the last few years. there is a lot of waste that occurs obviously within the defense department, so we need to get a handle on that, but most importantly, in terms of our readiness level. our air force is the oldest, smallest and oldest equipment we have had in our history. the navy is the smallest it has been since world war i. our army is the smallest it has been since the beginning of world war ii. and the personnel cuts that have occurred as well. there is a significant amount of work we have to do to get our personnel and equipment back up to where it needs to be for us to be prepared for

. >> bill: ben collins u.s. army special forces veteran served three tours in afghanistan.g to you. first public comment i do believe from the vice president. the story has been consistent from the white house's position. what did you hear there? >> he said it was a function of trust and if trust is broken down between a security advisor and the president and vice president is a serious problem. they said there was nothing illegal that took place here. he made comment. thanks flynn for his years of service. the most fundamental problem if they've lost any component of truce -- trust is a problem. >> bill: topic number two. nato a commitment? this administration is taking a clear message to europe saying you have to do more. we can't always be there for you. >> they need to. out of the 28 countries within nato only four have kept that 2% gdp goal. four. poland, estonia, england and greece. a reason poland and estonia spend 2%. they're on the border of russia. germany says it's not much of a problem because they don't see russian tanks on their border. a lot of spending in ar

ben sasse who is independent, susan collins who is independent.n mccain and by extension lindsey graham. the numbers don't add up. they don't. this is so shortsighted, politically, if that's the only standard you want to measure these tweets by. obviously, there are a lot more. >> well, joe, the real question is, he's president of the united states. when is he going to start acting like the president of the united states? that's the issue. >> willie, this morning, he's attacking a democratic senator, a talk show host and a republican senator. >> yeah. >> in his tweets. >> pretty extraordinary what the democratic senator, richard blumenthal told us, not only what gorsuch told him, but the nominee of the supreme court said tell the public what i have told you. extraordinary. joining us now on the set, the mayor of south bends, indiana. he's a navy veteran of the afghan war and candidate for chairman of the dnc. also, eric bat eric beats. instead of mobilizing the unprecedented grass roots machine to lawmakers, support state and local candidates that