can do we have a colonel jack jacobs with us? let's go to him right now, colonel, because you can give us some perspective on all of this. we see people clamoring around, trying to get pictures, trying to get a glimpse of the president. this is really a big deal for that part of the world. >> yeah, it is. it's actually troubling for some people that the president is going to japan to here sheirosh lay a wreath. there's still a very long memory from world war ii when we had an enormous number of americans serve. fully half of the people in uniform in the pacific and there is still very much a great deal of concern, no matter what the president, what the white house says about this not being an apology for dropping the atomic bomb, there's some consternation. the first thing to keep in mind is that the president of the united states is very much an anti-nuclear president. he's said it very, very many times in his inaugural addresses, the in campaign speeches leading up to each the presidency. he's so much into symbolism. that's wha

i want to bring back now retired army colonel jack jacobs who is a recipient of the medal of honor forvice members who have lost their lives and characters -- character definition about who they were. but having the applause at that moment for ashley wheeler, her husband, 39-year-old josh wheeler, killed last october. as the president said, deployed over 14 times. and that is a definition of what it means to be in service today, the fact that there will be multiple deployments. >> i think that emphasizes it more than anything. we are relying heavily on special operations forces in order to get the job done for a wide variety of reasons, one of them is we're not entirely certain how we can do it otherwise, we don't have the forces to do it otherwise and we don't have the political will to spend the kind of time it takes to do it otherwise. i found it interesting, my reaction was the same as yours. the president frequently will personalize situations and often it sounds terribly gratuitous. today it didn't. this is all about the people and the people who serve, and i think he did a very

i want to bring in retired army colonel jack jacobs.leasure to see you, sir. >> good morning. >> let's begin with the significance of this moment. i mean president obama becoming the first sitting president to visit hiroshima. >> well, this president is very big into symbolism. and if you're -- if you envision the possibility of a world without nuclear weapons, i think what you do is go to hiroshima, like this president does. but it is a symbolic gesture. in realistic terms, that isn't going to happen, but it doesn't keep the president from doing that. i think one of the other things, one of the other objectives in being there, by the way, and i think of a more practical and immediate importance, is chinese expansion. the japanese want to see the president there, not necessarily at hiroshima, they want to see the president there at least to demonstrate that the united states is serious when it says it's going to pivot towards asia. the chinese who are internally strong historically have always gone in an expansionist mode and they're do

watching us with this is jack jacobs, and a recipient of the medal of honor. your feelings about what this means, what this demonstrates between these two nations to the world. >> well, it's really very complex. on the one hand, japan and its con tuition -- constitution foreswore defense really and had to rely on the united states and its nuclear deterrent. and on the other hand, the -- that area now in the pacific -- the pacific is extremely- -- extremely dangerous with china encroaching on other seaways and extending its reach into the pacific at a time when japan itself is very much concerned about it. it has to rely on the united states and its nuclear deter rent. so these are complicated issues. i think there's a great deal of ambivalence on the part particularly of japan and on the parts of a lot of people inside japan. on the one hand, they don't want nuclear weapons. the threat of war is always there and everybody in the pacific remembers exactly what happened 70 and 80 years ago. and on the other hand, they need the might of the united states. the fri

. >> colonel jack jacobs? >> yes. he's a good guy and i see him on occasion. >> joining me now, jim sciutto. so, jim, when is donald trump going to be briefed, and what type of information is he expected to receive? >> these briefings, they take place after the nominating convention for both the republican and democratic nominee once it's clear that they are the nominee. and generally they'll get information about threats to national security. they'll get the information but they don't get what the intelligence community calls sources and methods and how that information was gathered. that tends to be the most secret intelligence reserved for the highest level security clearances. at that point neither nominee will have that level of security clearance. >> who will do the briefings? >> director of national intelligence james clapper. he doesn't do it himself but he has said he's already appointed a nonpolitical intelligence agent to do this. of course, the most senior intelligence directors, they are appointed by the

we turn to jack jacobs, recipient of congressional medal of honor and msnbc senior editor of digitalks for joining us onning this memorial day day. fallujah a city we hear about all the time. isis took it away two years ago, why has it been hard to get back? >> big city and lots of people. you look at it, looks like an enormous metropolitan area, exactly what it is. no more difficult combat than in urban areas, very labor-intensive and time intensive and on top of that. they put a force together to go in there. we had to train a bunch of them. can't rely on the iraqis. lots of shia militias involved, command and control difficult and planning extremely complex, it will be a tough battle. >> if control is regained, if isis is knocked out of fallujah, what does that mean strateg strategically to that bigger picture against isis. >> it's important symbolically. they want mosul but don't want go there until after fallujah is taken. fallujah is basically a sunni town. the attacking force is mainly shia. lots of retribution when this is all over and you can expect isis to counter attack wh

. >> thank you, jack jacob. >> coming up, turbulent skies and backlashes over bullying and check pointslk to congressman jason shareff. >> that's next on "andrea mitchell reports," msnbc. [ guitar playing ] ugh. heartburn. sorry ma'am. no burning here. try new alka-seltzer heartburn relief gummies. they work fast and don't ste chalky. mmmm. incredible. looks tasty. you don't have heartburn. new alka-seltzer heartburn relief gummies. enjoy the relief. try your favorite ranch with a fresh taste so crisp, you'll be surprised it doesn't crunch. hidden valley cucumber ranch. just one of our delicious ranch flavors. billions are spent to confuse and, dare i say it, flummox the american public. "save 16% on car insurance." "switch now..." well at compare.com, we say enough's enough. so we constantly scrutinize millions of rates... answering the question once and for all, who has the lowest. just go to compare.com and get up to 50 free quotes. choose the lowest, and hit purchase. so you can get back to whatever it is you civilians do when you're not thinking about car insurance. compare.com >>>

i want to bring in retired army colonel jack jacobs, an msnbc military analyst. happy memorial day.st now getting under way. the first is that isis has been there for 2 1/2 years. they've had plenty of time to build up the fences. the second thing is, this is urban warfare. i've been in combat in built-up areas. and it is the most difficult of all of the ways in which you can find. you have to isolate individual blocks. you have to get a lot of forces on the roof and through the front door simultaneously and wa work towards the middle and do this room by room, floor by floor, block by block. >> was there some kind of opening the iraqi forces saw? why now after 2 1/2 years? >> it's taken them this long to get the forces together. it's not just the iraqi army. a lot of these forces going into fallujah now are shia militias. and they've had to try to coalesce these guys into some kind of coherent force. the planning for this type of exercise is monumental. takes a long, long time. you have to isolate blocks. it's taken a long time to train. it's taken a long time to plan. and trust me,

let's go to colonel jack jacobs, a veteran of the u.s.y, also denny kelly, a former pilot now principal at kelly james and associates which is an aviation accident investigation firm. guys, thank you both for being here. denny, beginning with you because this investigation is still playing out, what do you think the next steps are? >> the next step is probably what they've already started and it is they're going to look for wreckage. the water there is very deep and it may habe very difficult to find. if this wreckage is on top of the water and floating the current will take it away from where it originally impacted so it will be difficult to find the wreckage and they'll need to find the major part of the wreckage to determine what brought this airport down. was it an explosion? and if so where was it located and they will be able to tell if they can find that, they'll be able to tell what kind of explosives were used and that kind of thing. >> colonel, the fact that there was a relatively recent isis-claimed attack on a russian jet in t

. >> for more army colonel jack jaco jacobs. i don't know how question get the most out of talking about it because until we find out the block box and everything it is all just speculation. i guess to me wow it's a lot of places where the aircraft had been. if you do have a way of getting on board, could you have put something there that doesn't do anything for five, six, eight hours and suddenly just detonates oop timer? >> yeah you can do that. and i think it is right to focus on not necessarily the passengers. there are varying degrees of security taking care of passengers to make sure that they are not bad guys. but there is less focus actually on the people on the ground to do things like bring equipment on, caterers and maintenance people and on so. as a matter of fact charles de gaulle just recently i think got rid of several scores of people who were on the ground who they suspected of being terrorists. and yes you can put something on board that eventually blows up. it can be on a timer. or it can be on a relatively so