-backed forces in the city of raqqah. isis filmed itself celebrating when it rolled into raqqah three years ago. today the table was turned. u.s.-backed forces in the same spot. [ cheers ] there was some public cheering, too, but most people in this battered city are long gone. this was perhaps the most feared place on earth with frequent public executions. it was a base for isis to plot terrorist attacks including, intelligence services say, the attack on the bataclan theater in paris and the airport, as well as to hold and murder hostages including american james foley. the city was freed by mostly kurdish forces helped by u.s. special ops and coalition air strikes. now with the loss of raqqah and the iraqi city of mosul this summer, isis' territory has shrunk from the size of virginia to a few scattered areas. >> isis still maintains an ability to launch smaller scale terrorist attacks. but i think their future as a large-scale fighting force will largely end with the fall of raqqah. >> reporter: raqqah actually fell a

you are looking at video there from a drone overlooking raqqah. so you can see the damage that is in effect today. it's really stunning. and this is what is left behind after the defeat of isis in raqqah. >>> next, president trump takes a dive on the forbes list of the wealthiest americans. an editor from the magazine is joining me live how trump lost an estimated $600 million in just one year. you do all this research on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates. maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. >>> did you know that america's rich are getting even richer? however, the president is apparently not. you now have to scroll way down this "forbes" list of the 400 richest americans before you find donald j. trump. he dropped 92 slots from the year before to

>> yeah, we have to clear the rest of the valley, southeast of raqqah where the leaders of raqqah arey have been out of raqqah for some time. secondly, agree with what you just said, i don't see a strategy to deal with syria at large. western part of syria, iran, russia and assad, they are in total control and is no taking that away from them without conducting a major military operation where there's no political will for that. the eastern part of syria, we should be containing iran's ambitions to take full control of syria by taking the east and i don't see any strategy to stop that, paul, and i think that's a strategic mistake on the part of the administration. paul: that's right, okay. i agree with you on that. now the kurds are saying, the kurds -- they were our fighters on the ground in clearing out isis out of raqqah and they are saying, hey, you know, we would like to keep this territory, we have a right to at least some autonomy here, can the -- how should we treat the kurds in -- in their ambitions going forward? >> in iraq, the issue has always been the political end state,

reporting from near raqqah in syria. take a look at this.ive pictures coming in from here in washington where the president trump's national security adviser lieutenant general h.r. mcmaster is taking questions expected to address the very sensitive issue of the niger ambush which resulted in four american troops getting killed and the president's response to the latest threats from north korea and the president giving his administration a ten, ten out of ten for its response to the crisis in puerto rico. this as 80% of the island is still without power. i'm only in my 60's. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. call now and find out about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medic

what will it take to restore the devastated city of raqqah?w egos in cobackpack blower.y. blasting 600 cubic feet of air per minute. it delivers the power of gas... without the noise, fuss or fumes. exclusively at the home depot and ego authorized dealers. you can avoid extra calories trifrom cooking r. with too much butter and oil. introducing new pam spray pump. with 1 gram of fat and ten calories per serving plus the superior non-stick you love. hashtag omeletgoals new pam spray pump. as king midas, i eand so should you.uarantee. on struts, brakes, shocks. does he turn everything to gold? not everything. now get $100 back on a 2-axle brake service with your midas credit card. book an appointment online. or a little internet machine? it makes you wonder: shouldn't we get our phones and internet from the same company? that's why xfinity mobile comes with your internet. you get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. so all you pay for is data. see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of ne

what comes after raqqah? >> well, you know it does seem at this point that the recapture of the city of raqqah, the de facto capital of isis, seems to be imminent. that's a huge blow to the terror group, but at the same time, the fighting is not over. a lot of focus right now on eastern syria and that desert, oil rich province and also in the iraqi syrian border region where a lot of militants have moved in months. there has been a race to recapture that part of the country, syrian regime backed by russian air power, and the other hand, you have the u.s. led coalition and that is expected to be a tough fight on both sides of the border, also in anbar province, in iraq, and those areas that are still under isis control. but, again, it would seem -- you're seeing city after city are collapsing, being recaptured by forces both in iraq and syria, so as u.s. officials would say, the days of isis as a group that controls territory are numbered. but that doesn't mean the end of isis this terror group, that is so let

we are aware of the reports that isis has been defeated in raqqah.owever, clearance operations continue and we expect our syrian democratic force partners to hit pockets of resistance as the final parts of the city is cleared. >> reporter: just three years ago, isis rolled down the streets of raqqah bringing terror. today's celebrations on those very same streets represent a stark contrast. a female commander of the syrian democratic forces waving a flag to mark the victory over the terror group that has committed countless atrocities against women. in the past few days, some 350 isis fighters have surrendered, leaving behind an estimated 100 militants in a desolate city now reduced to rubble. u.s.-backed syrian democratic forces have helped approximately 3,000 civilians to flee to safety. their dangerous mission now, clearing raqqah of improvised explosive devices left behind. >> we must clear the remnants of all of the explosives that have been left in raqqah throughout this battle. >> reporter: u.s. officials believe that senior isis leaders, incl

in northern syria, and right near raqqah.s there during the handover and the importance of the cite of the ceremony. >>reporter: well, understandably, especially among the fighters who had lost so many of their fellow fighters during the fighting, it was very significant. the syrian democratic forces finally handing over control of raqqah, although they will still continue to secure it to the ro raqqah civilian council. they can't restore until it's completely clear of mines. the ceremony is happening at the stadium where isis made its final stance and it's also a location they used as a prison. in fact it's main prison, we were told. >> let me go to nick. you were what, one of the first into the hold city, the old part, ancient part of raqqah earlier this year. just when it was being lipper liberated. what are you now seeing in raqqah's center? are you get ag clear fic picture? >> reporter: it's hard to tell because the most staggering thing about that city is is there are no people. the only people we came awere the fighter

. >>> overseas the battle of the city of raqqah continues. holly williams has our report. >> reporter: the u.s.-backed syrian militia group that is leading the fight on the ground in raqqah says victory is just days away. isis is thought to have around 255 left in the city and they're holed up in just a handful of buildings including the city's main hospital and a sports stadium. we just spent two days with those fighters. a u.s. special operations commander here in syria told us that around 2,000 civilians are still trapped in the city. they are unable to escape the small area still controlled by isis gunmen. now, raqqah was a place where isis revelled in its own brutality, kaishing out public bee headings, and revealing its leaders to be bloodthirsty killers. the loss of raqqah is obviously symbolic because it was a so-called isis capital, but along with the loss of other towns and cities in syria and iraq, it may also weak about the group's ability to carry out terror attacks both in the middle east and elsewhere. holly williams, cbs news

arwa damian inside raqqah for us with the latest. arwa? >> take a look at destruction around us.ne of the main squares in rack ka and it was here where isis would carry out its public beheadings and executions and put the heads of its victims on these spikes. a gruesome, chilling reminder to anyone who walked by what their fate could be if they even dared to defy isis' rule. a handful of fighters around us. they're actually from the female unit of the syrian democratic forces, backed by the u.s.-led coalition, and they're very proud of their role in this. they say that women had to play and did play a significant role in the liberation of raqqah because isis was so oppressive towards women and, in fact, this very square is where they would often have the open air slave market, the woman slave market, where they would sell and buy the ya zeedies they captured or others who they considered to be infidels. they described the battle and the final battle was waged in these neighborhoods, as being multilayered. you had the fighting that was tking place in the sky, the drone war, both s

of raqqah, there is also a new challenge hitting refugee camps.ters and their families now living next to those who fled the violence, forcing coordinators to walk a fine line between offering mercy and maintaining security. cnn senior international correspondent arwa damon has this report. >> reporter: the majority of civilians who fled raqqah did end up at this sprawling refugee camp, and you'll notice that those tents just below us are isolated from the rest of the population, and they are being kept under armed guard. no one is allowed to freely come in and go, and that is because these are among the last families to flee, many of them we are told suspected of being the families of isis fighters, those hard core fighters that stayed until the very end, but also amongst them a fair number of civilian families who are being held hostage by isis, but until they can all be thoroughly vetted, the kurdish authorities here do want to make sure they are not going to be posing any further threat. in fact, the tents get searched every single night and t

president donald trump. >>> plus, isis is defeated in raqqah, syria. but residents there can't return home. why that stli be so tough to rebuild, as "newsroom" pushes on. >>> the u.s. secretary of defense is in asia, discussing the growing tensions with north korea. james mattis kicked off his week-long trip in the philippines. that's where he is meeting with his counterparts from the association of southeast asian nations. speaking with reporters earlier, mattis emphasized diplomacy as a way to de-escalate the crisis. listen. >> we will be talking about how we reinforce diplomatic efforts to resolve this campaign to try to return a denuclearized korean peninsula, and also how we're going to maintain peace by keeping our militaries alert while our diplomats, japanese, south korean and u.s., work with all the nations to denuclearize the korean peninsula. >> mattis's trip comes just a few weeks before the u.s. president's first trip to asia. as the u.s. president prepare futures that trip, he discussed north korea and its nuclear program in an interview

backing that kicked isis out of raqqah.etty hollow victory because raqqah was never really was a kurdish town. they were used to kick isis out. it's been absolutely damaged beyond recognition now. sadly the issue is, who can rebuild, is there enough american attention and money to make that actually happen, and potentially is there a risk, the syrian regime, not far away, may try to take it or those local populations who had some sympathies with isis, end up coming back in and allow jihadists there to have some sort of foothold again. huge questions but also absolute total devastation for that city. we did not see one civilian in the entire time we were there. just the fighters who kicked isis out. john, poppy. >> a tragic violent past but a precarious future. nick paton walsh, thanks so much. >>> a perfect ten, that is how the president rates himself when it comes to the response to hurricane maria and puerto rico. the mayor of san juan, she has a different number in mind. when did you see the sign? when i needed to create

remember, raqqah was the first major city to fall to isis.f its self-declared caliphate and now isis can no longer at least make that claim. significant losses territorially but that does not necessarily mean the end, the defeat of the organization itself, kate. >> question of what it all means going forward, a huge question for all of the leaders on the ground and here in the united states. great to see you, arwa. thank you so much. we'll bring you updated statements when they come. this we're following today, most americans believe the president of the united states is leading the country right now in the wrong direction. not all bad news for the president. especially when you look at his own party right now. details on that ahead. years of citi history matter to you? well, because it tells us something powerful about progress: that whether times are good or bad, people and their ideas will continue to move the world forward. as long as they have someone to believe in them. citi financed the transatlantic cable that connected continents. an

. >>> plus, victory in raqqah. u.s.-backed militia declared the total liberation of the de facto capital of isis. live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta, welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm george howell. "cnn newsroom" starts right now. 4:00 a.m. on the u.s. east coast. the u.s. president and the white house both standing by the chief of staff, john kelly, despite his false claims about a u.s. congresswoman. the press secretary even going as far as calling -- questioning kelly highly inappropriate. our sara murray has this report for us. >> 2 the president's response to a u.s. soldier in niger, developing into a political brawl. trump taking to twitter again to blast the congresswoman who accused him of being insensitive in a conference call when he told the widow of sergeant la david johnson that her husband knew what he got into when he signed up to serve. the fake news is going crazy with wacky congresswoman wilson who was secretly on a very personal call and gave a to

we do begin with breaking news this morning out of raqqah. isis' self-described capital, the city has been liberated. u.s. backed forces in full control working on clearing the city of sleeper cells if they exist and mines. we are on top of this story and we will have a live report in a moment. >> a significant milestone to say the least. there is also a major development within the trump administration. just a short time ago the president announced a key position, a position needed to battle the opioid crisis will not be filled right now. the nominee for drug zarqawi congressman tom marino is withdrawing his name after revelations he was the main proponent of legislation that limits the dea's ability to fight the crisis. cnn's sunlen serfaty joins us with that. >> john, some pretty quick action after that scathing "60 minutes" and washington "post" report. it was sunday when that hit. the president announcing tom marino has withdrawn his name. something that president trump not only tweeted about but spoke about on fox radio. here's a small

. >>> there are multiple reports that the isis capital raqqah has fallen. holly williams is there where u.s.-backed forces are celebrating. >>> women around the world say me too online revealing how they endured sexual harassment or assault. gretchen carlson is in studio 57 with her playbook to help women fight back. >>> dozens of cities are competing for amazon's new led quarters and 50,000 new jobs. the areas with the best chances of willing and some say it's not worth the price. >>> we begin with a look at today's eye opener, your world in 90 seconds. >>> we're probably now i think at least as far as i'm concerned closer than before. >> the president plays both sides with mcconnell and bannon. >> i have a good relationship as you know with steve bannon. i like steve a lot. steve is doing what steve thinks is the right thing. >> standing next to mitch mcconnell as he's saying it. >> winners make policy. losers go home. >> time is up for isis in raqqa. >> u.s.-backed kurdish forces retaking the isis stronghold. >>> tom marino is no longer being considered

recently in raqqah, they used a children's hospital as a fortified headquarters. the stabilization efforts in mosul and in talafar are ongoing and they will take some time. the reestablishment of both institutions and essential services are critical to insure that residents are able to begin to rebuild their lives. this has been a particular focus of the counter-isil defense ministers meetings that have occurred in relation to progress, mr. president. australia's commitment to the coalition continues. and we will continue to support iraq and its security forces so that they can defeat daesh, keep their people safe -- >> thank you. the time for answering the question has expired. >> supplemental question. >> can the minister advise the senate how the defense force is contributing to the campaign against daesh. >> i want to particularly acknowledge the men and women of the atf who continue to make a very significant contribution to the international counter daesh coalition in support of the iraqi security forces, mr. president. over 26,500 iraqi army trainees have g

>>> and in the battle for raqqah, u.s. led coalition forces say they are eroding the isis stronghold in syria. >>> thanks for joining us, everyone. pleasure to have you with us. i'm cyril vanier. >> i'm natalie allen. it is 5:00 a.m. on the u.s. east coast. we would like to say, it is primetime somewhere in the world. "cnn newsroom" starts right now. >>> harvey weinstein's fall from grace continues. the movie mogul has been kicked out of the film industry's most elite group, the academy of motion picture arts and sciences, best known for hosting the oscars. the academy says the allegations against weinstein caused him to lose the respect of his colleagues. >> weinstein has already been fired from his namesake company amid dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct for decades. he was one of the most powerful men in hollywood. and now increasingly a pariah. our brian stelter takes a look at the motion picture academy's decision and what it means to the industry as a whole. >> reporter: the harvey weinstein scandal has been

this victory in raqqah and the previous victory in mosul have been major advances. give us a reality check on the ground there. there are still thousands of isis fighters in these two countries alone? >> reporter: you're so right. years of fighting isis, countless victories and the u.s. military estimate 6,000 militants out there in syria and here in iraq. helping in the battle are 6,000 military personnel who know they have had many victories but the war against isis is yet to be won. david. >>> much more ahead on "world news tonight". severe weather at this hour for a huge part of the country where storms are set to hit this evening. >>> also, a new warning after a father of four was killed when young people threw boulders from an overpass. >>> your money tonight. if you're in the market for a new car, why these final months of the year might be your answer and what you should ask. >>> the message about julia louis-dreyfus and her personal battle against cancer. . time for medicare, huh. i have no idea how we're going to get through this. follow me. choosing a pla

the fall of raqqah is significant. strategically, it was a recruiting hub, and also psychologically and symbolically. it was their self-declared capital. now that it's close to falling. officials are telling us that there is about 10% left that isis still controls. yesterday they controlled 15%. it's falling concludely. it's going to hurt recruiting. the number of foreign fighters entering their caliphate all but stopped to a trickle. you are seeing in each of these cities that have fallen that isis did control is you are seeing fighters surrendering. in the last 96 hours some 350 isis fighters surrendered. you compare that to what happened in mosul. it was a fight to the death. mosul took place it started about a year ago, it fell over the summer. the battle for raqqah has been taking place about four months. every city seems to be falling a little bit faster. one thing they haven't figured out here at the pentagon or the state department or even the white house is what happens next. you have seen the tensions in iraq

-backed forces in the city of raqqah isis filmed itself celebrating when it rolled into raqqah three years ago. today the table was turned u.s.-backed forces in the same spot [ cheers ] there was some public cheering, too, but most people in this battered city are long gone. this was perhaps the most feared place on earth with frequent public executions. it was a base for isis to plot terrorist attacks including, intelligence services say, the attack on the bataclan theater in paris and the istanbul airport as well as to hold and murder hostages including american james foley. the city was freed by mostly kurdish forces helped by u.s. special ops and coalition air strikes. now with the loss of raqqah and the iraqi city of mosul this summer, isis' territory has shrunk from the size of virginia to a few scattered areas >> isis still maintains an ability to launch smaller scale terrorist attacks. but i think their future as a large-scale fighting force will largely end with the fall of raqqah >>> the qatari foreign minister fold as soon told cnbc the blockade of his country is hurting i

arwa damon, cnn, raqqah, syria. >> we'll be right back.tell us your big idea for getting the whole country booking on choice hotels.com. four words, badda book. badda boom... let it sink in. shouldn't we say we have the lowest price? nope, badda book. badda boom. have you ever stayed with choice hotels? like at a comfort inn? yep. free waffles, can't go wrong. i like it. promote that guy. get the lowest price on our rooms, guaranteed. when you book direct at choicehotels.com. book now. kyle, we talked about this. there's no monsters. but you said they'd be watching us all the time. no, no. no, honey, we meant that progressive would be protecting us 24/7. we just bundled home and auto and saved money. that's nothing to be afraid of. -but -- -good night, kyle. [ switch clicks, door closes ] ♪ i told you i was just checking the wiring in here, kyle. he's never like this. i think something's going on at school. -[ sighs ] -he's not engaging. i think something's going on at school. so, verizon and google have teamed up on the pixel 2. it's a ma

raqqah was the de facto isis capital for more than three years.up isn't finished in iraq and syria, but its grip is crumbling. take a look at the map. it shows the territory held back in 2014 compared to what it now holds. >> the battle for raqqah was raged for many months. we now have extraordinary footage, a look at some of that fighting. cnn has exclusive helmet cam footage from a filmmaker who was embedded with anti-isis troops our phil black has this report. >> reporter: this is one man's immitt revealing view of the battle for raqqah. brazilian flim make gabriel shy followed them for almost two months as they went on to take an apartment complex in the city's southwest. he shared the same risks. the fighter's company and friendship. and their quiet reflective moments. scheid left his helmet cam rolling through it all. as these fighters out of u.s.-backed syrian forces talked to isis from its self-declared capital. chaima spent months with them. speaking from syria, he explained why the battle for raqqah was different. >> mostly there was lik

we spent two days inside raqqah with american-backed militiamen. they say they're days away from victory. the drive from the front lines of raqqah is at break-necking speed in humvees because still lurks in this broken down city. isis fighters are holed up in what used to be raqqah's main hospital. they spot movement, and these u.s.-backed militia men opened fire. but fighting here has been sporadic for days because they don't want to destroy what's left of the hospital and because isis has human shields. in this skeleton of a city. it's thought 2,000 civilians are still trapped. mike hogan is from phoenix, arizona, and worked as a waiter before he volunteered to fight with the syrian militiamen. he told us how one of his comrades fell to isis. >> he got shot by a sniper. there is risk. in his chest. >> he died in front of you. >> he spent two hours lying there before they stabilized after he keeled over. >> reporter: one squalid corner is reserved for the wives of isis fighters and their children. mohammed ramadan is just 13 and told us isis train

raqqah is essentially fallen is isis. the last two strongholds, the stadium and hospital, are now under the control of the u.s.-backed syrian forces. and they are now clearing things like bobby traps and mines, maybe sleeper cells, prisoners of war taken, most of them foreign fighters. but as you'll see from the aerial drone shots we are about to show you, the spoils of that victory are, well, a heap of rubble. it's a defeat for isis, but, of course, it is not a surprise. it was only a matter of not if but when, a matter of time. but look, it's a huge symbolic victory. the city itself as you can see, it means nothing, it is just rubble, but this was the isis capital in syria. the joint center along with mosul and iraq of the caliphate held by isis for three years. remember, they took control in june 2014. thousands of u.s. air strikes in the year since, but it wasn't until this year that the offensive to retake the city began. and it was this place of horror where foreign hostages were brutally beheaded. and now it's gone

operations in raqqah to moscow's campaign near the syrian city of darazur.said it took forces less time to free the stronghold, but it doesn't appear that the area is completely liberated. isis remains a threat that there and both russian and u.s. troops shared the battlefield there. nick patton walsh has the story. >> reporter: this may be where al baghdadi is hiding but probably wish he wasn't. russian and sources pound but they aren't alone in the skies or on the ground here. banking hard and keeping out of the russians' way are u.s. jets. assisting these u.s.-backed kurdish fighters to take the nearby countryside from isis just the day before. isis, collapsing, leaving in their wake an almost cold war standoff. isis may be holding out in a pocket of a down of deir ezzor, but they've been kicked out too of this area by american-backed kurdish sdf forces. now, they've had vanced to this river here which puts them meters away from the syrian regime who are backed by russian air power. we're told, in fact these kurdish american-backed forces have held face-t

backed forces seize complete control of raqqah, the de facto capital of isis. while the terrorist group is still dangerous, they no longer have that safe haven. >> good morning, everyone. it's wednesday, october 18th. well, after president trump's executive orders threaten to spike premiums and throw health care into jeopardy, republican lamar alexander and democrat murray are nearing an agreement uncompromised. >> the next step is to take the first step that would avoid the chaos that could occur in 2018 and 2019. >> chairman alexander and i were able able to find common ground on a number of steps to stabilize the markets and protect families from premium spikes as a result of things we have seen from this administration. >> what it would do is fund the affordable care act, let people with catastrophic funding plans, while making it easier for states to get aca waivers, getting rid of the so-called lines. senate minority leader chuck schumer said the senatepresiden executive orders help bring negotiations to the table. speaking at a heritage foundation dinner

but that they can somehow rebuild the fabric of cities of societies like raqqah.ers, they need to break the cycle of violence. the children that you see here, they have known nothing but the isis way of life for the last four or five years. they have known nothing but brutality. nothing but fear. nothing but that kind of violence. and they need to be shown something else. they need to be shown a different way of life. and that is why it is so crucial that the reconstruction effort, when it can begin in raqqah, has the kind of international support that it needs to be successful. otherwise, the risk is that the cycles of violence continue. there's some part of a security vacuum in something like isis or worse could re-emerge. >> arwa damon, thank you very much for that very compelling look how the war against isis is improving to a new and different pace. >>> terror in tampa, after a third person was found dead in the seminole heights neighborhood in florida. now, officials believe all three murders are related. we'll have the latest on the investigation, ahead. in

isis fighters now all but driven out from raqqah. these celebrations in the same square where isis took over the city three years ago, making it their capital. but look at the isis fighters now. some will be held as specialty foreign fighters, but others will be free to rejoin their families. the u.s. provided training, weapons and aerial support. but it's local people who have done the fighting and dying. we joined them this summer as the battle for raqqah was raging. as they dodged snipers and suicide bombers. these are the fighters that the u.s. coalition is working with, they are the foot soldiers moving to their forward base. now, women allowed to show their faces on the streets for the first time in years. but the destruction is so vast, it will take years to rebuild. and more than 6,000 isis militants are still out there, ready to go underground, regroup, fight and die. the celebration is hard-fought, but a reminder tonight, the group remains a potent force underground. plotting and recruiting online. and the isis leader alrea

heather: let's talk about largest oil field from isis, also in raqqah, explain the importance of what'soing on there? >> the oil field is important because they made a lot of money selling oil, that's a lot of part how they financed the operations, islamic states, caliphate, now that they have been cut down in raqqah, they are gone from that city that's no longer the capital and they no longer have a way to go ahead and pay people, foreign fighters are not going to come there to help them. they basically lost a massive defeat both to operations and in the prop granda war, recruiting will go down and this is going to deal a serious blow to them. heather: who do you credit with the strides that we seem to be taking now in terms of combating isis particularly in syria? >> i think this is a direct result of president trump's renewed focus and changes to rules of engagement. he allowed our troops to do what they needed to do, he allowed them to target isis locations whereas previously they had been forbidden to do that if there was any possibility of civilian casualties, he cut loose the dog

david david john, the fact that we got them out of raqqah that was their home base, decaptize. >> isis was never the threat that people filled it up to be in the first place. i would add, i don't think we have a military spending problem in the first place, what we have a problem of is rather than performing national defense, our military defense much of the world and it's a shame. david: rich, you saw the military spending going down in terms of trend line and now going up in terms of trend line from what trump wants to do and it seems to be paying up, no? >> it needs to go up. congratulations for the military for triumph in raqqah but one war that we cannot afford to lose in generation is technology war with china and they are going pedal to the metal and that is why we have to increase military spending particularly around technology and r&d and not pull back. david: we did it against soviet union and worked there. isis is not just in iraq and syria and indications that it's growing in places like philippines and africa as well. >> when you decapitate one gang, two more take place,

taking raqqah was huge.t has a huge symbolic victory, i think, to put the spike in the heart of the isis movement. that was their headquarters. that was their headquarters of their caliphate. this was a big important moment. we're going to have a long fight with isis. and i hope the president understands that this is going to be long. >> the president says isis is giving up, throwing their hands in the air, walking off the battlefield. this was reminiscent to me in 2012 when president obama was at a fund-raiser talking about how al qaeda was on the run. and of course, it changed names and metastasizes and moves elsewhere. is president trump making the exact same mistake when he says something so dramatic now? >> i think we're going to see the challenge. as we have said for the last two years, and this is something i have repeated multiple times. it's not technically the fight against isis that's going to be the challenge that would occur. it's what's going to occur after we defeat isis. we currently see some

richard engel reports the forces raise their flag over the base in raqqah. isis filmed itself celebrating three years ago. this is what you are seeing on the screen. that victory really weakened isis. >> isis still maintains an ability to launch smaller scare terrorist attacks. i think their future is a large scale fighting force and will largely end with the fall of raqqah. >> isis does remain dangerous, but is less effective without a safe haven to train and plot. >> the population is growing in america. overnight, we pour through the data of the center for immigration studies. immigration population hit 43 million people last year, not including children. in 2010, there were 40 million immigrants and 31 million in 2000. the data includes legal and illegal immigrants. that means 1 in every 5 people in the u.s. are immigrants. by the way, there are more than 373 million people living in this country. >>> thor authorities are targeting a napa valley victim that nearly lost his home. a parlor owned in hayward. surveilness cameras show three men breaking in. l

we're watching carefully with the fall of raqqah and mosul what the enemy will do. that's one of the reasons i have 75 chiefs of defense, one of the representatives here is to talk about the next phase of the campaign. i described it as an inflection point. one of the places we know isis has aspirations to establish a larger presence is in africa. we know how important libya and the sinai have been to the islamic state. we know how much they have tried to get into east africa and the scenario we're talking about here in west africa. we're going to talk about it and make recommendations to the secretary and the president for the allocations of forces that meet what we see as a threat, what we anticipate the threat to be. but i certainly wouldn't talk about what we'll do tomorrow at this moment. >> for now, have the combatant commanders or chiefs made any recommendation to the white house to change troop numbers, tempo, r.o.e.? has the white house spoken with you? >> one thing i would tell you just to make sure that we're clear, we get requests for capabilities on a r

-led coalition says there will be no deal to let isis fighters with draw from raqqah before it's liberatedians are strapped there. >>> and holly williams has a story of an american teenager who made it out. >> reporter: on the edge of raqqah these women have just escaped isis territory when whun of them reveals she's american. >> i'm from kansas. i've been in syria for five years. >> she's just 15 years old and says she was brought to syria by her father against her will. >> my father, of course, he didn't tell us that we were coming to syria. when it was time to get out of the car and cross the border, he was like, you're going to syria, yeah, it was a really big shock. >> her fiancee was later killed, she said, leaving her to fend for herself. she's a devout muslim but hated isis. >> we were prisoners. we were just, you know, quiet, shut up, sit down, you're in your house, you have nothing to say, be glad your head isn't chopped off. >> this blog previously written by her mother shows the girl in happier times, a seemingly normal american family. because she's still a minor, we're not re

unfortunately the syrian regime hindered the efforts to liberate raqqah. pro regime forces attacked our partners and attempted to block them from liberating the syrian people from the brutality of isis. while we know isis and its destructive ideology will remain a threat, the liberation of raqqah will mark the beginning of a new phase in the syrian conflict. as we and our partners take away the ability of isis to plot and carry out attacks from territory they control, we will continue to seek the de-escalation of violence in other battle fields across syria. looking ahead to tomorrow, we will be welcoming governor rocello of puerto rico to the white house to talk about the ongoing recovery and rebuilding efforts. we will continue working hand in hand with local leaders in all areas of our country that have been impacted by several natural disasters in recent months. as president trump has repeatedly said, we stand with our fellow citizens. we're here to help and get them back on their feet. with that i will take your questions. quiet. john. >> sarah, the p