. our guest, president trump's national security advisor, general h.r. mcmaster. should the president consult with congress first? we'll ask two leading senators whether the president needs congress' approval and the confirmation of neil gorsuch to the supreme court. senators ben cardin and john cornyn join us. we'll ask our sunday familiar how donald trump is handling his first big foreign policy task. our power player of the week, the former head of u.s. special forces on what we should do in syria. >> we cannot sit by and see this carnage occurring in syria and do nothing. the trump administration says it's prepared to do more after this week's missile barrage and a syrian air base meant to deter bashar al-assad from using chemical weapons against his own people. in a few minutes we'll ask one of the key figures who helped president trump plan the attack, general h.r. mcmaster. but first let's bring in kristin fisher live from palm beach with the latest from the southern white house. reporter: residents of the same syrian town hit in that chemical weapons attack said war planes hav

guest, president trump's national security advisor general h.r. mcmaster and his first television interview since taking office. the "fox news sunday" exclusive. then, should the president consult with congress first? we will ask two leading senators whether the president needs congress' approval and about the confirmation of neil gorsuch to the supreme court after senate republicans invoked the nuclear options. senators john cornyn of texas and ben cardin of maryland, only on "fox news sunday." thus, mr. trump's sharp break with president obama as commander in chief. we will ask our sunday panel how donald trump is handling his first big foreign policy task. and a power player of the week, the former head of u.s. special forces on what we should do in syria. >> we cannot justify and see this mass migration and see the carnage that is occurring in syria and do nothing. >> chris: all right now on "fox news sunday" ." and hello again from fox news in washington. the trump administration says it's prepared to do more after this week's missile barrage on the syrian air base meant to d

general mcmaster. then, the democrats pushed back. >> >> the next 100 days will be just like the first. >> we will discuss taxes, the health care in economy when senate democratic leader chuck schumer. it's a "fox news sunday" exclusive. plus north korea defies the world with another missile test as president trump issues this stark warning. if >> president trump: a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with north korea. absolutely. >> chris: we will ask our sunday panel if there's a way for president trump to halt north korea's nuclear program. and our power player of the week, using high tech to solve crimes. all right now on "fox news sunday" ." >> chris: and hello again from fox news in washington. president trump capped his 100th day in office with a rally last night in harrisburg, pennsylvania, touting his accomplishments while the press corps was back in washington for the white house correspondents dinner, mr. trump was with thousands of supporters and he wasn't subtle about it. >> president trump: i could not possibly be more thrilled then to be more than

of those foreign visitors, national security adviser h.r. mcmaster. "after u.s. talks with afghanistan hit a harder line on pakistan the talks between the united states and afghanistan wrapped up on sunday as the trunk administration reviewed its options in the 15 year american presence in the face of a resurgent taliban and. lieutenant general h.r. mcmaster met with afghan leaders ghaniding president ashraf the bombthe days after was dropped in afghanistan. thein afghanistan, strengthening of the taliban in interview with the afghan television channel, general mcmaster said what is necessary at this point is to consolidate gains and to deal with what is a big security problem now. obviously picking up from the issues that the obama administration had with the taliban." do you think, as they reassess policy in afghanistan, what do you think is ahead? guest: it is very important that we engage the afghans and the pakistanis at the senior level. , a. mcmaster, of course veteran of two or's -- of tours in afghanistan. he and i were there together. he knows the states. -- stake

downgraded. h.r. mcmaster, the adviser, has been given responsibility for setting the agenda for the homeland security houn sicounci. the negotiations were going on about mcmaster becoming the adviser after the resignation of michael flynn. this was thought to be a condition of mcmaster. he is not going to take the job unlus ess he has the authority run the thing. the questions a lot of people had, were how will he do that with bannon in the room. having a presidential adviser in the room is unprecedented. it felt like the presidential eye in the national security council. this is a big piece of news. i'm joined by an opinion writer with the "washington post" to shed some light on this. bannon being on the nsc was always the issue. >> it was. this would be highly political. someone with no foreign policy experience. he was in the navy years ago. his views are extreme on the part of republicans, as well as democrats. was he going to politicize the foreign policy process? this is a big moment for mcmaster. it shows he is taking control. it shows that the president trusts him enough to

security adviser, lieutenant mcmaster, spoke to that very issue today. >> it's prudent to do it, isn't it? north korea has been engaged in a pattern of provocative behavior. this is a rogue regime that is now a nuclear capable regime. president xi and president trump agreed that is unacceptable. that what must happen is the denuclearization of the korean peninsula. the president has asked us to be prepared to give a full range of options to remove that threat of the american people to our allies and partners in the region. >> the military has been producing options for some time to deal with the north korean problem. this has been an ongoing problem extending back decades even with their nuclear program. that being said one of the ftop generals recently told congress that china was going to be critical to any solution to the north korea problem and this is something president trump just met with president xi. president trump had said the u.s. was prepared to undertake it alone but we're seeing that china will be critical to solving this challenge. >> thank you. will ripley insid

the national security council. it looks like nsc director general mcmaster finally had it with the self-styled leninist, talking government desz construction and using the nsc as his political playground. a big win for grown-ups. how about this afternoon's rose garden assault on syria? looks like trump has got military action at the ready. that chemical attack on those kids may have changed everything. third, how long can this president play sha harrah zaud, spinning out one story after another to shift attention from his russian dealings? one of the major knocks on donald trump from his opponents during the campaign was that he lacked the temperament to handle international emergencies. let's watch. >> on foreign policy, donald trump is temperamentally unfit. >> donald trump has proven himself to be temperamentally unfit and unqualified to be president of the united states. >> i wake up every day and laugh at the latest thing donald has tweeted because he's losing it. i mean we're liable to wake up one morning and donald, if he were present, would have nuked denmark. >> well, toda

. mcmaster. >> reporter: foreign policy challenges are testing this trump presidency unlike they have in the first 11 weeks in office. steve bannon the president's chief strategist named in the early days of the administration was suddenly on wednesday removed from that program's committee. this is saying general h.r. mcmaster, is kpexerting his influence, bannon taken off the committee and two other people put back on restructuring the national security counseling. dan coats and general joseph dunford are returning to the national security council. steve bannon stepping aside. this again is seen as a major shakeup because steve bannon one of the largely most influnstial people will still be involved of course but by not having a seat at the table which was very unusual at time is certainly giving more power to h.r. mcmaster, so a bit of inside baseball staff changing but so significant that steve bannon we are told having a more diminished role in the new national security adviser empowered again. >>> a long political advisor for the president. he's not out of the mix, an offici

advisor, hr mcmaster, asserting control over the national security in the white house, and pushing aside political aides that were put in place in the beginning of the trump administration. and so we see now a more regular national security process that does not have the chief political strategist of the president sitting in national security meetings, and that is a positive step. it was amazing in washington when he was first appointed. he has no foreign policy and national security credentials. he is not sidelined, though, he will still have a say and will be an observer. yes. i think there has been a lot of hyperbole around this move. it is an important and good step, but we should not read too much into this as if steve bannon is 110w much into this as if steve bannon is now completely sidelined from national security decision—making. as you noted, just today, even though he is no longer on the principle is committee, it was reported that he attended a national security meeting. it is not like he has been completely sidelined. what we do see scenes hr mcmaster took overfor we

. mcmaster in charge. panel, andping this moving the pieces around a little bit to shape it the way he wants it to be. charlie: is this something -- obviously, the president had to approve this. did it play a hand, as far as you know? jennifer: i was told that president trump did not -- was not comfortable with his chief strategist having a high position on this printable committee. he was not comfortable with it. but, not so uncomfortable with it that he ordered a change right away. yes, this was all run through president trump. the order was action. yesterday, fairly quietly. there was a press release, no word about it. it did not come to light into my sources told me about it this morning. charlie: can you make the case that it is a loss of power for steve bannon? jennifer: it is. it definitely is. he no longer is part of this executive committee, this principals committee of the national security council. listen, not a whole lot will change for steve bannon. authority to go, but he had not chosen to go. he is still part of the larger national security council. to a meetingent to

national security advisor and general hr mcmaster's in, 0 bannon is no longer needed. a source telling nbc news bannon only does the foreign leader things that are vital, but that caught our attention since the kingdom of jordan is vital to the united states and here's bannon in january with u.k.'s prime minister and in february with the japanese prime minister and three days later with the canadian prime minister. in fact, steve bannon has been at all other trump press conferences except for today's. with me rosie gray white house correspondent for the atlantic, she's writing a book about breitbart news, and the what washington post and nbc political analyst. bob, first to you. what happened? >> steve bannon has been at the president's side for quite sometime and he's been part of this national security council principals committee. there are differing points of view in the white house about why this all came about. bannon's allies say as you have reported, that he was no longer needed to be an eye on general flynn, that mcmaster, h.r. mcmaster, the respected army general, is taking over

new national security advisor, h.r. mcmaster who was very clear that he wanted to be able to bring in his own team. put together his own top officials on the national security council. and so we're seeing the result of that. also important though, andrea, i'm being told that steve bannon will continue to serve in many of the top meetings here at the white house. he is still going to be one of the president's closest advisors. his reaction to this, according to a source close to steve bannon, he sees himself as someone working in the war room, carrying out the president's agenda, and this is no different, but still a lot of fast moving developments today as the president gets set to meet with the king of jordan. >> let's talk about this, because the politics of it are pretty transparent. you had michael flynn, and bannon, placed on the principals committee, and this is the elevation people have been waiting for, for mcmaster to take charge. before it happened there was a overruling of mcmaster on a fairly junior point, tappointme. well, he was removed by or mcmaster tries to remove

security adviser h.r. mcmaster in afghanistan where some 2400 americans have lost their lives since the start of the war over 15 years ago. the visit comes just days after the u.s. dropped the biggest nonnuclear weapon in its arsenal targeting a complex where isis militants were based. our pentagon correspondent has more. >> reporter: h.r. mcmaster getting close to the point of impact of the so-called mother of all bombs which collapsed terrorist tunnels and killed dozens of isis fighters. it is sending political shock waves across the country. former president hamid karzai demanded that the u.s. leave afghanistan and called his successor a traitor, tweeting, it is upon us, afghans, to stop the usa. mcmaster's delicate diplomatic mission publicly bolstered the current government still fighting a relentless insurgency. >> what is clear is that the stakes are high. this is the modern day frontier between barbarism and civilization. >> reporter: president donald trump is now considering his generals' request to add a few thousand more troops to the almost 9,000 already in afghanistan. >> n

deoperationalized. general mcmaster has returned to nsc to its proper function. last night vice president mike pence said the changes were nothing out of the ordinary. >> i think the president's action, adding the chairman of the joint chiefs, adding the director of national intelligence and moving a couple of our senior personnel off the national security council simply represents a very routine evolution of the national security team around the president. >> so it's not a demotion for steve bannon? >> not for steve, not for tom. these are highly valued members of the administration "new york times" reports several associates quietly expressed annoyance that about the credit bannon received for setting up the agenda. and he wasn't happy about the puppet master theme promoted by late night talk shows. bannon was absent from yesterday's news conference having attended all others during the trump administration. a source says bannon only does the things that are vital and health care was vital yesterday. "the new york times" says bannon resisted the move and even threatened to qui

response to north korea's missile test. now, general h.r. mcmaster, the national security adviser, described this as a prudent ma nu -- maneuver. >> it's prudent to do it. north korea has been engaged in a pattern of provocative behavior. this is a rogue regime that is now a nuclear capable regime. president xi and president trump agreed that is unacceptable. that what must happen is the denuclearization of the korean peninsula. so the president has asked us to be prepared to give him a full range of options to remove that threat to the american people and to our allies and partners in the region. >> the military as long prepared options for the north korea challenge, but of course it's a challenge that's taken place over the course of many years and some of these options are more complex than others. the u.s. has been moving more and more missile defense into korea in recent weeks last month deploying initial parts of the missile defense system which is controversial with beijing. even military officials themselves are saying there's no solution to the north korea problem without

nonmilitarily, right? >> you heard it from general mcmaster saying all options are on the table saying that president trump has made it quite clear that the u.s. and its allies and partners in asia will not accept this continued threat from a hostile regime, so in that vein, the national security council is working alongside the pentagon, the state department as well as the intelligence communities to really draft up plans to determine what the options are. but despite that, general mcmaster did stress that they want to handle this peacefully. that will be the ideal to stop short of any armed contradict. mcmaster also talked with kim jong-un and the fact that rogue leader has really put the whole world on edge. >> what are the big concerns here, general mcmaster, is how north korea would respond to aggressive action or some sort of preemptive strike. how do you think they would respond? >> well, that's what's particularly difficult about dealing with this regime and it is unpredictable. this is someone who's demonstrated his brutality by murdering his own brother, by imprisoning large numbe

ardent trump critics admit aren't mcmaster and general mattis at the pentagon. i think mcmaster played a role here. kennedy: he got the larger share of the power scoop. >> if you bring in somebody of that stature and say i'm not going to listen to him. then it actually just looks bad for the administration. it's early in the process. ban noon role is secure, i don't think that's change. but when you are talking about the nsc, these are career experts in their field. to bring in somebody from the outside who doesn't have a particular expertise in national security at all is going to be an awkward situation. this is nothing but good. everyone should be happy about this. kennedy: is it a failure on began noon's part? >> i don't think he belonged on the principal's committee at the nsc. kennedy: do you think bannon lobbied for it because he knows that's the concentrated power nexus. if that were the most important decisions are made? >> on national security matters smith's advisory. the most important decisions tend to be made in the oval office by a small group of advisers. the nsc is muc

on the ground in syria. but a new report from "bloomberg view" says h.r. mcmaster, trump's national security adviser, may be pushing for just that. american ground troops in syria. potentially tens of thousands of them, according to the report. obviously, something that would be a major shift in president trump's middle east policy. would also mark a new chapter in u.s. intervention in the middle east. eli lake wrote that piece from "bloomberg joins us from washington. eli, thanks for taking a few minutes. lay this out first. you say mcmaster is making the case for ground troops. how many does he want? what's the case he's making? >> there are no hard numbers at this point. there have been two meetings, the national security cabinet, to discuss the strategy against isis. isis, of course, is in iraq and syria. this would not be a war plan against the assad regime though we saw the air strikes last week, but in the two principals committee meetings, basically i've been told mcmaster asked everybody around the sort of question, the basic assumption of the war plan that the pentagon cam

was a national security advisor, was fired or resigned in february and now you have got hr mcmaster in charge and he is reshaping this panel and moving the puzzle pieces around a little bit to shape it to the way he wants it to be. >> rose: okay. so i mean, is this something the president had to -- obviously the president had to okay this. did he play a hand at all as far as you knee? >> well, i was told that from the very beginning president trump wasn't very comfortable with having his chief political strategist having such a high power position on this national security council, principals committee, he wasn't comfortable with it, but not so uncomfortable with it that he, you know, ordered a change right away. so, yes, of course this was all run through president trump, the order was actually done yesterday fairly quietly, there was no press release. no word about it. it didn't come to light until my sources told me about it this morning. >> rose: can you make the case that it is a loss of power for steve bannon? >> it is. it definitely is. he no long search part of this executiv

growing influence of h.r. mcmaster as he was tested on the world stage. you're live in the newsroom. but then i realized there was. so, i finally broke the silence with my doctor about what i was experiencing. he said humira is for people like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief. and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. if you're still just managing your symptoms, talk with your gastroenterologist about humira.

security adviser, lieutenant general h.r. mcmaster. and expert analysis from across the globe. from abc news, a special edition of "this week." high alert, north korea. reporting from seoul, south korea, co-anchor martha raddatz. >> hello, from seoul, south korea. it's evening here in the city of 10 million people. on high alert on a weekend of escalating tensions. hours ago, yet another north korean missile launch. the fifth of 2017. this time, it blew up seconds after leaving the launch pad. u.s. officials believe it was likely a medium-range ballistic missile, the kind we have seen before. still, the latest launch rattled nerves, especially after the sudden appearance saturday of what could be new long-range weapons at north korea's big anniversary parade. canisters that appear large enough to house a missile capable of hitting the united states. you can see them there rolling past north korean leader kim jong-un. green camo on huge transporters. if he, indeed, has a missile big enough to reach the united states, and if he can make a war head small enough to fit on it, will the u

the crisis. an exclusive interview, general mcmaster wants other nations including machetes at the arena for. >> what ambassador healy pointed out as it is very difficult to understand how a political solution could result from continuation of the assad regime. we are not saying we are the ones who affect the change. what we are saying is other countries have to ask themselves hard questions. russia should ask themselves, what are we doing here? why are we supporting this murderous regime. lauren: speaking of russia come out of this visit to moscow, rex tillerson will uphold that commitment to ensure the elimination of serious chemical weapons. >> why russia has not been able to achieve that is unclear to me. i don't draw conclusions of complicity at all, but clearly they been incompetent and perhaps they simply been outmaneuvered by syrians. lauren: with programming note. maria bartiromo with the done with donald trump for an exclusive interview on wednesday. do not miss the first business interview since he took office right here on morning to maria on the fox business network. t

. mcmaster. i think army won that army/navy game, and i'm glad to see it. >> let's go back to it for a second. mcmaster was praised as a selection. some of the military were surprised he took the job pause he -- because he is known as a no-nonsense guy. a senior official told me mcmaster will resign before he is fired at the job because he will not be bullied. >> absolutely correct. if there is one officer i would count on to speak truth to power, it's h.r. mcmaster. he wrote a brilliant book about this, about the failure of the joint chiefs of staff to speak truth to the powerful president, lyndon johnson, about vietnam, which brought us into thepiral of vietm. h.r. mcmaster is grounded in truth and reality. he is no-nonsense. that's a huge asset in the white house. i'm very happen foy sy to see t. it is not just steve bannon leaving but permanent addition of the chairman of the joint chiefs and the director of national intelligence. >> who should have been there from the beginning. >> always. absolutely. >> let me play for you what vice president pence said about this bannon move. >>

security adviser, h.r. mcmaster, is really taking control over the national security apparatus around the white house. mcmaster is someone with a long military history. he is a west point grad, a ph.d. in american history as well, and he is someone who the president clearly trusts. he's also someone whom many national security experts, both in the congress and throughout the government, trust as well. so you can expect mcmaster's world to increase, especially when you take into account that steve bannon, one of the president's closest political advisers, has been removed from the principal's committee of the national security council. it seems as though those with experience dealing with international affairs are the ones calling the shots in the oval office when it comes to national security issues, ana. >> all right. ryan nobles reporting in washington. thanks to you. i want to bringing erik piloski who knows the inner workings of the white house serve in the obama years. told president trump that the biggest challenge he would face is north korea. now we know a navy carrier strike grou

more likely explanation is that jen mcmaster, dina powell who serves under him, are probably saying he shouldn't have been there and i was told by another source that maybe this is also evidence of this power triumbrat which was reince priebus and bannon crumbling a little bit. >> is this the beginning of a diminished role for steve bannon? is this a slap in his face that all of a sudden he's no longer on this national security council key group? >> my sense is that it's a combination of everything that you just said, that it is the fact that he was put on there to baby sit michael flynn and, yes, it does beg the question why was he the national security adviser and the answer is that you get from a lot of sources, i'm sure you're hearing this, too, michael flynn was loyal to the president and wanted to be national security adviser. so the president said, okay, i'll make you a national security adviser. is that the way decisions should get made? no. but that's what happened. the people around donald trump had to work around that and part of that was putting steve bannon at the natio

. mcmaster sounds like he doesn't believe it is even possible that russia did t know abo the checal attack ahead of time. >> what we should do is ask russia how could it be if you have advisers at that airfield that you didn't know that the syrian air force was preparing and executing a mass murder attack with chemical weapons. >> that's the question that i asked on this program friday night. how could it possibly be that vladimir putin did not know that his client, bashar al assad was going to use chemical weapons. chemical weapons that vladimir putin had promised the world no longer existed in syria. how could assad dare to expose the fact that he still had chemical weapons without vladimir putin's permission to do that? general mcmaster's question then raises another question. why. why would vladimir putin authorize the use of chemical weapons in syria? why would president assad use chemical weapons when he was doing a perfectly good job of killing people, bombing hospitals, killing babies without chemical weapons? another vitally important question is did the trump administratio

. i will say that as i mentioned, both the secretary of defense mcmaster andrector he rest of the national security team and others were consulted. occurred on tuesday at 10:30 when the president was made aware of this. this is a very evolving process in which the president was given updates. an ultimate decision was made yesterday. >> i think you said the meeting with president xi was after? sean spicer: i think the impact had been made. occurred at around 8:30 last night eastern time. presidentent informed xi. it was at the end of the meeting. where the exact timeline is, i don't know. impact had been made by the time he informed president xi. >> the president said that north korea -- was there any broader message -- if you don't help us crackdown -- orth korea sean spicer: they will be a read later today. i believe what the president stated was simply that action had been taken, what he was doing, what had happened. i do think there was any immediate access. i was not present for the conversation. >> how many meetings was the president personally involved with throughout this p

national security advisor h.r. mcmaster insisted the administration was unified. >> second tillerson and ambassador haley are right about this. >> a veteran of john kerry state farm and found mcmaster fall. >> general mcmaster is a strategic mind, strategic thinker but one of the jobs of the entities make sure that everybody's committee getting on the same page. that was certainly lacking this past weekend. >> while second tillerson appears eager to try to persuade the russians that they should designate bashir al-assad a war criminal, the white house was noticeably less so when asked by reporters of president trump regards the syrian dictator is being guilty of war crimes, sean spicer said that's something for a court to determine. >> bret: james rosen live at the state department. there's already been one big personnel move for president trump today. and more could come any hour. at the president's choice to sit on the u.s. supreme court, neil gorsuch, was officially sworn in this morning, and while the gorsuch appointment is for a life term, it appears according to several sources tha

adviser general mcmaster speaking from afghanistan today. and he said it's a failed test which followed another failed test. there's no need to reinforce their failure. we also heard from a u.s. official who told us that the white house response is intentionally low key to not give north korea the attention they're seeking. the second message is the national security council in coordination with the pentagon, state department and u.s. intelligence agencies are working on having a wide range of options ready for president trump to use if north korea continues this pattern of provocation or destabilizing or threatening behavior. mainly the march to get the nuclear weapon. mcmaster says they're all in agreement that the problem is coming to a head and all options are on the able. >> i think it's the consensus with the president, our key allies in the region, also the chinese leadership, that this problem is coming to a head. and so it's time for us to undertake all actions we can short of a military option to try to resolve this peacefully. >> reporter: he said short of a military

. mcmaster essentially telling pyongyang you saw what we did in syria, pay attention. >> north korea has been engaged in a pattern of provocative behavior. the president has asked us to be prepared to give him a full range of options to remove that threat to the american people and to our allies and partners in the region. >> how much more meaning do those words have being, because it's three or four days after the president launched cruise missiles. >> they have meeting and part of the goal was to show that this administration is willing to back up whatever it says with a credible threat of force which people felt the obama administration didn't have. to be clear, north korea is a totally different ball game. they have nuclear capabilities. syria is already a war zone. north korea is very isolated, the most isolated country in the world. and so to use military force there is much different than going in and taking out an air base or part of an air base in syria. >> a lot more complicated and the most unpredictable regime in the world. l listen to the former cia director and noting that

was deoperationalized. h.r. mcmaster returned the nsc to its proper function." >> these are very highly valued members of this administration. going to continue to play important policy roles. but i think with h.r. mcmaster's addition as our national security adviser, man of extraordinary background, military, this is just a natural evolution to ensure the national security council is organized in a way that best serves the president. >> so what is going on here? what does this mean for steve bannon's future? buzzfeed foreign affairs reporter john hudson knows all about this, joins us now. john, thanks for being here. you write that bannon's sidelining marks biggest victory for the current national security adviser lieutenant general h.r. mcmaster." so there was tension there. >> yeah, there was huge tension. before mcmaster even came in, some of his closest friends and colleagues were telling him as a precondition to even taking the job as national security adviser, you should sideline bannon, demand he's taken off the national security council. he obviously didn't do that at th

national security council. they say his oversight is no longer needed now that h.r. mcmaster has taken over for michael flynn. i'll talk about that and much more with senator corey gardener and our correspondents and analysts are also standing by. let's go to cnn's ryan nobos. update our viewers on the very latest. >> president trump said the attack in syria changed his view on the war there and while he didn't explain what he would do, he said it crossed a line for him and he holds the responsibility for the u.s. response. we want to warn you, this story contains graphic images that some viewers may find difficult to watch. >> it crossed a lot of lines for me. >> reporter: standing next to the king of jordan, president trump made it clear he was angry about what appears to be a gruesome chemical gas attack in syria. >> when you kill innocent children, innocent babies, babies, little babies, with a chemical gas that is so lethal that people were shocked to hear what gas it was, that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line. many, many lines. >> reporter: and despite blaming his predecess

general h.r. mcmaster has taken over the president's national security advisor. some interesting back story. you remember that the national security adviser was once a position held by general michael flynn, who had resigned, following a failure to disclose his communications with russian officials to vice president mike pence. general mcmaster is the successor to general plan. generalhe first hires mcmaster did was to bring over at gina powell as his deputy to the national security council. she was a former goldman sachs executive and was previously working in the administration -- first dollar ivanka first daughter ivanka trump. you are seeing a restructuring of the president's inner circle and on the issue of foreign policy, it would appear, the president relying more on the likes of his national security adviser, general mcmaster, as well as the general's deputy. bannonld say that steve still does have significant influence on a host of policy areas, including infrastructure and politics. vonnie: under this move, dan coats, the national intelligence director and the marine corps g

state. what have we learned so far? is it what obama did but with more cash? >> general mcmaster, as your report indicated, is en route out there right now. he is well respected, he has spent a lot of time in afghanistan, knows it well, knows the challenges. he is partway through a review to come up with a new strategy. we will see i think shortly what kind of strategy he comes up with. tim: staying with afghanistan, does that mean more troops? he asked for a few thousand more. >> general nicholson has asked for several thousand more. not a surge, as you say, but additional troops that would allow him to put americans down a layer or two in the afghan army, afghan national forces. this would help them, the afghan national forces, do what they need to do. but i think general mcmaster is going to evaluate that request. i don't think the decision has made yet. tim: moving to the middle east, it is a truism that you cannot defeat islamic state just militarily. >> i think that is very important. that is the important question in afghanistan as well as syria. the afghanistan situation

president. president trump's national security advisor h.r. mcmaster also sounding like he was practicing brinkmanship. is this an option on the table? is china a diplomatic option? that is the talk out of the white house. cnn's athena jones live from there this morning. athena. >> reporter: good morning, chris. that is one of the key questions. will china do more? president trump has been quite vocal on twitter and otherwise about his desire for china to step up and put pressure on north korea to rein in the nuclear ambition. china is north korea's main trading partner. even china may not have the magic bullet here. what is clear from the perspective of the national security team is that some sort of action is going to be necessary. here is national security adviser h.r. mcmaster. >> i think it is really the consensus with the president and allies in the region. japan and south korea in particular. also the chinese leadership. that this problem is coming to a head. it is time for us to undertake all actions we can short of military option to try to resolve this peacefully. >>

. mcmaster. big loser, america first steve bannon. first those 60 tomahawk missiles trump sent flying last night were a direct target at the bromance with putin. syria's reported chemical weapon attack earlier this week. according to oechingss, last night's target was the same military airfield that was used to launch those deadly chemical weapons attack. u.s. officials tell nbc the strike destroyed aircraft, infrastructure, like fuel pumps. syria claims at least six people are dead. it all unfolded as president trump hosted the chinese president at the mar-a-lago club in palm beach. shortly after the missiles were launched, president trump gathered again with his national security team to be briefed in a makeshift situation room. roughly 30 minutes later, the president delivered his remarks on the strike, which he said served the national security interests of us. >> it is in the vital national security interest of the united states to prevent the spread and use of chemical dedly chemical weapons. >> largely positive with the support from germany, france, israel and the uk. ru

mcmaster came on as his replacement. he was blocked by jared kushner and steve bannon. mcmaster was told they had to keep this guy on. why? fars cohen watt nick he's being cited today by conservative news out lets that former obama nabls adviser, suzanne rise asked for persons to be unmasked in u.s. intelligence reports. there's nothing illegal or improper or unexpected about a national security desires unmasking those names. there's no allegation that she leaked those names if she did have them unmasked. by making those allegations about susan rice, the national security council itself appears to be operating at a political level to shape a conservative friendly alternative to the russia scandal. however you feel about that story itself, what does this mean in national security terms. national security council is there for any reason. is it weird that this is what the narms council is being used for right now? is it dangerous? hold that thought. why pause a spontaneous moment? cialis for daily use treats ed and the urinary symptoms of bph. tell your doctor about your medicines, and