Transcripts for CNN Erin Burnett OutFront 20160120 00:51:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
look, i agree with tucker, she s going to beat bernie sanders, but it might be a long, hard slog. she might have to grind it out if she loses iowa or new hampshire to this guy who is a cleatly unelectable socialist. have you softened on trump and cruz? they re the two front-runners. i m an admirer of ted cruz. you wrote a good column about him. he s run in this year when we say all the rules are different, he s run an utterly unconventional campaign in iowa. he s gone there done the work on the ground, he s motivated evangelicals and base voters. if i had to predict he d win iowa by eight or ten points. it flips back. trump might have more support in iowa than is being polled. i might be completely wrong about everything as i ve often been wrong about everything in this race.
but it might be a long, hard slog. she might have to grind it out if she loses iowa or new hampshire to this guy who is a completely unelectable socialist. have you softened on trump and cruz? they re the two front-runners. i m an admirer of ted cruz. you wrote a good column about him. he s run in this year when we say all the rules are different, he s run an utterly conventional campaign in iowa. he s gone there done the work on the ground, he s motivated evangelicals and base voters. and that s why i think today if i had to predict, i think he ll win iowa by eight or ten points unless trump does something to really change the momentum there. there are two polls out today. he has been up by a significant amount. now it kind of flips back. trump might have more support in iowa than is being polled. he might. he might. and i might be completely wrong about everything as i ve often been wrong in this race. but i tend to think cruz s
administration s strategy. is there a sense that in some ways the pentagon or even the administration were caught off guard by isis and how quickly its reach expanded? reporter: in terms of the pentagon and u.s. military leadership, i would say it s just the opposite. u.s. military leaders were the first ones to sound the alarm that this was going to be a very long, hard slog. the then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general martin dempsey, shortly after isis invaded iraq, warned this would be a generational fight. other military leaders here at the pentagon have warned that this could be 20 years in the battle against isis and its ideology. after all, they say, the ideology and the inspiration that ideology provides to many is a far more insidious enemy. and i think a lot of us forget that the first attempt to take down the world trade center was al qaeda, at least inspired in the early 90s when they used a
counterterrorism forces into that fight. there are some 350 estimated isis fighters that remain in the city. and overnight, b-1 bombers dropped 500 bombs taking out scores of fighting positions, some machine gunnists, mortar positions and killing ab90 enemy forces. but because those isis forces are so well dug in and the area is so populated, this is going to be a long, hard slog. still american officials are confident that those iraqi forces will, with the u.s. assistance, eventually take over ramadi. take it back from isis. jim miklaszewski at the pentagon, thank you sir. want to bring in msnbc military analyst, retired army colonel jack jacobs. jack, let s first talk about ramadi. even if iraqi forces are able to push isis back, take the city back, can they hold it? that s the bigger question.