with the president maybe back in may, and he just looked up from his desk and he. said: i do not want to go to war on the korean peninsula. he understands when a threat is made. and he loves our military and he understands them. i took 18 green berets into the oval. the way he connected with them was incredible. he understands that diplomacy means nothing unless you have the option force to back it up. that s what we have forgotten for far too long and whether it s a moab bomb in afghanistan. whether it s crews missiles in syria. he is not adventurist but he will stand up to evil as we have done many times before. i just want to know how the never trumpers are going to react. how are the tom freidmans? how are the sad individuals like max going to react now when donald trump s policies keep winning and as you mentioned it, i think the steel tariff is part of this
working on a project. there is a very strange accounting procedure i inherited that what i m probably going to end up doing is putting everyone into one thing and say here is how many is really there now. it s more than what i read in the newspaper when i got here. complicating the strategy the taliban is changing its tactics as well carrying out more suicide attacks. they know that s the kind of tactic that weakens american resolve. at the same time the u.s. has been stepping up its air strikes under the trump administration and the use of that moab bomb to decimate a taliban tunnel structure sent a strong signal that the trump administration is not as conflicted about an afghanistan policy as many contend the previous administration was. shannon: doug, this is a prime time address but it won t be at the white house where you are. a different venue. what do you make of the significance of that?
tensions, house minority leader nancy pelosi is urging speaker paul ryan to shorten the house s easter recess. she says, quote: speaker ryan must call congress back into session for classified briefings and debate. congress must do its duty and honor our responsibility to the constitution. into this potential cauldron, vice president mike pence is now headed. he left today for an 11-day asian trip with stops scheduled in south korea, japan and indonesia and australia. julie, back to you. julie: doug, thank you very much. eric. eric: well, julie, meanwhile, the death toll from the moab bomb, the so-called mother of all bombs that was dropped in afghanistan, it s now rising. according to an afghan official, at least 94 be isis fighters were killed, and the number could climb higher as authorities are combing the area. david lee miller is live in our middle east bureau with the statistics. reporter: eric, despite the rising death toll and the immense power of this bomb, afghan officials
were no civilian casualties. afghanistan s president says a key reason for that was the cooperation between the pentagon and afghan officials. ground operations are still underway to assess the damage caused by the moab, massive ordinance air blast, nicknamed the mother of all bombs. the strike targeted tunnels and caves used by isis in a remote area near the pakistan border. at least four of those killed were said to be isis group leaders. u.s. officials estimate there are now up to 800 isis fighters in afghanistan. the u.s. general in charge of operations there says the group was terrorizing the local population, even attacking people in mosques and hospitals. many who live here the air hit by airstrike called for more attacks on isis. translator: local residents haven t been affected at all. not even a small child has been injured.
as this moab bomb? we ve been holding on to this thing for years. right. julie: they were waiting for this to be used for a very big event. we just reported that so far some 94 isis militants were killed and not one civilian in this. this is clearly an investigation, this is clearly intelligence on the ground that went right. julie: extremely, extremely well. he is listening to his generals. how much do you believe that president trump weighed in on when the timing was right in dropping that bomb? i don t know that he necessarily weighed in at all. look, he s given authorities to the, you know, his generals to fight these wars. and, you know, the last thing they need is washington weighing in on what type of bomb to use. it was completely appropriate for the use that the generals provided for it or that, you know, general nicholson used it for because it s an incredibly remote area. i ve been in that area, as has