Lives of 2300 american servicemen and women, and cost american taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. For years, before President Trump was responsible for the conduct of the war, he was firmly against the war. October of 2011, he tweeted, when will we stop wasting our money on rebuilding afghanistan. In march of 2012, afghanistan is a disaster. We dont know what we are doing. January of 2013, i agree with president obama in afghanistan. We should have a speedy withdrawal. Why keep wasting our money . Rebuild the u. S. March that same year, we should leave afghanistan immediately, no more wasted lives. If we have to go back in, we rebuild the u. S. First. When citizen President Trump became candidate trump, his views, as they say, evolved. Do you believe that american boots should stay on the ground in afghanistan to stabilize the situation . I wouldnt totally disagree with it, but at some point, are they going to be there the next 200 years . Its going to be a long time. We made a
Lets begin with will ripley live in tokyo. You just return from your 14th trip to north korea with all of this going on. Reporter john the impression i got from the north koreans this is not a country that is backing down. This is not a country that is afraid but it is defiant and furious with the United States and ready to back up their fiery rhetoric with action and there are indications according to south korean lawmakers and intelligence officials north korea is moving an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile to a location along the korean coast, with a trajectory over japan like last week or fire a missile in a more southerly protra jectry targeting the Pacific Ocean including potentially the u. S. Territory of guam, home to 160,000 american citizens, Andersen Air Force base, naval base, guam. North korea said theyd conduct a missile test near guam, not threatening to attack guam but extremely unsettling and provocative for the u. S. The threat in north korean state media talks about
Lets begin our coverage with cnns ryan brown live at the pentagon with more on our breaking story. What do we know about these souls . Reporter this collision between this much larger oil tanker and the u. S. S. John mccain took place east of singapore. The mccain suffered heavy damage, were told flooding took place in several compartments including a sleeping area as well as a communications area. The ship was able to make it back on its own power to singapore, just arriving earlier this morning. Now, again, ten sailors are missing, five sailors were injured, four of those were evacuated via helicopter due to the nature of their injuries, none of those injuries are lifethreatening. Those ten sailors a very active search operation involving u. S. Aircraft and aircraft from singapore and naval since from singapore is going on in an attempt to locate those sailors. This comes after several incidents involving u. S. Naval war ships in the region. Two months ago the uss fitzgerald similarl
Widow kissing his casket. He was one of the four american troops killed in the west after nation of niger. And its happening at the same time that new information is emerges as to what happened to him and his unit that day. Michelle kosinski is following that. Michelle, the flow of information from the pentagon is not pleasing a lot of people. He says its not sufficient, its too slow. What have we learned about the niger attack . I think some officials have been cnn or to try to show the areas that are still unclear and why t what officials are say, on this night, u. S. And a a nigerian troops were and at that point its believe the u. S. Troops got back intoed unarmored vehicles. Even that isnt 100 established. Whether they had even be able to get back into their vehicles. Again, those vehicles were unarmored. And heres what they said about this. Sorry, we dont have that sound. There are still Big Questions that remain, but what were told is Africa Command is leading it. The fbi is now
Why does the white house now say the former president wasnt talking about the current one . And laughing it off. How Speaker Paul Ryan roasts President Trump, making light of controversies he usually doesnt address, including the president s insults, his twitter habits, and more. Was ryan revealing his true feelings under the guise of humor . We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. Announcer this is cnn breaking news. Breaking news tonight, white house efforts to quash the controversy over President Trumps condolence call to a gold star widow have thrown fuel on the fire instead. Newly surfaced video shows white house chief of staff john kellys allegations against the democratic congresswoman who criticized the president s call are false. Kelly claimed that in a 2015 speech, representative Frederica Wilson made selfserving and selfaggrandizing remarks that he called stunning, but video of the speech contrad