after the original announcement. but now those exercises done, the whole strike group headed back up north and likely to arrive in the original area it was intended to go to by the end of the month if not in the next couple of days. erin? >> obviously, people thought that the strike group was going to north korea. they thought that in china and around the world. people made a big deal of that and of course it wasn't there. >> reporter: that's right. and i think it's important to keep emphasizing, this strike group was a message. it wasn't ever going to strike anything in north korea. an aircraft carrier doesn't have that kind of offensive capability. it has a couple of missile ships with it that have missile defense if north korea wants something, they could potentially shoot it down. the president noting it has submarines. they can do some shootdown capability, but largely, this is a massive show of force by the u.s. military.