Hard line on syria tweeting missiles will be coming. Lets begin with capitol hill and the news about paul ryan. Joining me now is garrett haake. We have seen this long line of people deciding not to run ag n again. No name bigger than paul ryan telling staff and frebs and others in congress recently he decided he will not seek reelection this year. This is a big blow to the Republican Party and their chances of holding on to the house in thov. Ryan has been a prolific fundraiser and has despite how fractious the conference has been largely been able to hold them together on the big issues that they were able to accomplish this year. Remember in the house, they passed their Obamacare Repeal bill. They passed the tax reform package. That was something ryan championed for a long time. While we havent gotten the full read out into his decision, tax reform has been an issue that has driven him to congress and driven him through his congressional career. To not seek reelection in wisconsin. Ryan has been saying for months that this is a decision he makes every spring in an election year. He sits down with his family and he talks about whether or not he want os to give it one more go. The filing dead line in wisconsin is in early june. So we knew that this was a conversation that had to happen in the not too distant future. He made the decision not to serve another term in congress. Et he has young children. This is not an easy job. Especially as much fundraising work as ryan as done. A number of factors leading into this decision for the top house republican. In the country announcing he will not seek reelection. Incredible recording. Thank you. Lets go to casey hunt, also on capitol hill for us. I any think in the area we might be able to see the speaker. Its impossible to not look at this in the context of whats going on overall. You have a white house thats been chaotic. Key positions remain unfilled. You have a house and senate when more and more people are deciding they cant get accomplished what they want to accomplish. But now as garrett pointed out. Paul ryan, give us your sense of whats happening there. Well, forgive me if i keep looking over my shoulder here because this is where youll see typically or at least on a normal week this is where we see paul ryan come down the stairs to walk into this Conference Meeting. This is a usual Conference Meeting thats held every time the republicans come back from their weekend breaks. This is an expected one. This was a conversation that had been ongoing and there were a number of rumors and im told he may be coming around the corner so im going to give you one second. Im not resigning. So he said hes not resigning. That could be a reference to if hes not seeking reelection. Well wait to see what he tells the conference here in a couple minutes. He does plan to not seek reelection when this reelection term comes up in november. This is a situation where paul ryan. Was quite frankly somebody who was a reluctant member of this leadership team. He stepped into this job after being pushed to do it after it became clear he was the only person that would have the votes. I dont want to never see my family. Now the challenges for him in this job are impossible to overstate. Its become almost an Impossible Task to rangel the republican members of this conference. And for somebody like paul ryan who is very young, hes still early relatively in his political career dealing with president , an extraordinarily challenging task, this a bet on, hey, i have a family to worry about. I have three kids going to college and also perhaps i want to set myself up for something later on that will be more productive for my own political career paul ryan has struggled with how to relate to this president. He spoke out forcefully against him and found that there were repercussions for that. Came sort of back around on to President Trumps team. And was defending him regularly. And we have seen that from the podium at press conference after press conference, him seeming to stand behind donald trump. People will say we didnt get the whole picture publicly that behind the scenes he was being a check on this president and hes not given enough credit for t t that. At the end of the day, this is significant shake up here in washington at a time when so much, as you pounted out, is totally uncertain. Youll be standing by the conference meet iing. Well have reaction for us as the morning goes on. Thank you for that. Let me bring in evan bye, who served on the Armed Service committee. I us think by my count and i us could be off by a few, 24 House Republicans have already announced that they were not going to run for reelection. But i think the word bomb shell does apply here. In terms of the impact this uncertainty will have. I think so. I got to know paul a little bit while he was more junior member. I dont know he wanted this job to begin with. The conference had to come together. He was the only one who would have gotten the votes. You have your positives and high nuss. I think a big negative for running again is he wont be speaker again is the likely outcome. There wont be a republican speaker. And then you look at his family. He has young family and want. S to make sure they are put in college and make sure hes around his kids when they grow up. But you dont i think its also the impossibility of doing what you had hoped to do as speaker of the house when you have the kind of situation in the white house you have. I met with him one onone briefing me on this plan to balance the budget. I remember it being a 60year plan. Paul, ill be be. Dead. I wanted it to be more aggressive. But he understands economic impact. He had all these ideas. Hes right. We have tried the left side. We can name all the president s had them through the years. All the programs. Wheres the conservative program . Paul wanted to do that. He wanted to have a conservative program and prove that conservative Economic Policy actually works. And i dont think he got a chance to do it. Youre somebody who in 2010 you decided that you were going to step down. We have seen a long succession of people following you saying im frustrated. I cant get done what i want to get done. The hyper partisanship pales in 2010 to what it is now. Whats your rerax to paul ryans decision . Im not surprised. Paul ryan is a policy is won account. Hes a decent person. Hes a family man. All three of those things argue for the step he just took. My first reaction is with the tax bill having passed,s that pretty clear signal that nothing else is is going to get done. The second thing is regardless of whether he loses the speakership or not, the the majority will be so narrow that caucus will be almost ungovernable. The institution is more and more partisan. His instincts arent that way. And with these young kids, they only growup once. If he has to tolerate behavior, hes going to miss his family growing up, that argues for the step he took. Kristen welker is standing by. What are you hearing . No official reaction yet, but i can tell you they are obviously tracking this quite closely. I would be surprised ifwet didnt get some type of statement or tweet in short order. To pick up on a couple points, the significance of this cant be overstated including for the president s agenda. Paul ryan obviously not only reluctant House Speaker, but a reluctant trump supporter. And think about what happened during health care. There were a number of different tries to get health care passed. The president pointing the finger at paul ryan to some extent. And then fast forward to tax reform. Ultimately they did get tax reform passed. And you saw these two leaders really mend not only their relationship but their working relationship move iing forward. Important to point out that health care did pass in the house. So that mended relationship started at that point. But this has been difficult relationship at the very beginning. One that has come to a resolution. And the fact that paul ryan now not going to seek reelection i think raises real questions about how the president is going to move forward with his agenda. Hes talked about things like infrastructure reform, chris. There was a sense that that wasnt going to be realistic, but its something paul ryan wanted to see happen as well. In terms of what we see from the president , when we might hear from him, later this morning hes signing a bill here at the white house and that will be a chance for reporters to ask him questions and then later this evening, chris, hes going to be having dinner with congressional leaders including with the House Speaker. We were anticipating that syria and other issues would be at the forefront of those discussions, but now clearly the path forward, what happens without paul ryan in that position is whats going to be at the forefront now. I know youll et get back to us if you hear anything officially. Maybe the president will tweet about this. Let me go back to garrett haake. The number is 22 retiring republicans, 5 resigning, put this in the context of 2018 for us. You might see more retirements after this. The ryan decision not to seek reelection does a couple things to republicans chances of keep ing the house. All of them bad. It makes his seat more competitive. They will have to find a new candidate in that seat. In the big picture, ryan has been an enormous fundraiser for the Republican Party. Its not to say hes not going to stop doing that, but its impossible to be as effective as a retiring speaker than as the current speaker. And the second and maybe the bigger deal here is what it does psychically for republicans and democrats in how this gets spun. If democrats will try to paint this as the House Republicans biggest leader says enough is enough, im going home. They will make the argument thats another reason to put democrats in charge. If somebody like paul ryan doesnt want to be here, democrats will say, maybe we should throw the rest of them out. Youll see democrats push on this aggressively. I do think potentially depending on how it plays out, could be dispiriting for republicans. Especially those in ryans class. The romney small government republicans of which he was sort of the type will look around and say maybe this isnt my party anymore. If paul ryan is not sticking around with everything that comes from being speaker, why should i. I think it could potentially have significant ripple effects into 2018 and i think well start to see that over the next couple weeks. Were going to hit filing dead laines relatively soon. The phone lines are burning up at the rnc and dnc and elsewhere. Thank you for that. On this businey morning, we hav another big breaking story. President trump just telegraphed exactly what the u. S. Military is poised to do in syria and he did it in a tweet with a serious snub to russia on top. Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at syria. Get ready russia. Because they will be coming nice and new and smart. You shouldnt be partners with a gas killing animal who kills his people skpen joys it. We have assembled a team of reporters and experts to unpack that warning. Hauns nichols, what are you hearing about the threats and the timing potentially . On the timing, nothing app r appears elm innocent here at the pentagon. I spoke with several officials this morning who say they wont preview future military action the way the president did. But normally the signals we get here at the pentagon b before a strike were not getting those same signals. Things can change in an instant. Things are quiet until they are not. It does appear that tweet took senior officials here at the pentagon by surprise. They didnt appear to have had advanced warning on this. I think the thing we need to look for in the next 24 hours is what comes back from the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons. They have sent a team into douma. And crucial to the next steps here will be what their findings are. Was it seran gas . They are both banned under treaties. Its considered a weapon of mass destruction. And it does appear the threshold in the triggers taking secretary mattiss own words are higher. In the past he said if they use chemical weapons, hes fudged it. Mattis has not been explicitly clear if he make this is distinction. But he said there will be severe consequences. In terms of assets, theres the destroyer in the eastern mediterranean. And today leaving is a Carrier Striker. Theres just ts one in the eastern. There are four total destroyers in the six fleet. Thats the area of operation. Some of those are in port and some are in the atlantic. So on the other side leaving today is a Carrier Strike group that has an additional seven destroyers. That takes a few days to steam across the atlantic. But when you look at what those destroyers can do, they can fire off the tomahawks. Thats what the trump is saying are smart and. Can get through syrian defenses. Syria has a system that russia has. It didnt work last time knocking down the tomahawks in april of 2017. Unclear if it would work this time. They have other assets. Dont forget they are prosecuting a war in Eastern Syria bringing in a lot and flying those out from bases further south in the middle east. Thank you for that. Lets go back to the white house. Kristin welker Still Standing by. The president went on a lament this morning about the u. S. Relationship with russia. Im quoting here. Our relationship with russia is worse now that be it has ever been. That includes the cold war. Theres no reason for this. Russia needs us to help with their economy. Something that would be very easy to do and et we need all nations to Work Together to stop the arms race. What are you hearing about this tone against russia . New tone against russia. Were hearing President Trump really ratchet up the rhetoric. Moments ago he tweeted something that complicates the message that you just read. Let me read that and try to unpack it. The president tweeting much of the bad blood with russia is caused by the fake and corrupt russia investigation headed up by the all democrat loyal iistsr people that worked for obama. Mueller is most con flicked of all except rosenstein, to collusion, so they go crazy. So in essence, pointing the finger back at the russia investigation. Obviously, he has been taking aim at that on a daily basis this week in the wake of the raid of the offices of his private attorney Michael Cohen. But its significant because the United States message towards russia broadly is you cant meddle in the u. S. Election. Stop. Propping up assad. We heard that very firmly from the u. N. Yesterday. We heard that President Trump privately talking to his Administration Officials has been somewhat reluctant to take a tough tone and frankly to take strong action against russia bauz because he thinks they are critical on working on international crises. But in this instance in the wake of this chemical weapons attack, theres no doubt that the United States is poised to not only take very firm action, but to take a strang stand against russia, which is seen as propping up assad and now launching that new round of threats that you just talked about. Let me bring in my panel. Terrorism sbils malcolm nance. Evan bye is still here. You spent 20 years in the navy focusing on intelligence. Is there any military advantage to tweeting objeut your plans t the enemy . The tirs time i participated in an airstrike on syria was 1983. I have done that mission for over 20 years. And its not a hard place to strike. But you have to be committed in what youre going to do when you do it. Last year with the strike, we pocketed the runway and blew up very old aircraft and did not strike the chemical weapons at all that were there. But the president transmitting his punch today hes trying to look strong, but i often wonder whether hes trying to give russia an opportunity to come in and save him. If we are committing our armed forces too doing this, the men and women who have to fly Strike Missions into seethe yarsyria, russia is serious about their threat of striking back any position that launches weapons on them, we could go into a regional war that we didnt want to have to go into with an adversary. They have some cape bability, b the president is not helping with his tweets. You sit on the Armed Services committee. There are many obviously problems with this. But one is that the potential of this escalating is big. Once you send in bombers and fighters. The chance is possible that you lose a pilot. There you go. Youre escalating the situation. And you would think at least from what he said in the past this goes against the president s instincts, which are not to get. In too deep. What do you see happening here . There seems to be an meeleme of strategic and tactical confusion. When the president said were out of syria and out soon, that took away the ability to stabilize for the longterm. Now tactically, telegraphing your punch, youd never do that soort of thing. The president understood that running for office saying i will never do such a thing. Now he has. My guess is rather than saying that the russia investigation is conflated this with our relationship with russia, its conflating it in the president s mind. These two things are coming together influencing each other. The last thing i would say is i think the ryan announcement is significant. Because it may free up paul ryan as a speaker to take a different tact if the president fires rod rosenstein. Thats the real conflation that i think makes sense this morning. Heres something he tweeted. Why do we keep broadcasting when we are going to attack syria. Why cant we be quiet and catch them by surprise. And yet look at what we see today. Trump criticizing obama about withdrawal proposals, why are we telling them when we are going to leave. And thats what is surprising to me. The pentagon is reporting that they were taken by surprise. Or it seems when the president speaks, as he has done now, hes now committed to the United States. Hes drawn a red line. We have to act on that. Because the whole world is watching this. But its very striking to me the pentagon would say they were surprised by this tweet and they were taken off guard. Do any of all of these things play into this . You have s