announcer: this is cnn breaking news. good morning, everyone. john berman here. major breaking news this morning on two fronts in national security and politics. as you've been hearing a huge transfer of power in congress. sources tell cnn that house speaker paul ryan says he not run for reelection. he's expected to make the official announcement behind closed doors any minute then we expect to hear from him at about 10:00 a.m. eastern time on camera shortly after that so stay tuned. we're getting new details about how and why he made this decision and about who exactly

he has been telling. the other breaking news, dateline calm and calculated, where the president of the united states just announced a missile strike and he did it on twitter. this is the breaking news and official statement from president trump. 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. pay attention to those words. they're important. you shouldn't be partners with a gas killing animal who kills his people and enjoys it. leave aside for the moment that this seems to break the president's long-standing claim that he would never telegraph military action, the president also noted that the u.s. relationship with russia is worse than it has ever been and he did that all within a few minutes of bragging about stability within the white house. this is a major escalation and rhetoric with international security consequences. abbey at the white house.

>> reporter: president trump this morning really escalating the dispute for now the war of words with russia on twitter. both telegraphing that he is going to do some kind of missile strike in syria, but also warning russia against an arms race. here's what he tweeted in addition to that one you just mentioned, our relationship with russia is worse now than it's ever been and that includes the cold war. there's no reason for this. russia needs us to help with their economy something that would be very easy to do and we need all nations to work together. stop the arms race? the president also just seconds ago sent another tweet about the russia investigation accusing the bad blood with russia -- sorry, accusing the russian investigation for contributing to the bad blood with russia. so clearly this is something that is on his mind this morning and the back and forth between the president and russia has been going on for the last 24 hours now, but this is a president who just a few years ago actually warned against

doing this exact thing, warned against telegraphing an attack on social media. he warned against doing this sort of thing in advance of potential military action and in some ways it seems russia is getting exactly what they wanted out of this president which is a at this time for tat on social media. he's called out putin by name. he's talking in more aggressive terms about russia than he has in quite some time, and perhaps this is a turning point for him but it's unclear exactly what this is going to mean beyond the issue in syria. is it going to extend also to how he responds to russia when it comes to election meddling? it's really not clear. the president right now just taking it all out venting on social media and also warning russia in no uncertain terms that an attack is coming. >> abbey stand by for a moment because there is more breaking news. as you suggested, the president just seemed to tie the ep meant

military action in syria and the consequences with russia to the russia meddling investigation. this is what he wrote. much of the bad blood with russia is caused with the fake and corrupt russia investigation headed up by all democrat loyalists or people that worked for obama. mueller is most conflicted of all, except rosenstein who signed fisa and comey letter. no collusion so they go crazy. we'll talk much more about that this might mean. it seems to be the first time he mentioned rosenstein on twitter. he's been musing about firing rosenstein overnight. back to the national security implications and what seems to be an imminent missile strike in syria, something the president has called a nice and new and smart missile strike. what is it that mean? our pentagon correspondent barbara starr is with us. >> reporter: good morning. not only showing his military intentions which he said he'd never do, declaring war on twitter, the missiles are coming, how does the president

of the united states pull back from that? it seems he is committed and he knows exactly that the russians are watching this very carefully. as you pointed out a minute ago, look at the tweet the use of the word, smart, u.s. smart weapons. the russians know that the u.s., the uk and france, which all may be involved in this have precise weapons, precision guided weapons guided to their targets by satellite. these are smart weapons. the russians know it but the president signaling this is very important because the russians have already keyed in on it by him saying smart weapons, the russia's know there's only so many directions those directions would be fired into syria, the mediterranean, from turkey in the north, possibly from the persian gulf. that is a stretch because that requires a lot of refueling and overflight rights. the key here is this, russian air defenses in syria. over the last year, the russians

have built up air defenses, those are the radars and the missiles in syria that can be used to shoot down those smart weapons. trump knows they have it there. the russians know what's going on. so this is now not just a threat on twitter, this is playing out the battlefield on twitter before anything even starts. it's very dangerous business and it's basically driving the pentagon nuts i think it's fair to say. >> all right. very important. thank you very much. you heard us all talking about the fact that the president promised he would never telegraph military action. i want to give you a sense of what we're talking about here. here's a brief reminder. >> we must, as a nation, be more unpredictable. we are totally predictable. >> why do they have to talk about it? don't talk about it. element of surprise. why can't they win first and talk later. >> mill tearily i don't like to say where i'm going or what i'm doing.

>> america's enemies must never know our plans. i will not say when we are going to attack. >> we no longer tell our enemies our plans. >> we no longer tell our enemies our plans. this is the president who just said the missiles will be coming and they will be nice, new and smart. there is already been reaction from russia. nic robertson live for us in moscow. what are you hearing? >> reporter: we're hearing from the spokeswoman of the russian foreign ministry she responded within minutes to president trump's tweets taken to facebook with quite a lengthy statement and a huge algas station packed into the statement as well. let me read you what she says here. the smart missile should fly towards the terrorists, not the legal government that is been fighting international terrorism for several years in its territory. by the way, she adds, by the way, where does opcw, where the

opcw inspectors warned that smart missiles were the opcw warned that the smart missiles would destroy all evidence of chemical weapons used on the ground or is the whole idea to quickly cover-up the traces of provocation through the smart missiles? so the international inspectors have nothing to look for as far as evidence, what she means there is that the chemical weapons, the alleged chemical weapons used was a u.s. and syrian rebel fabrication so what she's saying is, these missile strikes would destroy the evidence of the fabricated fake chemical weapons attack. this is a huge allegation that she's making here and remaking. she goes beyond that. she responded even more, if you will, in a cynical terms to president trump's next tweet about stopping the arms buildup. she says, yeah, let's do that. let's start with chemical

weapons. one of us -- in the chemical weapons used targeting that former russian spy in britain recently has been on russia's use of chemical weapons. so the rhetoric here is ratcheting up. one thing i would add, however, is that president putin's spokesman today shortly before president trump's tweets said we should sort of essentially pause, that we should try to de-escalate the situation but as far as shooting down u.s. missiles was concerned when he was asked about that, he said i don't want to get into any kind of speculation at this time. >> nic robertson for us in moscow. thank you very much. let's talk now with john kirby. there's a ton going on here and a lot of it is political smoke and fire. let's talk about the military reality of what's happening. the president announced a missile strike. he did it on twitter. the missiles will be coming nice, new and smart. what does that tell you?

>> they have certainly made their decisions to actually conduct a series of strikes, i suspect this won't be one, it may be a series over a course of time. they've already made the decision. the president's committed to that and they're moving forward. i don't think john that this is from a military perspective going to change the heck of a whole lot about the how the pentagon plans in conjunction with our allies to conduct these strikes. now what they'll do, they'll be constantly checking the intelligence that they have available to see what the russians and syrians are doing on the ground. are they moving assets? bunkering up? are they doing anything that would change the targeting picture? they would do that any way. they'll to it after this tweet. i don't think tact i cannily speaking it's going to change much in terms of whatever strike is coming. >> assuming that they're going to do a strike that is greater, harsher at a higher level than the one last year and that seems to be what they're suggesting, can you do that without directly impacting russian forces, iranian forces on the ground there and perhaps causing an

even bigger conflict? >> yeah, sure. you can. i suspect and again i don't know that the targeting process has been probably deliberately arranged not to provoke unnecessarily russia or iranian forces and probably focused strictly on syrian targets. now the russians and the iranians can make that harder for us to do by putting some of their forces there. it's really going to depend on how big they want to make this statement and what their going to target. the only -- the big two unknowns we have right now are timing and targets. how many and what are they going to be? i do think that you can do it in a discrete fashion still. it's going to depend on how the russians and syrians behave in the wake of this tweet. >> there's a couple issues with the president's statement today which he did on twitter announcing military action on twitter. i want to get to this larger point which is people going to be saying when president trump going to be tough on russia. he's being pretty tough on russia right here and we've seen it before, yes? >> there's no question about it.

i thought it was very interesting that this tweet was so targeted at russia and even not as much on assad as you would think. that was pretty telling to me. look, i'm glad to see that he is -- that he sees how much russia has propped up assad and how maligned they have been in syria. but, john, the more i thought about this tweet coming here this morning, the more angry i got because he's the commander-in-chief. and i can't remember ever in my lifetime and certainly in my study of american history any commander-in-chief treating the potential use of armed force in this cavalier of fashion. it's really reprehensible that he would just tweet out something specific about a strike when lives are at stake, not just lives on the ground but american lives and probably allied lives because it's likely that there's some manned aircraft involved in these strikes. they're as serious as air defenses in and around damascus that the russians have fortified over the last year. this is dangerous building. this is real stuff and this is

war and for the president to treat it like this owe depends me deeply. >> thank you so much. important words. major breaking news and other fronts. speaker paul ryan says he will not run for reelection. we will hear from the outgoing house speaker in just minutes. plus sources say president trump is considering firing deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. he just made an official statement about rosenstein on twitter. what does all this mean? and first it was trade wars now its the threat of real wars rat radiologist the u.s. markets. the dow set to plunge after the president announces a missile strike. a lot of paints say they can do the job, but just one can "behr" through it all.

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there will be a new house speaker one way or the other. might not be a republican, that's a whole different matter. we're expecting to hear from paul ryan very shortly. he will speak live on capitol hill and we will take that live when it happens. phil mattingly joins us from capitol hill. i don't think it's a surprise, phil, necessarily but it's still a major moment. >> reporter: defected paul ryan is not going to be serving in the 116th congress is not a surprise. that's long been assumed to be the case. everybody has expected that he would leave at the end of this congress, what's the surprise is that it's happening now. i'll tell you why for a couple reasons. the expectation has long been that the speaker would hold on to the job and run for reelection for two primary reasons, first and foremost, he is a fund-raising giant inside the republican party raising tens of millions of dollars both for himself, for the nrcc but also for his super pac that's very helpful in trying to defend

republicans who have a very complicated midterm election year facing them at this point. the second is the idea that this now likely throw the house republican conference which john as you know quite well can be often a divisive place into a nasty leadership battle where people don't understand or know necessarily who's going to take speaker ryan's place so long as republicans remain in power. those were things expected paul ryan to do. why he decided to do this now? here's what i've been told based on some individuals that spoke to the speaker this morning. he cited two things on those calls, first and foremost, his family. he does have a young family and while i know this is the common refrain as to why people leave positions in washington, this one's pretty true. he's stated this too close confidant and to some of us over the course of his time as speaker, that with three kids, very close to his wife with the fund-raising schedule, with dealing with a rather rowdy conference, with the entire package that comes with being speaker, it's very complicated and i think on top of that, you

had somebody who in his mind when it comes to policy, the major tax reform bill in 2017 was a major achievement and the reality is, when you look at the road map going ahead, whether or not republicans are going to be in charge, whether or not he still want to oversee a republican conference that can be difficult to say the least, the decision was now was the time and now is the time to let everybody know so everybody can plan. john? >> phil mattingly for us. thanks so much. let's try to dive deeper here, understand more. we're joined by political director david chalian. i've heard people say that paul ryan is the one thing holding the republican caucus together. that might be an exaggeration but he's certainly key to holding that caucus together. >> he is. as phil was saying, a challenging environment for republicans that may be a bit of an understatement. this is the toughest electoral environment republicans have faced, john, in probably a decade or 12 years or so and to have the leader of that effort say, hey, i'm not going to stand

for reelection, whatever the reason, is obviously a big blow and the fund-raising point is critical. he just transferred $40 million or touted his transfer of $40 million this cycle over to the nrcc, the campaign arm. nobody is raising money like that for republicans in house races the way paul ryan is. that's a critical component of this. and quite frankly, having a leadership battle inside the conference during an election year can be distracting for the party when they're focus needs to be on staving off a potential blue wave and making sure that democrats don't win the 23 seats that they need to win for the majority. >> this will not help them hold the house. that statement is obvious at this point. david, that's the future. the now we're getting some new information, paul ryan says he wants to spend more time with his family. he's got his tax cut but another reason that he is not running

for reelection and this is due to reporting from sources close to the speaker, is he's had enough of dealing with president trump and by that i think it means it's got to be exhausting for house speaker paul ryan who every time the president does something controversial, tweets something controversial he has got to answer for it one way or another and it seems that he finally reached his limit on that. >> right. i don't think it will surprise anyone that paul ryan's not a good fit inside donald trump's republican party. paul ryan made that clear in 2015 and 2016 throughout the entire course of the campaign. he then sort of swallows all of that and played the role of loyal soldier, i guess, for the party and has been standing side by side with the president pretty much in lock step for the better part of the last 14, 15 months of the trump administration, john. i have no doubt that it is exhausting for him to constantly be, just an example, a couple

weeks ago on the spending bill. paul ryan had to get down to the white house and explain the huge spending bill that republicans were about to pass that at the very last moment the president was threatening that he wouldn't sign. that kind of constant trying to keep the president on board with what congress is doing and trying to align all their goals together, i'm sure that's exhausting. i doubt that that is the main reason, i don't doubt jamie's reporting at all. i'm sure it's something he is saying but i do think that as phil was saying with the family considerations are obviously front and center for paul ryan, but this is not -- this is not a republican party that he envisioned he would be leading when he was mitt romney's vice presidential running mate in 2012. >> several lifetimes ago. let me ask about that. the only thing paul ryan ever wanted to be was chairman of the ways and means committee which

he was for ten minute before he was house speaker. he was the vice presidential nominee. do you think we will see paul ryan again in an elected office? will hear his name being floated as a presidential candidate at some point? >> probably in five minutes from now, i would imagine. this is somebody who was a staffer on the hill, as you know. this is somebody who has politics in his blood. he is now served at the upper echelons of political life in america. that doesn't go away just because you leave a position. there is no doubt that paul ryan's name will be around as a potential future prospect, i'm sure. that is not going to come in the immediate cycle and i certainly don't anticipate paul ryan's going to try to jump in the republican primary to challenge the sitting president in 2020. >> david chalian, please don't go far. the morning we're having we might need you in a hurry. >> get ready for a dow drop. we're heading to the new york stock exchange where markets are

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digit drop on the dow. the market doesn't know how to handle possible military action in syria. it doesn't know what the consequences are so it's that uncertainty and that fear that is what investors will be trading on. this is a market that's going to be moving on every news headline that crosses today and depending on what that headline is, you'll see action immediately unfold here at the new york stock exchange. the dow already down 190 points. we're also keeping an eye on oil prices which are spiking a bit, up about .5%. this is sort of escalating that rise in oil prices because that is a rich oil producing region of the world. john? >> the dow down 200 points at the open reacting to the president's remarks about

missile strikes. alisyn kosik, thank you very much. let's get back to the white house, the president is considering firing the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and he just issued a new attack on that subject moments ago. abbey phillip at the white house. >> reporter: good morning, john. clearly rod rosenstein is on the president's mind. he mentioned him in a tweet this morning. let me just read the tweet to start off with, much of the bad blood with russia is caused by a fake and corrupt russia investigation headed up by all democrat loyalists or people that worked for obama. mueller is most conflicted at all except rosenstein who signed fisa and comey letter. no collusion so they go crazy. rod rosenstein is someone who would not be the forefront of a conversation like this but because he's the deputy attorney general in this particular case, he is in charge of the mueller probe, the russia probe that the president believes has gone off the rails and sources tell cnn that the president has been

having conversations about potentially firing rosenstein in part because of his perception that he's conflicted, that he wrote the letter justifying the firing of james comey and that that letter is being looked at by the special counsel so he's -- he could be a witness in the special counsel's case. that's the jumpgs that the president is looking at for firing rosenstein but ultimately all of this is about the president's desire to reign in mueller and we know that in the white house there are conversations happening about what's the -- what's the president's ability to actually fire rosenstein. many people believe in this white house according to our sources that he legally can do it, that he can fire -- that he can fire rosenstein and also that he can fire mueller directly. so this is a big question. the president go in that direction or will he try to do something else. jeff sessions is still in the president's cross hairs. he's not gotten over that recusal. the president has been venting about him publicly and privately

in recent days and all of this, john, happening at a time when the president's lawyers are coordinating or having conversations with mueller's team about a potential sit down interview with the president. what that would look like and whether or not it's going to happen at all, our sources tell us the fact that the fbi raided the president's personal lawyer's office this week has caused the president and his attorneys to rethink an interview, rethinking whether he's willing to do that at all. he's getting a lot of advice from the outside and from the inside that sitting down with mueller would be a mistake. point-blank it's not a good idea to do it, john. >> abbey phillip for us at the white house. thank you very much. joining me now is former u.s. attorney and former colleague of rod rosenstein jane paul miller. thank you so much for being with us. rod rosenstein is under direct attack. we heard him monday at the white house himself by name. that's a lot of pressure. how do you think it will impact

your friend, your former colleague, rod rosenstein? >> i don't think it is going to impact rod as far as how he carries out his job. rod is going to do what he believes is the correct thing to do under the facts, under the circumstances. he's done that all the way through, the very fact, frankly, that staunch democrats were upset when he wrote the letter regarding director comey and that staunch republicans are upset now because he continues to support director mueller's investigation shows that he does things based on what he believes is the correct thing to do, what the department of justice requires him to do as opposed to what the political thing is to do. >> he does what he thinks is the right thing to do. based on the available fact pattern that is out there, the fact that we believe the deputy attorney general approved the searches on michael cohen's

apartment, hotel room and also his offices, what do you see in this investigation right now? >> well, let's focus on something. it's not just that the deputy attorney general approved these searches, but it had to go through other levels as well, including, of course, the magistrate had to be signed off on by a judge. so it's clear that the investigation that director mueller's carrying out is obviously looking at a variety of financial transactions, which is what's normally done in any white collar investigation. the old standard rule of thumb of follow the money still stands today, and through the information that has come out in the public through the charges that have come, the pleas that have come, it's clear that the mueller investigation is looking at a variety of financial transactions, which is what exactly what one would expect in

this situation. >> he looks at this and predicts based on what he's seen that the chances of michael cohen being charged is high. do you think that's reasonable? >> i want to be a little cautious about that because obviously i haven't read the affidavit that supported the search warrant, but i will say this, it is a very high bar, both regarding the department of justice requirements and what a judge is going to allow when it comes to searching an attorney's office, any attorney's office. when you're z-eelg with a search warrant for the president's attorney's office, that's an exceedingly high bar. so i would suspect that the information that they have, the evidence they had already to justify the search was strong and given that, i would certainly expect that mr. cohen is potentially facing some difficult times. >> finally, very quickly as a

former prosecutor right now when you hear michael cohen in his words to cnn overnight who went out of his way to say how gracious investigators were when they were searching his apartment and then went on to say asked if he was worried, he'd say, i'd be lying if i told you i'm not. when you hear those words, what does it mean to you? >> well, it means a couple things. it means that mr. cohen recognizes the seriousness of the situation he's in. you never want to be obviously the subject of a federal investigation. the fact that they decided to do this by search warrant as opposed to subpoena, him being an attorney, obviously he also recognizes how serious that is. and the fact that he went out of his way to talk about the professionalism and the courtesy of the fbi agents indicates that he's being smart there. you don't want to attack the prosecutors and the investigators at the outset because you might be in a very

different situation as far as your relationship with them in a few months. >> jan paul miller, fascinating discussion. >> thanks for having me, john. >> one more piece of breaking news. the top republican in the house, paul ryan, says he will not run for reelection in november. we're expecting to hear from the house speaker, the public announcement coming in just minutes. stay with us. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job

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we have a huge amount of breaking news. two major announcements this morning. the president announces a missile strike that will happen in syria. he did this on twitter and house speaker paul ryan is announcing he will not run for reelection. that will happen on camera in just a few minutes. so stay tuned for that. matt louis is joining me now and katelyn huey burns. paul ryan will not run for reelection, caitlin. this may not be a big surprise

but it's a very big deal. >> sure and the timing is extremely significant. there have been rumors of course that he was planning to step down but by announcing this now, it raises a lot of questions about, you know, him being a lame duck for the next several months. what a republican congress can do in that time especially heading into a midterm let alone the message that it sends about the house republicans chances of losing the house in november that was already a precarious situation, this certainly sends a signals and i'm wondsering if it might send signals to other republicans who were on the fence about retiring, maybe they're thinking about retiring too. on the other hand -- not to mention the fund-raising component too. ryan has been a prolific and profound fund raiser for republicans, raising millions and millions of dollars. very effective. can he be that effective now in the next few months? on the other hand, i'm wondering if it could empower him to do some of the things last minute that he's wanted to do, maybe go on immigration. >> full bore. i've got nothing constraining me

now. the thing that paul ryan really wants is entitlement reform and that's not going to happen. matt louis, there's a lot of reasons paul ryan is retiring and you don't want to overgeneralize but normally if you thought you had a good chance of being house speaker come next january, you wouldn't leave? >> absolutely right. i think i put the republicans chances of holding the house now at maybe 20%. so it's not very good. look, i think paul ryan has legitimate reasons that he might want to leave any way. he does have a young family. he said from day one he really never wanted to be speaker and he also envisioned himself if he had to do it as doing it as a place holder speakership. this is problematic at the macro level as you were just discussing. it sends messages to other congressmen should they retire or not. but also just at the microlevel. paul ryan's seat is now up for

grabs and, you know, so that's one out of 435 seats but they're going to be fighting over who has the majority it could come down to something to one or two seats. you never know. >> matt, one of the things paul ryan is trying to run away from is having to answer for president trump. he's holding a news conference and now it's a statement about the retirement. before he was going to have to face questions about rod rosenstein in various matters. the president put out the statement on twitter after declaring a missile strike against syria on twitter and being tough on russia admittedly which is a long time coming in a lot of people will applaud, he seemed to blame a lot of the conflict with russia on the election meddling investigation. let me read this tweet to you. much of the bad blood with russia is caused by the fake and corrupt russia investigation headed by all the democratic loyalists and people that worked for obama, mueller is most conflicted of all except rosenstein who signed fisa and comey letter. no collusion. they're going crazy.

it's an absurd notion to think the conflict in the u.s. is based on the russia election and the meddling. it has a lot to do with crimea and bashar al assad. >> it makes no sense. i don't know that we should be shifting blame if you want to shift blame, you could talk about red lines in syria, you could talk about ukraine. you could talk about a president who looked vladimir putin in the eye and saw his soul. we can go back decades of people to blame for this, but i think shifting blame to the mueller investigation is absurd. >> so overnight, cnn reporting that the president is considering firing rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. we spent so much time talking about what happens if he pushes out the special counsel, what do you think happens if he makes this move on rosenstein, what does congress do? >> it's interesting to watch their reaction. you have had a republican saying over and over again saying they don't think the president is

going to do this, but they're speaking in poignant terms trying to reach him. you heard the senator from louisiana, saying the president is too smart to do this, right? that seems like he was trying to talk to the president through these interviews and warning them. republicans are in this weird situation where they don't necessarily want to pass legislation because they're afraid to rock the boat here and to send the signals that they actually are really worried about this. but at the same time, they are -- we have seen several iterations of this and then just back to the question that you were posing to matt, one thing i would add too, is that the president -- the administration has acted on information from the mueller probe. they pushed forward sanctions in reaction to it just recently and so you have these dueling messages coming from the administration as it pertains to russia but yesterday i would say sandra's statement about what the president can do in terms of firing mueller, i think, advance

this conversation more than it had been before. >> absolutely, she says, the president believes he has the ability to fire mueller. not what a lot of legal analysts think to be sure. thanks for being with us. president trump is warning russia this morning to get ready for missile strikes in syria. we have a live report from the ground there in syria next.

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this morning president trump announced that the u.s. will strike syria with missiles. he was issuing a warning to russia which has troops and influence there telling them to get ready for this missile strike that he says is coming and this happened after russia

vowed to shoot down any missiles leaded headed to that nation. let's go to syria to fred pleitgen in damascus. fred? >> reporter: hi, john. yeah. the syrian government has certainly gotten the message. they issued a statement calling the trump tweets reckless and they say america is endangering international stability and it's sinking in to many people here on the ground and in the government and the threat of u.s. military action is very real and could happen very soon. there are reports that the syrians are moving jets and military hardware potentially to get them out of the way of air strikes and of course, you have that massive spat now going on between the russians and the syrians with neither side backing down which really is a very dangerous situation. you know, john, i've been reporting here 20 times from syria, and i've been here with the russian military and one of the things many people don't know is the russians have a huge

amount of military hardware on the ground. they have the military base here, and they have ground troops here, as well, and then i was on a destroyer a couple of months ago and all of a sudden several russian submarined showed up and started firing to isis targets. they have more hardware than people think here. any missiles that will be fired by the united states will be shot down and they would be targeted as well. a very dangerous situation and certainly folks on the ground here are quite concerned, john? such important insight, fred pleitgen. they would fly planes over syria and that's why they would use tomahawk missile. we have a lot of breaking news. we have speaker paul ryan who will make it official and he will announce from beheend that microphone he is not running for re-election.

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i'd of said... i'd of said you're dreaming. dreaming! definitely dreaming. then again, dreaming is how i got this far. now more businesses in more places can afford to dream gig. comcast, building america's largest gig-speed network. good morning, everyone. i'm john berman. we are following major breaking news. house speaker paul ryan announcing he will not seek re-election. he is set to speak any moment from capitol hill. you are looking at live pictures. the president of the united states has reacted. let us put up his statement on speaker. speaker paul ryan is a truly good man and while he is not seeking re-election he will

leave a legacy of achievement that no one can question. we are with you paul. we are all over this developing story as we wait for the house speaker. i am joined by phil mattingly and manu raju. first, phil, give us the why and how this happened. >> we've talked about this. the expectation is that speaker paul ryan was not going to be around the next congress. the surprise is that he decided to make this announcement now and here's why as it's been explained to me by sources who are aware of the call and the behind closed door gop meeting that he made this announcement in. primarily it is family. he's made clear. his three children and his wife aren't thrilled of the schedule he maintains and it's not just what he does on capitol hill and the fund-raising requirements and the lodgist cal and the procedural and that had started to weigh on a young family, but on top of that, as well the speaker had come to the conclusion that if he wasn't going to be around in the next congress there was no sense in