[Baldwin:] Breaking news, here's what we have out of the Pentagon. The defense department is considering sending proposing combat forces into northern Syria for the very first time with the aim of speeding up the fight against is. I have Barbara Starr standing by, our Pentagon correspondent, as well as Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and contributing editor that focuses on national security. Barbara Starr, first to you. This is huge, huge, huge news. Where is this coming from?
[Barbara Starr, Cnn Pentagon Correspondent:] Well, Brooke, hi there. What we now know and have learned here this afternoon is the pentagon is looking at this idea because, as you will recall, President Trump has given the military until the end of the month to come back with some ideas how to speed up the fight against is. This is one of many ideas. It is not fully baked yet. We want to emphasize that. They have not yet proposed it to the President by all accounts, but it is significant that they are talking about it. What they're talking about is the notion of sending, for the first time, conventional ground forces into northern Syria. This is something the Obama administration had always rejected. It's a very high-risk idea. If you're going to put U.S. ground troops into Syria, you have to be able to protect them on the ground and from the air. It is a very risky idea. But would the Trump administration be willing to take that risk on? That may wind up being the key question now. President Trump has wanted to speed up the fight against is, but almost any direction you turn in with a new military option, you are looking at increased risk to U.S. troops. So, where are we right now? The pentagon looking at it, looking at several additional ideas, but this may be the most controversial one. If President Trump goes for it, it will fundamentally alter the risk. It will fundamentally alter how the U.S. is prosecuting the war against is. Brooke?
[Baldwin:] Barbara, just quickly following up with you, and again I know this is, to quote you, not fully baked, how many troops potentially, or how soon?
[Starr:] Well, you know, it could we are being led to understand that actually it could happen relatively soon after this sort of deadline at the end of the month when the military and the pentagon are supposed to go back to the white house with their ideas. What could happen, we are led to under, which may give us an indication of how far along this is, you could send some troops, for example, into Kuwait. You could send them with some additional ground weapons, that kind of thing, and then they could move from Kuwait into Syria. At any point at which the proposal would be approved by President Trump. So, what the military is looking at right now is do they want to proceed with this, are they comfortable with the level of risk, what they might precisely recommend to the President, and how they could be ready to move fairly quickly if a decision were to come. But there's other pieces that would have to be put into place. You know, are you going to start cooperating more, for example, with the Russian military in Syria? Again, both on the ground and in the air. That is another huge if. That would be a very fundamental shift for the U.S., Brooke?
[Baldwin:] OK, Barbara, I'm listening to you. I've also got a military voice on the other end of this. Let me put a button on this Andrew Puzder story. He has officially withdrawn. He was President Trump's pick to be the labor secretary. His whole confirmation hearing was set for tomorrow so, there you have it, officially withdrawn. Back now to the other breaking story, though, with the defense department considering, considering, considering sending conventional ground combat troops into Syria to fight ISIS. Barbara start just perfectly laid it out for us. It could be one of the options. She points out it hasn't been taken to the President yet. Gayle, stay with me. I have Rick Francona. What do you make of this possibility?
[Rick Francona, Cnn Military Analyst:] Oh, this is a big step. This would be a major shift in our policy and it really gets into a political nightmare. If you look at what's going on in Syria right now, you've got a conglomeration of the Syrians. That means the Syrians are supported by the Russians, Iranians and Hezbollah operating. You have the Free Syrians backed by the Turks and this American backed organization called the Syrian Democratic forces. If we're going to go in there and work with them, that's going to put us at political odds with both the Russians and the Turks. So, this is going to be not only a military problem, but it's going to be a huge political mountain that we're going to have to climb. We have tried to take a hands-off approach with the Turks so far, but this will put us in direct confrontation because we're going to want to put American troops there to take Raqqa, that's the big key there who takes Raqqa. The Turks want to do I, the Syrians want to do it and we would rather have our forces do it.
[Baldwin:] Gayle, you heard the colonel. What do you think?
[Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Senior Fellow, Council On Foreign Relations:] I think this is a policy discussion that's been going on since 2013, you know, at the latest. I think you have the foreign policy of unpredict ability from the Trump administration meeting the reality of the complicated nature of the Syrian war which has killed already the equivalent of Oakland, California. Left homeless and without their country, the equivalent of Los Angeles. So, you see the Trump administration trying to figure out what is the way forward, every single policy option that, as Barbara Starr reports with great skill, has already been examined by the Obama administration which really felt that it was elected to end wars in the middle east, not to start them. And, so, the question now is what they do going forward from the Trump administration in order to fight ISIS and how willing are they to take on the Russians and the Turks.
[Baldwin:] Barbara, I have 40 seconds to hand the show over to Washington. Do you have any idea when they would take this to the President?
[Starr:] Well, they're going to have the deadline at the end of the month when they owe him the answers he wants. It has been held up most likely to some extent by the turmoil at the national security council. You get a new NSA advisor in there and you are going to start begin to see some of this moving forward.
[Baldwin:] OK. Barbara Starr, thank you so much. Gayle, thank you. Lieutenant Colonel Francona, thank you so much. Again, on the breaking news from the D.O.D. considering proposing conventional ground troops into northern Syria. This would be a first. We know President Obama has opted not to do this, special forces yes, but conventional ground troops no. So, that's a possibility that could be taken up to the President. I am Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being here with me today. We're going to send things from New York to Washington. "The Lead" starts now.