this is passed and signed by the conference committee. we know the governor will sign it when it gets to him. we're making sure all three senators and all three delegates have to sign it. we have to make sure that this conference committee report is signed before we're going back into the classroom. >> we know that at least one of your u.s. senators is getting involved as well. we have joe manchin on the show later on, senator from west virginia to talk about why he thinks this strike needs to end and what needs to happen to make that happen. thank you for your perspective, dale lee. appreciate it. >> thank you very much. thanks to you our international viewers. for you, cnn talk. for our u.s. viewers, we have major breaking news about north korea. let's get after it. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news -- good morning. welcome to your "gold zone." it's tuesday, march 6th, 7:00 a.m. in new york. we do begin with breaking news. south korean officials announced that the north is willing to

halt nuclear and missile tests if it holds talks with the united states. >> this big development comes as north and south korea prepare to hold their first summit in more than a decade next month. cnn's andrew stevens is live for us in seoul with all of the breaking details. what have you learned, andrew? >> reporter: well, the key to this at the moment, alisyn, is that north korea is prepared to talk to the u.s. about denuclearization on the korean peninsula. and that has always been a red line. north said repeatedly we're not prepared to talk to the u.s. about denuclearization. they weren't prepared to talk to south korea about denuclearization. we had that re-enforced just as early as a few days ago. the north is now saying -- and this is coming from the blue house, the equivalent of the white house if you like, blue house here in seoul, and they've just put out this statement saying that the north is expressing its willingness to talk to the u.s. in an ope

open-ended dialogue on normalizing relations between the u.s. and north korea. and during that time, as you point out, the north is clarified it won't resume any provocative action, including and it spells this out. there will be no additional nuclear tests. there will be no missile tests while those discussions are on going. the other thing here, of course, is the two leaders of the north and the south have agreed to meet. they will meet towards the end of april. it will be a summit between the two. this is all trying to get warmer ties between the two koreas, obviously, it is the meetings i've been having in peon yang and the move the north koreas sending down as high level delegations to south korea for the olympic games is now having a real impact on relations not just between north and south korea, between north korea and the u.s., alisyn. >> andrew, thank you very much for that breaking news. president trump, of course, sure to face questions about all this today. all the breaking news out of

north korea and about the bizarre televised meltdown form nunberg. he is angry about a grand jury subpoena requiring him to turn over documents and e-mails at his days with the campaign. abby, what's happening there? >> reporter: well, good morning, alisyn. all the stuff going on around the world, it's the special counsel investigation that continues to make headaches for this white house. it seems very much that this investigation is taking its toll on some of the trump associates, prin principlely sam nunberg. sam nunberg a former trump aide is becoming the first to say he former trump campaign aide sam nubberg threatening to defy a grand jury subpoena to testify this friday and daring special counsel robert mueller to testify him. >> they want me over at the grand jury. screw that. why do i have to go? why? for what? >> reporter: mueller's team has subpoenaed all communications

nunberg had with ten different individuals, including mr. trump. nunberg later signaling he may be open to complying. >> i was thinking to save time, i've been advised against this, maybe i'll just give them my e-mail password. what do i have to go -- >> then you're going to comply. >> then i would comply, yes. >> so now you're saying you might comply. >> i have no problem complying in itself. what i'm not going to do is sit, erin, for 15 hours. >> reporter: nunberg says he's already spoken with mueller's team once, making a series of explosive claims about the investigation. >> trump may have very well done something during the elections with the russians. they know something on him. jake, i don't know what it is. >> they know something on him. >> perhaps i'm wrong. but he did something. >> reporter: at other times nunberg insisting the trump campaign did not collude with the russians. >> the idea that we were the manchurian candidate, gloria, we were a joke. everybody was laughing at us. the idea that we were colluding with the russians, give me a

break. >> reporter: nunberg making this unsubstantiated claim don jr. june 2016 trump tower meeting and russians promising dirt on hillary clinton. >> president trump says he knew nothing about the meeting. do you think that that's true? >> no. >> you don't think that's true? >> no. it doesn't -- jake, i've watched your news reports. you know it's not true. he talked about her a week before. >> reporter: nunberg seemingly referencing these remarks from two days before the meeting. >> i am going to give a major speech on probably monday of next week. and we're going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the clintons. i think you're going to find it very informative. >> reporter: that speech never materialized. >> is that because the trump tower meeting didn't produce what he hoped it would produce? >> reporter: the ranking democrat on the house

intelligence committee telling cnn he hopes to interview nunberg about the claim but the republican leading the committee's investigation signaling otherwise. >> your expectation this is winding down? >> i said earlier, we're closer to the end than we are the beginning. >> reporter: earlier in the day, the white house rejecting nunberg's allegations. >> he hasn't worked at the white house. so i certainly can't speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has. >> reporter: but inside the west wing, sources tell cnn multiple officials were closely watching nunberg's free wheeling interviews calling them bizarre and nuts. nunberg attacks the white house press secretary in another interview. >> sarah huckabee wants to start debasing me, she's a joke. okay. fine, yeah, she's not attractive, she's a fat slob, okay, fine. that's irrelevant. the person she works for has a 30% approval rating. >> reporter: cnn's erin burnett asking nunberg very directly about his mental state. >> talking to you. >> yeah. >> i have smelled alcohol on your breath.

>> well, i have not had a drink. >> you haven't had a drink. >> no. >> so i just -- because it is the talk out there, again, i know it's awkward, let me get you the questions. you can categorically answer them. you haven't had a drink today. >> my answer is no, i have not. >> anything else? >> no. >> no? >> besides my meds. >> okay. >> antidepressants, is that okay? now, we should note that sam nunberg was actually fired from the trump campaign in 2015 but clearly he is still making headaches for this white house. meanwhile, on that north korea news, we've reached out to the white house for comment on it. we will get back to you as soon as they have some reaction. the president as recently as this weekend talked about north korea and about what he would say to their willingness to reopen talks. he's also going to be having a press conference later this afternoon with the swedish prime minister. we'll keep you posted on all those developments alisyn and chris. >> abby, thank you. let's bring in reporter and

editor at large for cnn politics chris cillizza. his head may pop off this morning. cnn political analyst david gregory. now, before we get to this circus of nunberg, let's deal with the implications of this breaking news out of north korea. david gregory, at first blush, you have to say congratulations to the trump administration. they were able to move the ball here. maybe north korea is not telling the truth. maybe they won't really do this, but even the suggestion, even the potential offer is progress, is it not? >> no question. i mean, this is a big deal potentially historic potentially. but i think the caveats do apply when you're dealing with a leader kim jong-un, what he is prepared to do, how much of this is theater, how much of it is real. but we do know that the korean regime has long feared that it would be wiped off the map. that they would be invaded. and so getting security guarantees would go beyond what was the last big deal was back in the '90s during the clinton

administration when they were allowed to produce weapons great plutonium, peaceful purposes to have nuclear reactors to get international aid and these kinds of things. but to actually get security guarantees if they were to denuclearize would be a very big deal. again, this is one of these potential trump presidency moments where you have an opportunity present itself and it could be this is his own brand of diplomacy presented something unexpected and quite significant. we're at the beginning of this now. >> it sure looks like it, chris cillizza, because even if they don't sit down with the u.s. for talks because kim jong-un is so unpredictable. they're still having a summit with south korea. president trump did shake it up and change the status quo. >> right. >> we've seen glimpses of what

donald trump's unorthodoxy can produce. now, we've seen a lot of negatives, but it's clear that his willingness to say things like little rocket man and, you know, fire and fury. remember these are his rhetoric toward north korea, whether that has had the affect behind the scenes, traditional diplomacy had some sort of affect, whether kim jong-un has just changed his mind at the moment and maybe he changes back. doesn't really matter. look, i think with president trump you always have to consider this. if this happened be barack obama or george w. bush, no matter how they got here, you would say this is significant opportunity for historic achievement. >> right. >> we have to take that at its face. sorry, david. >> no, no. sorry. what's also clear is that the north has deliberately provoked this new trump administration with weapons tests. this, of course, goes back, you know, many, many years back to

the clinton administration, back to the early bush administration, 2002 when they started to reverse theirements work, going through the obama administration. the north has provoked with its tests but has not really been willing to deal. that's what's significant. but there is a script here, right? so the south has been pushing for closer ties, china has always been the key player here. china can turn the lights on and off here. and they don't want a flood of -- they don't want a failed regime there because of what it would mean in terms of korean refuge refugees. >> china has somewhat of a laborious situation and has a border issue. they are not as hard line as the u.s. is obviously and they don't want a u.s.-backed unified regime in government in korea. >> that's right. there's somewhat of a naked preference there as well. then you also have to look at,

no matter how this comes to be, you have to give credit to the administration. >> that's right. >> now, there is the question of whether or not this is happening because of trump's unorthodox, chaotic or any of the other benign words we use to describe what seems to be unexplainable in his behavior sometimes or it happened, chris, despite it. >> right. >> even with his provocations the state department has been working hard on this. tillerson has been trying to use diplomacy. they've been trying to shield themselves from exposure to trump's rhetoric a lot. maybe this happened despite it. >> it's still the administration. >> he still gets the credit. >> it's a window into how hard is he making it on his own people to get this kind of progress. >> right. and that's what we don't really know. i mean, we do know that he was a lost cause to rex tillerson. don't waste your time with that. >> if you believe and i don't, donald trump is the greatest chess master in the world, he

was giving tillerson some space to do these things behind the scenes. that all these bluster over here was giving tillerson room. i don't know. i do think alisyn is right, though. broadly speaking this is something we have not seen in quite some time. it is a chance for donald trump to be president when something historic happens. can he win? can he take a win? i have always thought he's his own worst enemy. he struggles to win when a win is possible, when his administration or he set up a win. can he execute here with the only caveat we're dealing with kim jong-un and no one knows what he's going to do. >> it's also possible that the economic noose was tightening and that it's harder for kim jong-un to fire off missiles, so he parades them down the street, but it costs a lot more money to fire them off. >> that goes to the point of the administration has cranked up sanctions rather than doing something else. i for one who have been raising

this specter of a deadly encounter on the korean peninsula would certainly praise this administration if they can get to a point where diplomacy and sanctions worked. that would be a rigorous process with some unpredictability he charted out this path or not even to get to this point i think the administration deserves praise. we have to understand what we are potentially facing. some kind of armed conflict with the north is something that nobody wants. a lot of people feared the impulsiveness of the president. even to get this to point we have to be happy. >> you respect this and see it for what it is. remember with the iran deal, how many different partners it took, how much time, how much negotiating. we're at the beginning of a very long road. another topic, nunberg, chris cillizza, i found it very amusing and insightful what you were writing about him last

night. do you think there's any chance that he knows much about any of the topics he's spouting off about? >> not really. i think that what mueller -- the reason all of his information that set nunberg off is because he's trying to create, define, check the universe that existed in that 2016 campaign. who knew who? who worked closely with who? who was in close sort of cahoots with who? i don't think sam nunberg is the secret key that unlocks this entire thing. i think he -- the reason he has so much irritation is the willingness to outright reject today the subpoena from mueller and to say, hey, media here is the subpoena. here is what he wanted. people who say you shouldn't cover this, this is something to work for donald trump's campaign. this is somebody who was subpoenaed by a federal grand

jury. >> he invented pretty much everything donald trump did right in the campaign, according to him. this is someone involved in an active special counsel investigation who did work for donald trump. do i think that sam nunberg was as he presents himself sort of the genius behind the scenes orchestrating everything and is the key to knowing whether donald trump did something wrong or not? no. that doesn't mean we shouldn't cover what he says. >> david, do you think that sam nunberg is a clue as to the focus of the mueller investigation and what he's asking for from nunberg? >> well, what we learned from this in the middle of the circus is that is him that 12-hour, maybe it's a shorter time frame circus that is sam nunberg, we get a look at documents coming from the special counsel in terms of what he's actually looking for. it gives a sense of interest of scope. it's still pretty broad if you consider what the special

prosecutor is asking him about. and you know, these are peripheral players. but to cover this as a live event is harder because you don't get a sense of the context. but of course any investigator is going to start with peripheral players to see what they know and go up the chain. and also, you know, there's two other points to make about the circus atmosphere which is as someone who covered the o.j. simpson trials. >> circus. >> there are always figures like this. google cay toe kalen in terms of the figures who get involved and who want media attention and all the rest. it doesn't necessarily mean that they're insignificant but they become part of the process. >> the spectacle. >> i mean, look, at the end of the day, what are we really learning here? one, we're learning that this i only hire the best thing is the very hallow thing. but short of that, all we know is that there's a long list of people that mueller is interested in terms of communications. it's really about everybody we

knew at the beginning with trump. that's what this is. >> chris, could i make -- >> go ahead. fine. >> one very quick thing to make. >> all right. >> this is not surprising. this should not be surprising. to your point, hiring the best people, the only people who would work for donald trump in the beginning, middle and toward the end of the campaign are people who no one else in the republican, political establishment, republican political class would hire. you see nunberg, how could this happen? it's inevitable that stuff like this happens because you are dealing with people who just are not a, b, c or d-list talents. >> guess what, they won. so now they are. i mean, you know? >> that doesn't make you a-list talent. >> no. i don't think that means -- >> i hear you. maybe that's a stretch. they won. >> they did win. >> they had some sort of secret sauce. thank you very much. the president is bucking republican leadership with his tariffs proposal. a gop congressman lays out the

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all right. just getting a little information about the early voting turnout in texas because that's a big topic for us right now. this is the state of texas kicking off their mid-term elections today. their primaries start today. chairs the house financial services committee joins us now. always good to see you, congressman. thank you for taking the opportunity. >> good morning. thanks for having me. >> so what do you make of this that the early turnout numbers for democrats are about 2x what they were last midterm slate. does that worry you, concern you, impress you? >> well, no. the only thing that worries me right now is that my daughter just turned 16 and wants her driver's license. >> first of all, congratulations. god bless. the best to her. that's a tough decision. i can't help you that. but what do you make about the election today, the primaries? >> listen, texas is not about to turn red. not about to turn blue much less turn purple. clearly we know that democrats have been energized. the real election comes in

november. and i still believe that due to the tax cut and jobs act that we are seeing a growing economy. we're seeing the lowest unemployment in 17 years. wages are up. we've seen the highest wage increase in almost a decade. ultimately i think that will be reflected in the election in november. so, the only thing i can say, though, personally i'm not running for re-election. i'm not paying quite as close attention to this as i once did. >> jeb, you're known as a listener. so the reason i ask is while all those opponents you put out there, let's assume for purposes of discussion they're all true. if we learned anything in the last election -- >> they are. >> i'm giving you the benefit of it. everything can be parsed in terms of what matters and why. let's assume everything is as you say. one of the lessons out of the last election is that you have to listen to people on both sides, even if they're not your people. what does this dramatic up tick in voter turnout for democrats mean to you? what can you learn from that? or do you just dismiss it out of

hand? >> well, i'm not sure i dismiss it out of hand. again, as we know, these are the primaries. and, i'm going to wait and see what actually happens in november, but if some of your point is should we in congress work on a bipartisan basis? i can only talk about my house financial services committee that i have the privilege of chairing. we passed multiple bipartisan bills and are trying to go to conference or trying to go and work out a bill with the senate to provide some relief for our community banks, our credit unions, our small growth companies. we have votes that have taken place, so a lot of bipartisan work is taking place. i always try to listen to people and then do what is best. so, again a lot of that work is taking place. unfortunately it rarely gets reported on various networks, including your own. is mainly the controversy that is covered, but there's a lot of

bipartisan work that's going on and right now over my shoulder in the united states senate as i think you know they're supposed to take up a very important banking bill that we look forward to negotiating. >> we're going to talk about that. the more that you guys do by working together down there, the men and women in d.c., the harder it is to just focus on all the reason you give us to criticize what's not going on down there. the tariffs first and then the banking bill. this is not conservative orthodoxy that you use tariffs -- >> not in the least. >> that you use a tariff as bait to a trade negotiation because of the fear of retaliation. do you believe the president will go through with this? and if he is seriously considering it, what is your message to him? >> well, i've already sent a message to the president. i haven't had a chance to talk to him directly about this. but the president has got to be very, very careful here. and if he follows through with it, and it appears that he does, i encourage him to be very surgical with it.

i don't know any tariff trade war that ends well. i give him credit for the tax break and jobs rate. that's helped bring us 3% economic growth for eight yea 1 growth, roughly half our historic potential. but my fear is the president is going to walk back a lot of the progress that he's made and i don't see winners in trade wars. >> when you say walk back, you're worried -- apart from trade war, right, because look, he went off half cock saying a trade war would go off well and win. there's no good precedent set by that. we just gave a tax cut. tariff is another word for tax increase. >> of course it is. >> consumers are going to pay it and our employees in this country, our workers, the number of workers who are in businesses that are going to be affected by higher prices for steel greatly outnumber those in the steel

manufacturing business. are those points you agree with? and do you think they're resonating with the white house? >> i don't know if they're resonating in all sectors of the white house. again, i call on the president to pay very careful attention. i think i have the numbers roughly correct we may have 100, 150,000 people employed directly in the steel industry, but we have millions, millions who take that steel and they fabricate it into something else. i've heard from two factories in texas my congressional direct, one makes shelving for customers like walmart. another takes steel and turns it into small factory buildings and houses and they both tell me, this is going to send our prices up and this could potentially cause us to have to lay off workers. so, i'm hearing from the millions and then as you well put it, we've got 300 million people who consume steel and aluminum. is this going to send up the price of a six-pack at a grocery store. well, you know, it very well may, but we all consume this and i'm afraid this is going to hurt consumers. i think it's going to lead to a

net loss of jobs. again, i give our president great credit for almost over night bringing us back to 3% economic growth. he is going to walk that back if we end up with a full global trade war and already the eu is threatening retaliation. you know, we've seen this story before. we saw it about 15 years ago, i believe. >> with bush. >> in the bush administration. >> uh-huh. they had to roll them back. >> we lost -- >> in the world trade organization said they were wrongful. and so there's a lot of history there. we'll see if you're able to get through to the president. let's pick up one more topic while i have you. make the case how, you know, i get that less regulation sounds like the panacea, especially on the political right. some regulation exists for good reason, right? >> of course. >> one of those categories has to be what happened coming out of 2008. i covered that financial mess very closely when i was at abc news. the banks were out of control. you had no idea how they were using leverage.

they were making bets they couldn't cover and the american taxpayers paid the price and they mostly got off scot-free. so you put in these controls and restrictions to make sure the banks can sustain their own risk. now you want to roll them back. why? >> well, number one, it probably doesn't surprise you, i don't agree with your narrative. i mean what we had was we had an erosion of traditional underwriting standards in real estate. a lot was driven by the affordable housing goals of fanny and freddy when barny frank famously said let's roll the dice. we did and america lost big. second of all, probably only with the exception of nuclear power and the practice of medicine, banking has always been one of the most highly regulated industries. the anti-kris is more -- >> jeb, people had no idea what they were doing. i covered the meetings. you never heard of the derivatives. >> okay. frankly i do know what a derivative is. >> now i do.

>> i've known at the time. >> you didn't know what was happening. >> the answer is not federal micro management number one. it is more capital. that's what we put in our house bill. that's one of the reasons our house bill has been opposed by the big banks. many of them were qui frankly i wish we were looking at a wholesale repeal of dodd-frank, but we're not. we're looking at a very modest recalibration that's going to help community banks and credit unions and we're losing one a day. let's put it this way, chris. i don't believe in too big to fail banks. if i did, it would be limited to eight or nine banks. a community bank that's .002% the size jp morgan shouldn't be laboring under a similar set of regulatory burdens. again, we're losing -- >> that may be a fair point, but you're letting a lot of big banks get away from regulation with what you're proposing right now. >> how? >> because you are reducing the risk that they need to show financial sufficiency and health

under the stress test? >> show me what's in the senate bill, tell me what's in the senate bill, that came out of committee that's helping the big banks? i don't see it. >> if you reduce -- >> if you know something, share it with me. >> no, no, no. listen. you don't have to play a game. what's in the language is pretty clear. >> you just said it. >> financial stress test, they're going to benefit from it. you also have to look at -- i get you about small banks. i know that certain community lenders are been adversely affected by this. >> they're going out of business. >> i understand that. you don't let the big banks play with other people's money again. that's what i'm saying. >> the big banks many said they're very happy with dodd-frank. i think you know this, chris, since dodd-frank was passed the big banks are bigger. the small banks are use this as a competitive advantage. i mean, go and look at what people have said at goldman and sacks most recently the head of bank of america said he is very fine with bank of america.

again, what this is doing is it's helping capital formation for small businesses, for startups. i think it will help some regional banks and help certainly small community banks and credit unions. i haven't seen anything in the senate bill, again it hasn't come off the floor yet, i haven't seen anything in the senate bill that anybody with a straight face can argue is helping the big banks. i don't consider them friend or foe. i'm trying to help the economy. >> it's not about making them enemies. it's about keeping the rules fair. i'm out of time. let's see how it comes out of committee and argued on the floor and please come back and make the case to the american people. >> i would be happy to come back. >> good luck with your daughter. that i can't help you with. >> thank you. so former trump campaign aide sam nunberg apparently has a lot to say. so, what does the house intel committee want to know? the committee member tells us next.

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♪ president trump says he knew nothing about the meeting. do you think that that's true? >> no.

>> you don't think that's true? >> no. and it doesn't -- jake, i've watched your news reports. you know it's not true. he talked about it the week before. >> all right, former trump campaign aide sam nunberg insists that president trump knew about that trump tower meeting between don jr. and russians. congressman adam schiff, the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee wants nunberg to explain what he does know. joining us now is democratic congressman a member of the house intelligence committee. good morning, congressman. >> good morning, alisyn. >> are you interested in talking to sam nunberg. >> absolutely. what we've seen from sam nunberg is what we've seen from so many other witnesses from the president's son to corey lewandowski to steve bannon to hope hicks. an absolute refusal to cooperate and help us get to the bottom of this so we can tell the american

people what we'll do to protect against future russian meddling. >> the leading republican on your committee mike conway basically says that he doesn't think there's anything more to learn about that don jr. meeting. here is what he said. he told cnn -- the 2016 trump tower meeting to death. do you agree that you've gotten all the information you need? >> not at all. actually, in fact, we heard don jr. assert the privileged privilege. if he had a conversation with his father, he dun have to tell us about it. we don't really know what he's told his dad about that meeting. what concerns me, alisyn, on june 3rd, the russians offered don jr. dirt on clohillary clin. a couple days later, donald trump the candidate tells the world that new information is coming out about hillary clinton. the meeting takes place and what happened? julian assange leaks out hacked democratic e-mails. there's a lot of answers we need to get. the worst thing would be to shut down our investigation and

deprive the american people from having those answers. >> well, it sounds like your investigation might be shutting down because again congressman conway, the leading republican, said that it's basically run its course. the probe is almost over. what's your response? >> our democracy is still worth defending. the worst thing we could do is report out an incomplete investigation. we heard from intelligence chiefs over the past few weeks from mike pompeo to mike rogers at the nsa, that the russians actually never left our democracy. their still seeking to attack us. we know that the state department has spent zero on doing all they can to go after russia and secure our democracy. so what we should do is have a complete investigation and pass my legislation which calls for an independent commission of bipartisan appointed panel of experts. but we should tell the american people that we're going to do all we can to make sure when they go to the ballot box in november that we're going to secure it. >> well, listen, gop congressman tom rooney on your committee says that it's basically getting

to the point of being ridiculous. it's getting so redundant. let me play this and get your response. >> i've asked our chairman conway that we need to end this investigation. it's been going on for a year. we've interviewed scores of witnesses and now we've got on the the point now where we're literally bringing people in for nine hours just so the democrats can leak to the press something as ridiculous as white lies, not having anything to do with the russian investigation. >> your response? >> well, i asked ms. hicks the question that i thought was quite simple, has the president ever asked you to lie for him? now, this is a man who couldn't find the truth with a flashlight. and we know that ms. hicks is one of his closest advisers. i think it's completely within bounds to ask her what has he done to ask you to lie for him and cover up for him. she wouldn't give us a straight answer. she was asked about a number of other individuals and refused to

answer that. if we're not going to get straight answers or show a willingness to get to the bottom of this, we'll be more vulnerable when we go into the next election and be more at risk at other countries coming at us because they see us as being weak. i think we could unify and put up a shield against russians and anyone else who wants to attack our democracy. >> in terms of the larger issue of the republicans on your committee saying that your probe is basically done. there's nothing more to see here and it will be over soon and they'll issue a report and the democrats say, no there's more work to do. >> we have to keep this alive. we have a long list of individuals we haven't heard from. we haven't heard complete interviews from jared kushner. he called it quits and walked out three hours into his interview. we haven't heard the full story from donald trump jr. our democracy was attacked and the american people are going to measure us on what did we do to defend it. right now, the republicans seem

willing to say, we're going to do nothing. that's not good enough. >> can you see a scenario last whereby there are two reports, one the democratic one, one the republican one that are put out at the end of this? >> i hope that's not the case. i hope we can find unity and do all we can to defend against these russian swords which are sharpening every single day. it's on us to do that and it's time to stop attacking the process and putting the government on trial. just do the work, get in the committee room, hear from the witnesses and give them no outs as they try to refuse to testify. that's the best thing we can do. >> congressman eric swalwell, thank you for the status report. we have a big news morning. there are breaking developments, north korea signaling that they are willing to give up all nuclear and missile tests. but there is a preseason. what is it? next.

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let's bring in david sanger. good to see you, sir. >> good to be back with you, chris. >> fair point to make even with all the caveats we will discuss to follow that bravo for the trump administration to be able to work to get to this point where there's even a possibility of progress. >> well, bravo for the south koreans to be able to work to this point. it's not clear that there was very much participation in this by the trump administration. this was pretty much an initiative by president moon jae-in of south korea. started, of course, with the decision to let the north koreans into the olympics and then try to continue those discussions along. i would say the trump administration is a very mixed view about it because their fear is that kim jong-un has done a pretty good job of pulling the south koreans into a direction that the americans weren't entirely sure they should go. >> so, the reporting that the u.s. has been working with south

korea, using them as an obvious emissary with the north, you don't fwhie? you think this is all the south? >> i'm sure they have been talking to them about it. and trying to design what the discussion would be like, but the decision to go get them into the olympics and get into this discussion was pretty much a south korean initiative because they were concerned that president trump was heading them on a course to war. now, you had the state department and others, including general mattis, defense secretary mattis, saying, look, we need to find some way to get to a diplomatic path. remember, the condition the u.s. put down for that was there had to be a suspension of -- >> right. >> -- nuclear and missile tests for a while, and there hasn't been a test since november. so that period of time, four months, that looks pretty good.

so i don't think that the administration completely blocked it. but they certainly haven't had a strategy for getting here. >> where is your reporting on the because of/despite analysis when it comes to the president's actions? i've been early on, look, i think that when you see any sign of progress you got to give credit where it's due. this is a big priority for this administration. none of us wants to see a military exercise here. but what are you hearing in terms of people saying, yes, trump was actually tactical and all the rocket man stuff and the my button is bigger than your's helped our process versus no, we're making progress despite . >> i think the policy itself, chris, has actually been better in action than what it sounded like. so the ratcheting up of sanctions has been quite effective and they've done things that the obama administration could have done, should have done and did not do. i think the verbiage that's been

around, the my button is bigger than yours, all that, i'm not sure that helped, and in some ways i think it may have set them back. but now you're heading into the real test of what happens as you keep putting the pressure on? >> so let's talk about that. the buts, we'll call them. they say they're not going to test. what specifically do you think is included in that promise? what kind of preconditions does the north offer up in terms of meeting their part? what is their bargain here? and how would you verify anything with them. i remember your coaching on the iran deal and how important verification and how difficult it was, probably even more so here. so how about those three buts? >> let's start with the first one. what is the precondition here? so far, all we've heard is they will stop testing if the united states shows up and has a conversation. if that's it, then that's great,

and there's absolutely no reason that the president shouldn't or wouldn't take that up. usually, though, this at some point has been paired, if history is any indication, with a demand that before north korea stopped testing either its missiles or its nuclear weapons, the u.s. would have to begin pulling back from what they call its hostile attitude. that means either pulling troops off the korean peninsula, stopping the joint exercises with the south koreans, doing a set of things that would be in return for a north korean freeze. so far, the administration has been pretty resistant to that. now, some of that i think is relatively easy to do. pulling back on the exercises doesn't strike me as all that hard. pulling back on the troops that are treaty committed to defend south korea, that would certainly be hard. one other thing to go look at, and you hinted at it with your reference to verification, very

easy to verify if they are not testing. you can't miss a missile test or a nuclear test. very hard to verify if they're actually dismantling their nuclear capability, meaning taking away nuclear material or missiles, because we don't know where all of them are. >> very important distinction. we learned that lesson with the iran deal as well. david sanger, thank you very much. just the idea of kim jong un and donald trump in the same room is exciting and a little frightening. >> that would be interesting to see. >> it would be interesting. thank you for making us smarter on this morning. west virginia teachers are entering their ninety day of a strike. what do they want to get in order to get back to school. that's next. e way home. it's a longer drive. but just like a john deere,

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west virginia's teachers strike is entering day nine. what's the roadblock to

resolving this? paulo sandoval is live in charleston with more. what's the hold up, polo? >> teachers are refuse to get back to work. demands are too much. they want a 5% raise promised to them a week ago today. more than anything else sks they want help. they want help to deal with the rising cost of insurance premiums. that's how we got here in the first place. plenty of opposition on the senate side saying the best the budget can accommodate is only a 4% raise. the solution was a committee meant to compromise. it was formed over the weekend, meeting the last several days. their job is to come up with a number and take it to their respective chambers, bringing things hopefully to a close. yesterday we heard from a member of this committee saying they think they could find some common ground.

when you hear from the teachers and unions and lawmakers, they say anything less than 5% is certainly a waste of time. 300,000 students today are going to stay home. a ninth consecutive day they've missed school. >> polo, please keep us posted as to what happened there today. thank you very much for that reporting. we're following a lot of breaking news. let's get right to it. >> this is cnn breaking news. good morning everyone. welcome to your "new day." we begin with breaking news. south korean officials announcing a short time ago that north korea would halt its nuclear and missile tests with conditions. >> and there's more. north and south korea also agreeing to hold their first summit in more than a decade. it would happen next month. but, as alisyn is pointing out, what are the buts, the preconditions? what would make this happen? what would it require from the united states. cnn's andrew stephens is live in

seoul with the breaking details. this is a surprise step. >> reporter: it is a supp prize step. a few months ago we had a hydrogen bomb test and an icbm test. so north korea looks like, chris, it's adopting a different strategy. there are conditions here and there are buts. it does say it will suspend all provocative actions while there are talks between the u.s. and north korea on denuclearization. they say they are now open to an open-ended dialogue on denuclearization. they also go on to say they would denuclearize if they could have their safety guaranteed, and the threat would be disposed of. guarantees of safety would most likely mean withdrawing u.s. troops from south korea. it looks difficult