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all right. the breaking news this morning. former president trump says he has been informed by special counsel jack smith that he, trump, is a target in the criminal investigation into the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. >> all of this is potentially a major signal that the prosecutors could once again file criminal charges against former president donald trump, and if that is true, he is the only former president to be criminally indicted three times. >> and our guests are standing by with the latest on this.

we begin this trial with the crime reporter kcaikatelyn pola who broke this news. what did donald trump say on social media? >> he is saying quite explicitly that the justice department is saying that charges may be near for him in the january 6th investigation, and this is the investigation being conducted by special counsel jack smith and it has looked at donald trump very much so about what he did in the white house, and what he did after the 2020 election as well as others, and it has looked at the behavior of others and brought in many, many witnesses here, and at this time, that investigation appears to be so ripe that the justice department has been able to tell donald trump that the time is now if you want to speak to the grand jury in your own defense. that is something they allow people who are targets of an investigation to do, but it is often something that only

happens at the very end of an investigation where the charging decision is so close that an indictment could come if in days if not weeks, and what trump is saying here is that the justice department sent a letter of sunday night of this week stating that he is the target of the january 6th grand jury investigation which is a federal investigation which is what we understand is out of washington, d.c. it is giving him a very short in his words four days to report to the grand jury if he so chooses and he identifies it means that he may be arrested and indicted. he did also receive a target letter similar to this in the investigation by the special counsel's office in florida, in miami, where he ultimately was charged with several counts, and more than 30 counts related to his retention of the classified records after he left the presidency, but this investigation, it is about what trump was doing at the end of the presidency, trying to hold

on to power and leading up to and on that day of the riot at the capitol when many of his supporters went to the capitol and wanted to harm mike pence and prevent the transfer of the presidency from him to president biden. >> and paula reid, you are getting information from rudy giuliani's team, and he along with donald trump is someone who is long the focus of the investigation, and what are you hearing from them? >> well, kate, the first question after hearing or on social media that trump the had received a target letter is well, who else might have received this letter, and the former mayor of new york is at the top to list. he was at the center of president trump's efforts to try to overturn the election results and including pressure of the state officials and filing various lawsuits and he was

front and center of the entire effort, so i gave his lawyer a call, and he steling me that rudy giuliani has not received a target letter in this investigation, and his lawyer does not expect that he is going to be receiving a letter or charged in the probe. he want on to explain as we report and we know that in recent weeks rudy giuliani sat down with the special investigators, but he was offer and the special counsel said that you can come in with a voluntary interview or get a grand jury subpoena. he opted for the voluntary interview, and so he interviewed for two mornings, and he tapes the show in afternoon, and so he opted for the morning interviews. he went to new york for interview, and throughout the afternoon, he was cooperative and shared information with the investigators and asserted privilege, and not sure if it is attorney/client or executive

privilege, but he has insisted that he is cooperative and sat for the voluntary interview, and his lawyer does not expect that he is going to be charged. >> paula, thank you for that. much more coming out of florida as we speak, i am sure. >> all of us are on the computers to work as many sources as we can to find out as much as we can. apologize for the disarray, but this is what happens with breaking news of this caliber, and when donald trump says he has received a target letter from special counsel jack smith when he says that he is a target of the january 6th investigation, and this is separate from the mar-a-lago documents case in which he is indicted, and this is a major, major development. this is a whole separate area that the special counsel has been looking into, and to be clear now, cnn has confirmed, cnn has confirmed that donald trump has been identified that he is a target of this investigation. we no longer near to merely say that donald trump is claiming on

the social media account, but he is a target of the january 6th investigation, and we will bring in the senior legal analyst, elie honig, okay, elie, what does that mean and in terms of the clock and in terms of what we expect to see in the coming days? >> so a target is the second worst thing that you can be in the federal system and a defendant is the worst. so being a target is that jack smith does this, and we know he does this, because he did it in the first case in mar-a-lago case. and this is a target let ter is that they believe they have a substantial evidence and there is notice so they can be protective of their own rights and they can get an attorney, and be protective of their

right, and in a practical sense, it is very likely, and not certain, but very likely that person will be charged. >> looking at the screen, trump saying that i had four days to refort the grand jury, and that is matter of form. the target almostn never goes t testify before the grand jury, and the most important thing is that donald trump is receiving a letter that he is the target of january 6th. >> and this is confirmed now. and it is not just him saying it. and what are the charges here? we know that this is a huge investigation, and they have talked to all manner of people, and from giuliani to e lectors and what would they bring? >> conspiracy to defraud the united states of a free and fair election, and that could, depending upon how the prosecutors construe it cover the conduct, and the pressure of

the state and the pressure on the elector scheme, and the pressure on mike pence, and the proceeding to block mike pence and other charges to tie him into the false elector -- >> what is the hardest charge? >> the conspiracy is the broadest charge, and the most to it and in a way advantage to the prosecutors because you can pour in all of the evidence, but it is also the broadest, and narrower charges are easier to explain to the grand jury. false statements, look, ladies and gentlemen of the grand jury, and here are the documents that have false statements on them, and sent into the archives and that is the crime that is easier to explain, but the conspiracy is more time and more leeway to

explain the case. >> we bring in abby philips who is coming to join the conversation as we have been covering breaking news. abby, we have from two sources familiar with the matter that cn has confirmed that donald trump has received this letter from the special counsel saying that he is a target of the criminal investigation. it is already, and has already been a swirling question of what the other criminal charges he is facing means for the future of his campaign, but what would this addition mean no near future for his campaign? >> yeah, you know, this is a moment where we have to take a step back and think about the fact that this a former president who has already been impeached related to conduct that was under investigation by the special counsel, and that impeachment did not result in a conviction and removal from office in the waning days of the presidency, but it did raise so many questions of what his role

was in the insurrection of the capitol to try to stop the transfer of power to joe biden. the idea now that he has received a target letter from the special counsel saying that he is basically likely to be indicted on charges related to that same conduct is really extraordinary, and to some degree, this case is different from all of the others in that it has pretty direct bearing on the operation of this government, on the united states of america. he is now a candidate for the presidency. there is political questions right now about the near future and how voters will see this, whether it is republican voters or voters in the general election, but on the question of a sitting candidate being potentially indicted for actions that he may have allegedly took to undermine the peaceful transfer of government in this

country, that would be completely unprecedented. i think that it is really going to put trump in a different category in all of american history frankly. this is i think a big moment for him, and it is going to be harder to explain this away as something that is just about a few sheets of paper. this is about a real seminel moment for the country, and this could overshadow, frankly, all of the other charges that he might face here perhaps maybe not the georgia case which is very much related to the january 6th allegations here. >> abby, it is a side issue, but only a little bit of the side issue. underneath you have a small picture of ron desantis who is running against donald trump in the republican primary, and ron desantis is going to be on cnn at 4:00 today, and i can't help

but think how this news shakes up once again this republican primary and the various questions that will now be put to these other republican candidates. do they choose to defend donald trump? do they speak out against the possible channels of possibly undermining democracy? >> that is the big question, and up to this point the answer is no. they have chosen not to take any of these issues, legal issues that trump faces up, and use it against him. i am not sure that we can expect that to really change, because in many ways january 6th among the republicans is becoming part of the firmament here, and do you call the allegations and the impeachment basically a witch

hunt. ron desantis was recently asked about this by a voter in new hampshire, and he said, well, i had nothing to do with it, but i basically think that we need to move on. that is how we have seen candidates in the past respond to it. right now for desantis, the reason that the interview with jake is so significant is because he is pivoting in his campaign tactically, and the question now is going to be whether he is going to pivot on the substance, and changing his approach to criticizing trump and using some of the many legal problems that trump faces as part of the campaign against him, because right now, desantis has stagnated, and he is looking to do something to change the trajectory of his own campaign. >> yes, ron desantis has a ron desantis problem in addition to a donald trump problem. >> to your point, it is interesting, because a lot of the candidates have been saying that we are done looking back and look forward and in order to

do that to differentiate themselves from donald trump who is looking back, they will all be forced to look back if criminal charges come related to trying to, related to january 6th. >> he still says that he did win 2020 election. he is still putting it out there, and so they have to look forward and backwards right now, and everyone is going to know what the response is, and the polls have shown that donald trump has not been hurt by the first indictment. >> or the second or whatever. >> or any of them. the core supporters have gotten more supportive and not less, and we will have to see what this does. evan perez is in washington for us, and we are talking about this donald trump of course at the center of all of, this and he is still denying that he lost the 2020 election, but who else could investigators be looking at, and potentially targeting here? >> well, sara, that is a great question, because the fact is that this was not done just by donald trump. he had a number of people who were working with him to try to

overturn the election results in the states that he lost, and you know, some of the pressure campaign came directly from people inside of the white house, mark meadows for instance, and we know that rudy giuliani and some of the other attorneys were pressuring election officials and trying to get access to the voting machines which is by the way against the federal law and state law and federal law if you don't have authorization to get access to the voting machines, and that is something that we know that there was an evident to do. and we know that election officers in all seven states where this fake elector seats to seat the electors to try to keep donald trump in power even though had lost those states, and all of those seven states and the top election officials have now spoken to the special counsel. one of the names that we have obviously at the top of the list is rudy giuliani, and his lawyers have told paula reid that he has not received a

target letter, and he went into the grand jury and spent two days answering the questions. we are told that he did not answer questions around trump but maybe because he claimed privilege, but what it is telling sus that the prosecutors are trying to figure out exactly what rudy giuliani's role is in all of this, and we know that john eastman, jeffrey clark, some of the other legal folks were also at the center of the investigation. so the question now that we are making calls to all of these folks to try to figure out whether they have similarly received target letters. one of the big questions at the center of all of this, sara, is the issue of whether the prosecutors would go after those officials and not trump, himself. clearly the answer is that they are starting at the top. so we will see if there is anybody else around him who is also receiving these types of l letters. >> as the senior legal analyst elie honig said, they could come later in days or not at all, and

we will have to wait and see. thank you, van perez, our senior justice correspondent with more details on who else may be continuing to be investigated going forward. >> over to capitol hill, and manu raju, some of the reaction of the republicans, and what they are hearing that donald trump, the former president, he is the target of the january 6th criminal investigation. >> yeah, and what we have seen time and again is that they rush to his defense even as he is facing serious charges and apparently the target of a third criminal indictment, and this time, no different, and the republicans are offering a staunch defense of the former president and attacking the special counsel jack smith and attacking justice department over this probe. even as we have not seen the evidence or the indictment, and we don't know the exact findings of this investigation, there is

an argument from the republicans that trump is being unfairly targeted. this is what the speak over the house kevin mccarthy just told the republicans. i guess you'd under a biden administration by america, you'd expect this. if you are noticing that president trump went up in the polls, and actually surpassing biden for re-election, and he went on to contend that this is the weaponizing of the justice department, and this is of course, part of the republican theme all along which is ones a speck of the investigations. but again, nobody has seen the evidence or any exact idea of what donald trump may be charged with in this investigation. but i talked to a number of the rank and file republicans coming out of conference right now, and most of them did not know the news, and they were in a meeting and i informed them of it, and they did not want to comment on it, and they indicated that even if he were indicted for a third time, they would support him for the presidency and arguing that

hit would not injure him in a general election, and saying that the voters in a general election, a completely different question here, but the house republicans making clear that it is they are supporting him through all of this, and even if he is facing unprecedented third indictment of a former president. guys? >> manu, thank you. we will hear much more from capitol hill on this, and the political side of this, and very precedent right now, the legal side of it. >> and elie honig, i want to come back to you to remind people where we are talking about here, and so much of the focus has been on florida, and by the way, eileen cannon is holding a crucial hearing on the mar-a-lago documents case in a few hours, and this is florida. this investigation is d.c.-focused. >> yes. so all of the grand jury action has been in washington, d.c., and overwhelmingly likely, it is going to be filed in district

court in washington, d.c., and this why it is really important. donald trump is very politically unpopular in washington, d.c., and he got about 5% of the vote in 2020 in d.c. so the jury pool is going to be looking different for him in d.c., if he is indicted than if he is in florida. >> comparing the two cases, if there is a delay, and will this trial last forever, and than if there is classified documents to complicate it, and as far as we know, there is no classified documents involved in the january 6th case. >> yes, it is the third in line, and they don't have to be tried in the order they are indicted, and each judge has to pick his or her schedule, but we are heading for the gridlock with the trials. when do they try the cases if they expect to get them in before the election, and that is another dimension to look for today when he is going into florida court, and not donald trump, himself, but his lawyers go in there to get a trial date set there.

>> can we step back a minute and recognize what is happening today. this target letter that is sent to donald trump, we know that he has said it and it is confirmed that it actually happened. it is not surprising, but it is historic, right? it is not that surprising sbra because we have been watching this one by one by one, and it is all pointing back to donald trump, but it is a huge moment in our history as well. >> it is really a momentous okay case, and it is telling us that very likely, and not likely, but certainly, but very likely that he shgoing to find himself on the end of a federal indictment that relates to the effort to steal the 2020 election. that fact does differentiate it from the two charges that we have seen already, and the state charge here in new york, and the manhattan d.a. relates to the way that the hush money were logged to the way of hush money to porn stars years ago, and the

mar-a-lago indictment is the mishandling of information and obstruction of justyijustice, as is to trying to steal the 2020 election, and will it leave a political impact, i leave that to manu and those he is covering. >> does it make a statement from your perspective that we will be seeing the charges coming in both of the special counsel investigations kind of as if all of it is wrapping up at this point? what does this -- we obviously have had the charges in florida, and this is kind of the lingering special counsel investigation, and what does that say where they are now? >> jack smith has been working very hard and very directed and focused since he took office. he became special counsel in november. he charged mar-a-lago case in june. that took him eight months. and here we are into july, and he is probably very likely getting ready to charge another

case, but jack smith has made a huge difference when he took over. when merrick garland was running the investigation, no indication that the topmost people were interviewed or charged, and that changed very quickly when jack smith took over. one more timing mix. there is yet another investigation pending by the fulton county, georgia, district attorney relating to the pressure campaign there. >> and that is the review of august-ish. >> she has sent public letters to have the judges working from home and not holding trials wink-wink in august, and who is getting there first. if i am jack smith's shoes and i want to call it before fani willis, because i want first priority and hey, we charged first and we should try it first. the judge does not have to listen to it, but you want to

get to the witnesses first, and if fani willis does charge it, does it make sense for me to charge something that is already covered by the doj and she has said that she intends to charge, but yet another -- >> do they speak to each other, but they do notice when the next person puts out an indictment. >> they are all watching each other is safe to say, but we have not seen any evidence or reporting that any of the relevant prosecutors here, whether alvin bragg, the d.a. in manhattan or fannie smith in fulton county, and you can, because there is no problem with the d. amount of one office calling another one, but there is no evidence here. >> and possible evidence from donald trump of the possible charges. we know that he is the target of the federal investigation surrounding january 6th, and you know possible universe of charges, and how can he defend himself?

>> well, having a sense of the universe, the defense is some sort of i had been told that i won the election, and some remedy there, and the advice of counsel defense that my lawyers told me i could do these things. john eastman, a lawyer who is widely discredited, but at the time, a known constitutional scholar who clerked on the supreme court, and my lawyers told me that mike pence could throw out electoral votes, ande advice of counsel, and that is a defense to certain charges to certain portions of the case. so it is a combination of i was contesting this election maybe in an aggressive way but not criminally, and i am voicing donald trump's defense to be clear and/or told my by attorneys that it was legitimate for me to do.

>> standby, elie, and we will have much more on this breaking news. two sources have said that donald trump has received a letter from the special counsel jack smith informing him that he is the target of a special investigation into january 6th, and that is on the very same day that donald trump's legal team is to be in court in florida on the first hearing before judge eileen cannon on the charges that he is facing related to classified documents. we have much more on this. stay with us. hase freedom unli. so i can save on something special for a first date? wait! that's all for a first date? whoa. alright, c'mon. earn big with chase freedom unlimited with no annualal fee. how do you cashback? okay everyone, our mission is complete balalanced nutrition. together we provide nutrients to support immune, muscle, bone, and heart health. yaaay! woo hoo! ensure with 25 vitamins and minerals and ensure complete with 30 gram of protein. ♪ this is american infrasucture.

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more now on the breaking news. former president donald trump has received a target letter. we have two sources confirming

it, and he, himself, he has put it out on social media, and that is coming from jack smith's investigation into efforts that he overturned the 2020 election. so he has received this letter, and that means that he has to respond to it potentially he said in four days that he is supposed to go before the grand jury. >> he has the opportunity to go before the grand jury. >> but he probably won't. >> and so that means that he is going to be the investigation into january 6th, and donald trump says that most often when somebody receives a target letter, they are often if not usually charged with a crime. >> let's get back over to cnn's katelyn polantz who has been working her sources as we are learning more about it. what are you hearing? >> okay. what this indicates with donald trump now saying publicly that he has received a target letter and that he has been invited to the grand jury to testify in washington, it indicates that this investigation is in its

final throes. we have been getting a lot of the intelligence on that for some time now where we have put out several stories about all of the aspects of this various investigation, legs about looking into the fake electors, and pressure from the justice department, and looking into what donald trump is doing, and the campaign is doing in battleground states and pressure around mike pence on january 6th, itself, and as well as financial aspects. there are so many pieces of this investigation that had appeared to be coming together, wrapping up with the special counsel's office nailing down testimony from some of the most sought-after people inside of the white house, the chief of staff mark meadows, vice president mike pence, and others with the interactions with donald trump. and now, what we have is the most assured indication that we have had so far that the justice

department is looking at charging the former president of the united states with what he was doing at the end of his presidency to hold on to power and potentially block the transfer of power to the rightful winner of the 2020 election joe biden. that is now out there, because trump is saying himself that he received this target letter on sunday, that he was given four days to potentially come into the grand jury to testify. he did not go into the grand jury and testify in the southern district court of florida where he did not get a target letter to his retention of national secrets after the presidency, and he was indeed charged with a crime there, and now, kate, we will wait to see what happens in the coming days and what is this grand jury doing, and they are meeting today and they are continuing to work with the prosecutors with the special prosecutor's office. >> thank you very much.

paula reid is there, and obviously all of this is developing over the last several minutes, and you are working your source, what do you a hear? >> well, we know that in just a few hours, president trump's legal team is coming to florida here for the other criminal case where he is charged with the mishandling of classified materials. so we want to know if the former president is going to take the opportunity to go before the grand jury, and he declined to do that when he received a target letter in this investigation. it is not expected he would do that. we also want to know if he is having another meeting with the justice department, and the former president's lawyers met before the former president was charged in this case. what we expect to happen today is part of the legal strategy to expand to any potential charges in the january 6th probe.

today is the first time that lawyers for both sides special counsel and former president trump is going to appear before judge eileen cannon to oversee the case before a trial, and she told the parties to come to dis discuss a trial case, because they will be facing similar questions in a prosecution related to january 6th. the special counsel wants a speedy trial to go in december, but trump's lawyers said it is premature to put a trial on the calendar, because they want to push it past a 2024 election, and if the former president is charged with january 6th in washington, they would follow a similar strategy. another possible issue for the former president with the january 6th case is going to be finding lawyer, because he has had a tough time here in florida to find attorneys to join the legal team, and that is a problem he would find if there

are additional charges in washington. in the past several years even in the white house, he would have problems finding high profile and experienced attorneys to represent him, and the same in florida. and the reasons? well, some lawyers are concerned about getting paid. and the political cost of alienating other clients for taking him on. and so, there are a lot of questions for them, and a lot of questions about whether the former president is charged criminally again. >> paula, you touched on it, but is the legal team in florida the same group or is there overlap with the people who are dealing with the january 6th investigation or will deal with that? >> look, it is an amorphous group of people who are moving into the spaces whoever needs legal counsel. one of the biggest problems is that the former president

recently lost three of the key lawyers who were representing him in most of the special counsel matters, and they have departed the team in the last month or so, and so right now, he is represented by chris kise, the former florida solicitor general and todd blanche and others who are working on a variety of legal issues, but if he were charged in washington, d.c., with another criminal case on january 6th, he would need another lawyer whose sole job would be focusing clearly on that case, and so it is not clear what the division of labor would be in that case, and this case, and he is clearly facing multiple ongoing investigation, and in the state of new york he is charged there with the hush money probe, and then charged federally for the allegedly

classified documents mishandling case, and now charged possibly in washington, d.c., federally, and so suffice it to say that he needs more lawyers. >> paula reid, that is the safest reporting that all of us can say today. back to you in a moment. >> and on par with what he generally does. he tells people before the special counsel has a chance to do so and then he attacks. this is what he put out on the social media site. wow, on sunday night while i was with my family having arrived from the turning point after having won the straw poll over all of the other candidates i received horrifying news, and he goes after jack smith. deranged jack smith with the biden doj stating that i am a target of the january 6th grand jury. so he is on the attack. i wanted to bring in david weinstein, the former u.s. attorney of the southern

district of florida. why do you think that we are hearing this right now from former president trump? trying to get a jump on this or distract us from something else? >> he is trying to shift the focus. this afternoon was going to be about is your trial team ready to go to trial, when realistically are you going to trial? please answer all of the questions that the government has raised and he is doing what he often does, distracting from the issue at hand. the hearing is going to take place, and they will use this as additional fuel to say that we have to get ready for a grand jury appearance if he decides to go which i doubt he does, and we have to bring other lawyers and another case to look at it, and this is why we need more time, and so he is trying to distract from the real issue at hand, and the issue su are you ready to go to trial in the case that has been indicted, and that why he is making this public

announcement now. >> in a couple of hours or so, judge cannon is going to be making some decisions in this case as to the timing of the classified documents case. will any of the arguments that now he has to deal with this potentially coming down the pike, will those work? >> i don't think that they will. i mean, quite frankly each judge controls their own calendar, and so the arguments that they need to make to this judge is what is it that we need to do in order to get ready for this trial. look, judges have busy calendars, and lawyers have busy calendars and both the prosecutors and the defense attorneys, and when we appear before the judge, the judge is not concerned about what is going on outside of their district, and they want know, what are you doing to get ready for this case here. i think that she is going to be putting the focus on that, and not allow it to be distracted by what potentially could be another indictment in another district that has not happened

yet. >> david weinstein, thank you very much for that analysis. >> david, thank you so much for that. and now, let me bring in abby philip for something that david was talking to sara about. the legal aspect that david is presenting to trying to distract from the proceedings today and why donald trump might be motivated to announce that he has vive received another targe letter, and is there a political motivation there? >> with all of these things, there are always motivations with these things especially with donald trump. he says he received it sunday night, and it is tuesday, and that means that he made a decision to make that pronouncement today. some of it, i think that it has to do with the trump's genuine anger about this. he uses his truth social platform in the same way that he used twitter to vent. he said before he does not want to be indicted. he has told people that he has gone his entire adult life

without being indicted until now, and now he has faced two indictments and possibly a third. so that is real. it allows him in his view to get ahead of the narrative and to shape how this is talked about in the media and talked about among the republican voters. when he was last indicted, trump benefited from a huge fund-raising boost. he benefitted from basically wall-to-wall coverage of his own making before the special counsel had an opportunity to put out a statement. that is what i think that part of the strategy here is to get ahead of this, set the narrative and set the tone among the republican voters. trump is focused on getting through the republican primary and doing so by any means necessary including really swarming the zone even with bad news about the potential that he could be charged yet again in

another case. >> so interesting. great to have you, abby, and thank you for jumping on and bringing us through the breaking news. much more ahead. >> and donald trump has receiveded target letter and he is a target into the investigation of january 6th, and that is a huge story, and we are trying to figure out if anyone else has received a target letter, and of course, they are tight lipped and so much more on the coming minutes, and breaking news out of the korean peninsula. a u.s. national, a u.s. is soldier is in custody in north korea now after crossing border. we are getting new information on that. stick with us. what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now w you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪

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>> welcome back to cnn "news central." we are following more breaking news out of the korean peninsula this time. details of an american soldier detained in north korea now. an official tells cnn he was taken into custody after he crossed demarcation line, and the new details is that he appeared to do so voluntary. >> that is important. he is an enlisted soldier not in uniform at the time and touring area as a civilian. >> mark stewart and kylie atwood are joining us now.

mark, you have been to the dmz, and i mean, we are hearing that this was voluntary, and in other words, you can't just crossover without really knowing where you are, and it cannot be an accident, correct? >> right, sara. this is very well delineated area, and there is no question where these territorial lines are drawn, and that why we keep asking exactly where did this soldier make entry. also, i should point out that outside of the joint security area where we believe this entry took place, it is a very wooded area, and there is a scenic overlook almost, and you can look clearly into north korea, and there is no question what is south and what is north. it is well established. also, this is a part of the world that really is governed by rules and regulations. for example, there is actually a phone line that the united nations can use to call directly into north korea. we don't know if that was used

here, and it is a question that we are asking, but it is something that has been established because of the sensitivity of this area. in addition, this is maybe a little bit surprising to people, but the guards there are not armed. they have not been armed since 2018. part of an agreement with korea. in addition, if someone were to perhaps cross into north korea, these united nations forces which are often american soldiers, they are restricted as to what they can do. they cannot necessarily go in to try to bring something back. that protocol is firmly established. just to -- i am bringing this up to show you the gravity and the weight of this particular area. this geographical spot in the world. >> okay. we want to go to the state department and kiley atwood, you have been working sources to find out what you can from the official channels, and what are you hearing? >> well, listen, i wanted to

bring the viewers up to speed in terms of how we even found out about this. it was this morning a tweet by the u.n. command which is essentially in charge of the stabilization of this area between north korea and south korea, and we can read that tweet to you that alerted all of right now saying that a u.s. national on a jsa orientation tour, joint security area orientation tour without authorization, which is key, crossed intoemarcation line into the democratic people's we believe he is currently in dprk custody and working with the kpa partners to resolve this incident. very clear that the united states is now engaged in the effort. behind the scenes, the officials are working closely with the south korean counterparts which is a close ally of the united states. we are learning bits and pieces of what happened here. we have learned from the colleagues at the pentagon that

as you were saying, this is a soldier who is enlisted in the u.s. forces south korea, and we should note there are about 28,000 u.s. soldiers based in south korea, but he was not in uniform when this occurred. he was out of uniform, on this tour of this area that marc just described to you, and we should note that, you know, this area is shown off to people as an effort to try and demonstrate what kind of control and what kind of stability there is, even though there is tense relations between north and south korea, the point of the tour is to show people that they have a capability to maintain what is a peaceful outcome at this moment in time. now, the backdrop to this is that the biden administration has not had regular communication with north korea throughout the 2 1/2 years in office. the biden administration has reached out to north korea on multiple instances to try to

engage, and said that there would have been brief conditions for the conditions, but they have not engaged, so what we are trying to find out is exactly how the united states is in touch with the north koreans through potential think the south koreans, the chinese counterparts to try to resolve what is a dramatic incident that has occurred and we are trying to figure out how this all went down. >> marc, let me bring you back in, and when we are talking about the process of entering north korea, and talk about what the process is like again as we try to learn more information of what has happened and what happens now here. >> sure. i actually went to north korea in 2008 with a group of american journalists. this is something that requires prior permission and this is the process that takes play, and i entered the area known as

kaesong which is not in connection with the demilitarized zone of jks, but we had to go to the bus station and leave personal belongings behind including newspapers with news coverage from the west. we took a bus, and we were with government minders the entire time, and restrictions of the picture we could take, and people that we could talk to, and some of the north koreans that we came into contact with. in fact, i remember going on bus, and they asked us not to take picture or even look outside of the windows, because there was so much sensitivity to this, but this is a rare opportunity for me and my colleague will ripley has been able to travel several times to north korea, but this is not available for the public at large. >> marc stewart and kylie atwood, thank you both. we will continue the follow this breaking story out of the korean peninsula, and also much more on the top story this morning, we have learned that donald trump is a target of the special

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