♪ robert: president trump downplays disagreements over intelligence and declares no wall, no dea i'm robert costa. welcome to "washington week." president trumpis tells intelligence chiefs to go back to school.he following stark assessment of threats from north korea. >> north korea will seek to retain its wmd depainlts and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear a weapo production capabilities. isis is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in iraq and syria. robert: which -- and russian interference. >> not only have the russians continued to do it in 2018 but receive wenal -- seen indication that they're continuing to adapt their model and other countries

are taking an interested eye. robert: plus, the president called bipartisan boarder talks a waste of time. we cover it all, next. announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by -- >> i was able to turn the aircraft around and the mission around and was able to save two men's lives that night. >> my first job helped me to quickly. etty that will happen when you're asked to respond to a coup. >> in 2001 i signed up for the air force. two days later, 9/11 happened. >> babel, a language program that teaching real-life conversations in a new languagea such assh, french, german, italian and more.

babel's 15 minute lessons are available as an app oon line. more information at babel.com. >> fding is provided by koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting and from contributions to your pbs station fromiewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, model ratora. robert co robert: good evening, there were cracks this week between president trump and phlegm republicans. by an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the g.o.p.-controlled senate opposed the president's plan to withdraw u.s. from syria and afghanistan. peter alexander wrote this week that "the disconnect between president trump and the republican establishment on foreign policy has rarely been asrk s

the move by majority leader mcconnell comes as t president also diverged from his intelligence chiefs. joining me are peter alexander, from the "new york times," bob woodward, plults 34ru9ser prize winning author at the "washington post." shawna thomas for vials news and nancy cordes, chief congressional correspondent for s. n bob, welcome back to "washington week." bob: thank you. robert: watching those clips of director of national intelligence, dan coates, we see all these conclusions but yet there's this gap between he and president trump.s why t gap? ob: yes, and of course the intel community is in many way as priest hood and it'a closed system. in fact, at the c.i.a., they call the president the first a custom everything is to be

funneled to him and then to have the president, commander in chief, the first customer, kick them so harmed and say you need to go back to school, you're naive is insulting and is we find in the trump presidency, it's not in trump's own interests, even if he feels that. in he should call the and say hey, guys, go back to school or something like that. and as we are just a little month or -- at some point there's going to be a trump kim jung unsummit again, you can't go into that divided and you have to have some knowledge about why does north korea haves nuclear wea they have nuclear weapons because they believe it's a deternls -- deterrent and it gives them leverage in a very

important way and the intel people have been telling trump for a long ty'ime, hey, t not going to give up their nuclear weapons so there's a divide. robert: shawna, you were there in singaporeuring the last summit. what happens for the next one last month? shawna: the president wanted to do that summit and they made that summits happen f him. he has said he wants to do another one. reporting and what we're hearing from our international partners is that it's probablyng to be in vietnam. he has an entire infrastructure to make another one happen and clearly kim wants to do it as well. so i think s we'll another summit. i think the problem about what president trump vs. the intelligence was sing. also, what is actually true? should we believein anythat the ambassadors orse anyone tells them if the president is

saying that? robert: what dimd you learn when you sat down with your colleague magui with the president in the oval office th week? is he isolated from his own intelligence officials? peter: he told us no. them in and everything turned out to be fine. the only problem was the, med of course, misinterpreted things.wh was fascinating is how he operates. he brings in coates, haspel, and he said i understand what you're saying. you're saying iran is a wonderful place. oriental is not a wonderful place. they say, sir, we don't trip iran is a wonderful place. well, therefore, the media misinterpreted that. we reported correctly what they said and everybody saw it live on television. they said iran is currently building a nuclear weapon and the presidents sorf has created this strahmen, well,

they didn't say this thing which they never said and therefore it must be the media. it talks about how theresident lives in his open space and the people around him are eptrying him happy, more or less, without havingo sacrifice what the professionals tell him at langley and aoss the c.i.a. and intelligence network. >> we're not talking about the big thing that actually got talked about in they are haing, them cyberthrefments f china and russia. we're litigating did they say at they said because we heard them say it? that's going to affect this election. it could affect our power grids and so many other things and we don't have room for that conversation for some reason. robert: you had an exchange, nancy with senate majority leader mcconnell abo all of this. what has been the reaction among republicans on capitol hill? nancy: he claimed to have no idea that had happened in the ar

g. in fairness, i did him about it on the day of the hearing but is was all over the news and talked about in the halls of congress so the notion hwas unaware that the president's hand-picked intelligencers adviere saying something from markedly different fm what t president has said in the past is somewhat not believable. another thing that got buried ia thisng was something very striking that the intelligence advisorsll said. at the same time that russia and cloib are more united tn since the 1950's, u.s. allies are pulling away from us and the reasons they cited are because of u.s. policies on security a trade. pose are the president's policies and it's tty striking indictment coming from his own tom intelligence officials. bob: but what can triple trump in this is he goes to a summits with kim jong un and he has this expectation, i can get him to

give ap his nukes he doesn't. and beware of somebody like trump when he is disappointed and when he feels somebody has lled the rug out from under him and even if he's been told by the world and his intelligence people don't expect that -- look, north korea is there for -- gives him tremendous leverage. countries don't give up nuclear weapons. libya did and look what happened there. robert: and the democrats were pretty alarmed. senate minorities leader chucrg schumer them to hold an intervention for the president. he wte "youannot allow the president's ill-advised and unwarranted excellent to stand." speaker pelosi responded this way. >> the president just doesn't ve seem to he attention span or the desire to hear what the

intelligence community has been telling him robert: bob was talking about how north korea ses its own deterrent with its own nucleart arsenal what about the rest of the world talking about the u.s.'s role in it? >> for instance in moscow, youa vladimir putin basically playing to president trump's own dust distrust of his agencies. this is bit on the fact of two years or more of a sophistication between president trump and these organizations, which started business -- his presidency by telling him it s not valid. that's the way they see it. he didn't trust the ones who came from them now, the obama appoint eyes and doesn't trust the ones now, even though they were appointed by him. his view is they got the iraq ware wrong, weapons of mass destruction wrong. why should i tst the i don't believe my election was

fa. robert: secretary mattis is gone, gary co-len isone from inside the whoums. who is going to pull the president back towards the, centck towards the mainstream snleds bob: i don't know butha the to do it. collectively smouse -- somehow, the intelligence chief and make that argument. look, p msident, we're just telling you what we find. let's have a discussion about this. this impulse decision makin is very dangerous in this climate d remember, it was president obama in his last months in autopsy -- actually considered maybe we have to launch preemptive strike on north korea to get rid of all their nuclear weapons and the intelligence people told obama we won't get them all and obama said quite

naturally no. so this is kind ofne of these moments where, fork in the road. it can take the dangerous fork where we go off a cliff. robert: it's not just what we saw from the intelligence testimony. there's more news on thi front day in, day out. secretary of state mike pompeo announced friday that the u.s. is pulling out of a nuclear arms control treaty with ruia. >> russia has jeopardized the united states' security interests and we can no longer reaty tricted by the while russia shamelessly violates it. robert: shawna with see the u.s. moving away from itsold war stance. yes, naysay russia was violating thereaty but what to make of this development? shawna: this is something they've been hinting at for a while, that they wanted to get out of the treative. obama's state department s

multiple timd that russia was violating this treat a. na has said russia is righting -- violating this treat criticism. the question is, is the right reaction fes the united st to say we are going to pull out of it?pr umably we could also build different times of weapons and things like that. the problemha isjust creates an arm rails, doesn't reay solve the problem. but how else do we sthanction , put pressure on them? interesting that they're not using any tactics but what else could we do to russi robert: peter, stepping back, is is about the u.s. and russia and at the same time is it also about cloyne? in, there's no real desire at this point to put missiles in rope as was happening in the 1980's. reagan and gorbachev siphonned this treaty in a very volume file situation.

that's not where we're at today but for a trump administration, there's a worry about chinaea developingns we're not able to counter. they're not part of this treaty. maybe the solution is to bring like that.a treaty president trump is a skementic of by lateralgreements and so is john bolton, his security advisor. the i.n.f. treaty may not be that viable in thi b day where does it lead? bob: the real issue is nameo and as mattis sai before he left and said many times, if natost didn't ee would have to invent it and russia will never n a war in europe as long as nato is there so if you can hold that together, but again, trump is repeatedly denouncing nato and saying they're not paying enoughey m

we're suckers. and that's the key, keep nato together and i think strategically that's very powerful but you start -- n toverbings o you go in there wrg ion. peter: roip if you think about senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, he's also rebuking president trump. bob: no one er cls me. [laughter] >> they're calling bob woodward right now. >> the preside did not like something you just said. robert: bob woodward, even on friday night, never stops reporting. so back to majority leaderco ell. bob: i apologize. robert: that's fine. it's all good. u're bob woodward. majority leader mcconnell steps ba on a lot of fronts. he steps back and says i don't want to met wel this president

but on syria and afghanistan, the senate republicanse reb their own president. what is going on? >> i mean, look,s we discussed a few minutes ago, mcconnell is very reluctant to criticize thir ident on a whole host of issues. i ask him about the presi ent everoo week. he does whatever he can to avoid critiquing the with the. yet on syr, it was his amendment. he introduce it would amendmeeb himselfing the president's position on pulling troops out of syria and afanistan and that just shows, this amendment doesn't have teeth. it can't force the president to nything but it is a very strong signal to the white house, republicans b in congress believe you are going down the wrong path. robert: real quick is mcconnell getting his or is he pressure from rank and file? >> i think it's both. i think they're veroncerned that the president is going to kind of go ouch -- off without a

plan and yank troop out and they've heard very worrying things about the prospect of doing that. they saw the secretary of definition, who they greatly admid, resign when the president made in policy. robert: so we'll keep an eye on all this foreign policy but the other stand off in washington is er the budget and funding for a border wall. as the deadline knee, the president is skeptical that the bipartisan committee can c a deal that he would sign. mr. trump said "the wall talks are a waste of time." and he continues to o stri at speaker pelosi. president trump: i think nancy pelosi is huts hurting our -- hurting our country very badly in what she's doing and ultimately i think i've set the table very nicely. robert: set the table, for a national emergency? >> that's his imply occasion.

and the -- implication. and the national emergency is his w out. it's a very controversial idea. they've been critical of president obamade for preial overreach and said it's a danger if president trump tries it. >> i think the interesting thing is i went to the first meeting of the conference committee with republicans and the democrats' house and senate and in that room they did not sound that far apart ontunding the departm of homeland security. they all want border security, more border patrol agents. they all wants to do something about trafficking and drugs. the only thing keeping these two parties apart was the wall and the idea of the wall and funding and republicans were saying we have to figure out a way to give them something. democrats right now are saying their openg bid haso money for a wall but it's -- if tuhe

could ly leave it along and -- alone and he was willing to sign what they gave him, i think those parties could come together and fund the department of homeland security. robert: would a national emergency ruin those talks? >> these are appropriators. they can do this in their sleep. they are used to working out the nitty-gritty and they can come up with a dea e problem is going to come at the end when republicans are trying tois sell t to the president and they can't tell whether he's on board or not because they're going to be unwilling to sign off if they don't know where he's t goi be because that levels them out on a limb cross t wisethe base if they present this and the president says not good no wall funding. robert: is in a governing crisis? t sure could be. what's interesting in this, and ito get on the table, is it possible that nancy pelosi and the democrats will give and

sa look, it's not that much money. we're the ones that are going tr k the gridlock? we will show a littleil flexy and we'll give you something here, pllt -- mr. president? now, they have made it a matter of life a death, which is always bad in a negotiation. >> this is the problem for them. a lot of them have voted for a wall in the past but by making it immoral, which is what nancy pelosi said would look very bad to their bails. they're both locked in and hard to comprome on. robert: and the republicans seem -- wary of having another shutdown. 35 days, they took a beating on it and now they're trying to make sure it doesn't happen again. >> everyone on the hill noles the government shutdown was b

35 days, hundreds of thousands not getng paid andany of dhem working while not getting paid. e saw what they can do when they a rise say we're foot necessarily coming to work. nobody wants to cause a shutdown. but if you don't know what the president is going to sign, what do you do? i think in some ways maybe they give enough money on border security and then hopefully the president will figure out a way to spend it and call it a win for himself. >> this all comes down i think to your defense of a wall. if you have a wall-like fence or a fence-like wall or some kind of barrier as everyone now describes it. can democrats say w didn't give on the wall and can republicans sell it to the president as it's a barrier, it's going to keep people out. it may not beade out of the material you like but it's enough? bob: i don't know whether it's just tragic or sick that we're

having this kind of a debate in washington over issue where -- it doesn't take a lot of data or investigation to puncture this idea of somehow the wall is necessary. it's not. riley the intelligence chiefs didn't even mention the crisis at the border or the need for a they talked about drugs coming across the border. >> it is definitely not the hreats the worldwide hearing or the assessment but it's one of the things that inen, dthe government shutdown, my team talked to prndon guards one of the things they said to us was, you know, some of themere trump supporters and they said walls work. we're prison guards. walls work but they don't work without the peoplehe. they were so rational about it. you can bui t a walls you want but if someone is noho

watching walls, people are still going to come over. >> the problemhe is debate is now ideology cal rather than practical. let's look at this 2,000-michael border and evaluate what could work best here or there. it's become a question of manhood, that's what pelosi said on the president. robert: a big test, tuesday night. the president, brinkmanship or more of a conciliatory tone? >> that's in his welhouse so i'm assuming there will be some brincksmanship and as we've heard in his past couple of state of the yoifpbles, about the dangerousll ofal immigration and the rampant crime that is resulting from it. so i think especially right now as we'isre staring at february 15 deadline, he's going to be making that i casa more -- way than ever.

bob: big trouble possibly and the idea -- again, i hate to go back to overall what's this about? this ifabout small amounts o money in a fixed idea that trump has and you spend enough time, talking to u know people who meet with trump and he'll say these are my ideas and they'll try to challenge him and where d you get tha idea? oh, well, i've had that idea for 30 years and if you disagree with me, you're wrong. he gets his feet i cement on something like that and if he declares an emergency and it goes to the courts, you know who's also going to pay? the people in this country and the democrats because there's no victory in the court these days because it takes too long. robert: we shall see. we'll be watching tuesday. thanks, everyoidy forng us.

next tuesday, tune in to the pbs news hour for coverage of the president's state of the union i'll join judy wood rough and the team. for now our conversationue cont on the "washington week" podcast. find it on your favorite app or on our website. i'm robert costa. have a great wkend. ♪ announcer: corporate funding is provided by -- he i was able to turn aircraft around and the mission around and was able to save two men's lihts that n >> my first job helped me to grow up pretty quily. that will happen when you're asked to respond to a coom. >> in 2001 i signed up for the air force. two days later, 9/11 happened.

>> babel, a language program that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, s much as spanish, french, german, italian and more. babel's 10 to 15 minute lessons are available as an app or online. more information at babel.com 6n uncer: funding is provided by --nd kooatricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed ra bridging cul differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your s station from viewers like you. thank you. >>bs you're watching

♪ the corporation for public broadcasting...