christopher wray will face hearings next week. if confirmed he will replace fired comey. mccabe is the acting director. that does it for me until tomorrow at 11:00 and 3:00 eastern. time to give it all up and hand it over. ♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00. the world has become a more dangerous place over the last 24 hours with north korea demonstrating clear progress toward its goal of developing a nuclear weapon that could strike the u.s. releasing this video of their purported missile launch on state tv. american presidents before donald trump have faced the same limited option as he does. but never before have north korea's capabilities represented such a great threat to this country and allies. this as donald trump is moments away from landing in warsaw, poland, where he'll attend the g20 summit and hold his first ever meeting with vladimir

putin. nik nikki haley is speaking about the threat moments ago. >> in order to move north korea off the military escalation, we must do more. we will not look exclusively at north korea. we will look at any country that chooses to do business with this outlaw regime. we will not have patience for stalling or talking our way down to a watered down resolution. yesterday's icbm escalation requires an escalated diplomatic and economic response. time is short, action is required. the world is on notice. >> in the immediate aftermath of the missile test, president trump issued his response on twitter. quote, north korea has just launched another missile. does this have guy have anything better to with his life? hard to believe that south korea and japan will put up with this much longer. perhaps china willit -- will end

this nonsense once and for all. trump then tweeted his frustration with china, a relationship that he once thought would be more fruitful in confronting the north korean threat before his departure this morning. quote, the u.s. made some of the worst trade deals in world history. why should we continue these deals with countries that do not help us? trade between china and north korea grow almost 40% in the first quarter. so much for working with china but we had to give it a try. end tweet. let's get right into this, with andrea mitchell, hans nichols. jeremy bash and ian stokals from "the washington post." andrea, i watched ambassador haley as i'm sure you did. i thought -- i mean, i heard escalation more than you heard the word. i heard it on the military and the economic front and i thought what she was essentially threatening was a trade war with china. what did you hear? >> that's what i heard as well. she said that there are -- that the u.s. will use all of its

options, military as well, to defend itself and its allies, but prefers other options. so she seemed to be taking a step back from what president trump said back in april when he said that we could have a major, major conflict with north korea. then on may 28th, on cbs, defense secretary mattis said that would be catastrophic. they seem to be pulling back from threatening military action which is the worst of all possible choices. probably because not only with the -- would the reaction be so catastrophic as the defense secretary says, but because it would likely not work. we don't know where everything is. where it's being buried, underground. what in missile showed us it was on a mobile launcher so we can't just take down a missile that's up there for a couple of days on a launch pad. it's on the back of a big truck and so targeting it by satellite is very, very difficult. so it's not at all clear that military action would work.

>> hans, i want to bring you into this conversation and ask you about that. secretary mattis as andrea just said is warning that it would be quote the worst fight in most people's lifetimes. explain why that would be the case and the grave danger that the city of seoul would be in if this escalates this on the military front. >> proximity. you have 10 million residents of seoul and 300,000 americans right there on the 38th parallel. you mentioned mattis. we haven't heard from him all day. he's been dark and that's by design because -- this is why i'm going to yield the rest of my time to andrea. every time i ask about pentag pentagon -- about options here at pentagon, i'm shunted away and there's a clear diplomatic solution to this. i talked to one official and he said the remaining options available and he paused on the diplomatic side. that's a clear message today and just the way they're signaling with tillerson taking the front

on this as well as nikki haley. they didn't want this to turn into this what military capabilities are. >> jeremy bash, let me ask you to wear your cia hat, former chief of staff to the cia hat, since hans is waving us away from grim and dire military options. you have kim jong un who was taunting america and our president by basically according to north korea state media calling it an independence day gift. coyou have our -- you have our new president who spends unprecedented amount of time on social media. i wonder if you can take me inside the psychological war between their unpredictable, homicidal leader and our -- what you would describe modern day president who uses social media in a way that suggests that every presidential statement isn't always run through an

inter agency vetting process. >> what our analysis -- analysts are undoubtedly telling our leaders and our president is that two things. number one, kim jong un wants these weapons to maintain his own regime's survival. he's looked around the world. he's seen people like moammar gadhafi who have given up weapons of mass destruction only to find themselves dead. same thing potentially with saddam hussein in terms of any nascent weapons program or capability he had. so his view -- kim jong un's view is the minute i give up the weapons in a negotiation basically i'm out of here. the americans will take me out. again, we have to kind of balance that where he doesn't believe he can give up the weapons in a diplomatic dance. on the other hand, nicolle, your point is very well taken which is that he in pyongyang, jong un will parse every word by an american president and when he tweets out that he wants china to end this nonsense once and for all, kim jong un undoubtedly

believes that is a direct threat to him. it will make him more erratic. make him more likely to lash out. >> eli, you cover this white house and on a day like last thursday when all eyes were on a war between the president of the united states and my colleagues, joe scarborough and mika brzezinski, the national security team was dealing with and analyzing information about the threat posed by north korea. talk about the parallel tracks that this white house operates on. >> well, you're talking about sort of the duplicity or the sort of contradictions that we often see coming out of the west wing where the president is doing one thing, talking to his base while his advisers are moving in another direction. you see a lot of conflict within the west wing. people moving in different directions internally which leaves a lot of questions as to which way the president is going to go. i think the problem with a lot of this, we talked from day one, from that first tirade that sean spicer gave in the briefing room. we said if we're willing to spend your credibility on things

that are seemingly so insignificant, you know, that could be a problem down the road because a day will come when you will need that credibility. looming crisis with north korea seems to be such a day. >> such a day, yeah. >> you're out there talking to your base saying one thing. tweeting rather casually about north korea and what is this guy doing, doesn't he have anything better to do? and when you're trying to pressure china, it matters that he has also sort of gone out on social media and sent a signal that he's done with china. it matters he's alienated nato allies by not talking about article 5, only having to answer after the fact by withdrawing from the paris accord. he's done a lot of things that have hurt his standings and are now going to make it harder to sort of unite the world if need be against north korea. he did it to appease his base, but they may prove to be myopic. >> andrea, what eli is talking

about has had a real world consequence, russia and china forming an alliance on north korea. can you talk about concerns that per happens -- perhaps our standing in the world stage is already diminished? >> i think it clearly is. first of all, there was a naivete he could meet with president xi at mar-a-lago and sweet talk or, you know, sort of overcome him with charm and personality and the family gathering and all the rest. and that that would persuade china after decades of refusing to take on north korea for its own strategic reasons. it believes that a divided korean peninsula is a better option than having the u.s. having hegemony over that peninsula. if kim jong un and his successors were gone. so you know china not yet willing to squeeze north korea an we have taken the very small step towards a secondary sanction against chinese bank,

but we have to do a lot more. also, china and russia can veto anything that nikki haley proposes. it's significance there was no resolution ready to be delivered today. because they have not worked out the behind the scenes endless talk that usually takes place at the security council. every korean and north korean leader back to 1994 have ignored the u.n. security council. what makes us think that anything they will say rhetorically if it did pass muster that was so watered down that china or russia would not veto it and never have an impact on kim jong un. >> hans, that brings me back to you and the military options. as andrea paints a bleak picture for the prospects of diplomacy working, first of all, what do we know about the medium range missile that was launched and what are the kind of military options that would be presented to the president if the crisis escalates? >> well, the variety of options

that the pentagon has they don't like to talk about publicly. they're so secret. it could be a decapitation, a lot of things that they plan for. here's what every reporter in the pentagon has been doing pretty much all day. they have been walking upstairs to the chief of navy information. they have been asking have any assets been moved into that part of the pacific, the sea of japan? close to the peninsula. i have done it myself, i have been up there two or three times. they say, nothing's moved yet. we don't have any ship movements to report. they do have the "uss ronald reagan." that's an aircraft carrier, north of australia right now. there's not been orders given to move. they have assets there they can get quickly but they don't want to telegraph that right now. as i said earlier when i wanted to yield my time to andrea, it seems like the pentagon sort of wants to shrivel up in the hole today and let the state and u.n. take control on it. >> i'm sure you never shrivelled up in a hole, but talk about what you would do on a day like

today if you were still working as chief of staff to then defense secretary leon panetta at the time, if you saw a picture as bleak as what we see today, the day after the successful missile test like what north korea pulled off yesterday. >> well, two things right off the bat, nicolle. number one, we place a phone call out to the u.s. northern command which is responsible for homeland defense, they're responsible for the ballistic missile defense mission. basically they shoot down incoming missiles and they want to make sure those guys are on their a-game and shoot anything down launched to the united states. second is we're in close consultation with our allies and partners in south korea. if a war were to break out on the korean peninsula, general brooks would take command of all forces on the peninsula including the forces of the republic of korea, the south korea forces and we want to make sure those war plans are up to date. the motto of the army in south korea is fight tonight.

they have to be ready to got a moment's notice. >> truly terrifying times and we're going to get into all of this. we're going to stay on this. andrea mitchell and hans have to go, but jeremy and eli are sticking around. when we come back, two men obsessed with their own press and all that winning but only one is a former kgb spy master and prides himself on one upping every adversary. could donald trump help to make putin great again? and the man lampooned on "snl" may be one of the senior staffers smiling inside a west wing under siege. what his political strength tells about how far president trump will go to keep his base fired up. nutritional needs... all in one. purina one. healthy energy, all in one. strong muscles, all in one. highly digestible, and a taste he loves, all in one. purina one smartblend is expertly blended...

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president trump is just touching down in warsaw, poland, where he's kicking off his second foreign trip. our own peter alexander is on the ground there. peter, president trump is getting ready for he first -- his first face-to-face meeting with vladimir putin but it's significant that the first stop is poland. i wonder if there's any strategy or stra teenry as my old boss might have said. >> well, this stop was hand picked by the white house. they're not going to france. they're not going to the uk. they're coming here to poland where they will find a like minded leader and government here that's nationalistic and populistic in the way it rose to power in 2015. there's a lot of similarities between the government here and president trump.

what the polish government hopes, this will be a way for the president to make a strong and powerful statement, in effect showing he's helping this effort to sort of counter russia on energy security among other things in this region. and what's particularly striking though obviously is what the message is to western europe. this is taking place here what's called the three cs initiative summit with a lot of about 12 central and eastern european nations which are viewed by western european countries, a lot of those strong eu countries like germany, to send an anti-immigrant, anti-eu message. there's a real concern about that. obviously president trump was strongly in favor of the uk and brexit. they fear some of the western european countries that this is an effort in a way to reshift -- or shift the balance of power in the region as well. >> peter, let me read you something from "the new york times" and talk about it on the other side. "new york times" this morning reporting there's a quote, there's a fair amount of

nervouses on in the white house and that the -- and at the state department about this meeting with putin and how they manage it because they see potential risks. stephen piper, who's worked for the national security council. there's a gray cloud for the president of the investigations about collusion so any kind of deal is going to get microscrutiny and questions about whether it's a give away to the russians. it seems like such an abrupt shift from everything that he's been doing now all of a sudden they plop him down in poland because chancellor merkel has gotten on his nerves over climate change. any sort of self-awareness of how herky jerky their foreign policy appears? >> well, i think you make a very important point there. it's worth noting that sarah huckabee sanders the press secretary -- the deputy press secretary just spoke to reporters on air force one as they prepared to touch down here in warsaw. and said that they weren't going to give any more details, reading into their meeting to take place this friday, with

vladimir putin. but, you know, there's a lot at stake in this meeting. perhaps the biggest meeting between two world leaders in years. not only focus on whether president trump will confront vladimir putin about their effort, their meddling in the 2016 election, but also on issues like ukraine and terrorism and syria and sanctions which putin wants to see rolled back as well. hr mcmaster spoke about this to us at the white house about a week ago and said, you know, they hadn't finalized the agenda yet. the white house doesn't want to give anything away leading up to this date which is building a lot of the anticipation because they know that every move they make will be so heavily read into here. this is the biggest meeting of this presidency so far. it comes with a back drop of what's taking place in north korea and even as the president tweeted his frustrations with the chinese leader, president xi who he had expressed optimism about after the conversation at mar-a-lago several weeks ago, it's notable that vladimir putin was meeting with president xi

just two days ago. nicolle? >> let me bring jeremy bash into the conversation. can you pick up on what peter is talking about, about sort of the multidimensional nature of a full scale bilat with vladimir putin with a civil war raging in syria and with north korea becoming more and more aggressive and determined and with the cloud for lack of a better word of the investigation into potential collusion between president trump's orbit and the russian government. >> any other president would use this meeting as an opportunity to put the proverbial finger in the chest of putin and say, hey, buddy, we have clear differences. yeah, i'm willing to work with you on some things like countering radical terrorism. but before we can talk about working together on some things we have to talk about some important differences. we do not support what you're doing in ukraine. we do not support what you're doing to threaten our allies in nato. we do not support what you're doing to prop up assad and push

us out of the way in syria. overriding all of those is the fact that you meddled in our most precious institution, our own presidential election. is president trump going to do that? i doubt it. i don't think he's going to walk in there -- >> why not? jeremy bash, why can't he decide that the strongest, most winnerish thing to do, i'm the best thing you'll have in an american president, but not on my watch. whether it helped me or not, i don't think it did by the way, but stay out of our democracy. i've got it. why doesn't he associate that with real strength? >> he can't bring himself to say that it wasn't welcome. perhaps it was welcome. that's the overriding point, it's possible that this president understood what happened and he doesn't think it's a big deal. he'd be happy to have it again. >> all right. jeremy with the million dollar

question hanging over this president as we await for him to descend air force one. an exquisite and extraordinary aircraft. let me add to the conversation. michael steele, former adviser to jeb bush and former spokesman for john boehner. michael, why can't we see strength in confronting vladimir putin? >> because any mention on the issue of the election undermines his -- in his view, his legitimacy as president of the united states and that's intolerable to his ego. look at the ego we're seeing on display today. news reports suggest the reason he chose poland as the first stop on this trip is because the ruling party promised cheering crowds to greet him. he couldn't be guaranteed that in germany or paris or anywhere else in western europe or old europe. but in poland, the regime is able to muster those crowds on command and they've promised to give him a cheering welcome. >> in his defense, most american

presidents are very welcomed in poland. and let me bring you in on this sort of -- you know, eli and i were talking about the dual tracks that the white house operates on. there's general mattis who is by any analysis a serious president, respected the world over. hr mcmaster, a serious person. he was managing the north korean threat while the president was in the twitter world with our friends joe and mika. how does a president on the road bifurcate the silliness of what he does on twitter with the seriousness of america's national security threats? >> i'm not sure, to be honest with you. but ever since he appointed his national security team there's an assumption that these were the adults in the room. that somehow they would in some way ground trump's erratic behavior. and policy, particularly foreign policy would be stabilized because of these folks. but one of the things that i'm worried about. i'm concerned about, we don't have a clear idea about what the policy has been with regards to north korea. we don't have a clear idea of

what the russian policy has been. so i don't know what he's sitting down at the table to say. to do. and part of what my intuition he'll be easily had by the wiley vladimir putin. >> we have peter alexander still with us. what do they say about what gives this president any sort of upper hand going into a meeting with vladimir putin who's pretty expert at gaining the upper hand from anybody. >> well, i wouldn't be first one to say this to you but you heard the president who thinks he's a good deal maker, he trusts his instincts and impulses and he feels confident that he can gauge the audience. in this case he's dealing with somebody who knows how to play his opponent perhaps better than anybody in the world so there are real challenges obviously there's heavy briefings that go into meetings like this. but as evidenced by president trump's own conversations in the oval office we have learned

about after the fact with sergey kislyak as well as the foreign minister as well, he speaks outside the comfort zone. outside the comfort zone of the intelligence community around him and that's what makes the stakes so high. for all the meetings he's had he never had a meet like this. >> we have watching the motorcade which actually has transported on -- which is transported on a separate aircraft. there are bans in the motorcade for the press. but eli, i want to ask you about this question of, you know, i think what he said is right. we all assume when things got scary for us as a country, the adults would take over and there's no evidence that the adults are down in the situation room managing the crises, but neither -- there here's the president and first lady melania trump. getting off of air force one in warsaw, poland.

eli, if you can speak to this sort of increasing alarm over what they're staring at down in the situation room and increasing insanity of what he's tweeting and retweeting in his petty wars with cable news hosts, his ego that michael steele talked about, his inability to acknowledge what all the intelligence services acknowledge, which is that a cybercrime from russia. >> we didn't see that it would change, whether it relates to social media or a foreign policy that's made up on the fly. this idea that the grown-ups in the foreign policy circles and around the nsc are going to steer him on the more globalist and status quo course. we haven't seen that. the pattern we have seen as it relates to russia is a policy that could be called appeasement. we have moves made to give them back the compounds in the u.s. we have seen the president and his other oval office meeting

with the russian foreign minister divulge u.s. intelligence that harmed the largest ally, israel. and the same sort of schizophrenia you see him touching down in poland, the choice to go to poland as we all laid out here is a political choice. to align oneself with a government in poland that they believe within this white house that's similar to what trump represents but in doing that -- ostensibly he'll go to poland to say we're here for you. we're going to support nato, we're going to be strong. and contain russia. but just being in poland and aligning him and praising this government roils europe. it sort of underlines those divides that exist across europe and who does a divided europe benefit the most? putin. it's another example of you have to listen to what trump says and tweets but watch what he does. he is setting foot now in a

country that's a strong message, just by being there is sending a strong message. >> it's the same convoluted message. he's in a place whose nemesis and fear for incursion is vladimir putin's russian. >> right. but i mean -- >> so he's going to stand with them, meanwhile he's not particularly tough on putin. >> he often has it both ways. he talked about we'll be america first, we won't get involved yet we're make sure -- >> the desire not to be bullied runs right up against the america first ideology. with every previous president, our allies knew they had our back. you see american policy being set and reset and changed via 140 character tweets in the early dawn hours of the white house. apparently without any coordination with the so-called grown-ups in the room. >> i'm going to add to the conversation, a former u.s. ambassador at large to the soviet union and under president clinton.

now a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. can you jump into this conversation we're having about the significance of visiting a staunch american ally that always welcomes a visit from any american president, poland, and the back drop of this high stakes meeting with vladimir putin on friday where aides say he'll talk about whatever he wants to talk about. >> yeah, i think we sort of exaggerated the idea that trump is just rolling over and playing dead for putin here. when any american president goes to poland he's saying we've can -- we're taking your side against the russians. there has been no movement on sanctions against russia since the president was inaugurated. he has underscored support for ukraine. and, you know, the president does not have a well articulated policy, but the adults have actually had some impact on the

stance toward russia. one thing to look for by the way when he meets with putin is is it one-on-one or with the other adults in the room? the adults have obviously tried to stage this as a meeting between two delegations where the president will be there with all of his advisers and putin on the other side of the table with the same. so they're clearly conscious of the need to come out of this, looking strong and tough. i don't know what issues the president's going to raise, but if this meeting doesn't arouse his competitive instincts i don't know what's going to. >> can you address this question of adults in the room which is emerging as a theme this hour. my understanding is that two senior members of the national security council, hr mcmaster and his deputy were both in the room when the president met in

the oval office with sergey kislyak and sergey lavrov and called james comey a nutjob and crazy. so it doesn't always have the desired effect, does it? >> no, it doesn't. but it's critical that the senior advisers be in the room with the president because if they -- because they can serve as a check potentially on his ability to give away too much to putin. putin's done this many more times than trump has. putin is really good at this and our president is not as experienced and is not as capable of taking on the russian leader in this context. i want to go back to one thing that the ambassador said because i disagree with it. we were attacked, we were attacked in our election by the russians, by putin personally. our intelligence has confirmed it. so anything other than a full throated condemnation both publicly and privately is in itself the biggest capitulation of an american president that you could find documented in our history. so i disagree with the ambassador, i think unless we do that when we do that with force

and with precision, it is a capitulation. >> do you want to jump in in response? >> i agree that trump has to cope with that problem in some way. my advice for him would be take it head on and say to putin at the top of the meeting, i have got to tell you that interference in our elections is unacceptable and we will not allow it. then he has to go it after the meeting and said, i told putin it was unacceptable. we will not allow it. he's -- the president has got many different audiences in this meeting. not just putin himself but also the congress and the public back here, allies. and one test of an american president abroad is how well he can cope with multiple audiences and come out looking like a credible figure. >> jeremy bash, one thing that is striking is that he walks

into this meeting as an american president at odds with 98 u.s. senators when it comes to the vote on sanctions. how much is the partisanship that has sadly sort of bedevilled the presidents of both parties over the last 16 years giving way to sort of a bizarre putin/russia fixation that's sort of trumpesque, but doesn't really describe the foreign policy impulses of republican senators like john mccain and lindsey graham and bob corker? >> well, there's a unified american policy about russia which is to strongly condemn their actions in ukraine and express concern about the way they threatened our nato allies and the way that they have maintained the assad regime and propped up other partners like iran in the legion, not to mention the condemnation about meddling in the election. as you mentioned there's near

you know normality on capitol hill and this president is cutting across the grain on that issue. >> where would you put the odds at that this president will say anything? once again we're in a situation -- i thought about this as we all said some version of certain things. the bar is so low. if he says anything to putin, hey, in the elections i got this. if he comes close to saying anything remotely harsh we'll all say yay, he passed the putin test. how do they keep managing to come in under a low bar? >> i don't know. i don't know -- >> an honest answer. >> the readouts that come from the phone calls from the white house, often times they're not very serious. they don't tell you a lot. and again, this goes back to the credibility issue if that's what we're depending on and we're basically taking the word of this administration, this white house, versus whatever the russians put out after the fact about the bilat. it's hard to know who to really

trust. >> in the last meeting the russians released the only photograph. >> because they snuck their own media in without anybody at the white house knowing. they were very upset after the fact and i love to believe that the grown-ups makes sure that trump sticks to the talking points and the things he's been briefed on. how many times have we seen examples of this, where this is more of a matter of one individual's psychology? a person who responds very well to praise and who responds very quickly and angrily to anything, you know, that isn't praise. putin knows that. i mean, so in terms of how trump -- i mean, i talked to lawyers who have deposed donald trump. he gives away the store as soon as they compliment his kids. you know? good luck. >> let me give you the last word in this segment. we know that putin is going to ask for the compounds back. are you hearing that's on the table, do you think the united states under president trump will even consider giving back the compounds or any other concessions to what's on putin's

honey do list? >> well, any concession is going to be heavily read into as a failure by this administration if they concede anything to vladimir putin. this is obviously been the two compounds. one in new york, the other on maryland's eastern shores. been a heavy focus for russia basically saying their patience on the issue has effectively worn out. so i would not be surprised if that was one of the topics that became a focus in private in that conversation. but as you're talking to eli about, they get this rare window when they do a full-fledged bilateral meeting where the reporters are allowed in for just a moment. that's where the hand shakes takes place. that's where the optics and the body language matters as the way that this world sees this moment. you talked about the photo put out by the russians there and they're enjoying themselves and that's not the way that the americans view the russians at this time. when the cameras are in there, the president says anything tough or immediately after when he has that opportunity, he

addresses this. he'll have a news conference the day -- one day later on saturday. that's really his window of opportunity. as small as it is to make a significant message that he sends to people back at home that are his biggest critic. >> thank you, peter alexander. ambassador, the final word on what would be a victory. same question i asked peter alexander. what would be a victory from the view point of vladimir putin? >> for trump a victory is to be able to hand off all of the issues to his cabinet secretaries and say, i'm going to rely on mattis and tillerson to handle this with their counterparts. for putin, a victory is one in which he thinks he's got an understanding and we may not even know about it with donald trump. that's why what you really want is a no -- no agreements meeting. >> okay. we'll keep an eye on it. we'll have you back to see if that's what we end up with. thank you for spending time with us. up next, a man who knows the

north korean regime more than most. he joins us to talk about the growing threat when we come back. [radio alarm] ♪ julie is living with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. she's also taking prescription

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a place for mom. you know your family. we know senior living. together we'll make the right choice. as the united states grapples with what to do next with north korea, we are joined by a man who's been on the ground there and represented this country at the u.n. former ambassador to the u.n., bill richardson. thank you for being with us. >> thank you, nicolle. >> governor, you have spent time, you have been to north korea. you and your foundation worked on behalf of the warmbier family and on behalf of the three other americans being held there. what is the nature of this regime? >> well, this is a totally unpredictable, dangerous regime. in the past, we were able -- able to get americans out. we were able to negotiate other

issues with the father. but with this new regime, well, it's not that new, we have got a leader who's afraid of his own shadow. who feels he has to demonstrate his missile strength, his nuclear strength. his defiance of the international community. even to his ally china. so you've got nobody to talk to. you've got somebody that right now you don't know -- you don't know where he wants to end up. so it's a dangerous situation and our first objective besides responding to this escalation of a potential icbm is we've got three americans there. and we've got to find an explanation for the way they have treated this young man who ended up dying in a coma, otto warmbier. >> i want to ask you -- i guess the question about the nature of the regime is to get at what you just alluded to. the -- your successor at the u.n., many successors later, nikki haley today basically

threatened a trade war with china, but what can china do to a regime that doesn't seem to care about much other than -- i mean, it's not a leader that cares about starving his own people or extreme poverty or torturing and punishing dissidents or those from other countries. what does he want, and he has a tremendous display of military might. >> he wants nobody to talk his nuclear development. i think he remembered about libya, they gave it up and ended up in bad shape. he wants to be the big player in asia. he doesn't want to be a stooge of the chinese or the united states. and the north koreans have always said, look, we're the big boys. north korea, u.s., we don't need china or we don't need south korea. he's work something out. a lot of it is ego. they don't think like we do. they think differently. they're in a time warp.

it's a cult of personality. but with this new leader, kim jong un, he doesn't talk to anybody. so you can't get intelligence on what makes him tick. i think eventually he's going to want something. they're starving, they have huge sanctions against them. but they basically have their main card being the icbm developments, where they could potentially hit the united states. they can hit alaska now probably. not quite yet the mainland. they still have the nuclear warhead that has not developed yet, the miniaturization. so we have a little time. i think it's important that the president react in a way that he doesn't go tit for tat. let's think this through. let's have the foreign policy. military advisers, come up with a strategy. and i think eventually, nicolle, it's what george bush and bill clinton, barack obama felt was

needed and that's some kind of diplomacy. the question is how do you do it, and who do you talk to, and no good options with north korea. >> let me ask you about the role that china is or not playing. it seems this president thought he could woo the chinese better than the presidents that you just mentioned. has he been proven wrong and is there more that china could and should be doing and is donald trump capable of getting them to do more? >> well, possibly donald trump got them to do a little more, but not enough. i think he got them to stop doing nuclear tests. i think he pushed a little bit the chinese, but they could do a lot more. 80% of the commerce goes through china into north korea. they provide coal and oil to north korea, they provide all kinds of economic assistance. if china wants north korea to

violate sanctions, china can make it happen so they do have leverage. but china -- my question is why would they want to help us? they liked the turmoil in the area for the united states. they don't want north and south korea to get together. on the other hand, china doesn't want north korea to implode and a bunch of refugees going to china. so china is weighing what to do. but i think the president can lean on them a lot more. with incentives. with disincentives. you know, sales to taiwan. there are a lot of tools out there but i think this meeting this second meeting with the president of china at the g20 is going to be key. will the chinese president really deliver on pressure to north korea? let's give them a chance, but not too much longer. >> you have crafted foreign policy, you have carried out a president's foreign policy. let me ask you about the use of twitter to communicate a country's foreign policy. do you have any concerns about the way that this president communicates on a world stage? >> yeah, i really do.

i really do. i know this is the era of technology and facebook and twitter. and social media. but you know there's diplomacy. the chinese, the russians, they're very traditional diplomacy practicers. and especially also the north koreans. i think you've got to have a plan. consult your military advisers. your cabinet, your national security council and your leaders instead of getting up in the morning and twittering your policy. that doesn't make sense. when you twitter as the president once did and said, it would be an honor to meet kim jong un and talk to him, i think that was the worst twitter of all time. so what i wish he would stop doing that, but i don't think he's going to stop. this is part of his psyche. but it's not helping our foreign policy. especially when it comes to real serious strategic stuff where the american people are

threatened in a national security way from missiles from north korea and a russian that's out there to outsmart us. so is china. so let's use traditional diplomacy where we bring in bipartisan advisers. the best advisers. let's have a strategic plan instead of a twitter plan. >> oh, famous last words from the former governor, former u.n. ambassador, bill richardson. i think you're using the noun instead of the verb, which i do too, i think it's called tweeting. >> sorry. >> thank you for spending some time with us. i appreciate it. up next, after reportedly falling out of the president's good graces for a while, steve bannon is suddenly back on top. why the president can't quit this senior adviser.

so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open.

>> well, he is out of the dog house. steve bannon is officially back in the president's good graces. back in april several reports uncovered rising tensions between bannon and jared kushner. it heightened after the president refused to tell the new york post he had confidence in his one time closest campaign

confidant. i have heard that with a backdrop the president wasn't going to fire anyone. he was going to continue this sort of game of thrones. >> people rise and fall and it always comes back to trump blaming everybody other than himself. he is kind of one of a kind. steve bannon is a vision guy. he has got -- >> wait. wait. let's talk about his vision. he likes fighting -- hated the paris climate accord. what else is he for? like it's sort of a washington story but he is for the stuff that scares trump the most. >> she the moegs skeptical of

working -- >> what could go wrong? >> i was texting with a source that was in a meeting last week. >> the actual chief of staff. >> yes. they said it was remarkable how differential he was. i think bannon is more in sync in terms of the policies, combativeness, big picture. he loves a fight. that aligns him with trump more often than not. >> he is also a direct line sticking with the president no matter what. a lot of moderate republicans are going. people that are sticking with him, the people that will be with him are the people that bannon speaks to. >> what does it say about the

new normal republican brand? >> well, steve bannon apparently believes in an international nationalist movement. that's this world view that is substantially different from traditional republican world view. we see it towards russia as in many other areas. >> so whether he is up or down we need to go back to the meeting. it is economic nationalism. economic nationalism, trade deals. doing damage. deconstructing the state. sovereignty, nato, go down the line. he has been checking the box. we have been keeping track of him up and down or whatever. bannon is at the core of the trump presidency. if we want to know what they are all about we just need to look

at it! do you think he just lets trump be trump? >> i think it is consistent with the that bannon has brought. >> what are the dangers for standing on a world stage? if you have somebody like steve bannon, he came back after the first stop and worked to rally support for what i think he knew trump probably wanted to do. what are the dangers and where do you see sort of the friction points with national security team? >> well, all of the hard things we have to do around the world, whether it's problem ns area, we need allies and partners. i guess he is sort of a big

pingture guy but he is take ago small view of american leadership in the world. >> what's the new sort of operating procedure for republicans many congress who do what trump asked them to do and then the president called it and the senate, they were grappling. what is the new legislating reality? >> the president needs allies on capitol hill. it runs into a solid brick wall for more republicans on capitol hill. it is what you have seen in the senate's difficulty on a shortened time frame. there's no doubt that republicans on a hill are acting some of which the president ports and some of which remain tobs seen. >> and what do they do? >> you to call him out for what he is. >> what is he?

>> she a white nationalist. we see this particularly with -- you know, the only thing they have done in to my knowledge to russian interference is to talk about the voter fraud. >> resisted by every -- >> it is on a basic lot which has a disproportionate impact. >> are you hearing anything on the story that he just raised about their big flop in trying to get all of this data out of the state? >> not hearing a lot about it now. it's not something they want to talk about. you can kind of ignore the ones. you know, last week i was at the white house and he was asked about this. she was asked about this. it was before we had 45 of the 50 states saying no. it seems to me like a political

stunt. >> democrats and republicans. >> thank you so much. that does it for this hour. hi katie. >> hi. that's a good panel you today. if it is wednesday president trump is overseas and so are his biggest troubles. tonight north korea tests a missile with potentials to reach alaska and hawaii. what options does the u.s. have to counter this threat? >> the united states is prepared to use the full range of our capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies. >> plus where have all of the republican senators gone? how republicans are dodging health care, fireworks at home over the holiday break. and one of america's greatest unsolved