donald trump firing off tweets from his new jersey golf course against a senator who says the president is trying to discredit anyone working on the russia investigation. >> i cannot explain the president's obsession with me or any of the other targets of his tweets. he used the same tactics in seeking to bully and intimidate the special counsel bob mueller by drawing red lines and implying conflicts of interest. >> sending a different kind of message, u.n. ambassador nikki haley says all options are on the table. >> what we did was we tried to ask him what is your endgame. now that we're doing this what is your endgame. now we have to zrid if decide, strikes the united states, is that something we can win. >> a google engineer is trouble for trying to explain the silicon valley gender gap.

a time when big tech is trying to change their bro culture. >> it is called the bro culture. i know they don't like being called this, that's what it is. a culture that really is dominated by men and dominated by white men and where lack of diversity is hurting the cultures of these companies which are supposed to be about inclusion and tolerance and innovation. >> good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell trying to handle all the stress here in washington. america's top diplomats are taking the lead in executing president trump's north korea policy. secretary of state rex tillerson today in thailand pushing allies to further isolate kim jong-un while u.n. ambassador nikki haley discusses the latest round of sanctions and the president's bottom line with matt lauer and savannah guthrie this morning. >> they lived under very, very tough economic sanctions in the

past. why are they going to work this time? >> we don't know they're going to work this time, but it is something we needed to do. i know the president is prepared to defend the american people. i know the president is prepared to do whatever it takes. and so now all of the balls lie in kim's court. >> and nbc white house correspondent kristen welker is in new jersey. kristen, the fact is that the north koreans have now rejected the idea of talks. they say they were going to build on the nuclear threat. today they have come out with a stamp commemorating their missile launch and showing the threat to the u.s. what more does the administration plan to do here. the fact is that the sanctions, while tough, a billion dollars worth of sanctions, still have a lot of holes in them if china and russia don't implement them. >> that's absolutely right. north korea also vow ing to retaliate a thousandfold. the administration is stepping up not only its actions, but tough talk. those sanctions that you pointed out, we also know that president

trump spent an hour on the phone with his secretary of state, and new chief of staff yesterday and, of course, the secretary of state is in asia on a diplomatic mission, talking about this very topic and in thailand yesterday, he encouraged that country to really choke off the visa program to north korea, to take the lead, essentially, in trying to isolate north korea diplomatically. will it work? the administration is also encouraging china to take similar actions as well. and that remains to be seen as how tough china will actually get on north korea. but u.s. ambassador to the u.n. nikki haley was very clear today that all options remain on the table, and when she was pressed about would the president actually enact and unleash a military strike, she effectively said, look, the president is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that americans are safe. it is clear they continue to weigh all of their options as

the president continues on this working vacation here in new jersey, andrea. >> and, of course, general mattis is on the record as saying any military action, any preemption, even though they have to have plans and they have to consider that, would be catastrophic because of the impact. let's talk about the president, though, and the president's twitter war with senator blumenthal, his latest tweet late yesterday, i think he said, senator blumenthal should take a nice long vacation in vietnam where he lied about his service so he can at least say he was there. senator blumenthal responded today on "morning joe". >> it is really not about me. and i have no idea what's in the president's head. but i can tell you i'm determined not to be distracted. i think they are designed to distract, these bullying tweets. >> we should point out that senator blumenthal acknowledged misrepresenting the degree of his service, he was in the reserves during the vietnam war and unlike donald trump who took several deferments and did not

serve even though he was certainly of service age at the time. does this indicate that john kelly has control over the white house schedule, over closing the door to the oval office, but not over the twitter account? >> that's right. i think the president is going to continue to tweet as he sees fit. his top officials have made that point. at the same time, andrea, i think this is to some extent a work in progress. we have seen john kelly's imprint on some matters. when it comes to, for example, that meeting with the secretary of state, that phone conversation yesterday. he's also trying to direct the flow of information that makes its way to the president's desk. he is trying to encourage more disciplined tweets, but he's not going to be able to do that in ever instance, particularly when it is off hours. look, this is a president who is trying to energize his base as his poll numbers have been sagging to some extent. he's making the argument that the trump base is just as strong as ever.

of course, his favorite targets, the media, and democrats. i think that's part of what you're seeing play out there, andrea. >> kristen welker in new jersey, thank you so much. bob bower served as white house counsel to president obama during his first term and joins me now. so let's role play here. you're the lawyer. you've been brought into the white house to try to assert some discipline over this and to say you're cooperating with special council on the president of the united states. i say i'm going to tweet about blumenthal, i'm going to go to west virginia and give a speech suggesting that mueller is trying to overturn your votes and your government and change our leaders. what do you do? >> you try to fight off a feeling of growing desperation. he's simply presenting himself in the worst possible light in this matter. sa he's cutting into his own credibility with each of his outbursts and that's not the presentation of a client that they most want. >> how do lawyers get their arms around all of this?

the complicating factor you've got the family and you have the trump organization involved, and clearly from his hires, the read on what mueller is doing is very quietly moving point by point from the financial side that the fbi has been working on for a year now, to, you know, the counterintelligence side. >> the lawyers have to make an effort to explain to the president how complicated these investigations are. and how in each step you have to be thoughtful about what you're doing, you have to build credibility with the prosecution team. and that's obviously in part what ty cob is trying to do by saying they welcome -- they believe that the special council will proceed in a professional manner and intend to cooperate and in the middle of that, the president comes charging in with tweets like this and his attacks on the investigation characterizing it consistently as a hoax. >> wanted to play a little bit of rod rosenstein, in charge of the investigation because of the sessions investigation. and what he said on the sunday

show is that the investigation is not a fishing expedition. that doesn't mean that they can't go well beyond the so-called red lines that the president has established. >> that's correct. what he emphasized was, for example, they do come across crimes that fall outside the original mandate, they have to go to the deputy or the acting attorney general for this purpose and to seek approval to expand the mandate. he was trying to say that regular order will prevail here. but that if the mandate is expanded, expanded according to that regular order. >> from your read, how serious is the threat to mueller in terms of any kind of presidential action to remove sessions, remove mueller, by proxy, try to do some other move to curtail the investigation. >> congress in a very clear signal to the president that this would be a red line. i think it is clear that lindsey graham, he said there would be hell to pay, the beginning of the end of the trump presidency, was referring to the institution

of impeachment proceedings. you go back to 1973, the saturday night massacre, when president nixon fired or had archibald cox fired, the immediate response was within days. the filing of impeachment articles in the house of representatives. >> and you now have bipartisan legislation, in fact, from senator tillerson in north carolina and chris coons and others and blumenthal as well. they say they would appoint him and how does that work? >> that's an interesting constitutional question, if congress can step in in these circumstances and protect someone, an existing prosecutor, an existing special counsel with an existing piece of litigation. at the minimum, however, they sent exactly that kind of message to the president, that they take this seriously. so whatever happens to that bill, whether this litigation is over it or not, ultimately it is a very clear message from the congress and i think the white house and certainly the president's lawyers would understand what they meant. >> they're sending a political message more than a legal

message. when you look at the hires, you know the legal committee so well, bob. the people that he is hiring are experts in all of these areas. in foreign corrupt practices, in other financial crimes. so what can we infer from any of this, what direction he's looking at? >> it is very difficult to read about what the outcome is going to be or read into it what the outcome is going to be. i think special counsel mueller is doing the right thing. at the end of the day, whatever he decides, whether to proceed with charges, maybe against the president, against others, who is to say or not to, he wants to say he went about it in a thorough professional manner. did it in a timely fashion and all the expertise and care you would expect an investigation of this magnitude. >> and do you read anything into the fact that we know mueller also requested documents regarding michael flynn, the former national security adviser from the white house? >> we know there are questions about mr. flynn, former general flynn. whether or not they have any bearing on the president's

fortune or that of any of his senior aides is unknowable at this point. >> one thing that is always sort of confused me or raised questions in my mind is sally yates went to the white house, went to don mcgann, a man who holds the job you once had, with apparently very damaging information about michael flynn. red lights were going off. and she gets fired, almost immediately. and he keeps his job for perhaps 17 more days. what does that tell us about the functioning of the white house counsel which is also really involved in his security clearance to be national security adviser. and the vetting of him initially as well as the follow-up on sally yates' warnings. >> i think a couple of things can be going on. all of that happened early in the administration. it is not a white house that is terribly organized, even now. it was probably totally disorganized at the time and difficult to say what sort of conditions the white house counsel is working on. because at the end of the day,

the white house counsel has to have the support of the president and the support of the senior staff. he or she is not in a position to unilaterally alter the course of events or persuade the president to take putin action. who is to say what shall we say obstacles the white house counsel faces representing this particular president. >> and the fact that the president made a case of michael flynn with comey. we know that several times from testimony. so michael flynn had some sort of special, special role here. he was protected by the president of the united states. >> it is a little peculiar, nobody accused him of stalwart loyalty and he's showing an amount of solicitude for general flynn. >> just ask jeff sessions about the loyalty thing. >> yes. >> thank you very much. >> pleasure. >> great to see you again. bob bower. coming up, check up on how the uncertainty over health care reform is impacting voters across the country. we'll have live reports from one

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and live sports on the go. included with xfinity tv. xfinity, the future of awesome. welcome back. members of congress are at home and they're hearing from their constituents about the failure to either repeal or fix obamacare. msnbc's garrett haak is in ohio.

>> reporter: virginia rolls out thin crust pizzas at jack and dough's the same way her husband did. unlike back then, she can't afford health insurance for her employees. even she uses the individual market to buy a plan. >> it doesn't pay for nothing. i pay $780 a month, have a $50 co-pay and $7,000 deductible. >> $7,000 deductible? have you ever hit that? >> no. no. >> reporter: when anthem announced it was pulling out of the state this summer, she was among 7,000 ohioans who learned in her county, and in 19 others, obamacare insurance just wouldn't be available next year. >> i really appreciate your help. >> reporter: ohio's insurance chief began negotiations with insurers in other parts of the state to fill the gap. >> what we provided was some clarity from the regulator as to

what our expectations were. and what we were willing to do to help them be in the market. >> reporter: it took six weeks to lock in insurers in 19 of the 20 bear counties, each making a one year commitment to stay put. >> they need clarity from the federal level. they need stability. the constant unknown is in large part what is making these carriers have to seriously think about whether to stay in the market or not. >> reporter: david wilson delivers pizzas full time. the unknown troubles him too. he worries about not being able to buy coverage if obamacare insurers leave hancock county for good. >> it would be a struggle. it would be a real, real struggle. i have trouble making ends meet now. >> reporter: wilson and develvis prefer talking pizza to politics, but each had messages to washington about obamacare. >> i would like them to replace it and make it better. don't repeal it. we need it. there is people that don't make enough money that need this insurance. >> get something right. work together on it.

just quit nitpicking and do something for the american people. they got to figure out something. can't be rocket science, can it? >> and joining me now is msnbc's garrett haak in finley, ohio, democratic michigan congresswoman debbie dingell in michigan and charlie sykes, veteran conservative radio host. outside the beltway as you just heard garrett's reporting. garrett, i'll ask you first, people are looking to washington and they're getting nothing back. >> they're looking to washington. they're getting nothing back. not what they want. the interesting thing to me from talk ing to all of these folks, this is a very republican county, people who voted for republicans in congress, voted heavily for donald trump. repeal is sort of out here. what i heard from people i talked to who have obamacare plans, people who want health insurance and candidate afford even a plan on the individual market is they want what donald trump promised. they want better health care for everybody, something affordable. and they want democrats to be

involved in the process. people here were frustrated it seems like, well, they're struggling with these plans that they don't love, but that they need. they're not getting anything back from washington. >> and congresswoman dingell, in michigan, and elsewhere, because you travel so much, are they going to be satisfied with no action at all? and or is this going to be a blame game where both parties try to blame each other even though nothing happens? >> people aren't going to be satisfied. i have been saying this not for months, but for years. this is not a war of words between two parties. it is real people's lives. and what garrett heard in finley, ohio, is what i'm hearing in many parts of my district and throughout the state. there are people, the pizza owner that he was talking to, reflects many of the people in my district. it is a smaller segment. 85% of the people are okay where they are. but there is a group of people that have been hit hard.

market prices have gone up in the individual market. deductibles are higher. we need to fix it. we need to make sure that every american has got access to affordable quality health care, got to stop playing games, got to work together and deliver for the american people. >> and speaking of not playing games, charlie and congresswoman and garrett, i want to play something that happened, first burksd buddy carter speaking on msnbc and then reaction at a town hall, people responding today. >> let me tell you, somebody needs to go over there to that senate and snatch a knot in their -- >> your response was you were going to snatch a knot in their [ bleep ]. you are representing everybody from the first district. and you're our spokesperson. if i stood up here today and said, hey, i think everybody should punch buddy carter in the gut, these fine gentlemen back here would probably be putting any in handcuffs. do you regret that statement or

would you say it differently? >> i might not use the last word. let me explain that statement to you and refute what you interpreted and what the urban dictionary interprets it to be. when it was brought up in my family, it meant get your act together. >> so charlie sykes, talking about lisa murkowski and susan collins and the republican women who stood up to their leader and representing their states, what about the level of civil discourse that we're seeing here? >> well, donald trump is the president of the united states, so we know what the answer to that is. look, one of the fundamental principles of politics should be the same as the fundamental principle of medicine, which is first do no harm. and, you know, rather than fixing obamacare, i think the president trump is wrestling with whether or not he's going to sabotage obamacare, whether he's going to watch obamacare implode and rather than spend the next 18 months trying to figure out how to fix and mitigate these problems, figure

out who you can blame for all of these problems. and that's the situation we're at here. rather than actually figuring out what is the reality, what is the effect on people's lives, i think congressman is right what we're going to see is a war of words. and including words like the ones we just heard here because i just don't see any path in this dysfunctional system and culture we have now to actually come together to fix this problem. >> congresswoman, there you are in, you know, motor city, representing michigan. i want to ask you about this draft report by government scientists concluding that average temperatures in the u.s. have risen rapidly since 1980 and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1500 years. and this is the report from 13 agencies, but apparently leaked because they're concerned about it being suppressed by the administration and the new agency heads who don't seem to believe in climate change. >> you know, i was deeply disturbed that we would try to hide any kind of -- one of the

most fundamental freedoms we have in this country is freedom of the press, freedom of people to put forward 13 agencies have looked at this. we have got to work together to figure out how we protect our climate, anybody who could say that when you look at the dramatic changes in weather, the floods, wildfires, hurricanes, the different impacts on our communities, there is something going wrong. and we don't have to be enemies. why do we always have to be enemies? why can't we work together to figure out how we build cars that are better and more efficient, efficient and fuel efficient on the roads, and at the same time protect our environment? it is not either or//or. we need to work together more. >> i want to ask you about 200 days or so in, the uniting of the republican party, the party seems as divided now as it was a year ago before his nomination. we know how the vice president responded to reports that the

fact that he has his own political action committee and is visiting with donors and traveling around is potential challenge to his own boss, but you heard that denial, strong denial. what do you make of it all? >> well, i think you made the point the other day, what a surprise that donald trump has not united the republican party, neither a republican nor a conservative. but i did think it was a very interesting how hard mike pence felt he needed to push back on that new york times report about his preparations for a campaign. look, the reality is that was an audience of one, and mike pence's loyalty apparently is still somewhat in question. he was one of those who did not immediately rush to donald trump's defense after the access hollywood video and apparently that's become the new litmus test in the white house. where did you stand after that video? and mike pence, a deeply religious man who actually does take some of these issues seriously, privately,

apparently, you know, did not immediately do the steve bannon, you know, rush to support. but there is no question about it. you are seeing the beginnings of a really ugly civil war in the republican party. you're starting to see some primary challenges. and i don't sense this is going to get any better anytime soon. may play out in some very interesting primary challenges in 2020. >> charlie sykes, stay tuned. congresswoman debbie dingell in michigan and garrick haake in ohio, thank you. coming up, u.n. ambassador nikki haley speaking out on the increasingly volatile crisis in north korea. david coons joining me next here on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc.

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can you starve him economically in time to prevent him from combining those two things, the missile and shrinking the nuclear device to fit on top of that missile? >> what we did is we tried to ask him what is your endgame? now that we're doing this, what is your endgame? he has to decide, if he strikes the united states, is that something he can win?

>> so is there a winner and a loser in this? are we all losers if this all comes to pass? david cone is the former deputy director of the cia and joins me now. david, you dealt with sanctions before you even were at the cia, dealing with the iran sanctions and ukraine sanctions against russia. have we sanctioned him enough? closed the back door on all of the money that props him up. >> the security council resolution yesterday imposing these new sanctions is an important step. and it does close down a fair amount of the legitimate trade that north korea is engaged in with china by cutting off the coal sales in particular. that will have an impact. there is another side to the coin and that's the illicit trade that by and large flows through china. the question that we need to ask ourselves is, okay, we have this new sanction from the united states -- the u.n. security council. it is the eighth or so in a number of years.

it heightens the international regime. what is the strategy? we need a strategy to take these sanctions, and work with china, because china is still key here, to put pressure on north korea to try to address the nuclear programs. >> and real questions whether china will live up to this. >> china, i've had a lot of meetings with the chinese over the years, particularly on the iran sanctions. what they always say and what is by and large true is that they will abide by u.n. security council sanctions. and they will. it won't -- it may not be perfect, may be a little leakage here or there, but by and large, the chinese will abide by the sanctions. but that doesn't answer the question of the illicit activity that the north koreans engage in through china. >> another way that they can respond to us -- against the sanctions, and threats and they have been very bellicose in the last 48 hours. but they can respond with cyber. they're not as vulnerable to cyber attacks, they're not on the internet as other places -- >> they are, but not to a great

degree. >> not to a greater degree. military is but not the populous. they have been active in cyberattacks. >> they have. they did the sony attack from several years ago. attacks in south korea that are attributed to the north koreans. there are also active in attacks against financial institutions. one of the concerns about north korean cyber, which is not quite as good as russian or chinese, cyber, iranian cyber for that matter, but pretty darn good for a country that is relatively isolated, one of the concerns is that they're using their cyber activity to try and steal money from banks. another way to try and fund the regime. >> there is one report that the central bank of bangladesh was robbed and that it was north korean. that's a pretty credible report. >> i've seen those reports. >> you've seen those reports. can't comment, probably involved at the time, but understandably, and have been other attacks against south korean nuclear plants which are not vulnerable

to operationally, but can spread panic. >> sure, north korea is looking for ways to project power, asymmetically. it is a small country, it doesn't have a big military. doesn't have a big economy. so the nuclear program is one way to do it. and cyber is another. if they can use cyber to project power to cause difficulty for their adversaries, that's something that they try to do. >> we have credible sources that they actually have cyber warriors embedded in surrounding can countries. >> yeah. well, again, the internet access in north korea is not so good. and so for the north koreans to be able to act in the cyber realm, they need to have access to the internet and that means need to act in outside of north korea. >> you have written a column about the politization of intelligence. one of your chief concerns is iran. >> right. right.

the column is about president trump's demand, essentially, that the white house generate intelligence to support his desire to withdraw from the iran nuclear deal. there is a statute that requires every 90 days for the president to certify whether iran is in compliance with its obligations in a nuclear deal when the president certified a few weeks ago, he at the same time set up a team inside the white house that steve bannon is part of, and charged them with coming up with intelligence that iran is noncompliant with the nuclear deal. that turns the whole intel process on its head. what you want is your intel analysts who have access to information who are trained in assessing this information, to provide their best judgment on whatever the question is they're answering in this case, whether iran is complying with the nuclear deal. and stand up to the policymakers to accept or reject that analysis. but for the president to send

this signal to the intel community of how he wants the analysis to come out really political sizes the intelligence process. >> there has been some criticism of mike pompeo, the new cia director, that he has been former congressman, that he's been more political, so far no evidence that he's changed any analysis. but that he's been more political than his predecessors. >> i think both director pompeo and director of national intelligence director coates come to their jobs from a political background. they have that, you know, that sort of doubt about their -- about their political biases that they need to overcome. and they are both working for a president who has repeatedly denigrated the intelligence community and has repeatedly, you know, asked for intelligence to support his policy preferences. if you have a president that won't accept the intel

community's report on russian interference in the election, when, you know, everybody else in the intelligence community does and was unanimous judgment of the cia, the fbi, then i think you've got a difficult road as the director of the cia, the director of national intelligence. >> one quick question. we both have seen reports not yet verified by nbc that north korea made another leap in having a miniaturized nuclear weapon, still a long way to go before it can be put on a missile, re-entry and all the rest. but what does this tell us? >> look, whether it is today, next week, a month from now, a year from now, at some point the north koreans, if they proceed on their nuclear program, will figure out how to miniaturize the nuclear device which they have shown that they know how to detonate, miniaturize it and put it on top of an icbm. that just i think accentuates the need for a strategy that addresses the north korean

threat. the sanctions that the security council adopted over the weekend, good step. we need to build a strategy around that to address this problem. >> david cone, thank you so much for your expertise. appreciate it. coming up, border fight. president trump facing back lack from his own party over that border wall proposal. more on that right here on "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us. stay with me, mr. parker. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time... stay with me, mr. parker. ...saving time when it matters most. stay with me, mrs. parker. that's the power of and. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out

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>> 2017, we should have been able to secure our border by now. we take a one size fits all solution to border security. building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security. >> that's another town hall meeting, will hurd. his district includes more miles of u.s./mexico border than any other. he's slamming president trump's long promised plan to build that wall. joining me is carlos gutierrez, former secretary of commerce under president george w. bush. welcome. it is great to see you. well, the transcript of the conversation with mexico's president tells us so much about the promise and the delivery on that promise. >> yeah. the best thing that could have happened to president pena nieto. mexicans saw that as the president standing up for the country. >> mexican president -- >> mexican president.

and for president trump, it was basically a plea to do what was good for him, personally. so that didn't play well at all in mexico and it helped the president. president pena nieto. >> when we look at the business climate right now, you were secretary of commerce and the stock market is zooming and records are being broken. yet there is an uncertainty in business. they don't know whether there is going to be a tax cut or what is called tax reform but that's not really reform. they don't know what the climate is going to be. you have the russia investigation hanging over it. yet the market seemed very happy. >> well, businesses have gone from pricing in the new pro business environment, but now there is a wait and see mode. the stock market is hanging out there. so i think a lot of people are worried but businesses are beginning to go into hold mode. let's wait and see what happens with tax reform, wait and see if the affordable care reform act goes through. there is a shift.

and you're beginning to see people holding back capital investment until something happens and, you know, the view of congress right now is very negative. what is going to happen. >> the view of congress is also dysfunction, and the view of the agency, while a lot of media is playing to the russia investigation, you have climate change regulations being ignored, scientists panels being fired. there is what you could call a pro business anti-regulatory regime in washington. >> yes. it is pro business in the sense that there is tax reform and regulatory reform. but then on the other hand, you have these concepts of economic nationalism. that's not pro business. but protectionism, that's not pro business. anti-immigration, that's anti-growth, so it is odd these two elements crashing together and if you add them up, they

don't seem to add up to a coherent strategy. it is two different points of view of the world. >> and nationalism, infects our relationships with other countries. the view of american leadership from abroad is really one of dismay. >> yeah, no question. that's what everybody wants to talk about. what is going on in the u.s. what is the u.s. going to do. the problem is are people going to take us seriously. when we say something, will they take us seriously. there is no question there is an incredible amount of curiosity what is happening. this is not the country that we once admired. i hate to say that, that's -- whether it is congress, the president of all those things together, i think they're very worried. especially our allies. just concerned. >> carlos gutierrez, mr. secretary, thank you very much. good to see you. and nbc news can confirm that u.s. intelligence officials believe north korea has crossed a major milestone, that is the rogue regime has figured out how

to miniaturize a nuclear warhead, means they could put a weapon on the top of a missile, whether they could get it up and have re-entry is another whole question. that's a bigger challenge. ken delany is a national security reporter for the nbc investigative unit. what is your reporting telling you? >> you said it very well there. a u.s. official is confirming to nbc news the gist of what the washington post just reported, which is that u.s. intelligence officials now assess the north korea figured out how to miniaturize a nuclear weapon, such that it could be placed atop an icbm. this comes on the heels of a test last month of a missile that some experts said could hit mainland united states and another intelligence assessment suggesting that north korea was far further ahead in its missile development than previously understood. what this all adds up to is that north korea is much further along than previously understood in building a nuclear weapon that can hit the united states.

as you pointed out, they are still not there yet according to my source, according to the u.s. intelligence officials. there are other things besides figuring out how to miniaturize the nuclear weapon that go into achieving a successful and reliable icbm. that said, this is an extremely significant disturbing development. it is going to put front and center in the trump administration the decision about what to do about this because when you interview general dunnford, he said, look, war with north korea is not unimaginable. what is unimaginable is north koreans having an ability to lob a nuclear weapon at denver. >> and that certainly reinforces this intelligence finding. reinforces the conversations that i and you and others have been hearing for the last couple of weeks by looking seriously what kind of military options, including cyber what kind of military options might be possible as horrific as all that would be. thank you very much, ken. look forward to your continuing reporting throughout the day.

and coming up, google under fire. widespread outrage over a memo written by a google engineer suggesting the gender gap in silicon valley is because of biological differences. the inside scoop next here on "andrea mitchell reports." for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember. to to me he's, well, dad.son pro golfer. so when his joint pain from psoriatic arthritis got really bad, it scared me. and what could that pain mean? joint pain could mean joint damage.

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google is in damage control today after an engineer wrote what has been called a sexist manifesto. the internal memo says that men and women have different abilities due to biological causes and that diversity efforts are bad for business. google's ceo has cut his vacation short to respond. their chief diversity officer issued a statement saying we have unequivocal in our belief that diversity is critical to our success. let's get the inside scoop from kara swisher and susan page. so what has happened to the author of this manifesto? >> he was fired from google for violating the code of conduct at google which is pretty clear on a lot of these things and the ceo determined that he had violated it and basically said it was not okay and then fired

him. >> and how widespread do you think his attitude is reflected in silicon valley? >> oh, i think it's widespread. i think a lot of people feel that they can -- what is happening here the past couple months, you have to put the backdrop of what is happening with uber and venture capitalists, all these allegations of sexual harassment. and i think there is a backlash, the idea that wait a second, we're being victimized, mostly white men are being victimized here because of these things when in fact it's something that has had to be fixed for a long time and i think the shock about it is causing this kind of backlash. but google did exactly the right thing in doing this, he violated their code of conduct achbld like any company, they are allowed to take action. >> and the issue is hardly relevant only to silicon valley. susan, there is no such thing -- no such sexism here in washington in politics and in journalism. >> that is a pretty high stress question. i'm not sure i can handle that

because we've all three chosen low stress jobs by of our biological makeup. it's not just the tech industry. it is women in all kinds of fields including journalism and law and government and other kinds of businesses. and a lot of places are trying to struggle with both having women be fully accepted for their own acewn abilities and a response from other workers. >> and look at some of the fortune 500 companies who have tried to have women as ceos and what has happened to some. >> and it's into the an issue of gender. again, it's buying into the same concept. you can be bad as a woman ceo and it didn't mean you're a woman, it means you're a bad ceo. same thing with men. and men don't get judged on the standards in the same way. one woman -- the problem is there are not enough women in prominent positions, so a lot of pressure falls on them to be

perfect. but i think the bigger story is this interesting idea that we have to be -- it's not as if we're farming or doing things that require great physical strength which is a very different argument people can try to make if they want to. this is about brain power and there is not -- this idea that there are gender differences around brain power or women can't handle stress or they don't like titles, i love my title, i think it's great, i'd like it to be bigger. you know, these conceptual ideas around women and member and the differences just is a lot of huey. i don't know how else to put it. and they try to back it up with science studies, but we all know what is the code words here and what all the dog whistles that are going on. >> and plenty of dog whistles that we experience every day in washington. >> and looking at the military, that is a case where physical prowess is a factor, but increasingly i think there has been a move to assess people who serve in the military by whether they can do the job and not what their biological makeup is.

>> susan page, thank you so much. kara swisher, thanks for all of your reporting. more ahead. ♪

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headquarters. nbc news has new information on north korea's nuclear capabilities. i want to bring in retired army general wesley clark and nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken delaney. ken, what more can you tell us? >> a u.s. official briefed on the intelligence has confirmed to nbc news that "washington post" report that u.s. intelligence now assesses that north korea has successfully miniature rised a nuclear with that. in other words, built a warhead small enough to fit atop a missile. which is a significant milestone and really increases the threat profile of north korea to the united states especially on the heels of that missile test last month of a missile that many experts assess could reach the u.s. mainland. >> does this mean that the north has fielded a