deals with the apparel giant. that does it for me, i'm going to see you right back here tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. eastern, with stephany reuhl and again at 3:00 p.m. eastern. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. today in both a rose garden press conference and in a flurry of tweets spanning from last night to this morning, donald trump sounded like the leader of his own three-ring circus than a president of a country facing a humanitarian crisis at home, preliminary defeats on a health care legislation and a looming nuclear standoff with north korea. we start today with the president's brand-new public posture on puerto rico. henry marks meet alongside the leader of spain, donald trump repeatedly touted his own high marks from the people suffering in puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands. >> a massive effort is under way

and we have been really treated very, very nicely by the governor and by everybody else, they know how hard we're working and what a good job we're doing, we did a great job in texas, a great job in florida, a great job in puerto rico and we hit little pieces of alabama. and we're doing a tremendous job because it's on an island in the middle of the ocean, it's in the ocean, you can't just drive your trucks there from other states. and the governor said we were doing a great job, in fact he unanimo thanked me specifically through fema. >> this came after the president seemed to suggest on twitter that puerto rico was somehow responsible for some of its current woes. quote, texas and florida are doing great, but puerto rico that was already suffering from broken infrastructure and massive death is in deep trouble. it's old electrical grid which was in terrible shape was

devastated. much of the island was destroyed with billions of dollars owed to wall street and the banks which sadly must be dealt with, food, medical and other priorities are doing well. #fema. joining our panel today, peter baker chief white house continue for the "new york times" and msnbc political achnalyst and elise jordan, nbc national correspondent, josh ernest, former white house press secretary. you're here to dignify the table. >> i'm just going to be your punching bag. >> all right, wait, wait, wait. save the best for last, with us from washington pulitzer prize winning columnist for "the washington post," eugene robinson.

an important question that i believe he discussed lawrence o'donnell last night. do you think he knows that puerto ricans are americans? serious question. >> i lenard edlearned from the that it's on an island in the middle of the ocean, who knew? i don't know what he gets about puerto rico. i know he hasn't -- at least publicly been paying much attention to it until today, but if -- look, if fema is working, there's a humanitarian crisis about to happen in puerto rico, if not happening now. and so if he's going to focus on it now, great. >> peter baker, there's been a humanitarian crisis going on in puerto rico for many days and this was one of the storms that the forecasters got right, they predicted a storm, the biggest storm in 90 years would hit puerto rico, and the biggest storm in 90 years hit puerto rico. they don't even have a total on

the number of people dead, they don't have enough gas to power all the generators. what did he not get about the humanitarian crisis in puerto rico? >> imagine it los angeles were a week later going without power, without water, of course that would be the center of attention for everyone, not just the president. you know, i think basically over the last few days while he's been focusing on the nfl, transitory issues, wait a second, why aren't you focused on this humanitarian disaster in the youth? i think that obviously finally got through. but what he knew and what he doesn't know, i don't know. >> you read a piece called divider in chief about all these divisive issues. it was a great piece, but the most interesting thing was his timing, he was finally starting to get some of the people who may have voted for him eight months ago but who had lost faith when they saw his can stand pettiness, he was finally starting to bring them back

maybe with some of the hurricane response, but he has now shown himself to be completely arbitrary of which hurricanes rise to the level of being a priority for him. we're now more than a week later when the white house is rolling out the full court press with the optics that they're responding. fema on the grind were trying to help the people, because that's what they're created to do. but the president hasn't made that many public comments about it. >> he had been starting to make some progress, the poll numbers ticked up a little bit. most americans were positive about the bipartisan deal with the democrats, they were positive about the way he handled texas and florida and then he goes out and stirs up this big fight with the nfl over kneeling, and part of that was a response that the base might not like the things he's doing, they want him to fight.

and he gets off on his twitter wars, and that became a question myself, why aren't you focusing on americans? >> i stole this from your conversation with lawrence o'donnell last night. why do you think that puerto rico didn't rise to the levels of hurricane a harvey and irma for trump? >> i don't know this, but if you look at the disparate reactions, it suggests to me that the president doesn't think of puerto rico as being the same as texas and it's the only possible explanation, there's no other logical explanation. look, the governor of puerto rico, when the storm hit, it's now a week ago, almost immediately said we're going to be without power now for three to six months, that was one of the biggest headlines, when you were asking like, how bad is it? that was a week ago, and as peter points outs, they don't have power there now and won't have for quite some time. but hearing the governor of puerto rico say we're going to

be without power for three to six months, to mobilize assistance, that could probably be fixable. the president should have been on that, but it took him a week, really, a week to make any real public comments about this and to really get on top of it and again there's no other explanation that rises to my mind other than in some way, whatever he thought puerto rico was, that he didn't think it was texas, he didn't think it was florida. >> a red state? >> well, those are -- >> or america. >> one of the 50 united states of america, which of course it's not one of the 50 united states, but it is obviously part of america. >> i want to bring in nbc "nightly news" anchor lester holt, just arriving back from puerto rico. i watched your images last night and the devastation is just

mind-blowing. >> we only got as far as, in the short time we were on the ground in san juan, but there was damage clearly visible at the airport, the run way was wide open, but there was some terminal damage and the deforestation was incredible, some threes without leaves and some areas just demolished. what's happening here in georgia, savannah, they have got an air wing that's essentially coordinating all the national guard relief flights into the area, that's what we flew down on, they're loading c-130s with cases of water and supplies, they get them down there, then fema takes care of the distribution. the operation was up about five days ago, it becoming a round the clock one, they're staging national guard units from all across the country. you'll see the names of different states on the

different aircraft here, on this 4 1/2-hour flight to the hurricane zone and then 4 1/2 hours back. so it's an impressive operation, and as the president has noted, it is an island, some have likened it almost to the buerli air lift. it's the most efficient way to get aid to the island. >> i imagine having no power means no cooling for a lot of citizens there. are they prioritizing the elderly or the very young? are they making plans to move large numbers of people, or are they making plans to get some of their power and their electrical grid back online. >> they're bringing a few people out, i'm not sure what the priority is, we came out with some military, government dependents, but the big issue right now is water. and in hearing from our conti e

correspondents on the ground since the hurricane, water is a big thing, you see people trying to get water from fire hydrants, there's never a good thing. but they've got to get roads open to get water to them. the navy's got a robust operation, all of them bringing their skills to bear, to create supply routes, have much like you would in war zone, you have to develop places where you can land, and distribution, and that means kind of linking up with fema, who actually has experience on the ground getting relief to people who need it. >> lester holt, this is your first time on the ground in the wake of a disaster like this, how does it relate to some of these other scenes you have been after a natural disaster of this scope? >> well, i will refer back to what one of the pilots told me

yesterday, he said we're trained to do this sort of thing in foreign countries, i have seen it in foreign countries from somalia to haiti after the quake. his point was we don't do this often with americans, it feels very much like that kind of relief operation. i pointed out in my story last night, puerto rico has probably never felt more isolated than it does at this very moment, when virtually it's most critical supplies have to come by air, to get there obviously in a quick and efficient manner. so it is very much like some of the things i have seen in foreign countries, the need and you're hitting that one week mark and the need only grows as obviously patience, emotions, start to wear thin at this point, the reality that this is a situation that's not going to get fixed tomorrow or the next day, and that's a pattern you see time and time again in these things, as reality sinks in, and almost a sense of depression,

that this is the life that we'll have to live for a foreseeable time. i know one of the discussions right now is will people leave puerto rico and move? that remains to be seen, we can tell you at least from this end, there is a robust operation to try and get supplies to people who need it. >> a new normal, is the term you hear people talk about, at that one week mark as you just described, so perfectly the reality sets in the scope of the damage, we watched last night, we'll be watching again tonight, thanks for spending some time with us, lester. it has to be said that your boss responded to sandy, and got a much better response to hurricane katrina, to say the least. but presidents are judged as sort of the first-this president set a tone with puerto rico, of it not being the same kind of priority as hurricanes harvey

and i remembrma, what political could he pay if this drags on for months and months? >> the political price could be severe. because the american people understand that what's happening to the people in puerto rico, is the kind of thing that could happen anywhere, most people aren't in the path of a hurricane, but those types of threat tos to our communities exist, and we're looking to our commander in chief to command not just the -- i know president bush did this, but president obama would convene at fema, with all the governmental agencies, just sit around the table with the small business administration, with health and human services to make sure all of those resources are coordinated, do they have the resources they need to provide the assistance they can? and we haven't seen that focus on the details from president trump, we have seen him rather very focused on well, maybe i'll make a trip to puerto rico next week at some point if i can find

time in my schedule, president obama was the one where he was making time in his schedule to meet with the cabinet agencies to actually see if they had what they need to provide the life saving aid. >> some of not being able to go is because of the circumstances on the ground, but there's no excuse for not using tools pretty much at his disposal 24/7, his twitter feed, and he was so willing to do that with harvey and irma. so the variable isn't even there in my mind, it's that he hasn't talked ed about it yet. >> i think the problem is the president is behaving like many americans, i fault myself because i haven't donated to puerto rico yet, and i did with harvey and irma, and there's fo fatigue setting in right now, with there not be a spotlight on

puerto rico, that affected the president during this crisis and he took his fatigue and he wandered off to the nfl. >> every network's been covering this hurricane and the damage, but i think this may be a raw nerve here, but is it ignorance, is it the politics of puerto rico? is it the president tired of responding to hurricanes and ready to move on to a culture war? what do you think undergirds the president's -- today for example, the president has made two separate remarks about puerto rico, he has tweeted about it last night and this morning and he has sent the fema director, it is on his radar now. >> yes. >> why? >> i think either through ignorance or potentially through

some sort of feeling he has about puerto rico, his first tweet about the disaster got into puerto rico's debt situation and he almost seemed to be blaming the people who are obviously victims of this act of nature. so one of those things probably caused him not to focus on it before, he is focused on it now and so that's what a president should be. i would also like to mention, though, that next to puerto rico, is the u.s. virgin islands, which were devastated by the hurricanes. and it's a much smaller population and seems less of a potential massive disaster, but st. john was wiped out, st. thomas was badly damaged, st. croix was badly damaged. and relief for those islands was staged in puerto rico, and that

can't happen now, we should remember that those are also americans, 100,000 or so who are also in desperate straits. >> address the weirdness of what the president said, of making all the comments about hurricane maria about him. they have treated us very nicely, was the first thing he said. what is is that about? these are literally people without clean water. >> his default psychological setting is solacism mixed with narcissism, mixed with ego mania and he always puts himself at the center of absolutely everything. why is it suddenly on his radar screen? because he got bad reviews in the press. at the end of the weekend, he was fine with the war of words over the nfl. what he didn't plan on was people who were saying you

should be focused on puerto rico. now it's monday, and he's trying to address that, in the same way he rises to the press claps when he deals with unanimously pelosi and chuck schumer and when the press beats him up, he's very responsive. >> he chases the good news cycles, seriously? >> of course he does, we have seen this over and over again, and he reacts to criticism, in both directions, if you give him a biscuit, he'll go and do the trick again and if you rap him on the nose with a newspaper, he'll go and try to fix it. >> i think your -- >> i would not rap my dog in the nose with a newspaper, because he's 140 pounds. >> no raps any dogs on the nose ever. when we come back, even for a president who loves to wrap

his arms and legs -- also ahead, the president's political trickster testifies in the russia investigation. we'll bring you the latest. and inside the minds of two leaders bringing the world to the brink of a nuclear standoff. and the north koreans are looking for answers about what makes donald trump tick from republicans in washington. we'll bring you that story when we come back. we at the coca-cola company believe the health of our water sources is essential to the health of our communities. which is why we're helping to replenish the mighty rio grande as well as over 30 watersheds across the country. we're also leading water projects in more than 100 communities. and for every drop we use... we're working to give one back. because our products rely on the same thing as we all do... clean water. and we care about it like our business depends on it.

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this weekend in an interview with "60 minutes" the world learned what many of us had been privately fearing, that senator john mccain's cancer prognosis is dire. almost everyone who knows the senator was devastated by the news. one senator in particular went on the attack. still clearly stunned about -- president trump tweeted out a 6 1/2 minute opo video, which amounts to an attack ad. a few of the many clips about john mccain replacing o-care, my oh, my has he changed, a complete turn from the last four years. the health care bill won't be getting a vote at all.

so all those attacks were for nothing. peter baker, what makes this president tick time and time again, is grinding the ax, grinding the ax and seeking revenge against the a man who's voting his conscious, he had problems with the bill and problems with the process. opo research used to be disseminated from people like, all three of us, i guess, secretly, like the thing you have, the person that was sort of a consultant for the campaign, meet you guys in the parking lot at denny's and hand you on a sunday morning, i have never seen opo tweeted from a presidential twitter account. >> there's transparency, which don't know maybe the president's behind this secret thing, we know exactly what he's thinking and he's not afraid to say it. >> there's no grace, there's no sort of concession to he or she that might disagree with him,

there's simply personal vengeance. >> there's no filter and there's no slight that goes unanswered. if steph curry doesn't want to go to the white house, he's going to respond. where if it would have been president obama or president bush, they would have overlooked at it. they would have risen above it. that's the way they looked at their jobs. but his base wants him to get out there and fight, they get charged up when he does. and a lot of us in washington find it jarring, because it's so unlike what we have seen in the past. >> it's jarring because it's so -- >> the twitter is a trash bin for donald trump, nothing good ever comes out of it. i know he thinks it's a rule that he can tweet about his thoughts directly to the people.

but he's inciting a -- over health care and just how visceral the anger is in the country and social media, the president's twitter account is playing such a key role in a all of that. >> his addiction to cable news and his addiction to twitter go hand in hand, so he literally cannot watch cable news without tweeting about what he sees and the oxygen for that twitter habit is what he sees on the news. >> yeah, there are things that he's just unnaturally, unhelpfully obsessed about. people used to make fun of josh's boss who had a distinct averse to cable television, except espn, which he often watched. but he never watched news, there's a kind of like mental health to that. >> and they have a life. >> yes, they have a life, but also there's a degree of balance

that's obtained. you hear those stories, some say barack obama didn't care about the politics and didn't enjoy going to up to capitol hill and having drinks with mitch mcconnell. but one of the things that was relatable, they did like to watch espn more than they liked to watch msnbc. both normal about that, and there's something abnormal about anyone who just sits and watches cable political television all day long and especially when you're the president of the united states and it then drives you to this response which plays out across every platform, but across twitter most notably. >> fox is going to be watching this election in alabama where it literally pits donald trump against steve bannon and their chosing candidates are squaring

off in this contest. what are the chances that he does a live tweet as election results roll in. and it looks like he's going down, isn't he polling about 10 points behind? >> zero. >> and isn't he going to say he's for the other guy. >> i have already told luther, if it goes the other way, then i'll be here for his opponent. not the get out the vote campaign that his campaign was looking for. >> and also he said i might have made a mistake. >> a ringing endorsement. >> friends on paper. >> we have that, let's watch that. we'll talk to eugene on the other side. >> so on advertise, vote for your country, vote for your family, vote for your victory, vote for luther strange, he's a phenomenal person. >> remember, one thing, when you walk in that voting booth

tomorrow, a vote for judge roy moore is a vote for donald j. trump. >> i might have made a mistake, and i'll be honest, i might have made a mistake. >> you don't even know what to say. >> i mean, you know, this never happens, you can't make this stuff up. it might have been a mistake, thanks so much, mr. president, says luther strange, as he -- it's -- he's going to probably live tweet it, he's going to -- because that's what he does. he's going to pretend that he never supported luther strange probably at the end of it and that he doesn't have any idea where we got the notion that he opposed roy moore because he's always right in his mind. >> eugene, i want you to watch the carefully selected words from a man who, i think we

learned today, does indeed plan to retire, tennessee senator bob corker. >> the president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful. >> gene, do you think that corker feared the kind of endorsement and sort of inner monologue kind of endorsement that luther strange got and just said, hey, i'm out? >> we talked about those remarks at the time, nicole, you and i, and you had to wonder if corker hadn't at that point just decided, you know, i'm out of here and he's a man who chooses his words very carefully, those were powerful words, they got a lot of coverage because here was a powerful, important senator

saying, this president has shown neither the ability nor the competence to be president. that's powerful stuff. and you have to wonder if he hadn't decided by then that this was it, that he's out of here. >> bravery and courage, something like that. peter biker, let e baker, let about health care gone up in flameses? >> the question is at this point do they finally sit down with the democrats and create some sort of compromise that isn't satisfying to them because it's going to keep obamacare in place, but would stabilize and mean a lot to a lot of people and a lot to the insurance company as they set prices and enter these markets or leave these markets. >> president trump is done with that, is he a loser in donald trump's eye snsz. >> >> that's the problem for donald trump, finding the -- he could make a deal with chuck and

nancy and he might find that that's a lift for him because he can't get one with mitch and paul. so we'll see if he decides -- >> i love that we're all on a first name basis, one thing that makes me feel better about our politics. when we come back, breaking news on the russia investigation, stay with us. ofs that you may be... ...overlooking. ♪ it's your eyes. that's why there's ocuvite, from bausch + lomb. as you age your eyes can lose vital nutrients. ocuvite helps replenish those nutrients. ocuvite has lutein, zeaxanthin, and omega-3. nourish your eyes to help them be their healthy best. ocuvite eye vitamins. be good to your eyes. now that we have your attention... capri sun has four updated drinks. now with only the good stuff. do you know how to use those? nope. get those kids some new capri sun!

breaking news. in just the last hour on the russia investigation, nbc confirming that special counsel bob mueller will begin interviewing white house aides as early as this week. ken delaney joins us at the table. i have been in the white house under investigation, this phase marks the point when aides leave for lunch and sometimes they're going to get ready to huddle with their attorneys. >> it's a development that anyone following this has expected. our own halle jackson has

confirmed that mueller will be talking to former officials like sean spicer and reince priebus, here we have a federal investigation reaching into the innermost sang tum of the white house, about possible interference with the election and collusion with russia there's a furious pace to this and mueller is going drip by drip and it's happening and no one can stop it. >> can you pick up anything on this list of aides that we know about? i'm assuming all of them are public, that's bitter, that the president hasn't snared them in this kind of ku situation? >> just about all of the the presidents we have seen, some of them implicated, some of them not implicated.

all of them are always a little bitter, the question is do they do anything about it? do they start leaking? some of these people in the white house have been leaking for a long time. none of them left so far of their own power, unless if you count sean spicer in that certain sense, they have left and they're not at this point the loyalty still seems to be there. if they haven't left by now, they're not going to leave. >> let me step back a little bit. i think one of the differences is that bob mueller is investigating potential obstruction of justice by the president. so anyone who -- there is a difference between the leaking of valerie plame's name, which never included the president or anything anyone did on behalf of the president. i mean it's different. >> there's no doubt about it, in every one of these situations, like white water which was a complete sham. some of them get suck issed into

the mud on that. some of them are very close to the president. some are very distant to the president. some are not involved at all but they still get stuck paying the legal bills. but all of them are still consumed with the fact that their lives are going to be fundamentally changed by this because they could be paying off these legal bills for the next decade or more. no matter what their level of involvement. obviously if you're deeply involved in the obstruction of justice, you got nothing to complain about because you were involved. >> that statement we now know is a life, it was a cover story that was crafted on board air force one, there have been few leaks and most of them falling in the category that they were for a different approach, answering your paper's questions. >> we have situations where they're sitting in the roosevelt

room. they don't know who is being investigated by mueller, some people were saying they are worried that other people might be wearing a wire. that's so corps row sis. they can't even say to each other, i'm being interviewed, they can't talk about that, any lawyer would tell them that's a bad idea. so it's detrimental to a white house to have this kind of investigation even if nothing was done wrong. >> roger stone was testifying today, he's got a reputation and we're going to show you a clip of john spending some quality time with him as sort of a trickster, can you talk about the campaign hangover if you will, the things that were done on behalf of getting this man elected president that now hang over a white house, focused on far less political things, like responding to hurricanes and dealing with a nuclear north korea. >> i just can't imagine the burden of having to deal so much

on a day-to-day basis with the russia investigation as if you're in the press office and dealing with the russia investigation, literally eats up all of your time for pushing any policy agenda, and that's what's happening in this white house, they have to be ready to respond to so many different players, players who might not even be officially affiliated with the campaign, just like roger stone, who's known for his flare when it comes to media and today on capitol hill, olivia wrote a piece that i recommend everyone read, but he's causing another stir by talking about what potential links the podesta group has with the yukraine bringing that 7-asup as a distraction. >> let's see exactly who roger stone is and why john knows him. >> so donald trump, he brought up a number of things that have been revealed by the wikileaks

email hacking. >> yes. >> you, roger phone have said, i believe on multiple occasions have said you have a back channel to assange. >> ywe just happen to have a mutual friend who supports assan assange. >> have you discussed wikileaks with him? >> i have not. >> not once. >> not in any of your private conversations, not once? >> the u.s. intelligence community, quote, is confident the russian government directed the recent compromises of emails from u.s. persons and institutions including from u.s. political organizations. >> show us the proof. >> you don't believe it? >> no, i don't believe it. >> let me say about roger stone, in a shoot in the russian tearoom, that he got dressed up in that outfit. >> he has a flare for wardrobe. >> he has a flare for wardrobe and he very happily said i will come to the russia tearoom in the early days of the russian

scan dam and i will come and answer these questions, his view continues to be, he's trump times ten, that the u.s. intelligence assessment is a fraud. that all of the u.s. -- the dni, homeland security, cia, everyone who has come to the collusion that russia was in on the election to try and help donald trump, it was we never landed on the moon, kennedy was killed by lbj, kind of conspiracy theory, but he has been, i will say one thing for him, there's a lot of questions about how much he is connected to this story. and there's a lot of questions about how much he's actually connected to donald trump and roger likes to play a lot of kind of games with those -- with people's beliefs and perceptions about this. but on this subject, the one thing that he's admirable on, is that he's said all along, i want to testify, i want to testify in

public, i want to go out and make my case. he was not an unwilling witness today, he did not testify in publicly, that's because republicans didn't want him to testify publicly, he wanted to go out there in open court. i think that's admirable, he's willing to get out there and answer questions of anybody who will ask him? >> and does bob mueller share this sort of attitude that all of these contacts with russia are a hoax? >> i'm not sure what bob mueller thinks, but i know congressional investigators are not sure where roger stone figures into this. he has richard nixon's face tattooed on his back. >> who doesn't. >> of course. he's loving his role in the spotlight here. and he did say some things that were very suggestive. remember he said it was john d podes podesta's time in the barrel, a few weeks before his emails were

leaked. he said that paul manafort's lawyers told his lawyers that paul manafort is expected to be indicted. >> and i believe the only question that was unresolved from today that he wouldn't answer, who was the go between with julian assange and he refused to answer that question, so it remains to be seen how far they're going to push to get the answer. >> we have laughed a little bit because he is such a weird figure, but there is a deadly serious question, the original sin, on whether or not collusion with russia took place, he seems like a pretty credible witness to that question, no? >> this connection to wikileaks, julian assange, that whole sort of nexxus, it's clear that roger stone has that connection, and i think robert mueller will want to know a lot more about that, because remember mueller's charge is to investigate the russian interference in our

election, and that seems to be -- certainly it's logical, that that's a big part of it. and so i think roger stone may have more vulnerability on that than he lets on, with that outfit of his. >> i will say there are very sophisticated people who believe that he's just all an exercise in misdirection, and he has nothing effectively to do with this and there are very sophisticated people who think he's at the very center of it. i don't know which it is. the clintons if you can ask them, they will say roger stone is at the heart of this from the beginning and there are other people who think collusion took place that thinks roger is a shiny object. >> he was dismissed from the campaign, right? >> he's dismissed from the campaign and he essentially puts himself forward to distract from

where it really is. >> when we come back, reading between the tweets and the bluster on north korea. two leaders taking the measure of each other as the president reups his threat of 12ke6gs. devastation. baa baa black sheep, have you any wool? no sir, no sir, some nincompoop stole all my wool sweaters, smart tv and gaming system. luckily, the geico insurance agency recently helped baa baa with renters insurance.

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we are totally prepared for the second option, not a preferred option, but if we take that option, it will be devastating, i can tell you that, devastating, for north korea. that's called the military option. if we have to take it, we will. he's acting very badly. he's saying things that should never, ever be said and we're replying to those things, but it's a reply. it's not an original step, it's a reply. >> just replying. president trump responding to north korea's foreign minister

who yesterday said trumps details amount to a declaration of war, today reiterating a combative rhetoric against kim jong-un once again. i and all the reporting and peter's paper and in the "washington post" that it's jim mattis who sort of gets on the phone and talks to his counter-parts and tries to make clear -- i think we have sounds of him doing it in a public setting but even privately that diplomacy is still the preferred action. >> we maintain the capable to deter north korea's most dangerous threats. but also to back up our diplomats in a manner that keeps this as long as possible in the diplomatic realm, this effort in the diplomatic realm. that is our goal, to solve this

diplomatically. and i believe that president trump has been very clear on this issue. >> i agree with everything mattis said except i believe president trump be that very clear on this issue. i accept that their policies aren't in conflict but their public posture is. >> it definitely s. there is just more than a little bit of irony about the secretary of defense traveling overseas and emphasizing the position of diplomacy. that's because no one else in the administration is. he understands as well as anyone that trump's replies don't help anybody other than north korea. it's north korea that craves international attention of it's north korea that wants -- that creates this affirmation in terms of being able to provoke the most powerful country in the world. donald trump is playing kim jong-un's game right now. and it's secretary mattis who understand that is the game needs to be different if we are going to try to prevent a nuclear war. >> peter, my understanding is

that his national security team has successfully read him in on the grim nature of the military option. and they maintain that is not his desire. but they certainly haven't persuaded him to stop tweeting. >> the extent there is an advantage to what he is doing it's that you make the possible credible of that military option real. if the other side doesn't believe you are not -- >> no one has suspected the united states of not being willing, certainly not in the last three or four decades. >> i don't think north korea took seriously we were planning to do anything militaristic under obama or certainly the second term of president bush. they don't know about president trump. there is a bit of the nixon madman theory, you don't know when i'm going to do. >> do you buy that? i don't buy that. >> the counter to that -- >> i'm posturing a theory. >> i understand you are

advocating this. but when you talk about what our preferred option is what our plans are, right now both sides are ratcheting up the situation to a place where the worry is, the downside risk is that something unplanned happens and the preferred option is not -- you don't get to make a choice. someone makes a mistake, misinterprets, someone shoots down a plane. someone does something that provokes an escalating or unraveling situation where it's not about the cooler heads. it's about something snaps and all of a sudden you are at wear. you are increasing the chance of that with this rhetoric. >> you reported in your paper today that the north korean government has been quietly trying to arrange talks in washington to understand trump and his narratives. this is like the reverse side of getting inside the mind of a madman. >> i think it is interesting. i think josh put his finger on

something really important, which is that for years and years the north koreans have wanted this sort of one on one dialogue with the united states. now, they might not have wanted it in this form. they would like to sit down around a table but they have wanted kim jong-un or his father, to be elevated to the position of talking to the greatest super power in the world. and now they've got it. i mean, president trump is giving it to them. and so in that sense, i think the north koreans are quite pleased with this dialogue although they might have wished it to be of a different nature. my second point would be that i would hope that general mattis, in addition to making that public statement -- i would imagine that he may be communicating, perhaps through the chinese, indirectly with his counter-parts in north korea. and i wonder if messages are being passed back and forth

through those channels designed to keep rhetoric from getting out of hand and starting something that nobody wants. >> elise, are we at a point where it's someone inside the government saying don't listen to him, listen to me? or do you think they are trying to reconcile the two? >> i certainly hope not. i mean that's not a stable position for a democracy to ever be in that's supposed to be under civilian leadership. i am concerned about secretary mattis's comments that we still want to rely on diplomacy when who is running point on that diplomacy? and you have secretary tillerson is plundering the state department we don't have -- i thought an ambassador had been appointed to south korea. no one -- there has been no hearing, no confirmation. you have no assistant secretaries in these critical bureaus. so who actually -- the military, they have plans. they have a team in place, i'm confident of that. but on the diplomatic side, who are their counter-parts who they are supposed to be working hand in hand with.

>> do you have an answer? >> no. they have named someone they want for south korean ambassador. they haven't had a heard and don't have these people in place. while we are paying attention to the hot rhetoric. it is hot and can be dangerous, the other thing to watch is what they are doing in deeds. what did the president do? he banged the drum, then signed a sanctions bill. it was more sweeping in some ways than what the previous administration had done on iran. that's a conventional diplomatic economic pressure route. while he is banging the drum he is pursuing the kind of things other presidents would have probably pursued, too. we don't know if it will lead anywhere but there is a distinction between the deeds and the words. >> we have to sneak in a quick break. we'll be right back.

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our thanks to peter bake e elise jordan, john howell, john earnest and eugene robinson. that does it for our hour. i'm micolle wallace. mtp daily begins right now. >> someone blew through their breaks. i blame holidayiman. >> don't say that. >> i blame him randomly. >> you can always blame hilemon. >> ari velshi wouldn't get a show until 6:30. >> it's tuesday. a crimson tide is parting the republican party. >> tonight, what happens in alabama won't stay in alabama. >> we will be supporting any candidate that comes out of this primary today. >>