david: retired general wesley clark joins us. he's now a senior fellow at ucla.et me ask you about the comments to secretary of state --secretary of state tillerson made. it sounds to me like he is saying the risk doesn't match the rhetoric. >> he saying let's not get everybody excited about something. korea wees, north deter north korean military adventurism. you look at what options are available, so much of the conversation centers on diplomatic solution. that aside, plans have to be underway for military options as well. gamedch of this has been out or thought about over the course of the decades we've been dealing with this issue? gen. clark: a lot of it has been it.d out and thought about if i knew the specifics i couldn't tell you. let's look at hypotheticals here. you could try to send in special forces teams to go into caves, find and disable missiles, and locate nuclear warheads. if we did that -- i'm just making up these numbers -- your military commanders would probably tell you they got an 80% chance of getting 70% or 80% of the warheads. so, once yo

here to talk about it, general wesley clark.hey work to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons, and i will start with you general clark, if i can encapsulate what we just heard, she said this is part of a pressure campaign. part of the president speaking to kim jong un in a language that he understands, and accuses the media of obsessing over this statement, a statement by the way which a lot of people took to imply that the president was threatening war against a nuclear power. i want to know what you read into those statements. >> well, i thought that the prth's statement was excessive, it was hyper bolic. what you do is you feed into the escalation of rhetoric which ends up frightening people in the region, and especially our south korean allies living under the day today threat of nuclear and nonnuclear attacks by north korea. so i would have said that what secretary mattis said was good. what secretary tillerson said is fine, but what president trump said is it went beyond the bounds if may be pure trump, but it overstated to

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general wesley clark is the former allied troops commander. >>> kayaking or this is really the way iing out of a kayak, we're going to come back and see what some other world leaders are doing. >> a kiss to the bride. >> that's all right. >> and as we have been mentioning today, marks president trump's 200th day in office, right now he's at his golf property in bedminster, new jersey. >> he's on vacation in his property in rhode island. that is what the guy likes to do. i remember sean spicer says it's where he gets business done. i would like to see what kind of business. he said his golfing with xi jinping went well. 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 hel

general wesley clark told nbc news never before has a u.s.resident issued such a strong directive to north korea and its erratic leader. >> i think the united states has to be very careful in describing its own objectives. >> reporter: yong chang said her family has almost learned to outwardly laugh off his fears of military attacks rather than live in fear. >> if it happens, happens. good thing is we're all together. >> reporter: that's another sentiment we heard from a few people today, if it happens, it happens. there's nothing we can really do about it. live in san francisco, tom jensen, "nbc bay area news" >>> thank you, tom >>> today marks the six-month countdown to the winter olympics in south korea. coming up in about 10 minutes how political tensions in the region could impact the games. >> breaking news coming into the newsroom right now. many southwest airlines flights on the west coast are grounded at this hour. the airline tells us it is sorting through what it is calling a technology issue. it appears to be a computer outage of

and then wesley clark will join us and later, jobs week in america.e'll get an early read of friday's adp data. stay tuned, you're watching and ai to help thousands get to work safely and efficiently. this is not the cloud you know. this is the ibm cloud. the ibm cloud is the cloud for enterprise. yours. >>> welcome back to "squawk box. we start with some stocks to watch. berkshire hathaway is now bank of america's largest shareholder. warren buffett's firm exercising war warrants to buy 700 million shares of stock. those shares a s ars are worth$ billion and gives berkshire a 6.5% stake in bank of america. we knew they would be doing this warren buffett will be joining us live today on "squawk alley," that's coming up at 11:00 a.m. eastern. >>> also autonation is launching a 2$250 million stock buyback program. yesterday on "squawk box" mike jackson told us that the company plans to scrap vehicles damaged by hurricane harvey which will hurt august sales number >>> j.j. watt has raised a whopping $5 million for hurricane harvey relief. he pledged $500

joining us is general wesley clark. he is refired tour star army general and the former nato commander and a senior fellow at the ucla center. thank you for being here today >> thank you >> we are very used to ridiculous rhetoric coming from the north koreans. we are not used to stepped up rhetoric coming from our president in terms of fire and fury, what does this mean to you? and do you think that this was very intentional message sent to the north koreans? >> well i think it was an intentional message. it probably was meant to reinforce the united states' commitment to our south korean allies, and to make sure that north koreans understand that the united states intends to stay in south korea, and our deterrent is strong, and we're ready to take whatever action is required the way it came across was a little more bellicose than that, and we don't want to get in to a name calling contest with the north koreans. >> this language, though, i mean, some people have pointed out that maybe this is speaking their language do

heated comments to the north korean government and from president donald trump, the retired general wesley clark nato supreme allied commander will join you later this hour. let's do a quick check of the data on this wednesday afternoon, starting with major indexes right now if we could print the dow jones industrial average down 1/3 of 1%. the s&p 500 down 1/5 of 1%. the nasdaq down 4/10 of 1%. the on environment and markets, given all the news out of an involving north korea. a quick check of some other data this afternoon, looking at the yield on the 10-year. the u.s. dollar-yen 109 at 95. again, continuing to monitor what's going on in the region. secretary tillerson making a stop in kuan this morning after north korea mentioned the u.s. territory and some comments

senior military intelligence officer who was a member of the trump campaign committee and general wesley clark, former nato ally commander. general clark, you first. you say there is no military option but you wouldn't know that from listening to the commander and chief, would you? >> well, there of course is a military option. you can attack north korea and we know how that would go. we shut down their air defense, block their communications. give them shock and awe and then go in and try to take it apart. but you're not going to get away with that without their firing on the civilians in south korea and possibly japan. how bad would it be? it could be very bad and after it's over and we're in there, we don't know what china's going to do. maybe china comes in from the north because they don't like the fact that the north korean government's going to collapse. so yes, there's a military option. it obprobably involves 10s of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, including of hundred thousands of dual national citizens. their families and in south korea there's lot at stake

. >> general marks, i want to bring in mark hurt ling, also wesley clark. difficulty of the terrain in this area in north korea, what it looks like exactly, how tough it is to operate? ? >> a couple of things. first of all, what spider was just talking about is a war plan with multiple contingencies that the u.s. military along with the republic of korea practice every year. my bringigade was reinforcing. our job was to come to pusan, the small city on the bottom of the south korean maps. unload our tanks and bradlies and travel to the dmz as spider was just showing. we were planning exercises where we were going up with all our logistics and tanks and artillery while south koreans were withdrawing and medical evacuation was occurring. it was an skper size but we practiced that. then, the first time i went to korea as a brigade commander, i just looked out at the terrain having spent most of my time in europe and some time in the middle east and i said my lord, how do we fight in this? because of what spider just described in terms of the spined-backed moun

joining me now, general wesley clark and senior fellow at ucla and brigadier general mark kimet.ou both. thank you for coming in. secretary of state tillerson says americans should sleep well at night. with the assessment from u.s. officials on north korea, do you agree with him? >> i do agree with secretary tillerson. this has been a long time in coming. obviously, we don't welcome it. it's unfortunate that north korea saw that it had to do this in order to seek its own survival, i suppose. but nevertheless, we're in a state of deterrence on the korean peninsula, north korea can't do anything without the risk of being totally wiped out as a state, its leadership devastated. so if that's their primary objective, survival of the regime, which we believe it is and has been for decades, they're not going to attack. that's deterrence. >> general, north korea's response to president trump was to threaten guam. why guam? >> well, i think if you look at guam, it's of strategic significance to us. that's where many of our long range bombers operate out of, those that would be employed in

let's discuss with general wesley clark and retired u.s.l anthony tata, author of the book "besieged." thank you very much for being here. we need your expertise this morning. north korea has gone beyond rhetoric in that they have produced actual papers of an outline, a plan to fire these several intermediate ballistic missiles into the waters near guam. general clark, how should the u.s. respond? >> i think we need to have direct private talks with north korea. i think the united states, secretary of state or distinguished emissary should go over there and talk directly with the north korea leader. it's possible north korea could send out a notice to airmen and mariners, a notam and this could be done safely. this is ratcheting up this escalation that makes this extremely dangerous. we have to step back from this immediate challenge right now and ask ourselves, what's the real objective here? do we really think north korea is going to give up its nuclear capabilities and its missiles because we threaten it? they consider that essential to

j jordan clan joins us and general wesley clark. gentlemen, good evening to you. jim, i'll start with you on this one because the president is threatening north korea with fire and fury, those are his words as north korea advances their nuclear program. here's the program. >> let's not make any more threats to the united states. they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. he has been very threatening beyond a normal state. and as i said, they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. >> it's an extraordinary ultimaulta mate tum jim. what do you make of that? >> that's exactly right. that's threats against guam, alarming, u.s. territory. also a very specific threat, north korea specifying the kinds of missiles it might use to target guam, including intermediate ballistic missiles. that followed as you mentioned, don, yes, siterday, boomers flur the north korean peninsula on guam. it appeared it related directly to the u.s. overflights, which happens frequently. the fact that that north

author of "nuclear showdown, north korea takes on the world," and former allied commander general wesley clark. gentlemen, good evening to you. jim, i'm going to start with you on this one because the president is threatening north korea with fire and fury as north korea advances their nuclear weapons program. here is the president. >>. >> north korea best not make nim threats to the united states. they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. he has been very threatening beyond a normal statement. and as i said, they will be met with fire, fury and frankly, power the likes of which this world has never seen before. >> it's an extraordinary ultimatum from the u.s. president and comes as north korea is threatening to target guam with a preemptive strike in response to u.s. bomber flights over the korean peninsula. what to you make of that? >> that's exactly right. that threat against guam alarming. thousands of u.s. service members based there at two the air bases. also a very specific threat. north korea specifying the kinds of missiles it might use to target guam includin

. >> general marks, i want to bring in wesley clark and general hurtling.urtling, can you explain the difficulty of the terrain in this area of north korea, how tough it is to operate in? >> a couple things. what spider was just talking about is a war plan with multiple contingencies. when i was much younger as a colonel, our job was to come from ft. lewis, washington, to pusan, that small city on the bottom of the maps, unload our tanks and bradleys and travel up to the dmz. what i'll tell you in that, we were planning exercises where we were going up with all our logistics and tanks and artillery, while the south koreans were withdrawing. medical evacuation was occurring. it was an exercise, but we practiced that. then the first time i went to korea as a brigade commander, i was in a helicopter going from pusan to near seoul, and i looked out at the terrain, and i said my lord, how do we fight in this because of what spider just described in terms of the spine backed mountains, the defiles. there's no hope planes that you can roll tanks across. when you s

from one supreme allied commando of nato, let's go to wesley clark. talk to me about what you think is the best option going-forward. diplomacy hasn't worked so far. what can the united states do. >> i think jim gave you the package of things that have to be done. none of them are likely to reverse the situation we're in. if the objective is to eliminate the north koreans nuclear potential, and ballistic missile capabilities, that's not an achievable objective for anything short of general warfare in northeast asia. if that's the objective, that's where we're headed. we have to look at what's a reasonable objective, what would be a reasonable objective? strengthen deterrence, build up south korea's ability to respond at any level of provocation from the north, make sure the north knows it, work with the chinese, the russians, make sure our japanese allies are comfortable with what we're doing. stabilize the situation. and can we use sanctions? can we use diplomacy? sure, all of those things have to work, the first thing is to get the right objective i

former nato ally problem commander wesley clark. good to have you here. stuff boeing on as what is your recommendation here? can we go in and take out north korea's nuclear arsenal? >> we probably could to -- go in with massive force and destroy the whole country. the country had 50, 60 years putting things in underground tunnels. to get it you have to use nuclear weapons to get it. if you send in a few teams of special forces, you may get some of it. you won't get all of it. to do that you have to disable the air defense network, shut down their security and so forth. so you alert them. the idea you can really do a massive strike without somebody saying something totally surprise gets china off-guard is unlikely. seems likely china would alert north korea. so, because they don't want to see the united states take out north korea and then move all the way to the border with china. so lots of different motives in the region of the best course of action for us right now, trish, is talk directly to the leader in north korea, face-to-face. no bellicose public

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 nuclear tipped weapon? >> no, it doesn't mean that yet. it's a significant development along that path. but there are other technological hurdles our sources say to doing that. you have to be able to build a missile and warhead that survives reentry and you have to have a reliable missile system. and of course u.s. intelligence inside north korea is very limited. we don't know what w

i want to bring in retired army general wesley clark and nbc news intelligence and national securitydelaney. 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

i want to bring in retired four-star general wesley clark, current senior fellow at the ucla center.elp me out with this one. the president suggesting the commander of the u.s. forces in afghanistan, john nicholson, be fired and "the new york times" has reported that trump is thinking about sending national security adviser h.r. mcmaster back to afghanistan where he's spend a lot of times. what in the world is going on? who is leading this? and what is the strategy from the president? >>> i think those are all good questions. first of all, what happens if afghanistan is the president's responsibility. secondly, the general who's in charge has simply come back and said what you told me to do i don't have enough people to d so if you want me to keep going on what i'm doing, give mae more people. this led to the white house refute. the problem in afghanistan is not exclusively or primarily military. it's political. it's cultural. it's geostrategic. you have to have diplomacy. you have to work with afghanistan's neighbors. you might want to bring in the united nations. afghanistan is a c

to bring in john kirby, cnn military and diplomatic analyst, col snell steve warren and general wesley clark, former nato supreme allied commander. thank you for joining us. general clark, the president unveiled his plan for the u.s. strategy in afghanistan. america's longest war. listen and then we'll talk about it. >> a core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. i've said it.times how counterproductive it is for the united states to announce in advance the dates we intend to begin or end military options. we will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. conditions on the ground now the arbitrary timetables will guide our strategy from now on. america's enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. i will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will. >> so from -- he wasn't very specific. so what is, general, the new strategy for afghanistan? >> well, it's a little hard to say. i think the framework's okay to say you're going to involve all elements of u.s. power. i t

there's also retired general wesley clark who is similarly alarmed at trump's handling of the situationou can't be engaging in schoolboy rhetoric with north korea. this is absurd. >> seth: well of course he's going to. he's donald trump, he's the schoolboy in chief. he literally bragged about how great of a whiner he is. >> i am the most fabulous whiner. i do whine because i wanna win. i am a whiner and i'm a whiner and i keep whining and whining until i win. >> seth: that of course is from the famous dr. seuss book "whining and winning." [ light laughter ] i whine and i whine and i whine 'til i win. and i'll whine once again until i double win-win. [ light laughter ] so with the president basically a growing credibility crisis and new challenges presenting it's perhaps no surprise that trump's team is looking for a new communications director after the firing of former white house press secretary sean spicer. spicer for his part seems to be enjoying his new found freedom. on saturday he was spotted at fenway park enjoying a boston red sox game. and just to make sure he felt at home, th

army general and former nato supreme allowed commander wesley clark.eneral, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> obviously a lot has changed in the last 16 years. what are the challenges right now? >> well, the challenge right now is the taliban is actually growing in strength despite our billions of dollars spent on training the afghan army. the afghan army is taking lots of casualties, sometimes as many as 20 per day on average. so we're chewing up the afghan army forces faster than we can build experience and combat capability. and that's because pakistan is still supporting the insurgery i because it doesn't want a stable western oriented afghan government. >> so how deal with pakistan? >> well, you've got to deal with pakistan. and this is going to be the interesting thing about what the president says. how do you deal with pakistan, because they are a nuclear power. they have been in the past a traditional u.s. ally as well as an ally of china. we used to do troop exercises with pakistan back in the 1970s and 80s. so we used tob pakistan re

and outfront now colonel wesley clark. colonel monday sewer, let me start with you w. when we hear trump's words, dunl the president is ready to strike, that he is ready to pull a trigger? >> absolutely. you know, you can argue with the tone and ten or of his remarks, but not their content. what the president is doing is putting the military lever of power back on the table, something that has been virtually absent in the last two decades. and diplomacy has gotten us nowhere other than a north korean nuclear program that has succeeded in making a bomb and then now making intercontinental ballistic missiles that can deliver those bombs to u.s. territory. what he's doing is strengthening diplomacy by putting the military ler of power back on the table. the second thing that he does is strengthen deterrence, because if the north korean leader kim jong-un under a previous administrations didn't think the united states would strike, he was emboldened to act. i don't think he can make that calculation anymore given the president's words. and so this actually, i think, streng

in this hour, the council of foreign relations and later this morning general wesley clark.orning. this is "bloomberg surveillance" in new york. imo am tom keene. francine lacqua in london. -- i am tom keene. a bombshell from disney yesterday. this is a huge deal that content is king. francine: yeah, if you look at all the major industry groups, music industry was disrupted and they were going exactly that way when the jay-z and the arts market, that way with a big artists here. the natural next step is tried to cut out the middleman. control ofck distribution. distribution, distribution, distribution. here's taylor riggs. taylor: president trump warned -- has never wanted north korea before. face a at they will devastating military strike if they keep threatening to the u.s.. president trump: north korea best not make anymore threats to the united states, they will liket with fire and fury the world has never seen. taylor: north korea said it is considering a missile launch in guam. in france, counterterrorism prosecutors are investigating an attack on soldiers. six soldier

wesley clark/u.s. army "you can't be engaging in schoolboy rhetoric with north korea.urd." lawmakers on both sides also criticized the president's rhetoric.sen. john mccain/r-arizona"i take exceptions to the president's comments because you've got to be sure that you can do what you say you're going to do.'" sen. al franken/d-minnesota "what he was basically doing is threatening nuclear war against north korea. this is a time when any war with north korea would be catastrophic, and that's not the proper message to be sending with them."yet some say this kind of tough talk might be what is needed.margaret hoover/political strategist "communist dictators who are authoritarian, military dictators understand fire and fury, they understand powerful language. it's almost that he was speaking in a way that a military dictator might understand."north korea also ramped up the threats. the state-run news agency says their military is considering a plan that calls for striking areas around guam with ballistic missiles.thousands of u-s service members and their families live there