Here. And the real problem is donald trump is not the closer. He cant call these people up and say, hey, ive done so much for you, you need to vote for this for me. This is not going to sway senate republicans. Darlene, a lot of the opposition in the bill isnt something that the sweeteners will necessarily be able to fix. A lit more money here or there to alaska or maine. The critique is more fundamental from Susan Collins. So how does senator graham and cassidy get over the hurdle . Thats a good question. You mentioned Susan Collins and rand paul who is always for repeal and his opposition to this bill now is based on the fact that it does not entirely repeal obamacare. So i dont know how you flip him on that basis. And can President Trump close the deal . That remains to be seen. This is one of several headlines moving forward throughout the day here. What is happening on the health with health, happening on the
hes a spokesman for the league. And i asked him specifically if there has been any private dialogue between the white house and the nfl since the president first began pushing this story on friday. Remember, during his remarks in alabama. Lockhart said there has not been any dialogue. He said the president has chosen his platform with twitter. Lockhart said if the president wants to engage in something positive and constructive, quote, he knows our number. Well, the president clearly has chosen to communicate, not by phone, but by tweet. Again, this morning, tweeting on this topic, lets show you some of the latest comments on this issue that certainly fueled this sort of uniting moment as the nfl views it across the league with players and owners in many cases locking arms, kneeling for the national anthem. At times, the Pittsburgh Steelers not coming onto the field. Heres what the president wrote, the issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our flag, country and national anthem. The nfl must respect this. Many people booed the players yesterday, a small percentage of the players, he noted. And he added this about nascar, so proud of nascar and its supporters and fans. They wont put up with disrespecting our country or our flag. They said it loud and clear. And then within the last hour or so, hallie, he tweeted a new hashtag, stand for our anthem. Be clear, the president tried to tweak the conversation to focus on what he describes as the disrespect to our country by kneeling during those national anthems. The players, remember, this Original Nighted with a player, now no longer playing for a team, colin kaepernick, who kneeled down because he insisted he was protesting racial injustice. Police brutality in this country. So the bottom line is, for the president to suggest this has nothing to do with race, ignores the fundamental basis for the protests in the first place. At this point, its ultimately brought together all sorts of
athletes of all different stripes and what is as much a protest as it is a show of defiance to the president himself, hallie. Peter alex ander on this story today. Well watch for you later on nightly news and see you at the white house. The response from the nfl has been pretty overwhelming. 30 of 32 teams have released statements in response to the president s remarks. Some of them naming the president directly. Including new England Patriots owner robert kraft who donated a Million Dollars to the president s inauguration. Heres what kraft said, i am deeply disappointed by the tone of the comments made by the president on friday. Our players are intelligent, thoughtful and care deeply about our community and i support their right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a matter they feel is most impactful. Now im joined by joe watkins, former aide to george h. W. Bush. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Joe, let me start with you, because this is an interesting
and they have the right to protest. What makes this country great is the right of americans to protest. To say when they dont agree and things can be better than they are. This makes the country a great country. So the players are within their right to protest and say they dont agree. Mike, are you surprised at all by the way the nfl has responded to the president s criticism . I think it shows just how overthetop the president s criticism was. So to give you the context of who the nfl is and who the owners are, roger good el, the commissioner, the son of a republican senator, you mentioned that bob kraft gave a million to donald trump. So did the owner of the y jacksonville jaguars, him linking arms with his players. The nfl owners, most conservative or republican of the sports league, showed they gave over 8 million in the last election cycle to republicans and only 200,000 to democrats. So these are the owners, these
are the rich captains of industry, these are in some cases trumps friends. And even they are coming together saying, you know, its not really about the flag or protests, its about you as the president inserting yourself into our private business in a way that doesnt help us or the country at all. Joe, the times had a writeup about the president not uniting the country but with situations like this instead broadening the divide essentially. You might have heard Peter Alexander a couple minutes ago say on this Conference Call in the last 40 minutes with the nfl, the suggestion from joe lockhart was, hey, the president has our number. He can give us a call. Is the president going to pick up the phone and call anybody at the nfl in your view . Im not expecting that to happen. But i sure do wish that the president would take a page of abraham lincolns book. And in that page, that is that the president s job in part is to call americans to be better
angels by nature. This is what we hope president s do, bring us together, they help us to heal as a country. And that would be my home as well for this president , he would seem fit to bring us together to help us heal as a country. I havent seen that yet, but thats the direction i would like to see this head. We have challenges in this country and have to face them and talk about them. We have to fix them. Whatever is wrong, we have to fix. And these players who are speaking out in such a bold way are within their right to do it. And they want to see a better cone tri, lebron james and steph curry, i agree with them. And that is something we have not touched on yet. The president ial Unessentially Uninviting steph curry and the warriors to the white house. After curry said he wouldnt go anyway, and lebron giving backup to curry after the president tweeted. Mike, one of my colleagues here at nbc news, jonathan allen, has a piece out that the trump neil attack gives his backing a
reason to stand. There are folks who dont necessarily want to see the Football Players taking a position, kneeling or standing or anything when it comes to politics. Think about that . Is that the way folks see football . I think there are a couple issues here. Ment is it the question, this is what we dont want Football Players to do, take a knee, maybe. I have seen polling on them that shows the majority of the americans say to stand and respect the flag. I can totally understand that. But is the bigger issue that we dont want Football Players taking a knee or we dont want the president injecting himself into the First Amendment rights of Football Players. So the president might want to change the conversation just like that In Charlottesville where he changed it to, lets make it a referendum on taking down statues. But the whole idea of playing to his base, your base is the people who support you the most. The people who support him the
most are those that show it. But you want to talk about his base, when he says to the base, im going to do the exact opposite of what i said, that was daca, that was the day he announced a deal with nancy pelosi was the day he lit into the woman on espn to be fired. So hes using the sports issued to distract from a failing political agenda. Mike and joe, thank you for joining the conversation for what came up later in the afternoon. It popped up that theres a briefing at the white house at 2 00 this afternoon. Ill be there and so will some of these questions. Thank you very much. In other news, the president wanted a stronger, tougher travel ban. And now it seems he might have one. His latest version of it indefinitely restricting travel
from more countries than before. What about the legalities of this thing . Well talk about it after the break. Hat . Its you its me . Alright emma, i know its not your favorite but its time for your medicine, okay . You ready . One, two, three. [ both ] emma, emma bobemma bananafanafofemma feefifofemma emma very good sweety, how do you feel . Good. Yeah . You did a really good job, okay . [ female announcer ] to nurses everywhere, thank you, from johnson johnson. Its ok that everybody ignores me when i drive. Its fine, cause i get a Safe Driving Bonus check every six months im accidentfree. And i dont share it with mom. Right, mom . Right. Safe driving bonus checks, only from allstate. Switching to allstate is worth it. Only from allstate. My business was going nowhere. So i built this kickin new website with godaddy. Building a website in under an hour is easy 68 of people. Who have built their website using gocentral, did it in. Under an hour, and you can too. Type in your business or idea. Pick your favourite design. Personalize it with beautiful images. And. Youre done and now business is booming. Harriet, its a double stitch not a cross stitch build a better website in under an hour. Free to try. No credit card required. Gocentral from godaddy. Kevin, meet yourkeviner. Kevin Kevin Kevin KevinKevin Kevin Kevin kevin kevin trusted advice for life. Kevin, hows your mom . Life well planned. See what a Raymond JamesFinancial Advisor can do for you. Countries to the last. Chad, north korea and venezuela. Nbcs Pete Williams is joining us now with more. Pete, take us through the specifics here and how the guidelines are different from what we have seen before. Reporter well, they are different because theyed a three new countries, thats one difference. Second, The Original Travel Ban that went into effect in march or in july after the Supreme Court ruling, basically said it was 90 days. This one is indefinite until those countries conform to what the u. S. Says is a new baseline for the sort of information that the nation needs to assess the validity of visa information. The government says that these lists, this new restriction, is the result of canvassing every country in the world saying heres the new information we want, and then assessing how well the countries did on a grade. But basically, all visas are blocked from north korea and syria. Now, that is not a big change for north korea. There was only 110 visas granted in all of last year from north
korea. For chad, libya, yemen, no business or Tourist Visas blocked. And the one in venezuela was not restricted for most people, but it is a Restriction On Travel By government fishes. Tho officials. Any government can get off if it ups its game and conforms to the new requirements that the government has for three things. The ability to assess the validity of the information. To say that a person from those countries is who they say they are. Secondly, that the government in those countries gives the United States realtime information about terrorists. And thirdly, the overall terrorist situation in those countries. So they say its not permanent, its up to these countries to see if they want to get off the list. Pete, how does this change or not change the sort of legal battle happening over the ban that you talked about
originally, the one under review by the Supreme Court . I think the answer to that is nobody knows. Last night the Justice Department recommended to the Supreme Court that both sides in the Supreme Court showdown over the travel ban, which is now scheduled for Oral Argument in the court october 10th, should submit new briefs to the court saying what this means. This is still part of top original travel ban. The Original Travel Ban Executive Order called for this assessment. So its not that the travel ban is gone, its that its now in a new phase. But frankly, hallie, this does give the Supreme Court an offramp here to say, well, these are all new facts and we need to send this back to the lower courts to figure out what this means. Thats potentially a very likely outcome here. Pete williams, thank you very much. Appreciate it. In the proclamation that the white house put out, it talked about the department of Homeland Security doing this in cooperation with other departments and agencieagencies. It was coordinated between state, homeland, et cetera. Compared to the last version of the travel ban we saw the announcement seems to have been laying the foundation a little more broadly than before. Yeah, i think thats right. Remember the chaos that happened with the First Travel Ban where they had not given a headsup to the agencies involved in policing this that would normally be part of the surrogates that go to sell Something Like this. There were protests. This is something where we are in the 3. 0 version. The Trump Administration is Getting Better with the Coordination Factor so important in washington. Critics say, there are some who suggest this is still a muslim ban except with north korea and venezuela now thrown in. Right. Someone from the american civils Liberty Union said that last night. Its sort of adding north korea and venezuela to give the administration cover, which is not what the president called for last year campaigning. He called for complete and total shut down of muslims coming into
the country. So potentially this is doing little to set aside the criticism the president has been getting already. I was talking to Josh Gorstein and they expect to have the same legal challenges with this ban as the previous 2. 0 ban as well. So there are going to be challenges for the months to come. Anna, im going to ask you to hang out for a minute with more related to politics later in the show. But first to the huge Story Happening in puerto rico with all eyes on this dam damaged by Hurricane Maria with flash flood warnings still in effect. Youve got nearly the entire island still without power. People are having a hard time finding food and gas. We have a live report from puerto rico after the break. Wemost familiar companies,s but we make more than our name suggests. Were an organic tea company. A premium juice company. A Coconut Water company. Weve got drinks for long days. For birthdays. For turning over new leaves. And we make them for every moment in every corner of the country. We are the cocacola company, and were proud to offer so much more. Before starting cosentyx, you should be checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms. Or if you have received a vaccine or plan to. If you have inflammatory bowel disease, tell your doctor if symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions may occur. Never give up. See me. See me. Clear skin can last. Dont hold back. Ask your dermatologist if cosentyx can help you find clear skin that lasts. The disgraced former new york congressman is set to be sentenced for sending Inappropriate Text Messages to a 15yearold girl. This is part of that sexting scandal. As part of his plea deal, wiener agreed not to appeal the prosecutors recommendation of 21 to 27 months in prison. By the way, as soon as we find out about this sentence, were going to dip in and bring it to you live when it happens, which could be in the next couple of minutes. Well keep you posted. And on another huge story, imagine needing something to drink and getting it by using a piece of pipe to gather rainwater from a hill. Imagine needing desperately to call your family to make sure they are okay, but having to huddle on the side of the highway just to get cell service. Imagine being in port rico right now where one official told the a. P. This weekend, quote, the devastation has set us back nearly 20 to 30 years after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. But the puerto rican governor now asking for more help from washington. Tammy leitner is live in san
juan for us. Right now, the governor of new york says the government needs to do more, so what is the priority on the ground right now . Reporter hallie, they need everything at this point. But small baby steps are being made. Trash pickup resumed today. This is the bus lane. We saw the first bus go by. Limited transportation right now, but on the other hand, there are still enormous lines that stretch miles. People are waiting for hours. Still very few Grocery Stores are open and they are making rescues across the island. Part of the reason it is taking so long is roads are washed away. Very limited communication. And people really dont have any of the basic that in cessties. Necessities. We traveled to a town 90 minutes away where people jerryrigged a pvc pipe to fill buckets for water. One than lived outside the area, lets go ahead and listen to what he had to say. We lost our homes. Actually, myself, we lost our roof. Right now we are just putting this on so everyone can get their water. We know that Everybody Needs something. Reporter angel is the oldest of seven kids and says as the oldest he feels he needs to take care of his brothers and sisters. Thats why he was there gathering his water. His father is a Police Officer and still out working. So hallie, people are doing what they can to survive. Thats the state of things right now on the ground. Tammy, there are places in puerto rico where people still havent seen a lot of Emergency Officials because it is just so hard to get to. Is there any progress in some of the more remote areas of the island yet . Reporter very, very slowly. I can tell you, we went to one area yesterday where rescuers had just gotten to that area. And there were 11 towns, about 2,000 families, that nobody had heard from. Because the main road had collapsed. So they were going to try to fly in rescue crews to get there. So there are a lot of towns that nobody has even heard of just at this point. Tammy leitner on the ground in san juan. Tammy, i know it has been a long stretch for you and for the crews there, please stay safe and thank you for bringing us this critical reporter. Up next, we want to talk about new details on President Trumps soninlaw using private email to talk to white house colleagues. But on the inside, i feel like chronic, widespread pain. Fibromyalgia may be invisible to others, but my pain is real. Fibromyalgia is thought to be caused by overactive nerves. Lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. Im glad my doctor prescribed lyrica. For some, lyrica delivers effective relief for moderate to even severe fibromyalgia pain. And improves function. Lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions, suicidal thoughts or actions. Tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worse depression, unusual changes in mood or behavior, swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. Common side effects dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain, swelling of hands, legs and feet. Dont drink alcohol while taking lyrica. Dont drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. Those whove had a drug or Alcohol Problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. With less pain, i can do more with my family. Talk to your doctor today. See if lyrica can help. Later on this week some familiar faces will be on capitol hill to talk about the russia investigation. Longtime trump associate roger stone and former trump staff member Boris Epshteyn will be interviewed by the house intelligent side. Then officials from twitter will be answering questions, too. But this morning its another social media giant facebook making all the headlines after the Washington Post reported former president obama tried to give Mark Zuckerberg, the ceo, a wakeup call over fake news on facebook before the inauguration. Im joined now by one of the writers of the article, Washington PostNational Technology reporter craig timberg. And politicos anna palmer and darlene superville. Take us inside the private meeting between president obama and Mark Zuckerberg. What happened . Well, its been clear for some time that facebook was caught off guard by what happened. And we learned that this
reinforces that. Nine days after Mark Zuckerberg famously referred to the idea of fake news as a crazy idea, president obama pulled him aside at a conference in lima, peru, they both happened to be at and said, you need to understand, this is serious. We need you to take it seriously. And were told that that was part of the growing awareness of facebook with a real problem on their hands. Were watching The Other Side of the skrecreen here, the facek live from Mark Accident Occurring Zuckerberg last week addressing fake news. Where was mark in january and february after the discussion with president obama . We are told that facebook was looking into the issue of russia manipulation as far back as june 2016 and found troubling things including links to gucifer 2. 0, the hacker spreading the wikileaks information about Hillary Clinton staff emails and such. But they didnt seem to find
their way into this issue of the russians buying the ads until recently. As recently as late july they were telling cnn. No, theres no russian ads. So it is clear it has been a process for them to get to where they have gotten. And anna, should the American People been let in on the process earlier than maybe they were . Well, im sure we wish we had known what was happening. And im sure Hillary Clintons campaign wishes she knew what was happening at that time. But this will be an issue, and it just keeps on going, the more people dig, the more reporters find out about this, the more facebook has problems. Craig, i appreciate you being on the show and well get you back later in the week when we see twitter folks heading over to the hill, nice scoop this morning, appreciate it. I want to talk about Something Else related to all this as well, 2016, the fallout as well, which is a political report from your organization, anna, that trump Senior AdvisorJared Kushner, the president s soninlaw, used a private email account to Exchange Information with other officials. Kushners lawyer confirmed the story to nbc news adding fewer
than 100 emails were involved and usually it was Kushner ForwardingNews Articles or political commentary or emails sent to him. Now, darlene, Lets Talk Context here. Because this is not the same, there are differences to Hillary Clintons use of private email, but those of us who watch the campaign and the president rail again and again against the use of private email, certainly took note of this headline. Absolutely. You remember during the campaign, like you said, he talked a lot about Hillary Clintons use of private email when she was secretary of state. And as a government official, youre not supposed to use your personal email to do Government Business. And so the context is quite interesting because of what the president talked about in the campaign and now here you have his soninlaw and Senior Advisor, senior white house advi advis adviser, essentially doing the same thing. But there are differences, anna. This is not a homegrown server. Hes not under an fbi investigation right now for this. Right. This is different. I think the stunning thing to me really is, if this was not trump tweeting with the nfl, puerto rico, hurricanes, this would be the biggest story for a week. But because this is just an administration that is controversy after conversation, this will be a couple day story. Should it be a big story for a week . It should definitely be a big story, how hard he went after Hillary Clinton on this very same issue, and the fact that, like i said a minute ago, youre not supposed to do Government Business on personal email. And was it a question of judgment in wasnt that the point that President Trump was trying to make . How does that play into Jared Kushner . This guy is doing middle east peace and enjoy in charge of ty to russia. The question is, what judgment was he using . And are we just going to say, oh, this is what his spokesman says, these are what the emails were about. Who actually knows. We have seen some of the emails, but we have not seen all of them. The numbers seem to be changing
there. Cheat sheet for me, ladies, what should sarah huck believe sa Huckabee Sanders be asked about this. Why did he do it . What was the substance of them . Don jr. Released emails when he came under fire for his emails. Why doesnt Jared Kushner, simply forwarding the different commentary. If the content was innocuous, let everyone see. We talked about the headlines happening, you have the devastation from Hurricane Maria and the Jared Kushner story. The continuing Russian Investigation and what is happening in alabama where it is basically mike pence versus steve bannon with just hours to go until steve bannon campaigns for his candidate. Well have more after this. You are still at risk for heart attack or stroke. Talk to your Health Care Provider today about diabetic heart disease. And find out more at heartoftype2. Com. Your heart and type 2 diabetes. Make the connection. Ive got a nice long life ahead. Big plans. So when i found out medicare doesnt pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. Then i got a Medicare Supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if youre eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80 of your part b medical expenses. The rest is up to you. Call now and find out about an aarp Medicare Supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. Like all standardized Medicare Supplement insurance plans, it helps pick up some of what medicare doesnt pay. And could save you in outofpocket medical costs. To me, relationships matter. Ive been with my doctor for 12 years. Now i know ill be able to stick with him. [ male announcer ] with these types of plans, youll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. Plus, there are no networks, and virtually no referrals needed. So dont wait. Call now and request this free Decision Guide to help you better understand medicare. And which aarp Medicare Supplement plan might be best for you. Theres a wide range to choose from. We love to travel and theres so much more to see. So we found a plan that can travel with us. Anywhere in the country. [ male announcer ] join the millions of people
who have already enrolled in the only Medicare Supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp, an Organization Serving the needs of people 50 and over for generations. Remember, all Medicare Supplement insurance plans help cover what medicare doesnt pay. And could save you in outofpocket medical costs. Call now to request your free Decision Guide. And learn more about the kinds of plans that will be here for you now and down the road. I have a lifetime of experience. So i know how important that is. Can i get some help. Watch his head. Im so happy. Whatever they went through, they went through together. Welcome guys. Life well planned. See what a Raymond JamesFinancial Advisor can do for you. We have some Breaking News now. Earlier in the show we told you about Anthony Weiner waiting to get sentenced in that sexting case. The former new york congressman has been issued to 21 months for sending Inappropriate Text Messages to an underaged girl. This is part of the sexting
scandal that was a huge issue in the 2016 president ial race. I want to bring in now our nbc legal analyst, danny sovalis. Danny, this is just happening in the last couple minutes here, 21 month months for Anthony Weiner, what is your takeaway . 21 months was on the stipulated low end of the guidelines, 21 to 27 months. To give you an idea how harsh the Sentencing Guidelines are for child pornographylike cases, in this case, Anthony Weiners Sentencing Guidelines actually exseated the statutory maximum. Which in this case would be 120 months. You do the math, that is ten years. But that gives you the idea, you rack up the points in the Sentencing Guidelines when it comes to using a computer, the age of the victim, all of those things. So in this case, even the government recognized that a range of 21 to 27 months was reasonable, Anthony Weiner ended up with the low end of that
range, which would likely be reasonable on appeal. So number one, What Happens Next . Is he going to appeal . Number two, where does he go . It is federal prison, right . He should get in most case, you would get remanded to custody. Because hes a relatively light sentence in the world of federal sentencing, which usually measures in years, not months, you can file a motion to remain out pending an appeal, but he pleaded guilty. He took responsibility, he waged the indictment. He will serve that time. In the federal system it is month to month. For Anthony Weiner, the former husband of huma abedin, Hillary Clintons righthand woman. This played out in a political sense in 2016 as well. It sure did. That is in what is filed by
Anthony Weiners attorneys. It factored in and it is part of the overall dialogue. And something that even the judge would take into consideration. I should add also that in the case of a Plea Agreement like this, its only likely that he would appeal if the sentence was unreasonable. Because he was within the stipulated guidelines, its not likely that this Appeals Court would ever find the sentence unreasonable. Danny sovalis, our msnbc legal analyst breaking down some of the Breaking News. Anthony weiner sentenced to 21 months in that sexting scandal. One count of sending Inappropriate Text Messages to a teenager girl. We want to go now to other news of the day, specifically related to politics. Specifically related to what is happening down south in alabama. That is where republicans are picking their candidate for the states open senate seat tomorrow. But today the conservative big guns are coming in and heading to their respective corners. You have Vice President pence trying to prop up incumbent
luther strange who is down in the polls, even with that endorsement from President Trump. And then on The Other Side, youve got roy moore. And steve bannon, the president s former chief strategist, along with these folks, the duck dynasty star phil robertson, nigel farage who helped out architect brexit. Well talk about this. But first we want to get you back to new york for more developing news. This is the Foreign Minister of north korea. We have been waiting for this for about 50 minutes. Hes speaking in front of his hotel in manhattan. We want to take you there now. We believe there is going to be an english translation. I want to listen in for just a moment here. Translator as you already know, over the last few days, the United Nations has sincerely wished that the war of words between the ptrk and the United States does not turn into the real actions. [ speaking Foreign Language ] [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator however, last we weekend, trump said our leadership wouldnt be around much longer. At last, he declared war on our country. [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator given the fact that this comes from someone currently holding the seat of the United States presidency, this is clearly a Declaration Of War. [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator all the member
states participating in the United Nation and the whole world should clearly remember that it was the u. S. Who first declared war on our country. [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator the u. N. Charter stipulates individual Member States rights to selfdefense. [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator since the United States declared war on our country, we will have every right to make countermeasures, including the right to shoot down the United States strategy bombers, even when theyre not
yet inside the Air Space Border of our country. [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator the question of who wont be around much longer will be answered then. So let me explain what you were just watching there. That was the north Korean Foreign minister along with an english translator next to him. It was a hastily called News Conference in front of his hotel in new york city after, of course, last weeks United Nations general assembly. You saw that group of reporters and photographers there watching that impromptu News Conference. That included nbcs ron allen, who is on the phone with us. It was difficult to clear. A few phrases stood out to me. That was the Declaration Of War by the United States as north korea sees it. Can you walk us through the headlines from your perspective . Exactly. Ha this was a parting shot by the Foreign Minister. Hes heading home, presumably. He said President Trumps statement that north korea wont be around much longer was a Declaration Of War by the United States against his country. And he said that the world should remember, looking forward, that it was first the United States, he says, that declared war against his country, and that his country, north korea, has the right to selfdefense. He talked specifically about the u. S. Bombers, the bombers from guam near north korea, into north korean air space, as a deterrent, he said the north koreans have the ability or have the right to shoot those down if, in fact, they come into north korean air space. That remains to be seen. However, the bottom line is very, very defiant talk. This escalation of words between the north koreans and the United States just keeps getting more and more heated. The question is, what happens . Does any of this rhetoric turn into reality . I can tell you from being in the region for a while, theres a lot of concern about misunderstanding, misstatements. A lot about this bravado and bluster going back and forth. Remember, it only Takes Minutes for one of the missiles the north koreans have been launching to reach its destination. In the short period of time, the United States, south korea, japan, has to react and decide what theyre going to do. Theres a lot of concern that all this rides on peace, security, rides on slight margins, given the bravado from both sides, the United States and the north koreans. The Foreign Minister stepped back to the podium. Lets see what he has to say. Thanks, ron. Im going to see if we can pull that shot up with our control
room here. We dont have it at the moment. Were going to monitor it and bring anything to you that we hear. Ron allen is hopefully going to stay with us. I want to bring in Michael Allen of beacon global strategies, someone who knows a lot of this. We watch the tape from a couple minutes ago of the north korean. [ speaking Foreign Language ] Foreign Minister. North korea threatening countermeasures, saying donald trump declared war. We have seen this become personal between pyongyang and washington. It is getting too hot. I know why trump did what he did, by calling out north korea. It is the Madman Theory of international relsations. Youre referring to his speech at the United Nations general assembly, where he called kim jongun rocket man and said the u. S. May have to destroy north korea if needed. He tacalled them out. In part, to incentivize the chinese to take economic
measures against the north. The problem is, the temperature is getting too high now. We may have some misunderstanding and the rhetoric get out of control and some kind of skirmish. Now, it is getting dangerous. What is happening right now inside the west wing, the State Department, for the people who work on this region . When they look at what the Foreign Minister just said at the Press Conference in new york city, whats the reaction . What are they doing . Some people in the National Security council are urging caution on President Trump, to not return the volley of incendiary words. I think they might be suggesting that perhaps it makes more sense that secretary mattis go out. The State Department is certainly trying to message through whatever channels they have, hey, what did you mean by this . Lets try and work things out. Or at least turn the temperature down. While also going to china and saying, china, do something quick. Anna and darlene, ill bring you into the conversation. What i heard from administration officials, State Department,
pentagon, is Diplomatic Solutions are still the priority. We want to resolve this, if we can, diplomatically. Then you have discussions like this. I think whats happening behind the scenes, which is what this bravado is happening, kind of publicly, is really what were all focused on here, right . We want to know, how are they going to try to take the temperature down a little bit, as you were saying, and also is there a way to resolve this without Military Action . I think everybody agrees thats not what people want. Darlene, before i get to you, i want to get back to ron allen. Ron, you said it looked as though the Foreign Minister of north korea was taking more questions from reporters. Did he . He just made a statement. He came back to say that all options are on the table, given this Declaration Of War by the United States. What he means by that, of course, is perhaps military options. It is a clear threat. This is another big concern in the region. Remember, were talking about Ballistic Missile tests and nuclear tests, but beyond that, north korea has one of theb
biggest standing armies anywhere in the world. Along the border with south korea, there are thousands of artillery pieces. Theyve been there a long time. Unclear how well they work, but theyre a clear threat to south korea and japan, very close by. No one who has no reasonable person can see a Military Solution to this. If the United States initiated a first strike which, by the way, the south koreans said we should not do, the north koreans have the capacity to respond. Not necessarily with a Nuclear Weapon or Ballistic Missile, but a conventional piece of artillery, mortar, artillery round. They could do a huge amount of damage in south korea. Remember, were talking about the korean peninsula, a very small space. From seoul to drive north through the border is about an hour and a half. From seoul south to the end of the peninsula is five, six hours. In the space, you have tens of millions of people within range of north korea. Ron allen there in new york. Michael, final thoughts . What worries me is this may be a prelude to what the north koreans have been warning, which is that they may do an aboveground Nuclear Weapons test, which would certainly upset the apple cart. Well have to see what they have in mind. Sometimes their rhetoric Preseepreced Precedes something harsh. Michael, darlene, anna, thank you for being with us on set. I want to thank ron allen, from the News Conference with the north Korean Foreign minister. Before we go, we want to go back to mexico, recovering from the devastating earthquake. The little girl with her hard hat, giving up free hugs. This mexican officer took her up on it. Shes been offering the embraces to people all over the site, helping any way she knows how. On a monday morning, children like this little girl would normally be heading to school. Not today. Nearly 99 of schools in mexico city are still closed as