here. we are where we are with a very serious situation because we ve had a failed policy. so what washington needs to focus on is policy. we need to focus less on the rhetoric. the rhetoric did not get us here. my whole point in bringing up president obama s rhetoric is to show that even tough rhetoric from a different person is absolutely not working. the policy is not working. uh-huh. understood. richard, thank you very much. chris cillizza, margaret talev, appreciate it. so a little bit of this no matter how you feel about it does come down to the central issue of approach and the president s approach is different than what we ve seen in the past. even if president obama said he could destroy it, it wasn t a constant narrative of threat in response to threat. so is this the best way to go? we have a republican senator from the foreign relations committee with his take next.
differently? maybe he s doing all three, but helps you to understand what the risk and reward calculus is. and because north korea s so unpredictable, it s that in addition to the president s unpredictability that s making the world very uncomfortable. but i think underlying all of this you have got now a serious and very engaged set of discussions involving not just the president up at bedminster, you have the secretary of state, u.n. security advisor, ambassador nikki haley coming to meet with the president today, probably a lot of people wish it were earlier today, but she is talking to u.s. allies and not always allies but partners in this all over the world. there is a real concerted effort underneath the rhetoric to try to get a handle on the situation and to try to exercise all of those diplomatic and military kind of considerations that we re talking about. also, richard, what s your take on this, the president is using different language than
several boxes to check with you this morning. let s start with north korea. do you believe this is the right approach to have with north korea, the rhetoric from the president? i think the right approach is to be strong and that will have a deterrent effect, i believe, that s certainly what all of us hope for. ronald reagan said famously you get peace through strength. i think that s what secretary tillerson and secretary mattis and president trump are all saying is that should there be a preemptive strike upon north korea, the response will be swift, it will be forceful and that should deter them, one would hope, from taking any actions against guam or south korea or japan or certainly our shores. so if good fgod forbid something would not happen, the president would not have to go to congress for any power to act because it would be in defense of the united states, but if it did become an issue, would you back the use of military force
congressman eric swalwell tweeting, constituents texts pouring in asking should we worry about north korea, i ve never seen anything like chaos donald trump has created. congressman swalwell joining us now. he does sit we should mention on the house intel as well as the house judiciary committee. sir, thanks for being with us. as you respond to constituents, what are you telling them about north korea and how concerned they should be? good morning, brianna. and it is troubling to see so many constituents asking me at town halls this weekend and asking me over direct messages on twitter or text message, you know, what s going to happen, are we prepared for this. i tell them, you know, fortunately around the president are experienced foreign policy hands, generals who know that the options militarily are not good ones and we just have to hope that they are asserting themselves for the sake of our future and the sake of our country. so when we look at what north korea has said this mo
military solutions now fully in place, locked and loaded should north korea act unwisely. hopefully kim jong-un will find another path. let s bring in cnn senior political commentator and former senior obama advisor david axelrod for the bottom line. you came up in a conversation tangentially this morning, a supporter of the president said, you know, president obama said we could destroy north korea, so don t blame the president trump for ratcheting up the fiery talk, obama spoke the same way. fair comparison? well, the president said the other day that obama didn t speak about it at all, so everybody better get on the same page over there. chris, my concern is the president dealing with reality or does he view this all as a reality show? is he a president with a strategy? or is he playing a tough talking president on tv because he likes