michael. there is some truth to that and maybe china is putting pressure on the back end. it doesn t matter what they say, it matters what they do. with cotton three hostages. there s 25 million left, which are the north korean people. they can promise us the world but they boast they lie when necessary. they played russia and china against each other. these are people who lie, cheat and steal to maintain their hold in power because they have to when these companies martha: thank you very much. good to see you both. joining me now with more, ambassador, former national security council senior director. ambassador, very good to have you with us. thanks for being here. i want to get your reaction to this breaking news from north korea and their objection to these exercises. what s your take? i do think that we are seeing some probing to see what we might do. there also certainly is a possibility he s trying to play
also to embarrass us because now you have the state department going on tv saying we don t know what s going on. that makes us look like fools and that is something that they do very effectively. martha: i can t help but wonder this is sort of a negotiation tool because a lot of these concessions are things the president has been able to tout. they give is this, they give us that. so kim jong un is a leader. he s a young leader. he is surrounded by advisors and people who are perhaps pushing back at this idea to a certain extent and i wonder if some of this isn t just his way, michael, of saying, you know what, we are coming to the table, but we are going to hold a bit back your and now we are a little bit upset about these exercises, it s a bargaining chip. again this is not exercises that just happen overnight, these are plan months in advanc advance. north korea posts that were necessary they will stop america across the face of a what kim jong un can go forward to his people wh
at what is his next move now the kim jong un appears to be threatening to call off the summit if the united states doesn t stop military exercises with the south? hears heather at the state department responding. they are exercises that are legal. they are planned well, well in advance. we have not heard anything from the government. martha: this comes on the heels of huge concessions that began at the olympics and kept right on going through the release of our hostages. so what is up? marc theissen, michael and ambassador dennis ross, under five different presidents all here to respond tonight. kristin fisher live at the white house with the latest there. so far the white house isn t saying much. all they ve said is that they are aware of the reports that the north koreans have canceled talks set for tomorrow with the south koreans and are threatening to perhaps not show up or perhaps even cancel next month s big summit between president trump and north korean leader kim jong un
positive political development on the korean peninsula. just six days ago that president trump was thinking kim jong un for releasing those three american citizens. this really is a very big shift in tone from the north koreans. the state department says it is going to continue going forward with planning and preparing for this big summit in singapore which is exactly four weeks away from tonight. martha: that s four weeks to figure this whole thing out. here now, marc theissen. american enterprise institute scholar and fox news contributor and michael nettles, author of dear reader, the unauthorized autobiography of kim jong il, kim jong un s father. good to see both of you tonight. mark, let me start with you. what do you make of this news? has a number of possibilities. one of them could be as kim jong un is looking for a way out of this thing. if the fact his trump is pretty much boxed human pretty quickly. he accepted the offer for the summit a lot faster than anyone thought.