arsenal, and they are wondering, what order was given and what was the president referring to? same thing when the president tweeted about the transgender ban. the chairman and joint chiefs had to say, we don t know what the president is talking about. everyone hold their place. so too with north korea. the president is talking about military action, the likes of which, as you referenced earlier, the world has never seen. the commander in chief has not given directive to the pentagon to put or forces in position, to do anything militarily. this is a lot of dangerously empty rhetoric. eugene, you ve been a foreign correspondent, you write a lot about the country and the world, and so you know this. dni clapper was on tv talking about how kim of north korea craves recognition. director clapper went over there in 2014. all he brought was a letter from president obama. he said the letter said nothing, but the north craved the receipt of that letter because it meant
the president is talking about. hold their place. so too with north korea. the president is talking about military action, the likes of which, as you referenced earlier, the world has never seen. the commander of chief has not given the pentagon the word to put or forces in position, to do anything militarily. this is a lot of dangerously empty rhetoric. eugene, you write a lot about the country and the world, and so you know this. dni clapper was on tv talking about how kim of north korea craves recognition. director clapper went over there in 2014. all he brought was a letter from president obama. he said the letter said nothing, but the north craved the receipt of that letter because it meant validation and recognition. when you talk about this guy and you are the only american president and now for two days in a row, you have made personal comments about him and his military might and his threats,
we have obviously a different dynamic with paul manafort and donald trump, jr. because they are so much higher profile, and that s not something the white house would have wanted to see in public. but, again, there is this danger that for them, at least, democrats could come out and have a totally different version of the story than they might like to have out there. i want to play a sound bite that we have from aspen where the aspen security forum, this is where wolf blitzer is. he moderated a panel between cia director john brennan as well as the former dni clapper, and this is what they said about the special counsel. you have confidence in this special counsel? absolutely. you both worked with him for a long time when he was head of the fbi. absolutely. it was an inspired choice. they don t come any better. nobody better than bob mueller who is a straight shooter and will not be intimidated by any and if he s fired mr. trump or attempted to be fired by mr. trump,
well, i think david s right that we need to know a bit more here. i think the differing accounts that we ve seen from tillerson and lovrov are of concern. if they ve walked away with a difference understanding of what happened in that conversation, that s not a good sign. i think it is important that the president raised it. i think it s interesting that the president himself has still not said publicly that he believes that russia was involved in this and so i think it will be important for us to hear that from him directly. but i do also think it s important for us to remember that russia views this as basically, you know, this is an assault on our democracy, that they have undertaken. last year in 2016 and what we will be potentially seeing in the future. and we need to take steps to prepare ourselves to defend against and deter that kind of threat going forward. and go ahead. i totally agree with you and i think that s a whole conversation we need to have, especially give
misinformation in order to influence our elections? simple yes or no would suffice. i do, yes, sir. yes, senator. yes, i do. yes, i do. yes. yes. you also heard former dni clapper endorse that view a bit earlier on the program. more on the subject now from republican member of the house foreign affairs committee, congressman adam kinsinger of illinois. we spoke a short time ago about that and tonight s breaking news. congressman kinsinger, the breaking news tonight is russian spies are ramping up their efforts to gather intelligence in the u.s., they feel emboldened to do so because of the lack of retaliation of the 2016 election interference, lack of retaliation from both the trump and obama administrations. what s your reaction to this news? presuming this is true and presuming the reason for why is true, first off i m not surprised that they re ramping up their intelligence-gathering information. the russians feel as if the cold war is back on. they re trying to re-e