Coastal city of sinpo, home to north koreas submarine base, u. S. Pacific command saying it was a failure, almost immediately after launch. And what i have experienced in the past when im inside this count country, its never reported in the statecontrolled media. Of course a successful launch would be a lead story with pictures of the north Korean Leader overseeing the event. Given that this appears to be this test appears to be a failure, probably most north koreans, the vast majority, will never know that it happened, ana. And, will, explain the difference between this failed launch and an actual nuclear test. Reporter so north korea has conducted a number of Missile Launches since the beginning of last year, three dozen missile tests. Its fairly easy for north korea to fire these. They probably dont have a warhead inside the trajectory, has them falling in the waters off the korean peninsula. There was a simultaneous missile
launch last month where three missiles landed within 200 n
could occur, where it s occurred in the past. all of those places are being watched. as you know they have the ships across the sea he, all the patriot missiles are alert in south korea, the carrier task force are ready to shoot anything down that threatens japan or south korea. there is a readiness factor. what i found interesting the statement that suzanne just read came from the secretary of defense and not the president s office. that seemed odd to me. why is that? because the secretary of defense, rightfully so, will not comment on what comes next but if the president was informed you would think the presidential spokesman would say something as opposed to the secretary of defense. that s just the way in the past it s been done. president trump has changed his protocol on this, i assume. jamie, welcome to our
the north koreans and they are very rational actors. this was as little as they could do to not create a bigger crisis. and yet trump is so unpredictable. you ve written about this maneuvering between kim jong-un versus president trump, two people who both are somewhat unpredictable. how do you see this maneuvering taking shape as we get this statement. i think that as jamie was saying, kim jong-un has proven to be a rational actor and these continued tests also make sense. they are not random. they come at times of anniversaries and political events in the region such as trump meeting. and the japanese prorm was here. and they want to see what they can get away with. i would actually say that in some ways kim jong-un is
the mood is optimism that the united states were to take military action against north korea that they could respond in force and potentially, you know, use these weapons. so, jamie, i m wondering for you when you look at what we see in that military parade and then we learn that they ve done this launch of a missile that failed thankfully, why do you think they would have done a missile launch should they have had the capability of doing a nuclear test instead. because they were under a lot of pressure. president trump certainly has raised the temperature in the region. china has put a lot of frepress on north korea. and there was a risk. if they did take if they did have a nuclear test this time, they didn t know what was going to happen and there was additional variability. if they did nothing, the story on monday would have been that they did nothing. kim backs down and that would have weakened him. this was really the pour ij is just right kind of position by
and the white house has chosen to respond in a very low key manner. they do not want to give any kind of undo attention or credit to north korea. all of this, as you know, as the vice president is on his way to seoul, south korea, to meet with the leader there. ana? we are learning that south korea national security council will meet tomorrow to discuss where they go from here. suzanne malveaux reporting where the president is this evening, very understated response from the u.s. president. acknowledging this missile launch failed and really nothing beyond that. no further comment. i want to you bring in my panel, retired army lieutenant general mark hertling, a fellow, jonathan kristol and former state department official jamie me metzel.