Fired by trump. Plus, after taunting kim jongun about the size of his Nuclear Button. Without my rhetoric and without my tough stance, they wouldnt be talking right now. The president opens the the door to talks with north korea. The latest from u. N. Ambassador nikki haley. And Martha Raddatz from south korea. Well break down the politics, smoke out the spin, the facts that matter this week. Good morning. To anyone who thought President Trumps second year might be a bit more relaxed than the first. Two words. Fire and fury. That title of the blistering new best seller about the Trump White House also describes President Trumps response to the book. Which has intensified an extraordinary debate. Captured this morning in headlines across the country and around the world. Does President Trump have the mental stability it takes to handle his office . A guy that doesnt know me. Doesnt know me at all. By the way, did not interview me. He said he interviewed me for three hours in the white house. That didnt exist, okay. Its in his imagination. Reporter President Trump at camp david on saturday, calling fire and fury a work of fiction. My credibility is being questioned by man who has perhaps less credibility than anyone else who has ever walked the earth to this point. Reporter the seismic claims have shaken the white house. And broken his relationship with the former top strategist. Did steve bannon betray you . Any words about steve bannon . I dont know. He called me a great man last night. So he obviously changed his tune pretty quick. Reporter bannons quotes jump off the pages of fire and fury. With unvarnished attacks on trump and his children. Don jr. Is treasonous. Ivanka, dumb as a brick. Comments that earned bannon a new nickname from trump. Sloppy steve is now looking for a job. Reporter the book reports trump and his campaign were shocked by a win they never expected. And in the white house portrayed by wolff, President Trump is woefully unfit for the job. One staffer said working with trump is like trying to figure out what a child wants. Others inside the white house thought he was no more than semiliteral. Calling him an idiot and a dope. According to your reporting, everyone around the president , Senior Advisers, family members, every single one of them questions his intelligence and fitness for office . Let me put a marker in the sand here. 100 of the people around him. Reporter the book has drawn a fullthroated denial from the white house podium. Its disgraceful and laughable. If he was unfit, he probably wouldnt be sitting there. Wouldnt have defeated the most qualified group of candidates the Republican Party has ever seen. Reporter and saturday morning, trump took matters into his own hands. With an Early Morning tweet. My two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Calling himself a stable genius. Then the press conference at camp david. Only because i went to the best colleges. Or college. Came out, made billions and billions of dollars. Became one of the top business people. Went to television and for ten years was a tremendous success. As you probably have heard. Ran for president one time and won. Roundtable here to take it on. Joined by chief political analyst matthew dowd. Democratic strategist stephanie cutter. Who was a Senior Adviser to president obama. Chair of the american conservative union, matt schlapp. Roland martin from tv one. And republican strategist, sara fagen, strategist with president george w. Bush and now with cnbc. Every president hit by a book like this. Usually by bob woodward. Not this time around. What is your big takeaway . And how much can we trust . Speaking as a genius um i have three that theres so many. I have three. First, im not a huge fan of Michael Wolff and the style of journalism that that entails. I think that the problem with that style of journalism is, its its evidenced by celebrity. Talks about the tawdry stories. And all that. I dont think it adds to the discourse or helps us move forward as a country. That being said, he paints a broad picture. Take the little stories out of it. With insiders who have not denied they have said all the things they have been quoted as saying of something that some republicans on the record, and many republicans, most republicans off the record have said. That theres a question about the president s temperament. Serious questions about his mental acuity. Can he handle the office . All of the stresses of the office . Its confirmed those things that have been talked about for a year. And i think the third thing, fundamentally, the president only made matters worse in what hes done. All the tweets and everything have basically confirmed everything Michael Wolff has said. You hear him put out the tweet, stable genius. Its like richard nixon, im not a crook. Yeah, e mean, he handled it in the worst possible way by adding to it. He should have just blown it off and discredited the author, who discredited himself by being sloppy, and let it go. Donald trump can not do that. Theres a great lesson for anyone wanting to run for president. Be careful who you surround yourself with. Donald trump, one of his biggest mistakes was surrounding himself with people who didnt have his interests in mind. Steve bannon clearly looks out for steve bannon. That is the worst possible chief strategist to put in the white house. Matt schlapp, let me take this to you. You had steve bannon at the cpac conference. I remember that early back in 2017, when he was riding quite high. Is he done now . No. I dont think hes done. I think hes marginalized his voice. Most republicans want a big, long break from him and his brand of politics. I think the issues behind him still animate the Republican Party and the conservative movement. I want to agree with sara on this. They staffed up the white house. You could see it. In the most incomprehensible way with people that did not have the president s best interests at heart. Quite frankly, they were not experienced. They talked way too much. Didnt have a strategy behind it. I think the person who realized it the quickest was the president. He said, i dont think this is working. I think you have to give general kelly credit. The white house seems to have changed operations under general kelly. Let me take that point to stephanie cutter. On the one hand, yes, these are staffed by the people not with the president s best interests at heart. One of the things you see in this book, the president s daughter and soninlaw had outsized influence. Absolutely. We knew that before the book came out. We know what kind of problems that presents in a white house. We have in some way, shape, or form, been inside the white house. Because we have all been influenced by those relatives. Lets face it. It is an extremely disruptive to a wellfunctioning white house. I think the other takeaway, yes, the that white house lacked a team ready to go that was loyal to the president. But, they had a very hard time finding people who would go in the white house to work for this president. And think that created an unv t unvirtuous circle. I dont think that is true. The book makes it worse. The central insight in the book is they didnt think they were going to win from the president on down, all through the campaign, and heading into the early days of the white house, they acted like it. All true. Bottom line is, this book changes nothing. I read 250 of the 350 pages last night. Bottom line. Simple. Everything he laid out, we already knew. In terms of the kind of people who he chose. The fact that you dont have principles. You dont have morals. You dont have ethics. What you have is a Republican Party with different pieces. They get exactly what they want from donald trump. You have White Conservative evangelicals. They dont care about how hes treated women. All they want are federal judges who will get rid of samesex marriage and abortion. Folks on the business side, you get the tax reform. Folks who are all about the social issues, they get everybody gets what they want. This comes down to power. The Republican Party, they want all those folks, they want power. Donald trump provides that. And so as long as hes there, and they can get what they want, it doesnt matter. This book will not change a thing. And ill give the last point is this here. You look at the fact that democrats forced out senator al franken and congressman john conyers. Have republicans forced out texas congressman blake fairhold . No. This is about power. It raises questions about the president s fitness. A lot of the anecdotes. Lets say 50 are true. I think that is probably the right number. It raises serious questions about maybe 90. His mental capacity. His ability to process information, his impulse control. It does. It doesnt matter. Its not going to matter until and unless something catastrophic happens as a result of a tweet or a provocation to another National International leader. Until that happens, i dont think most of america is paying much attention to this conversation. Let me just respond to this question about his fitness for office. Maybe more than anyone on the panel, i deal with him. Have dealt with him for years. I actually enjoy it, roland. Well pray for you. As personal as you want to make it and say, oh, hes cuckoo for cocoa puffs. You embolden him. My interactions, he doesnt repeat these stories. He totally gets the policies. Unlike a lot of politicians. What people dont get about donald trump is he asks you 20 times more questions than most politicians. Most politicians talk at you. Yammer on. Donald trump is the opposite. He wants to bring you in. He wants to get the information you have. I find that this coverage. He did a whole chapter in the book, Michael Wolff on cpac. Never called anyone. He never called me. His facts are wrong from top to bot m. He said wilbur ross was the secretary of labor. John kelly was the director of homeland security. Another man has that job. He was the secretary of homeland security. When it came to cpac he got fact after fact after fact wrong. And he didnt even bother to call. Look, there might be some truth in here. But this is a europe list who didnt believe in calling anyone to verify sources. Donald trump. And the Trump Supporters like matt. Even if i gave him truth serum. I know what he would say. Ill tell you right now. About the level of integrity that he holds the office to. The idea that donald trump and them would castigate this author for not being truthful is like al capone saying a jaywalker is a criminal. The level of credibility. Theyre made for each other. Theyre not only made for each other. One is the king of it. The other is a pauper in this. I would say this book is not about palace intrigue. Though all the stories as i said, i dont agree with this type of journalism. I dont like it. Fundamentally, the core kernel of the story questioning Donald Trumps fitness to hold the office. Its been done by people on the left, people in the media, people that dont like him. Its done almost universally by nearly every republican official when you talk to them off the record. When you get what you want, it doesnt matter. And thats part of the issue here. You look at the different people within the party. As long as they get what they want, donald trump serves a very unique purpose. He has no ideology. No convictions. No morals. No principles. I mean the fact of the matter is the other part of the story here. We can debate Michael Wolffs book. There are lots of factual inaccuracies. Which is part of the problem here. It paints a picture that we have seen for a long time. And its been painted by main stream media, and republicans. So, its not hard to believe, the reason were talking about it so much is its not hard to believe. But the bigger issue here is, if we do have a president who has some fitness issues, even though he says hes, like, really smart. There are problems happening. And roland, i understand what youre saying, but the bigger issue is, can we have a functioning government with somebody like that in the white house . Up until now, you could argue yes. Youre starting to see craters in that. Well talk about that impact. I want you all to stand by. Youre going to come back later in the show to get into that. Right now, to the latest on north korea. This week, kim jongun made a surprise announcement saying he would engage in talks to take part in the upcoming Olympic Games with the neighboring south korea. And just days after taunting the north Korean Leader over his Nuclear Button, President Trump talked about direct talks of his own. I would love to see it go far beyond the olympics. Absolutely. And at the appropriate time, well get involved. To follow up, are you willing to engage in talks with kim jongun right now . Sure. I always believe in talking. And well take that to u. N. Ambassador nikki haley after this report from our chief Global Affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz from south korea. Reporter this is south korea today. Not what you may imagine in a country under the threat of nuclear war. An icefishing festival. Hundreds of families enjoying this clear, cold sunday morning. Just miles from the border with the north. In the middle of this icy fishing paradise, the idea of fire and fury is never far away. The kind donald trump warned kim jongun he could face. Overhead, attack helicopters make a quick pass over the ice. A reminder. South koreans are well aware of everything donald trump has been saying and tweeting. It was immature of him to say his Nuclear Button was bigger than kims, this man told us. I feel less safe with him as president. Despite the criticism, there is great anticipation about tuesdays meeting between representatives from north and south korea. Which will take place in the socalled truce village. Where north and south korean soldiers stand just feet apart. The armistice that suspended the korean war was signed here in 1953. The topic this tuesday will be limited to the norths participation in the Olympic Games. As we journeyed further north today, past the artillery pieces lining the roadside, the barbed wire. The barriers. Everyone we talked to agreed with trump on one issue. That tuesdays talks were a positive sign. This woman is 75. She lives with other korean war survivors. She remembers as a child passing dead bodies as she was fleeing with her family. I know trump goes overboard, she says. But sometimes you need that to be strong. And aggressive. And unlike any president before him, donald trump faces a prospect of nuclear war with north korea. And kim jongun is every bit as aggressive and unpredictable as trump. And, back in seoul now, where there is also optimism about tuesdays meetings. Tempered by the realization that they are very narrow in scope and the Nuclear Threat is far from over. George . Thank you, martha. Were joined by the u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. Nikki haley. Thank you for coming in. Thank you. I want to pick up on the president s press conference where he opened the door to the direct talks with north korea. He said in the past it would be a waste of time for secretary tillerson to talk with north korea. Why the turnaround . There is no turnaround. Hes said, yes, there could be a time where we talk to north korea. A lot of things have to happen before they take place. They have to stop testing. They have to be willing to talk about banning nuclear weapons. Those things have to happen. Were trying to make sure we dont repeat whats happened the last 25 years. Them start to act like theyre coming to the table. Them ask for a lot of money. And then cheat their way through. Were going to be smart this time. Make sure whatever happens makes the United States safer and that we denuclearize the peninsula. Its one thing to stop testing for now. Its another to say well get rid of the nuclear arsenal. Both conditions are necessary for the u. S. To talk . No, i think stop testing is very important. And for a significant amount of time. And then you go and you work towards the next step. This is going to be phases. It is not going to happen overnight. Its a dangerous situation. What do you expect from tuesdays talks . I think two countries can talk if they want. Theyll talk about the olympics. Its not my understanding theyll talk about anything further. Those two countries have to get along. Its good for the United States if they can at least start getting back into talks. So i think thats a good thing. Last week, admiral mike mullen talked to martha. Echoed this week by joe biden. Vice president joe biden. Both saying they believe the u. S. Is closer to nuclear war with north korea. Do you agree . Its a dangerous situation. Its not something we want. We have said that multiple times. The president has said it. Every member of the administration has said it. But the reality is, this is a very dangerous situation. Did the president make it worse with the tweet about the Nuclear Button . Heres what former Vice President joe biden said. When we engage in activities like lets compare the button. They all, for Different Reasons and different motivations, lose confidence in us. They wonder, do we know what the hell were doing . Is he right that it hurts our credibility with our allies . They dont wonder what the hell were doing. Its very clear that we do. Were not going to let them go and advertise the fact that they have a button on the desk that they can destroy america. We want to remind them, we can destroy you, too. So be very cautious and careful with your words and what you do. I know it make people nervous, if we didnt do it, we would be in a more dangerous you think the tweet is a good i