Power. , the likes of which this world has never seen before. Charlie the president s remarks came soon after reports emerged north korea had developed a miniaturized nuclear warhead. The secretary of state Rex Tillerson attempted to calm fears of military confrontation with north korea following President Trumps comments. What the president is doing is sending a strong message to north korea in language that kim jong un will understand because he doesnt seem to understand diplomatic language. I think the president just wanted to be clear to the north korean regime that the u. S. Has unquestioned ability to defend itself and will defend itself and its allies. I think it was important that he deliver that message to avoid any miscalculation on their part. Charlie north korea said it is carefully examining a plan to strike the u. S. Territory of guam. In a written statement defense secretary said kim jong un should cease any consideration of actions that will lead to the end of the regime and destruction of its people. Ining me from washington, my guests, im pleased to have you both. First to washington and david. David, where are we and how close to some dramatic iscalculation . David the chance of miscalculation is real and constant. We are in the early stages of what id have to call nuclear brinksmanship. The president is directly threatening military action. H. R. Mcmaster, National Security adviser, has said the president regards the north Korean Nuclear missile threat on the United States as intolerable. I take him at his word. That means that he and secretary mat is and others are preparing military options. At the same time, in this period of brinksmanship, there is a very active diplomatic effort under way in which the United States is trying to convince china the danger of American Action is so great that china should in effect mediate negotiations reconvening if you will the sixparty talks that took place a decade ago to try to negotiate denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It is a finesse game. To have the president use such red hot rhetoric in such a delicate moment, i think, astonished many observers, certainly me, and drew today comments much more measured from the secretary mattis and secretary tillerson trying to emotionally walk it back. I just dont think thats possible. The president uses language like that, people remember it. Charlie and you cannot walk it back. Its out there. It matches the language of kim jong un when he uses the same words, fire and walls and balls of fire raining down on you. Avid theyre almost cartoon counterimages. I think President Trump must believe that this is his secret weapon if you will, being seen as a risk taker, willing to do anything, that that is going to convince china to get involved. I think he this is the greatest test of his career, his presidency, i think may hinge on how he behaves. He seems to think that hes got it calibrated right and almost everybody else seems to disagree. Charlie he also had it miscalculated in terms of if he got, if he promised it would be less difficult on trade if they would do something on north korea, they didnt do it. And then he began to criticize them. David so the trade is part of the threat hes wielding to the chinese. You know, help us out or it will have terrible consequences. We might go to war against north korea. We might slap you with trade sanctions that would be devastating for your economy. I understand all of the pressure points. To do this all in public the way the president does and sometimes in 140character slices, that is the part thats hard to understand. These are the most delicate, subtle messages, and so much hinges on them. You just want to make sure theyre better calibrated than these seem to be. Charlie jamie, how do you see it . Jamie i think this is really concerning. The world has already factored in that the Supreme Leader of north korea is hostile. He has verbal excesses. He is unpredictable. Thats already factored in. The world has not factored in that the president of the United States will play that role. And so when President Trump says things like, we are going to bring this fire and fury greater than the world has ever seen, that means nuclear war. And so for the president of the United States to be threatening nuclear war in this kind of situation is extremely destablizing. A lot of this is drama. At the end of the day all of the countries have their interests. China is not interested in the conflict. North korea, theyd like to threaten but they know if they have an attack on the United States or any of our allies it could likely mean the end of their country. And thats not what they want. The United States knows if we have some kind of military action that, particularly seoul will be severely damaged and tens or hundreds of thousands of people will be killed. So a lot of this is drama. We have entered, injected into this very complex situation the unpredictability of the american president. I think that is what is changing this context. Charlie david, i talked to former vice chairman joint chiefs of staff this morning on cbs this morning and he suggested that the North Koreans do not want to attack the United States. What this really is, in their mind, a kind of deterrent to being attacked because they generally believe the United States would like to come in and overthrow the regime or damage it in some other way. Do you believe that . Do most of the people in the National Security apparatus believe that . David well, i think judgments differ. Whether the North Koreans are doing this for selfprotection because they fear that kim jong un doesnt want to end up like gadhafi, giving up his Nuclear Weapons and then being deposed and killed soon after, or whether there is a more hostile intent is hard to know. There is a cult of militant selfreliance is really the foundation of the modern north korea that backs all this up. I just, like jamie, i think the danger of miscalculation, misreading north korea, is so large now. I spent a lot of today talking with people about what would be involved if, as our military commanders begin to think about military options. And it is an immensely complicated problem. Its not just the population of seoul would be in effect hostage to north Korean Missile strikes, by conventional missile strikes. There are, perhaps, a million, up to a million americans there. There are a million nonamerican foreigners there. You have a situation in which the troops would be rushing north as civilians flee south. Its just the most complicated and potentially catastrophic battle space. Secretary mattis said this would be the worst kind of battle field situation weve seen in the world since the world war ii. I think when mattis says that, you better take it seriously. Charlie let me just understand this. Have the American People at the pentagon and at the white house, the leadership of the National Security community, have they ruled out the idea that they can live with north korea having Nuclear Weapons . That they can contain them . David i think containment is not the order of the day. The president has essentially said, the situation in which north korea possesses these weapons is intolerable. Now, you can argue that weve already passed that threshold. That they have by the estimate the Washington Post cited yesterday they have between 50 and 60 Nuclear Weapons already. And theyve mastered the technology for miniaturizing them and putting them on top of missiles. So, in truth, we may be locking the barn door far too late. But i think this line is i dont think its a bluff. The problem is when a president says, and has his National Security adviser say, this is not acceptable to the United States, it is intolerable, then you are almost required to back it up. That is, again, part of the problem is this is so public. Were back in this red line territory that ended up being crippling for the obama presidency. Charlie you remember obama used to say the same thing about iraq i mean iran having Nuclear Weapons. It was unacceptable. We would never stand for that. David again, there is a diplomatic track. If the United States can bring enough pressure to bear, can get enough support from china and others to open these talks, the idea is that begins next month when the General Assembly convenes. That is a an extraordinarily positive development. The moment in which china steps up to its responsibilities and we have the possibility of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Its an absolutely desirable goal for everybody. So i dont want to rule out the idea that we can get there. The problem is, this has been so loud and clumsy that i think its obstructing the reasonable diplomatic goal that the administration has underneath all the rhetoric. Charlie jamie, you wrote a piece called 12 things for trump to know about north korea. What does he need to know about north korea . And the possibility of engaging china . Jamie there are a few really big things. The first is that north korea is developing Nuclear Weapons for very rational reasons. If north korean leaders wanted to get the level of security they get by having Nuclear Weapons by building a conventional army, they would spend hundreds of times more than their entire g. D. P. It is very rational by the North Koreans because they are focused on regime survival. So because of that, the only way the North Koreans are going to give up their Nuclear Weapons is if they come to believe that the cost of keeping Nuclear Weapons is greater than the cost of giving them up. China provides up to 90 of the trade with north korea goes through china. It provides the food to the north korean military, and the oil that keeps everything running. Without china, north korea will collapse. And china is in this very precarious situation. On one hand, north korea exists because of chinas intervention in the korean war. Mao stung died in that war. The existence of north korea is a buffer against the reunification of korea potentially allied with the United States, which china would fear. On the other hand, the costs to china are great and growing of north Korean Nuclear weapons because it strengthens americas presence in the western pacific, which china doesnt want. It strengthens americas relations with japan and south korea, justifies National Missile defense, could lead to a Nuclear Arms Race in the region. It justifies Japanese Military normalization. All of these things and the Missile Defense shields. All of these things are not in chinas interest. So if the United States wants to have an irrational policy, we should continue making theas kinds of claims that we cant back up a declaring red lines that are pushed through in minutes. If you want to have a real policy we have to think strategically about what are all the levers that we have to influence china to take a tronger line on north korea. Unfortunately, undermined our pressure on china particularly but not exclusively by withdrawing from the Trans Pacific partnership and is seen as an entirely unreliable partner by our adversaries and allies alike. It is a very complicated situation, but americas behavior is making it even worse. Charlie who is of any divisions within the white house in the National Security establishment, david . David i think that there was some concern, consternation even, after the president s statement yesterday, fire and fury statement. This is something that has preoccupied senior officials for many weeks really since the beginning of the administration theyve been thinking about it. I think people werent ready for that particular verbal grenade to be thrown. Theyve been trying to walk it ack as we discussed earlier. Charlie i just would note speaking to jamies good point about the larger context of the Korean Peninsula and north koreas paranoia, he think one good thing about the diplomatic effort that tillerson, secretary tillerson has led is that it has tried to speak to chinese and north korean concerns about where this would end up. The chinese are terming the statement made last week in which he said the United States doesnt seek to overthrow the regime and north korea doesnt seek to go north of the 38th parallel, doesnt seek this or that, the chinese are calling it the four nos and they regard that as the United States acceptance of the basic chinese requirements of in terms of the future status of the peninsula. Its very interesting tillerson was willing to say that so specifically, that the chinese welcomed it, celebrated it. They think that theyve gotten basically the key u. S. Statements about the issues jamie was talking about. Diplomacy that actually moves toward real reassurance, you know, the specifics of how this would look, what the future would be like, how you deal with the issue of unification, for example, i think if this got serious, those would immediately become the key issues. And the first step is the chinese ability, chinese willingness and ability to convene a new set of talks soon because this crisis just cant bubble along, i dont think, the way it is for indefinitely. Charlie david, thank you so much for joining us this evening. David thank you, charlie. Charlie jamie, good to have you. Jamie. Thank you. Charlie well be right back. Stay with us. Charlie readership of the Washington Post and New York Times has skyrocketed since the 2016 election and primary campaign. Their resurgence comes in spite of President Trumps criticism of the media giants. In february he called the news media in a tweet the enemy of the American People. But continuously from the continuous leaks from the administration have offered a life line to newsrooms competing for inside knowledge about the goingson at the white house. Joining us from chicago is james warren the chief media writer for vanity fair magazine. His latest piece asks is the New York Times vs. The Washington Post vs. Trump the last great newspaper war . Im pleased to have him on this program. Welcome. Great to see you. James my pleasure. Charlie and coming from a lifetime of great reporting. I mean that. Why do you call this the last newspaper war . James well, because most towns youve got, youve gn from maybe three, four, five, six papers 70 or 80 years ago to one. Youve got a few major cities which may have more than one but one is clearly far more advantaged than the other. Since competition is by and arge long gone when it comes to major newspapers, we have two left in chicago, but even folks at the suntimes would know it is not a terribly fair battle and one is by far the more dominant. It is because of that that one so rarely sees equals competing as fiercely as these two papers o just about eight, nine, 10 years ago if they werent left for dead were certainly early obituaries being written by folks talking about change in the media. Here you have these two guys on equal footing with work forces that are almost at historic highs in each case, the New York Post and the New York Times. Here they are doing work as good and as prolific as they ever have. Charlie does it go back to the competition between the post under ben bradley and the New York Times under Abe Rosenthal during the watergate series . Mes you know, id say, yes, that after that confrontation you had dramatic changes in one case leading to the dramatic sale of the paper by the grant family. That sense of being equals had really dissipated by about 10 years ago and, particularly, at the post there was almost a sort of funeral sense. You had a talent drain. You had buyouts. Ultimately, you had Donald Graham painfully looking to sell amid what seemed to be a very bleak situation. Harkens back to that but is certainly not a clear continuum. Charlie you also have two great editors. James marty barren has probably gotten a little more publicity partly because of his boston globe days and the movie which won an Academy Award focusing on their investigation of the Roman Catholic church and the boston archdiocese. But the editor of the times is one of the best of his generation. Two different guys personality wise. Strikingly similar professionally. Very tough. Very high st