0 twitter. keep a cool head and a steady hand. don't jump the gun ourselves so to speak. communicate with the north and prepare the south. that's it for our special report. i'm wolf blitzer in washington. the newses continues next on cnn. "outfront" next. a missile launch could happen any time. we go live to korea. how did mitch mcconnell plan to attack ashley yud? secret tapes from inside his office and now the fbi is involved. later, an exclusive with gabby giffords. how far has she come? let's go "outfront." and good evening, everyone. i'm erin burnett. tonight we have breaking news. an imminent threat. new u.s. intelligence shows that north korea has now likely completed all launch preparations and the missile test could be, quote, imminent. pyongyang is warning foreigners to leave south korea immediately. as again you're standing there seeing how people respond, are they taking the threat seriously? >> reporter: yes, to a certain extent. and here's why. because this sort of threat levied directly at foreign visitors to south korea, this is a little more rare than all of the other threats. that is ratcheting up of a psychological warfare. foreign visitors aren't used to be directly spoken to by the north korean officials. i can tell you that while they're paying attention, they're not alarmed. i did speak with one american visitor who's here on business. she says she took the unusual step of registering with the u.s. embassy. but she says it didn't stop her from traveling here. it won't stop here from doing business here, in part, because the u.s. government is not restricting travel to south korea yet and this is having an impact on the stock market here, as well as the currency and that's certainly concerning everybody in the region. >> and kyung, we learned it shocks people watching. it did me given the rhetoric. korean and american officials met here in new york city last month. what do you know about that meeting? >> reporter: we know that this was a secret meeting. there is an absence of normal relations between the united states and north korea. we don't have any direct diplomatic ties to north korea. but what i can tell you is that this was a back channel meeting. there are regular back channel meetings with the u.s. envoy to the six-party talks and north korean vice deputy, ambassador to the united nations, something done in new york. the united states expressing what they wanted was a return to diplomacy with pyongyang. the official to pyongyang saying we're going to commune yate that to north korea but apparently, erin, it wasn't either commune kated well or they're not listening because we are where we are. >> thanks, kyung. now george little. george, north korea is warning something could happen april 10th and it is april 10th in north korea. should we brace ourselves? >> erin, it would be unsurprised if they decided to conduct a missile launch in the near future. they have done that in the past. hopefully they exercise restraint and do not undertake this kind of irresponsible and provocative act. if they did conduct a missile launch it would be in violation of international obligations and time for them to come in compliance with those obligations. >> if they did some sort of a launch, a test, and they have done this before, given this time what's happening, would that spark retaliation from the united states or just the u.s. saying, we can't believe you did that? you shouldn't have done it. >> it's not for me to speculate on what we may or may not do but the american people, the south korean people and the north korean regime should know our leaders are prepared to make the right decisions and the right decisions quickly. >> last week i spoke with republican congressman peter king. you know, he said he doesn't always agree with the administration but he said that you've been doing a great job with regards to north korea and he also said he thinks a preemptive attack could be warranted. >> if we have good reason to believe there's a strike, we have a right to take preemptive right to act. >> is he right? >> i think our leaders in washington and the american people are united on the following point. and that is, that we are all prepared to protect our interests, our troops, our territory and our allies in the region, erin. >> so, i'm wondering how much, you know, you feel we know about what's happening and the right moment to act. former cia operative bob bear told us today the u.s. does not have quality intelligence on north korea and we know less than we thought we knew about iraq prior to that invasion. so are you 100% certain, george, you have enough intelligence to stop north korea before they fire or not? >> we have very solid information and we are closely monitoring the situation. you can never have 100% perfect intelligence. but we have very good intelligence, let me assure you of that. >> george, that's been some criticism as you're no doubt aware, yesterday a lengthy blog posted about the recent vacation with the family. a drive to the second largest city. cherry blossoms, dinner and aquarium visit. and then he talked about rg to deal with this crisis in the middle of the cray case. i want to quote him here and not paraphrase. at one point i had to send my daughters to the aquarium gift shop and take part in what i hoped to be a 10-minute conference call but unfortunately lasted 40 minutes. despite all the phone calls and having to work through my vacation, i had a very nice time. are you surprised the ambassador to south korea was on vacation? >> i don't speak for the state department but all of the political leaders in washington and in korea are closely monitoring when's happening and i can assure you that we're on top of what's going on there. >> probably glad you work for the defense department tonight. george, thank you very much. appreciate your taking the time. >> thank you, erin. all right. and still to come, secret tapes from the office of mitch mcconnell, talking about the strategy against ashley judd, yes, shocking. but is it even more shocking that someone may have literally put a bug in the office? the fbi's involved. later, anthony bourdain and i compare notes about the adventures to parts unknown. 14 people stabbed on a texas college campus. we'll take you there tonight. djibouti, africa, 2004. the battle of bataan, 1942. 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