These aircraft come in close proximity to one another. All right, ryan brown reporting from the pentagon. Thanks very much. Remember, important programming note. Stay with cnn later tonight for a very timely debate on tax reform. Thats coming up, 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Thats it for me. Thanks for watching. Erin Burnett Outfront starts right now. Outfront next, breaking news. North korea firing what could be its most powerful missile yet, one that could reach washington, d. C. Plus, the president s reality show. Today, trump staging a white house meeting like an episode of The Apprentice playing roulette with a Government Shutdown. And trump going after senator Elizabeth Warren, raising questions about what he said about his own heritage. Why did he say hes of swedish descent when he actually isnt . Lets go outfront. Good afternoon. Im erin burnett. Outfront tonight, breaking news. North korea with a record breaking Missile Launch that potentially puts washington,
d. C. In range. Kim jongun launching a missile today, one that Secretary Mattis said went higher than ever before. The Ballistic Missile traveled about 620 miles, airborne nearly an hour before landing in the sea of japan. Tonight, President Trump responding, saying the United States will, quote, take care of north korea. As you probably have heard, and some of you have reported, a missile was launched a little while ago from north korea. I will only tell you that we will take care of it. We have general mattis in the room with us, and weve had a long discussion on it. It is a situation that we will handle. We will handle. Well, will ripley has been inside north korea 17 times. Knows that regime better than any other reporter. Hes outfront in seoul tonight, and will, just moments ago, another warning from north korea. An official telling you that another nuclear test could be coming, even after the one we just saw hours ago . Reporter thats right. Because what we saw was this Missile Launch. This demonstration to the Trump Administration by north korea that they have in their arsenal a missile that could effectively, and you heard the Defense Secretary say this, reach anywhere in the world, including anywhere in the mainland United States. New york, washington, chicago. What this north korean official reiterated to me, something he told me also in october, north korea also feels they have more to prove, and what they need to prove is by conducting an above ground nuclear test. It would be their seventh nuclear test. North koreas Foreign Minister has made this threat, a senior diplomat in pyongyang said that threat should be taken literally, and this official saying north korea is not done demonstrating to the United States what their capability is. Also saying they have no interest in diplomacy until they have proven that they have rounded off their Nuclear Program in their words, erin. Sounds like no interest in diplomacy until they have proven they can strike a u. S. Mainland cities. That would be the clear message
there. The timing of this test, the one we just saw of this missile that would possibly be able to strike washington, d. C. Was unusual because of the time of day, right . This happened a couple hours ago in the middle of the night. Reporter thats right. They rolled this missile out around 3 00 a. M. Local time. There was almost no advanced warning, as far as we know. The only indication that a Missile Launch might be coming was from Radio Chatter detected by the japanese in the last few days. This is north korea showing the United States that they can launch an intercontinental Ballistic Missile with very little notice which is very troubling if the u. S. Were going to try to do some sort of preemptive strike. They wouldnt have time to do that if a missile already fueled up was rolled out and launched. Noteworthy this has happened just after north korea was placed back on the list of State Sponsors of terrorism. I would say this probably has less to do with that and more to do with other strategic reasons for this regime. They didnt launch the missile when President Trump was in asia, they didnt launch it in
ongoing naval drills. They like the element of surprise, maximum impact. Will ripley, thank you very much. Obviously, dire warning tonight. Lets go straight to the State Department now. Michelle kaczynski joins me. Experts saying, and this could be a significant thing to say, giving the rampup in testing we have seen, this could be the most powerful missile yet from north korea. Yeah, just one more step incrementally towards them reaching their goal of being a nuclear state. We see them with each launch over the past several months change something or advance some of the technology, moving forward. So even though when theres a pause in these launches like we have seen here for two and a half months, that gives the administration sometimes some cause for optimism, saying that they havent done anything in a little while. That sanctions appear to be working. Then we see Something Like this. So what were hearing is that this one flew higher and farther than others in the past. China has made north korea a real threat. Because were not worried about north koreas longest range missile, because that takes weeks to transport, assemble, fuel, and test. We can destroy it with nothing more sophisticated than an f16, but when you have mobile missiles, they can do all sorts of things, and we cannot, with any degree of assurance, kill them on the ground. Spider, let me ask you, the president today, his response. Okay, when he first heard about this, the breaking news, said the United States would handle it, right . Those are the words he used, take care of north korea. This is language, frankly, it was reminiscent to me of what we have heard him say before. We looked, and indeed, he has. Here is President Trump going back to february. North korea, well take care of it, folks. Were going to take care of it all. North korea is a problem. The problem will be taken care of. Well handle north korea. Well be able to handle them. It will be handled. We handle everything. I will only tell you that we will take care of it. It is a situation that we
in that amount of time. So economic solutions, depend t Diplomatic Solutions can be put in place, but theyre not going to be sufficiently aggressive in a truncated amount of time for the United States to, quote, take care of it. What were doing is were monitoring it, were watching it, were developing our antimissile capabilities, our terminal high air altitude capabilities are quite aggressive and quite good, and we can monitor these shots. We can see them when they launch at night. Weve got the capabilities, intelligence, Signals Intelligence and Imagery Intelligence to track this, but this can be done, but we have narrowed the options in terms of handling it. The question, of course, general, is whether our Missile Defense would be able to do anything about it with the warning they would get after a launch, still. True. All right, thank you both so very much. I appreciate it. Next, President Trump producing a sigh show while ripping into chuck and nancy. Is he playing games with life and death issues affecting millions of americans . Or where he is. And pain doesnt hold him back. Thanks to dr. Scholls running insoles. The only ones proven to relieve and prevent pain from runners knee, shin splints and plantar fasciitis. Dr. Scholls. Born to move. [he has a new business teaching lessons. Rodney wanted to know how his business was doing. So he got quickbooks. It organizes all his accounts, so he can see his bottom line. Ahhh. Thats a profit. Know where you stand instantly. Visit quickbooksdotcom. I kept looking for ways to manage my symptoms. I thought i was doing okay. Then it hit me. Managing was all i was doing. When i told my doctor, i learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of moderate to severe Crohns Disease even after trying other medications. In clinical studies, the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers,
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tonight, trumps reality show. The president today ripping into Democratic Leaders for canceling a meeting with him at the white house. That meeting was cancelled by Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi after the president tweeted, and i quote, meeting with chuck and nancy today about keeping government open and working. Problem is they want Illegal Immigrants flooding into our country unchecked, are weak on crime and want to substantially raise taxes. I dont see a deal, exclamation point. The deal hes talking about was intended to keep the government running past the december 8th deadline, which is, of course, next week. President trump always the showman, an Executive Producer at heart, did not waste an opportunity to turn this situation into political theater, complete with empty chairs and name cards for Senator Schumer and congresswoman pelosi. If you think this looks familiar, yeah, well, on the left is the president today, and on the right, the tight shot, almost the same one of the president from The Apprentice. The board room from today with
the empty chairs, same sort of setup from The Apprentice. The president with ample space on each side. Theyre all jammed in and his plenty of space. The only difference today was nobody was technically fired. Chuck schumer and nancy pelosi did not show up for our meeting today. Im not really that surprised. We have a lot of differences. Theyre weak on crime. Theyre weak on illegal immigration. They want the illegal folks to come pouring into our border, and a lot of problems are being caused, although we have stopped it to a large extent, as much as you can without the wall, which were going to get. The president also leaving no doubt that hes pointing the finger for a potential Government Shutdown right at schumer and pelosi. If that happens, i would absolutely blame the democrats, if it happens. Jeff zeleny is out front at the white house tonight, the scene of that apprentice like
meeting, the president seemed to orchestrate every bit of today. Well, erin, it definitely started with that tweet that he sent out this morning that put things into motion there. And the democrats in one respect called him on it. And in this case, tweets have consequences. But the reality here is, the political math of washington, the president and indeed republicans need democratic votes in the house for that end of Year Spending bill. So at some point after these antics are over, indeed from both sides of pennsylvania avenue, theres plenty of childish behavior to go around, and the fact that voters out there are electing people to do their work, the reality is that they need democratic votes more than likely on this end of Year Spending bill. So that is something that is still going to be playing out. December is going to be a key month here for so many things. But that Spending Bill is so important. But erin, i was struck by watching this, first and foremost, democrats never sit next to the president because they are not in power. The republicans would be sitting next to him, normally, and the meeting was supposed to be in
the oval office, as you said earlier. Of course, there are no place cards in the oval office. It was moved to the roosevelt room, some staging there, no question. Its the president s prerogative to do that, but at the end of the day, nothing advanced to ball toward keeping the government open. The president said democrats will open, well see about that. Speaker ryan and leader mcconnell know republicans indeed need to keep the government open because they run the government, and one more thing. Senator mcconnell said he would never refuse a meeting from President Obama. Actually, we found out that he refused a couple. I remember one back in 2010, he declined to come here to the white house to meet with President Obama. He said he was too busy for that. Again, a lot of antics today. Not much progress on anything. He said he couldnt imagine ever turning down a meeting at the white house. As jeff points out, facts show he did so indeed at least twice. Outfront now, dana bash, chief political skraunt, david drucker, and margaret taliv. David, look, putting the scene there of the tight shot and the board room and the space next to the president , next to The Apprentice. This was clearly choreographed by him. The tweet he sent out, theres going to be no deal, sort of betting they werent going to come, then the empty seats. He knew what he was going to get. He did. And i think that there was nothing wrong with the stagecraft that the president rolled out. Its something we have seen before in politics. We knows. It might actually work. It was very interesting, erin, because the last time the president had the leadership down to the white house, he double crossed the republicans, his allies, and he forged a deal with democrats. And he immediately met with a lot of blowback from his base. It seemed like he was trying to set this thing up to not land him on the wrong side of his voters. I would also point out that while Everybody Needs to participate on the hill on keeping the government open, because Democrats Dont Run The House or the senate, technically, theyre not necessarily going to be on the hook if the government shuts
down. I think they know that. And thats why they can afford to play a little hardball. Which is thats of course the scary thing, whether the president realizes it or not. Dana, look, He Baited Pelosi and schumer with that tweet, said meeting with chuck and nancy. Then he ends with, i dont see a deal. Which put them in the position, hes going to say that. If they come to the meeting after a tweet like that, they look pretty weak. If they didnt come to the meeting, they also risked looking weak. Did they fall into trumps trap . In some ways, yes. But heres the unfortunate reality now, which isnt that different unfortunately from what was happening yesterday and the day before. And that is everybody is playing base politics. By that, i mean what donald trump did just like david said, was try to very aggressively avoid what happened the last time the bipartisan leadership came to the white house. Where the president really wanted to make a deal, and he just did it right then and there with the democrats, undercut the
republicans, which did get him a deal and got him some headlines about getting things done, and that kind of thing, but it got him in a whole lot of trouble with the base. This did the opposite. Standing up to chuck and nancy, sending out the tweet, having the stagecraft as he did, pretending they would actually sit next to him in the first place, all of that perfect for the base. The base, which is, you know, the group that Still Believes in him. Same goes for the democrats, erin. The democrats also are all about making sure that their base knows that they are standing up to donald trump, that theyre standing up to republicans, that theyre united in doing so, and so this even though i think all of them look childish, in this sort of raw politics prism of this, it worked for both of them. Margaret, thats the thing, to danas point. Schumer and pelosi, right . We look again at that stage craft, and then pelosi tried to fight back, and frankly, you
know, the same sort of childish language that the president used. She tweets, realdonaldtrump now knows his verbal abuse will not be tolerated. His empty photo upshows hes more interested in stunlts. Poor ryan and mcconnell, relegated to props. Sad, exclamation point. Trying to be like trump. They did appear to be props. Mcconnell and ryan, right . Fighting him on things like roy mo