playing professional volleyball in europe. and all of them have heard the story of how their parents met. it was 1978. skris at this had gone to see a relative at the air force base and quite by chance while she was there encountered a security guard who to her at least looked just like elvis. it was blair christopher hall. chris to his friends. >> apparently she was a little flirty at the gate. >> in short order, chris and christie got married. she was 17, he 206789 and as the girls grew up, they said they never doubted for a single moment, the powerful bond of love. their parents with them and with each other. >> we were probably closer to our parents than most children. they're the parents that i hope to one day be. >> for many years chris was a police officer until he was shot in the line of duty. then he went offer to become police chief in idaho. then in 2005 anticipating an empty nest and eventual retirement the halls bought this place, which they loved for its back yard pool and spa. and life in the spring of 2007 seemed to have hit a sweet spot as ashton and brianna remember their mother telling them. >> we happened to be laying on the bed with her. and shy started talking. and she was like i'm so happy that i have you girls and dad. >> it was kind of one of those conversations that you don't have every day. >> still, there was work to be done. it was not a new house. could use some remodelling, particularly the bathroom. court any was still living with her parents as the work began. >> they were going to be doing the tile work and stuff. we wouldn't have a shower for that day. >> so shower out of commission, they decided to wake up early, put on their bathing suits and rinse off in the outdoor spa before the contractor arrived at 6:45 in the morning. it was june 7, 2007. chris got up first. turned on the spa to warm it up and then called brianna at her college dorm in and diego. >> here's your wakeup call. get on and do that run. >> back at the house court any dozed through her first wake up while chris and christie made their way out to the spa. just after 6:30, chris looked in on court any again. life's last normal moments. 6:37 in the morning. >> i got up out of bed, putting on my robe and i heard this panicked, panicked scream from my dad yelling for me. and i ran down the hallway to the back porch. and i saw him trying to pull out my mom out of the spa. >> 911. >> it was she who dialed 911 as she and her father struggled to live her mother out of the spa. >> the first moment of the worst day of our lives. >> is it possible for people to understand what it's like to be in that situation? >> i don't think so. to see both your parents in the worst time that you've ever seen them. obviously, my mom's unconscious and my dad just panicked. and for the first time in my life, seeing him just that way, not knowing what to do. >> he was a cop. he was used to dealing with those kinds of things. >> he's a cop, used to dealing with those kinds of things with people o who were not his wife. >> so court any took charge. after calling 911 she started cpr. emt eric norwood was the first to respond. >> i was like oh, my god help my wife. >> i was kneeling at his wife's side. so hysterical it was hard for the emts to help. >> he didn't want to leave her. he was holding her hand, yelling her name. >> the paramedics worked on christie for more than 20 minutes. no vital signs, none. >> and no words to describe just the fear and the anxiety. >> you're losing your mother. >> right. >> you're watching letter go right in front of you. >> we tried to save her together and we just couldn't. >> the ambulance rushed her off to the hospital where she was declared dead. she had druned in the family's spa. a private family tragedy, except maybe not so private after all. someone was watching. >> coming up. >> it was a horrible scream. >> a witness to what? what exactly did she see? >> i can't explain what she's saying she saw. >> when dateline continues. for the big race in chicago, but i can only afford one trip. and i just found out my best friend is getting married in l.a. there's no way i'm missing that. then i heard about hotwire and i realized i could actually afford both trips. see, when really nice hotels have unsold rooms, they use hotwire to fill them. so i got my four-star hotels for half-price! >> men: ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e ♪ hotwire.com >> announcer: save big on car rentals too, from $12.95 a day. to prove febreze can keep this car fresh, we filled it with smelly odors. then installed a car vent clip and let in real people. it smells good. like laundry fresh out of the dryer. a man fresh out of the shower. nailed it. proof. febreze car vent clips keep your car fresh. breathe happy. on the morning of june 7, 2007, brianna hall was on the road from san diego, driving home from college, to what, she didn't know, except that her older sister court any had called, and it sounded bad. >> she said there was an accident, and you need to come home right away. >> it was courtney who eventually broke the flus to ashton and brianna. their mother, their father's wife of close to 30 years was dead. but neither courtney nor chris waited at the house to tell the sisters what happened, nor did they linger over the body at the hospital. they couldn't. because father and daughter were escorted to separate squad cars and driven to the police station to talk about the accident. >> what was that ride like? >> quiet. you know, just remember crying the whole time. i couldn't comfort my father. he couldn't comfort me. it was out to the station. and they said my dad would just be a few more minutes. >> chris, so frenzied at the scene had calmed down by then. he was a cop among cops. and he understood, he said, what was necessary to help them sort out what happened. >> i can't even start to imagine what you're going through, okay? just, you know, it's a death investigation. and we have to do their, okay. >> happy to help, he said. whatever would get him back home to comfort his daughters as quickly as possible. >> we were all so close. >> chris told investigators what happened. how as court any slept he and christie were in the spa bathing. >> she got out, went in, went to the bathroom, got some more coffee, tried to wake up courtney, courtney didn't wake up apparently. she came back out. >> as christie came back to the spa, said chris, they passed each other on the patio. he stop by courtney's room to make sure she was awake and saw his wife floating face down in the spa. he called court knee he said and they began a frantic effort to revive her. from what a fall? must have been. >> she slipped in. she lipp she slipped osh something. that's the only thing i can think of. >> chris hasn't noticed the nasty laceration on christie's head. here, suddenly, the point of the police interview is revealed. >> the gash she has on her head -- >> she's got a gash on her head? >> she's got a huge gash on her head. >> okay. >> something like that's not consistent with just falling down. >> not consistent with just falling down? why would the police think that? >> i mean, you've been around for a while. >> sure. i know where you're going. and no. there's nothing. >> why, in fact was this expolice chief be being questioned at all about this stent that killed the love of his life? and the answer was right next door. when chris and christie hall took their outdoor bath that morning someone was watching, her. >> i got up at 6:00, got my coffee. >> she was on leave from her it job in the navy. visiting her mom's house just over the back wall from the hall house. lindsey was inside, in the bathroom that failed away from the hall house and out in the street. when she heard a noise. >> it was a horrible scream. it was a something was wrong kind of scream. >> a woman, she thought? she went outside to tell her mom. >> and i said did you hear that scream, and she said yeah, i think it's just kids playing in the pool. >> kids at 6:00 something in the morning? >> lindsey walked over to the wall, she stepped on the planter, she said and looked over the wall. >> at that point i saw a man with his hand, one hand on top of a woman's head and one hand on her back. and she was face down in the water. >> like something's going on? >> yeah. that's what i assumed. >> shy thought she was looking at a sex act in progress. >> i don't know why it didn't seem right but something made me want to look again. >> it was seconds before she looked back. and this time she saw the man in the spa. >> he was leaning back, just relaxed in the hot tub but i don't see her. he was looking around like nothing. >> where did the woman go? lindsey tells her mom something seems strange. >> she tells me lindsey, stop be being nosey. don't worry about it. but it just didn't seem right. it wasn't enough time for her to have gotten out and gone inside the house. >> so, said lindsey, she went to the wall again. her thind and final look. >> and that point he was getting out of the jacuzzi. and he was in ha very big rush. she's still nowhere to be seen. the look on his face was almost undescribable. it was almost as if he had just gone into another world. it was scary. >> it was instinct that told her something was wrong. said lindsey. so she called 911. >> 911, state your emergency. >> so now, hours and hours later, the detectives confronted chris with lindsey's story. why didn't her story match his? >> so am i supposed to believe the witness is lying? >> i'm not saying she's lying. it sounds la jit or whatever, but i don't flow. you know, i can't explain what show's saying she saw. >> so now that question we posed as we began, d'lynsy patterson really know what she saw? >> coming up. >> she didn't see what was really happening. >> what had really happened? there would soon be a turn in the case. >> this was not an accidental drowning. it was purely much more suspicious than that. chris and christie hall's three daughters clung together in grief and shock. waiting for their father to return from the police station. and they wondered, why was it taking so long. then the phone rang. and they had their answer. >> you know, it broken up words. and he's crying and we're crying. and that was when he said they think i hurt mom. i mean, he was very upset. >> but he didn't sound surprised. >> he was crying. >> he was upset. >> but by the time investigators were questioning chris, remember, they'd heard from lindsey patterson. and at the station chris's version of events in the spa differed in one detail from the first time lindsey peered over the wall and into the back yard. >> that specifically me holding her down in there, there's nothing that took place in that jacuzzi that would explain that. there was no sex. there was no -- i don't even think we had any contact while we were in the jacuzzi other than when i was getting her out. >> but investigators were getting a good look at christie's body and saw wounds that to them suggested a struggle and more than just one nasty blow to the head. so the police had to choose which version, chris hall or lindsey patterson's was more likely the true story of what happened. tom led the investigation for the riverside da. >> i think they felt there was enough to say this was not an accidental drowning. it was purely much more suspicious than that. >> so before the night was over chris hall was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife. the girls could stop waiting. he wasn't coming home. >> it was obviously a tragedy losing our mother that day, but their is a tragedy on top of a tragedy right now. >> because losing both of our parents -- >> christie was the love of their father's life, after all, the center of everything for him. how, they wondered, could any one so happy in his marriage and his life be accused of harming her. she was happy too. they said as happy as she'd ever been. they flew it, they said, based on that mother/daughter talk they had not long before she died. >> she just kept reiterating how happy she was. it was kind of odd. and me and brie will always. >> i didn't think that much of it at that time. but that being the last time we actually saw her. >> kind of burned into your memory. >> yeah. >> but right or wrong, the legal trigger had been pulled. chris spent the next three months in jail until the life insurance policy came to pleat the bail he started preparing for a murder trial. >> it's very surprising to have a client on a mer der case out on bail but he was a special man and this was a special situation. >> these are attorneys who would eventually defend him, though at first they only heard about the case. steve harmon and paul grech. >> you've said two things there. special man, special situation. >> i think both of us can say their is a plan that we like and that we know. and we don't feel coe have done anything like this. >> so chris hall and his daughters prepared for a trial, which they hoped would make clear to everybody, the police, the neighbor, the world, that chris would not, could not, did not harm the love of his life. >> there was never in 30 years of marriage, never one moment of violence. there was no motive for this man to kill his wife. >> harmon and grech had a look at lindsey patterson's eyewitness account and suggested it was really not conclusive at all. it was incomplete. >> she saw three snapshots. what is missed by everyone is the wife getting into the jacuzzi, slipping, falling into the gentleman kudy, hitting her head, going unconscious and drowning. >> see this sharp corner sticking out into the spa? hitting her head on this would certainly have opened a gash and knocked christie out, said the attorneys. >> she didn't see what was really happening during the times when she was not looking. >> that scream that made lindsey patterson look over the wall? lindsey, they pointed out, was in a bathroom that failed the street. she wasn't in the back yard when she said she heard it. could have been anybody. and courtney, who was inside letter own house near the spa didn't hear a thick. >> and we don't think that show's lying. we just think she misinterpreted what she saw. >> and any way, lindsey to a certain degree concedes she didn't know what she was seeing in her glimpses that morning. >> something was wrong. >> and yet, you hadn't really seen anything. >> no, you abobut i knew someth wrong. i don't know if in my brain i was putting things together. but from the scream, the position he was holding her and the, just not having enough time for her to have gone inside. >> so you've kind of got three different snapshots of. >> right. >> something going on there. >> right. >> and had to kind of work out. >> yeah. >> what this was. >> i wasn't thinking at this point oh, this man just murdered his wife. >> but now, based largely on that account, chris hall would go on trial for hur der. and it was a trial for his daughters too. >> he loved her. they were each other's best friends and this is not fair to her, because he truly loved her more than any one. >> coming up, the case begins. evidence is revealed in court. >> when you lose that amount of hair it's not reasonably explained by any kind of fall. >> and secrets are revealed from the past. >> this man had an uncanny ability to fabricate stories. >> when someone was watching continues. 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not chris, said the prosecutor, but his daughter. >> she called 911. she got the body out of the spa. she's the one who did chest compressions. >> a matter of opinion, of course, but the prosecutor poked around in chris hall's past as a policeman, and what did he find? >> this man had an uncanny ability to fabricate stories. >> seven years earlier while hall was chief of police in cascade, idaho he was charged of and convicted of misuse of public money. embezzled $19,000. spent ten months in jail. a white collar crime. buff he tried to cover it up. to plant a fraud, to lie about it, not just lie about it but lie about it effectively. >> and i think that was very telling about who we were dealing with. >> suddenly the prosecutor's prospects were looking better. at the trial, he made lindsey patterson his star witness. of course it was her story after all that got the whole thing started. but almost as important, he called the riverside medical examiner who testified that those lacerations on christie's head could not in his opinion have been the result of a single accidental fall. and the me argued the particular type of bruising on christie's face and body was a hallmark of homicide. >> the injuries were not consistent with someone slipping and falling and a rescue attempt. >> and there was a clump of hair still entwined with a broken hair clip. that could have only come from a violent struggle. >> when you lose that amount of hair, it's not reasonably explained by any kind of fall. >> there were some minor hick cups in the case. lindsey pat irson was a little inconsistent about how long she looked over the back yard wall that first time she saw something going on. was it just a few seconds? or as long as a minute? but either way, said the prosecutor, lindsey was sure she saw physical contact. that was the important thing. >> she was given the opportunity to explain any physical contact that could in any way explain what lindsey saw. were they watching each other? were they involved in ha sex act? was there anything that she could have misinterpreted. and at the end of the day you're not just stuck with the fact that lindsey patterson made a mistake. you have to -- >> and what maid the story all the more convincing was she told it before finding out what happened to christie. she dialed 911 a full minute and a half before any one from the hall house did. before lindsey had any idea through would end. here's what the jury heard her say in that call. >> under water and hold her there. >> and she was still on the phone with 911 when chris hall came outside and found his wife's body floating in the spa, called out for courtney. the prosecution's theory? somehow sitting in the spa that morning, chris was overcome by some private fury. who knows what. a hidden violence is what he called it. and then killed his spouse when he thought nobody was looking. >> chris hall ambushed his wife. grabbed her by the hair, slammed her head twice into the concrete edge. he's holding his wife of almost three decades under the water, showing absolutelno mercy and no remorse. and absolute desire to end her life at that point. >> and then the piece deresistance. >> he then walks into the house where his plan is to wake his 22 year old daughter who he can use as an alibi witness. >> one little quibble. why? in fact, as convinced as he was of hall's guilt, he conceded the why was a problem. didn't legally have to know, he said, but he just didn't. there it was. >> it's emotionally unsatisfying not to have that answer, not to know the entire narrative of what happened. >> but you want to know why this guy married to this woman for almost 30 years, apparently happily would suddenly turn on her and drown her in the pool. >> right. i'm not sure we got the answers to that specific question. >> kind of an important question, isn't it? >> it's an important question and a question that we ask in all spousal homicides. >> so do we know? reasonable doubt. almost three years after christie hall's death a riverside jury would have to decide. >> coming up. >> you expected a not guilty verdict? >> oh, yes. >> but there was a surprise in and outside of the courtroom. >> she was having a little affair. >> when dateline continues. 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[ female announcer ] used mops can grow bacteria. swiffer wetjet starts with a clean pad every time, and its antibacterial cleaner kills bacteria mops can spread around. swiffer gives cleaning a whole new meaning. ♪ lovely lady but thanks to hotwire, this year we got to take an extra trip. because they get us ridiculously low prices on really nice hotels and car rentals. so we hit boston in the spring-- even caught a game. and with the money we saved, we took a trip to san francisco. you see, hotwire checks the competitions' rates every day so they can guarantee their low prices. so, where to next? how about there? ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e... ♪ hotwire.com chris hall's daughter sat through every miserable minute of their dad's trial for murder here at the courthouse in riverside, california. their review of the prosecutor's portrait of their father? it was a lie, they said. >> it's hurtful to hear somebody say they know their parents better than we do. and they know their father's a sociopath and that we're blind to it. and he knows that there was hidden violence in our parents' marriage and we just didn't see it. you're basically telling us that we didn't know, our whole lives -- >> there's no proof of that. >> chris hall had never been violent, argued the defense. had no motive, no reason to suddenly turn on his wife. it had to be a freak accident. so, said the defense, lindsey patterson didn't really know what she saw. in fact, if she'd really witnessed chris hall drowning his wife, why didn't she claim to see christie's body in the spa when she looked again? it didn't make sense. but the highlight was the hall daughters' testimony. emotional, quite powerful. so it put prosecutor in a strange position, at odds with the victim's own family. >> if we had any ink ling he had done this, we would have said so. we would have seen it. >> i think that's what they truly believe in their hearts. and, you know, it weighs on me greatly, but ply job is to get justice for christie hall. >> now it was up to a jury to decide. after six days of testimony, two days of deliberation, they couldn't. it was a deadlock. the judge declared a mistrial. chris hall walked out of court with his family free, but not quite in the clear, and nothing at all like a victory for the hall daughters. >> what was it like to get that hung jury? what did you think then? >> that was devastating to us. >> you expected a not guilty verdict? >> oh, yeah. not a doubt. >> deputy da was disappointed too, and was also determined to retry the case. but first he sent his investigator on a mission to explore the life and marriage of chris hall. and what do you know. in idaho where hall had been a disfwrased police chief, the investigator uncovered a startling accusation. >> chris was a great, great con man. >> former police officer jerry winkle became a county commission irup in idaho. but once upon a time he was chris hall's friend, that is before ha night of poker and booze when hall made a disturbing revelation, that he'd shot himself in the leg when he was a cop in order to get medical retirement benefits. >> chris had been drinking beer. and he came right out and told me that he had shot himself. >> but there was more. da investigator had discovered a secret, not in chris's past, but in christie's. >> there had been infidelity in the marriage for six years prior, while chris hall was in custody in idaho. >> christie's affair was relatively brief, years earlier. but she'd been in phone contact with the man just days before she died. had chris found out? impossible to know. but when investigator talked to christie's co-workers at the clinic where she was an x ray technician, several of them said they noticed a change in her usually vibrant personality. one co-worker offered more. >> she told us that she was contemplating a divorce. >> if true, and it was only an if, it might well persuade a jury. but also prosecutor needed to explain what lindsey patterson saw or didn't see. why didn't she see christie's drowned body when she peeked over the wall a second time? >> we were not able to explain to the jury why she didn't see christie at that point. and i think that allowed the defense to make the argument that christie hall was inside. >> the prosecution hired a water expert to do a recreation of the hall spa. they shot this video, which, said the prosecutor shows that if an injured christie had sunk under water she would not have been visible from lindsey's viewpoint. and now the prosecutor was ready. in may 2011 one year after the first jury deadlocked, he went back to court armed with his new evidence for a brand enough panel of hall's peers. jurors heard medical experts testify about the injuries to christie's head and the 911 call. christie's co-workers testified for the prosecution. and jerry winkle traveled from idaho to tell jurors what he thought of chris hall. >> i was ashamed to admit that he was once a police officer. >> but if the prosecution had upped its game in the time, so had the defense. that's when the attorneys enter the scene and they came out swinging. that story about christie's affair, for example? there's a shadow hanging over all of this stuff, a very human shadow, which is that she was having a little affair, had a boyfriend. >> yes. if the husband knew about it, but the wife never, ever mentions it and tells the husband, no one tells the husband. >> quite right, said the judge. and because there was no evidence that chris knew about his wife's affair, he ruled it out of the trial. and the story about hall shooting himself for retirement benefits? >> that was just absolutely a lie. that's wrong. there was never, never any evidence or indication or not even a moment's breath that he shot himself. >> anyway, the story was prejudicial, said the judge, so he threw that out too. as for what lindsey patterson says she saw, chris hall holding his wife's head under water, the defense had prepared its own visual demonstration, had taken pictures from her angle at the wall to show that it could look like two people were touching in the spa, even if they weren't. >> this is what she described seeing in her testimony. but on the close up, what do you notice? >> they're not touching, but they're in position where they could be. >> but that's different than actually touching. >> again, the hall daughters were there every minute. their father's enduring champions. and this time more family members came to court. two of christie's own siblings testified for chris. >> said the same thing. we have not had a doubt in our minds that this was not a moment of violence. this was not ha murder. the victim's own sister and own brother. that's an amazing thick to see. >> perhaps it was. but listen to this. the defense had one more very significant witness. a witness who oozed credibility. the sitting medical examiner from neighboring san bernardino county. he stuck his neck way out to disagree, publicly in a court of law with the medical examiner from riverside. >> he found this to be an accidental death, not a homicide. >> this was not some ordinary hired gun. this was a public official, who said straight out that christie's head injuries could and perhaps should be explained by an accidental fall. >> he didn't rule out homicide. >> he didn't rule out homicide, but he said the preponderance of the evidence was towards an accidental drowning. what, i've always been asounded by with this case is that the hall family lives so close to the san bern deflow border. if christie had slipped and fell four or five blocks over, the pathologist in that county would never have filed criminal charges. an accident of geography. >> so now the second jury would have to sort through these two sets of allegations. these two opposing realities and decide whether chris hall would turn and embrace home and his loving daughters or a pair of handcuffs and prison. >> things can only go wrong for so long before something actually has to -- >> guilty or not guilty? this time the answer for the jurors would be unanimous. may 2011. for the second time, 12 men and women of riverside, california filed out of the courtroom, a second jury to make a life decision about chris hall. did he murder his wife? which of the medical examiners should they believe? whose account of the defendant's character? and perhaps most important, what did lindsey patterson see when she peeked three times into the halls' back yard. >> >> did you ever have those sort of little dark moments of the soul where you think i may have miss interpreted, miss remembered. >> that is something i've thought about every day, whether i misinterpreted, whether i think i saw something that wasn't there. i didn't see everything. >> yeah. >> but i saw what i saw. and i know the conclusion of my story. i know it. i know it, right here. i know it. >> of course chris hall's daughters say they know the truth too, real thing. in their hearts. >> i think that we the three most it critical jurors in that courtroom. believe me, if we had heard anything or had any ink ling that our father could have done this, as much as it would hurt and as much as we love our father, we would want that justice for our mother. >> the jurors deliberated two days and then broke for the long weekend. it was memorial day. hall's daughters felt good. >> things can only go so wrong for so long before something can actually go right. >> we did a lot of talking about the future and, you know, this being over. this being finished. and honestly, i was concerned about dad and how he was finally going to be able to grieve for the loss of his wife. >> then it was tuesday, 8:45 in the morning. jury gathered. and minutes later, a signal. they were ready. chris hall and his daughters rushed to court. and in the end. it was very quick. guilty of first degree murder. their father would not be coming home, probably ever. >> he's being cuffed. and potentially put away for life. and, yeah. it hurts. and we are angry about that. >> you can still hear those daughters? >> i can. >> you have unfairly convicted their father. >> absolutely. it weighs on me. but at the same time, i know who i'm dealing with when it come does chris hall. in fact, he's the one that's stolen their mother from them. >> it had been a peculiar fact in this case that the victim and defendant's families had stood solidly against the prosecution. but what no one knew was that the truth was more complicated. after the verdict at chris hall's sentencing a letter was introduced. it was from another of christie hall's brothers, bill eye carlton, who until now had not said one public word about the case. we would like to ask his honor for the max number sentence wrote billy. the pain that my family has suffered is unforgivable. >> i didn't want to hurt the girls. this was on my mind u. >> some of her relatives believe chris was innocent. but he and others including christie's uncle silently urged on the prosecutor. >> half the family was convinced he was innocent. half the family was convinced he wasn't. and that's hard to do when you have a big family, and you all have to be together every once in a while. >> when it involves a member loved as christie was. >> exactly. >> does that explain why this kind of group of people in the family decided just to let justice take its course? >> we will talked about it quite a bit. and you've got to know when to show up sometimes and when not to show up, just to keep what's left of the family as together as you can have it. >> when it was over, hall convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. some of the family members met with the prosecute irand thanked him. >> thank you for putting him away, because he's the murderer. >> and the hall daughters, having lost their beloved mother have also lost the fight to save the father they adored. >> it's a hard reality. it really is. especially for a family that -- to say that we were close was an understatement, you know, to go from that to being not able to be there with each other. it's, it's the greatest heart break that anyone can ever experience, i think. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us this sunday just how big of a threat is north korea? what should president obama do about it? a new unprecedented round of high anxiety over north korea. the threats from a new, young, and largely up known dictator have washington unnerved. >> we take those threats seriously. we have to take those threats seriously. >> a special discussion this morning with senator lindsey graham, republican of south carolina. and perspective from former a.m. bass dore and governor bill richardson. his experience dealing with the north koreans. former under secretary of defense, michele flournoy be a nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell. plus, presidential politics. all eyes on hillary clinton after two high-profile speeches this week fuel speculation about another run for the white house. and the obama agenda, new jobs numbers undermine confidence in economic recovery. and a new budget compromise from the president. is it nearly enough for a grand bargain? cnbc's jim cramer joins the conversation this morning. and good sunday morning. battles at home and abroad for the president as congress returns monday from a two-week easter recess. it's shaping up to be a spring filled with debate on the budget, immigration and guns. and now overseas a brewing crisis in north korea as the president tries to defuse escalating tensions. at the center of it all a young, untested leader, kim jong-un, who is making increasingly strident warnings about an imminent war with south korea and the u.s. apparently upset about new, tougher u.n. sanctions and recent joint military exercises. the escalating rhetoric has u.s. officials quite unnerved. defense secretary hagel announcing this weekend a decision to postpone a long scheduled missile test to avoid making an already tense situation even worse. secretary of state kerry left yesterday for the middle east, but he'll be traveling on to seoul and beijing laettner the week hoping to get the closest ally, china, help in dealing with this crisis. that's where i want to begin this morning. joining me republican senator from south carolina, lindsey graham. senator, with welcome back to the program. you're just back to the u.s. from being in the middle east. i want to ask you about syria as well in just a couple of minutes. let me start with north korea and what we're dealing with. a couple of headlines in the magazines caught my attention in "the economist" and in "the w k week" magazine. is can kim crazy? korean roulette. this war of words escalation, are we heading to a conflict with north korea? >> i think what bothers me the most the tolerance in south korea for this kind of provocation is greatly -- they're not going to put up with this anymore. if there were a south korean naval vessel sunk this year, anytime soon, or a shelling by nor north korea, i think the new president of south korea would be compelled to act. i think the north koreans are overplaying their hands. i'm glad we're not doing the ballistic missile test. i'm glad we're telling our allies south korea and gentlejae literally have your back. and the north koreans need to understand if they attack an american interest or an ally of this country they're going to pay a heavy price. >> let's talk about u.s. interests and they're quite real in the region. look at the map, first of all, to give our viewers some perspective. you have japan, you have guam where we had missile batteries placed, moving to north korea and south korea. in the south and the southern part of that peninsula you have over 28,000 u.s. troops. so the danger is real, some kind of conflict breaks out between the north and the south. we are literally right there in the middle. >> we're in the middle. i'm glad we're there with our allies. but the big difference to me the politics in south korea are changing by the day regarding north korea. so if there's some provocation, it won't be business as usual by south korea. i could can see a major war happening if the north koreans overplay their hands this time because south korea, the united states, the whole region is fed up with this guy. >> but what happens if there is some kind of conflict between the north and theso