Jessica james. Sometimes i wonder how i got here when i woke up. I have to have trash to teach you about. I play a computer game where its a bunch of Little People and you can do a lot of world building but its really fun. It is a nice way to feel control over an environment which i really enjoy. Rose John Dickerson and Jessica Williams when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose the news in washington this week is dominated by missiles, mcconnell and manafort. Despite the crisis over north korea, President Trump found time to call out Mitch Mcconnell over failure to Pass Health Care an accuse robert mueller. Joining me for perspective on all of this is the host of face the nation, John Dickerson of cbs news. Welcome to the program. Great to see you. Great to be with you. Rose starting with north korea, the president seems to be dialing up this confrontation with north korea. What d do we understand about i . One foot on the gas and the brake with this straismghts you have the president , as you say, dialing up, again, on thursday saying that maybe his remarks on tuesday werent incendiary enough, where he threatened north korea and said if they threaten the United States again they will see fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen. An extraordinary thing to say on almost the 72nd anniversary to the day of the bombing in nagasaki. questions, inaudible north korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal statement. And they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power the likes of which the world has never seen before. Thank you. Rose . So now the president said today maybe his rhetoric wasnt tough enough. When you talk to officials involved in the north korea question, they are going in the opposite direction. Secretary of state tillerson said people can sleep soundly, not to Pay Attention to the rhetoric. Source in the administration i was talking to today was basically acting as if the president had not said anything and was kind of continuing along a path with north korea which looks much more traditional which is to say you saw the u. N. Sanctions over the weekend, put pressure on north korea with sanctions and then you saw secretary of state tillerson last week say to north korea look, were not interested in regime change, were not going to attack you, kind of dialing down the rhetoric. So that seems to be the message you get from everybody but the president. Rose how about the secretary of defense . Well, the secretary of defense mattis basically when asked about the president s remarks, mattis said to the north Korean Leader do not keep doing things that will endanger the future of your country. Very broad. But when it comes from secretary mattis who has a lot of standing when he talks about following through on threats, it carried the weight of the military, but without boxing himself in. When President Trump said if north korea offered any more threats and then, a couple of hours later, the north korea threatened gaum, they already crossed the red line that the president put before them. So mattis is tough and is sending that signal of toughness, but hes also working quite closely with the secretary of state, and because mattis and in our interview with him and in other instances has talked about how catastrophic any military enggement with north korea would be, he is thinking about all military options, but that does not necessarily mean or i should say that does also include a kind of containment possibility. So hes not hes not just thinking about, you know, the most aggressive military options. Rose i assume the president believes he has to get the attention of the north Korean Leader and he has decided this is the only way to get his attention, using the kind of language that he uses and would understand. I think thats right. Weve heard secretary of state tillerson essentially say a version of that. The question is to what end because the language either is meaningful and, therefore you follow up on the threat or, if you dont follow up on the threat, then what signal exactly are you sending. So were in a kind of a because the president didnt follow up on his threat, were in this kind of strange position at the moment where its not clear, but i think your assessment of what his intent was is i think youre probably right. Rose the question is who is he sending the signal to as well . Thats right, sending it to china, to beijing as well as pyongyang. Certainly from talking to Administration Officials, they feel china has not yet fully embraced its role here and fully embraced putting more pressure on north korea and that part of their task and what the people seem to be spending a great deal of time on is trying to figure out what the lever are to get china to keep putting pressure on north korea, do everything it can to put to keep north korea in the box a little bit. Rose and to determine the rationality of their leader as to whether he really intends to attack the United States or simply he wants to have a Nuclear Weapon because he believes the United States has evil intentions toward him, and this is the only way he can protect himself and save himself in ower. Well, that question of what is going on in the mind of the north Korean Leader is crucial, and youve hit on exactly the right thing because, if they think he is a rational actor, then all of this bluster, which has a long tradition in north korea, is towards a shortterm goal. Now, if they evaluate him and say the reason he wants to have a Nuclear Weapon is so then he can reunite the peninsula and use it to black mail other countries, black mail the United States, then that is an argument for preemptive action. But at least in talking to some members of the administration, they believe that kim jong un is a much more rational actor than the sort of crazy man theory would suggest, and if you buy into that idea, then, basically, even if he has a Nuclear Weapon, he wouldnt just go firing it off as some of the scenarios would suggest. So what you put your finger on is really crucial is the debate over what kind of rational actor he is and the problem is that the intelligence on this according to the u. S. Officials is not you know, they dont feel as though its completely solid, and every day theyre feeling a little more nervous because theyre learning that the program is moving faster than maybe some of their original assessments suggested. Rose is the Administration United on the rhetoric used by the president . No, not at all. Not at all. And trying to get the Administration Officials to you know, was this strategic . You know, there certainly a history in american policy, i remember during george w. Bushs presidency and the administration, they used to talk about it was good having dick cheney seem like, as one put it one time, he had a knife in his teeth, because it allowed people in the administration to talk to allies in the middle east and say, look, we dont want to let cheney loose, so it was good cop, bad cop, a traditional strategy in some places, but when i seek for strategic guidance here, mostly what i get back is this was improvisation by the president , an improvisation that has some scratching their heads. Rose especially the use of the language he did. The use of the language and the red line drawing. I mean, theres no act of Foreign Policy that the president and his aides have criticized more than president obamas improvisational red line drawing when it came to syria and not following up on it was a squandering of u. S. Prestige, so it seems curious the president would draw a red line that he wasnt really ready yet to foul row up on, at least he hasnt in response to the immediate threat from the North Koreans to encircle guam in fire. Rose if you still want to get health care passed, why do you believe its in your interest to criticize the one person most mile to most likely to help you get it passed, Mitch Mcconnell . Well, i think no, there doesnt seem to be any strategic benefit to attacking Mitch Mcconnell. I mean, one explanation could be that the president and weve seen this in a number of instances. The president has distanced himself from his own role in healthcare reform. Remember, when he both ran as a candidate for office, he promised he alone because of his negotiating and marketing skills would be able to pass healthcare, that he alone could do it and that it was all on him and his skills. Now that it hasnt passed, hes saying, well, its all Mitch Mcconnells fault. This is important because its not only health care but it matters for tax reform and sets the stage for the 2018 campaign. Is the president and aides, when they talk about draining the swamp, sometimes theyre talking about Mitch Mcconnell. So is this going to be a campaign in 2018 where you have the president occasionally or maybe not so occasionally running against his own party in congress . That can create real ugliness in a Campaign Year where everybody wants to be playing on the psalm team. Rose as harry truman would say, the donothing congress. Well, thats right, although truman was running against republicans. In this case, you would have the president running against his own rose but it was his idea of congress. Absolutely. And the challenge here is Mitch Mcconnell just got reelected relatively recently, so hes not up in 18. So you put pressure on him. Mitch mcconnell knows where a lot of the levers are that can bedevil the president. The president ser are felt overly strained by congress and the courts. Mitch mcconnell, you want him on your team. He can do lots of things. There are investigations going on in the senate, and he could do lots of things to help those investigations continue or keep them out of the limelight, and theres a lot that he can do, also, in the preparations process that would help or not help the president as he feels fit. Rose speaking of investigations, the Mueller Investigation continues and we had this week at least notice of the fact, nfghtd of the fact that Paul Manaforts house was searched. What do you read into that . Well, obviously, the notion of an early dawn raid without, you know, a socalled noknock raid suggests they had serious enough information about whatever they were looking for that they had the judge give the okay for that. I dont know necessarily whether that means there is any evidence that even they have some, inc inkling of collusion. They may have sound something separate and apart from the campaign and hes going after crimes as he sees them, so there is not necessarily proof of something to their collusion. Rose but if you have the f. B. I. Do a noknock raid, you believe there is some likelihood you will not be able to have handed over to you documents and information that you have either requested or are seeking. Yeah, thats exactly right and, therefore, those documents youre looking for are charged enough or important enough that mr. Man fort would not hand them over freely. And you get a judge and say, look, this is what were looking for and that suggests there may very well have been a crime committed here, but we just dont know the nature of the actual crime. But if it is with respect to the election, its not yet another piece of data, and you had a judge agree that there is enough here to really characterize this as a witch hunt. The other thing that interests me about Paul Manafort is the meeting with the russian lawyer that was sold to the pts son has a meeting with the agent from the russian government who had information that would be harmful to hillary clinton. Paul manaforts described by the president and don, jr. Was so disinterested in the meeting when he attended it, that he spent all his time on the phone. Thats one version. Now weve heard mr. Manafort turned over his notes to that meeting both to the congressional committees that are investigating and i think thats in the documents that muellers team collected which suggests there was something important enough about the meeting that notes were worth taking and, obviously, if those notes were in contradiction to the story of what that meeting was about, theant does a does put you at the center of the collusion question. Rose notes are one thing manafort may have made for his own reference. Jared kushner may have left the meeting because nothing was going on, he was hearing nothing and it was boring. Thats right. Well, and so you have two possibilities i guess you have three possibilities. One, manaforts notes contain nothing interesting. Two, they contain Something Interesting and Jared Kushner was smart enough to leave. Or three, they contain things that may be in contradiction with Jared Kushner and, for those who have forgotten, this meeting is so important because, before that, the administration and everybody connected with it said there were no contacts with russians seeking to influence the election and now we know there was at least this one meeting and it was sold specifically with the intent of handing over information collected by the russian government on hillary clinton, thats what it was sold as. We dont know what happened in the meeting, we only have the words of the participants there and seems mueller is trying to find out what contemporaneous notes or otherwise there were to fill out the picture so we dont have to take others words for it. Rose do we understand mueller is or is not cooperating with the russia investigation . He is definitely cooperating with the congressional cometies handing over things. Obviously hes not cooperating at some level or they wouldnt knock when the sun came up. Its not clear. We know what his lawyer said. Mueller and team have some idea hes not cooperating fool f you will or they wouldnt make the visit. Rose i saw an interesting piece this week talking about the generals and people who have influence in the new york crowds and the generals and people who have a different kind of influence. You referenced the divisions that might be about north korea. Are they serious divisions within the administration and the white house about how to handle north korea or is it simply about the president s rhetoric . Well, its hard, at the moment it seems to be about the rhetoric, alhoe the rhetoric has some connection to the next move. I think, you know, its not unlike on russia, charlie, where or at least and this is preliminary soundings here. I dont want to sound like ive got it all wrapped up. On russia you see on the one hand the Vice President traveling to macedonia and talking about the strength of n. A. T. O. And pushing back against russia. We have material moving into n. A. T. O. Nations where u. S. Is threatened. So money put where the mouth is with countries who feel threatened by russia. Yoyou have the pentagon discussg arming ukrainians against the russians in ukraine. But then you have the president s remarks on russia which are at odds with all that kind of part of the administration. So here you have a similar thing and you talk to and you see the way in which theyre working on the diplomatic track with north korea, you know, theyre working at the u. N. , and it seems to be sort of within the grooves of the normal Foreign Policy approach, and then you have the president s rhetoric. So the split there is its hard to know whether its a split between the president and his team or whether theres you know, whether theres more behind the president s remarks in terms of a strategy. Where does tax reform stand . Ell, its hard so tax reform is you know, paul ryan, house speaker, says tax reform is easier than healthcare. Boy, having covered lots of tax reform and having spent a lot of time with, you know, dave camp who is the former chairman of the ways and means committee, worked five years on tax reform. The problem with tax reform, one, hard to pay for if you want to do it in the way the president wants to. The president is following the same pattern he did with healthcare which is promising the moon, huge tax reductions, massive growth and it would all add up. Kind of what he did with Health Care Costs less, everybody covered, get to see your doctor they werent able to fulfill the promises. Its setting up in exactly the same way. There are swarms of lobbyists engaged in the tax question and will be trying to get their pieces of the legislation put in there. So everybody wants to pass tax reform, its just very, very hard to do, and if it cant be done at the levels the president wants in terms of cutting the corporate rates as much as he wants because it costs so much money. I mean, trillions of dollars more with the rates that he wants and you have to fill that up with tax cuts, and congress will not with spending cuts, and congress is not going to support those. So they will go for it but it is not going to be as easy as everybody is going around saying which breaks the rule that youre supposed to, you know, underpromise and overdeliver. Rose does this put the president against republican orthodoxy . It does if he says what he told the wall street journal which is he told that stor