there s a domestic political component, and then secondarily, alex, he is showing the world, particularly china, for example, that he is one of the main actors on the international stage. he derives a lot of benefit in his own mind from that. okay. so, is military action something that would be seen as being popular, and if that were to happen, what would that lead to from the united states and potentially nato as well? i think it would be initially popular inside russia, but if his forces got bogged down, if body bags started coming back to moscow, things get a lot less popular in situations like that, as we saw in iraq and afghanistan. so, he needs to be very mindful of that, and right now, he s making the calculus, can i get in there fast, accomplish what i want, grab another chunk of territory, and then survive the sanctions. i think at the end, he ll decide
so this is really very serious. this guy in north korea is not rational. his father and grandfather were much more rational than he is. when you re dealing with an irrational actor, american presidents will always say with north korea the military option is on the table. but when you re dealing with irrational actors that you just described, does that make military action something you don t want to deal with because you don t know how he ll respond? i don t think you ever want to do this because of this proximity of north korean artillery to seoul, a city of half a million people. at the same time, to risk a situation where they have that ability and we rely on our ability to intercept, this could be the first test, real test,f thtrump presidency. and by the way, i believe that he ll getery good advice from mattis and from mcmaster. let me move on to the bigger picture here in what we ve learned about president trump
chemical weapons and destroy them, is military action something you would be willing to support? again, i think what is important is that we create the ability to be able to handle these in global forums. right now that s the u.n. and i m going to admit first off that the u.n. is not as functional as we would like them to be especially with regard to the security council. but this is a precedent setting move. we have got to be able to develop and lead a path forward that brings the world s states together to face these challenges and these atrocities. the chemical weapons convention was signed on to by most of the world s nation, 189 nations. we ve got to give convention and other treaties that deal with biological weapons and chemical weapons, we ve got to give them teeth and figure out a way to enforce them. it can t just be u.s. unilateralism over and over
captions by vitac www.vitac.com good morning our starting point today, tropical storm beryl washing away holiday plans in northern florida and georgia. it made landfall overnight with drenching rains and driving winds. the hurricane force winds have died down a bit but the beryl will be a super soaker as they call it. rob marciano is tracking the storm at the severe weather center, good morning. not usual to have one but two tropical storms into the month of may, not even into the beginning of hurricane season yesterday. 70-mile-an-hour winds last night at one point, this close to being a hurricane. there s the radar picture showing you the center distinctly 50 miles to the west of jacksonville florida and all the rain and thunderstorms rotating off the ocean so this will be slow to weaken and it will weaken as far as the winds are concerned but the rainfall becomes the bigger player through time. they could use the rain but don t want it all at one point. this is c