north koreans for whom this was, as will was saying, this was an embarrassment. this was a day after their day in the sun, the parade that we have been seeing all of the pictures of where they were displaying what they claim were new icbms or at least new mock-ups of icbms and the next day, they have this failed test. dana bash, safe travels. thank you very much. let s bring in steven collinson a senior reporter. rene talked about this toned down response from the federal government. not even from the white house to be clear here on. let s put it up on the screen from defense secretary james mattis. the president and his military team are aware of north korea most recent unsuccessful missile launch. the president has no further comments. it amounted to, yeah, we saw it. what is the strategy? i think you re seeing two things doing ogoing on.
perceive the kris crisis at thi point. i want to read you from james mattis. the president and his military team are aware of north korea s most recent unsuccessful missile launch. president has no further comments. so my question to you, rebecca, the nation and the world is watching right now. should the president had had a much stronger reaction? i love mattis response. that is so cold. if you are kim jong-un that is is not what you want to hear. he hasn t scored any propaganda value with this. i expect, of course, we will see more from the white house and the team later on, but what they are saying is, look. you ve had 50 missile tests in the past several years. this one failed and we are watching you. military sources tell me that our forces are ready to respond. so i like this cold cool response. i also like the fact that tillerson has spoken with china. that is really new in this
conversation as we are continuing to dissect and figure out what s going to happen in north korea especially how the u.s. might respond. what do you make of this response. let me read it to you one more time. the president and his military team are aware of north korea s most recent unsuccessful missile launch. the president has no further comment. the statement coming from the defense secretary james mattis. it s very interesting. president trump put a lot of fre pressure on the north koreans and the chinese put pressure on the north koreans. the north koreans had three options. it was the goldilocks options. they could go big, a nuclear test. this he could go middle which would be some kind of pre-icbm or something moving to the development of an icbm. and then they could do the minimal, the smallest. if north korea, this was all of this hype and pressure and north korea didn t do anything, then on monday everybody would be saying president trump won. he put all of this frepressure
natalie and george at cnn headquarters for more news. ivan, thank you. here in the united states, the u.s. defense secretary james mattis issued this statement about that failed launch. it said, the president and his military team are aware of north korea s most recent unsuccessful missile launch. the president has no further comment. let s talk more about these developments with scott lucas, professor of international politics at the university of birmingham. he joins us via skype. thank you for joining us. where do we pick up from here? we ve just heard our reporters, alexandra and will ripley, the defiance of north korea, perhaps testing this new administration. i think we take a step back and draw breath, to be honest with you. even though north korea carried out this failed missile launch, it s quite interesting that it did not, as u.s. officials say
reporter: yeah. really no response from president trump, rene. in fact, his administration marking this failed missile launch in north korea with a very terse and short response from defense secretary james mattis, really a two sentence response. secretary mattis putting it this way saying the president and his military team are aware of north korea s most recent unsuccessful missile launch. the president has no further comment. so administration officials saying that this terse and short response is exactly what was needed because north korea, that they don t want to give north korea the attention that north korea sought in making this missile launch, a failed missile launch at that. the vice president, of course, traveling over in seoul today. he landed there today after that trip from the u.s. yesterday. the vice president really just making passing remarks when he spoke with military families in seoul earlier today saying that this failed test was a reminder of the provocation an