president xi jinping of china concerning the provocative actions of north korea. additional major sanctions will be imposed on north korea today. this situation will be handled. let s bring in our cnn international correspondent will ripley join us from seoul, south korea right now. will has traveled to the region to north korea i think about 17 times over the past few years. will, north korea hadity own antagonistic message for trump today. tell our viewers first of all what he said. yeah, there s a new north korean propaganda message citing a military officer and there s this swagger that i sensed when i was in pyongyang within the last few weeks this rel confidence on the part of the north koreans and this tone towards the u.s. president. kind of matching his rhetoric for much of this year although he s been dialed back lately. let me read you a portion quoting this officer. i seem so see old lunatic trump
a big day for the president. in just a few hours he heads for missouri and will talk about his tax plan there. the president thinks he has momentum after republicans cleared a big hurdle in the senate and a floor tpoet could happen in the senate this week. suzanne malveaux. reporter: mitch mcconnell will go ahead and move a motion to move it to the full floor, perhaps as early as today. this after a flury of activity, and of course, president trump hear on capitol hill meeting with senate republicans yesterday, and he charmed and made promises to several of the naysayers of the tax plan, and the real challenge here is to change those promises into real legislative language and perhaps
not seem to be in lockstep with at least corporate america at this point. there s an entire school of thought that because this happened with donald trump and so many accusers came forward and he was elected president that that s one of the things that created the ground weswell and empowered women because they were tired of that. roy moore could win in alabama. don t forget about that. thank you for the discussion. north korea taunting president trump. president trump sending out anti-muslim videos from a far right figure in britain. it s causing major waves there and here as well. what message is he sending? plus a vote on tax reform could be as soon as the end of the week. do republicans have the votes? why do you do it? it s not just a pay check, you actually like what you do.
are we talking about 5% to 10% of this effort is publicly known? i think that s a fair guess. i don t know how much is visible above the water and how much is below the water. i can tell you most of it is below the water. robert costa, is the president to your knowledge happy with his team? do you think he s going to see the need for a wartime consulier on this? the president, i m told, by many of his confidants in washington are aware that many of the white house show lawyers in washington because of legal complications or different relationships they have or perhaps they re just busy have avoided joining ft. s legal team. so he s built a relationship with cobb and has confidence with cobb because they believe they do have a channel to mueller and his team. they have relationships with that group going back decades. at the same time, there is an element on the hard right in the trump base who s yearning for more of an aggressive posture when it comes to this probe.
and this week, it passes a milestone trump s own legal team set. about three months ago, trump special counsel ty cobb spoke to reuters. in the interview he said, quote, i d be embarrassed if this is still haunting the white house by thanksgiving and worse if it s haunting him by year end. but now, of course, three days from thanksgiving, a report from the washington post landed with a thud. it looks inside the white house amid this investigation. it says, among other things, one republican operative in frequent contact with the white house described mueller s team working through the staff like pack man and adds, witnesses questioned by mueller s team warn that investigators are asking about other foreign contacts and meetings that have not yet become public and to expect a series of new revelations. well, here to talk about all of it, robert costa, national political reporter for the washington post and moderator of washington week on pbs. julia ainsley, and chuck rosenberg