koreans. remember, this new south korean government is a little bit more friendly to the north. they want to have a little bit more engagement. that s going to complicate things for president trump. in a lot of ways, trump faces the same challenge that president bush had nine, ten years ago. that is, you have a regime in south korea that s looking towards making overtur overtur north. not a hard line position. hans nichols from brussels for us, thank you very much. i want to bring in ann from the washington post along with carol and vivian still here with me. so crucial to that effort. theren this administration there has been a sense that the state department doesn t have a ton of autonomy when it comes to making these decisions, that the white house is really trying to put their fingerprint on all of this, too. what s your sense of the mood inside the state department right now? hi, hallie.
a background conference call, the state department doesn t regard those three americans as the pivotal issue. bret. bret: james rosen, thank you. presidential son-in-law jared kushner is in the region to try to jumpstart peace talks there. kushner met with ives israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. west bank city, president trump has passed kushner the ambitious goals of laying down the ultimate deal. there is a new future king in saudi arabia. a major shakeup in the line of success in their has allies such as the u.s. wondering what other changes may be in store for the oil-rich kingdom. the story from our middle east newsroom. study of saudi arabia, shocs
experience. and now leegds ading diplomacy north korea with no experience. there s certainly people on capitol hill who have experience in foreign relations, who have been dealing with issues over north korea for decades. is he listening to them? is the administration listening to them? i get the sense now that the administration is close, they attacked the state department right off the bat in the intelligence skmuncommunity, th don t have a lot of friends and there you see rex tillerson out there alone as the one who is trying to deal with really intractable problem. and you have a situation where the state department doesn t have a lot of people working there. right. there are a lot of top aides and empty desks in the state department. and we have an inexperienced in diplomacy guy leading it. that is part of the trump administration s sale, right, from the moment love washington.
better for a huge bureaucracy to be in charge for those on the ground or to put more power and the resources in the hands of states. you don t have to think these programs are bad, it s whether or not washington having all this tax money come to washington. the state department doesn t refer to the states. we have one nation and we need a state department representing that nation. absolutely, but there is it s a tiny budget compared to the rest of the government and many republicans over a long period of time supported robust diplomacy. it beats war. to be cutting this is insane. jonathan, quickly, 9% defense budget increase. is that a smart decision? it seems high to me, but certain areas where perhaps defense might need a little bit of an increase, but both parties
statement. that agency is the arm of the doj which oversees the immigration courts. it reads in part, i m quoting here, eoir is continuing to advertise and fill positions nationwide for immigration judges and supporting staff and will announce any new invested immigration judges. we can tell you that 12 were recently sworn in bringing the total to just above 300 across the nation. another 50 are going through the hiring process as we speak, but there are more than 70 vacancies nationwide. sandra. sandra: thank you. well, senator al franken bringing a taste of that minnesota life to the rough and tumble world of washington politics. who won his annual hot dish contest? success has always been measured in zeros. but shouldn t it be about firsts? and seconds. how about adding a third? we think there s a bajillion ways to measure success.