idea, it looks like the ball is in our court. what comes next. and i think that the administration right now, we know, chris, as we speak, is struggling to try to really contain the damage done by those remarks and the fact that the north koreans are now mocking the president of the united states. right. but north koreans sort of, you know, do propagandaistic bluster. but we don t expect it to be returned in kind from the leader of the free world. i think the point you re making, is it a red line? no, it s a threat off-the-cuff tough-guy talk. the problem is, there is no connection to strategy. and there shouldn t be, because nuclear threats are something that we don t generally indulg in. our tradition has been teddy roosevelt, speak softly and carry a big stick. or jfk reading the guns of august and realizing the unintended consequences of escalation and tough guy talk from great powers.
center served on national security staff in clinton administration and expert on expert proliferation and author of the new book preventing north korea s break out. robert lidwack, it seems when you look at donald trump sl years ago and donald trump today, there has been no maturing at all. no increased sophistication apparently in his view of the situation with north korea. tuckman famously wrote the guns of august which talked about the depiction of war in 1814. the hyperbolic rhetoric today combined with the risk of miscalculation and inadvertent escalation are extremely worrisome. the president alluded to the military option. it is the worst of a bad set of options. south korean capital, seoul, as
is what when you want to do it? you better do it now. if they think you are serious, i deal with lots of people. if they think you are serious, they will negotiate and it will never come to that. security studies at wilson center served on national security staff in clinton administration and expert on expert proliferation and author of the new book preventing north korea s break out. robert litwak, it seems when you look at donald trump 18 years ago and donald trump today, there has been no maturing at all. no increased sophistication apparently in his view of the situation with north korea. tuckman famously wrote the guns of august which talked about the depiction of war in 1814. the hyperbolic rhetoric today combined with the risk of
everyone involved in the process had read the guns of august and he understood any spark could set up a larger issue. we have to be very mindful of this. what i would remind the trump administration is rhetoric doesn t help at this point in time. diplomacy is always first and fore most. he has to come to congress, the president does, if he wants to take this further. at this point i would continue to work the chinese on diplomatic pressures to get the north koreans on line. it s the thing that seems to be working most of all is the trump administration s talk of the defense missile system in the south and working with the chinese. ironically enough, this sounds more like an obama administration policy. i want to turn to russia, obviously very important tonight. your committee has been investigating possible collusion between the trump campaign and
where does it come from? does it come from what s left of the state department? is there one, or does it come from mad dog mattis at the pentagon? i see a lot of circulating people that don t seem to even talk to each other. we have absolutely zero information of how the white house makes decisions. it s certainly one that seems to be all over the place. i ll use health care as an example. every 12 hours, it seemed to change the path, the plan, who they re listening to among that group where they re all a little bit scary. if hope they re reading barbara tuckman s book, the guns of august, for the sake and peace of all of us. let me ask about your role as a u.s. congressman. you ve been elected a couple of terms now. you know the responsibilities of your office. do you think congress should be notified before military action is taken against another sovereign government? unless there s some emergency. let s put it this way. for all the criticism that president obama got about s