Page 1379 - Threshold News Today

Push is on capitol hill to get a deal, to get this all sorted out, to get the budget caps on military spending lifted. theresident here though, also is going to be briefed on another very important item, the nuclear posture review. this is a classified study being prepared for him at his orders, about the future of nuclear weapons. what is needed, what the rules will be about employment of weapons. a lot of concern that this review could recommend new smaller nuclear weapons, that it could begin...

Grateful to you for joining us in this critical moment. millions and millions of people are affected if theres a government shutdown, so i just want to be precise with that. you must be so frustrated edfrui know you, we spoke on so many occasions, could be the fourth short term spending bill passed since last september alone. the republicans control the house, the senate, and the white house. why cant you all get on the same page and get this done? >> well, you know, thats a very insightful ques...

Discussion of potentially developing new smaller nuclear weapons with less lethal power. that, critics say, could lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons in the future, make it easier for mr. trump or future presidents to decide to use nuclear weapons. and of course facing north korea, russia, china right now, that is an all sensitive matter. so the question is when the president is presented with the basic outline to the report today at 11:00, will he approve it? will he send it back...

Punish the military. well get to that in a minute. but why? >> he likes to lurch from one crisis to another. he cant help himself with that. its like the weekly drama that were going to have over the next, you know, the next 48 hours sort of inserting himself into the middle of it. troublemaking. he gets a kick out of that, clearly. >> he gets a kick out of forcing the speaker of the house to call him once a week and say, mr. president, youre for that, youre against that, dont you know that? >> ...

Republicans control the white house, both houses of congress. make the case why democrats will take the blame in the mind of the american voters? >> well, you guys, this is not your first rodeo. you understand how this place works and it comes down to what are nine democrat senators going do in the senate or what is mitch mcconnell going to do in the senate? if its about a 50-vote threshold in the senate on a shutdown and mitch mcconnell wants to go with a simple majority to keep it open i would...

But it doesnt mean much if you donted have a message. >> money isnt anything unless you dont have enough. theres a threshold number in every political race where you reach super saturation where theres so much money in there it doesnt really matter. you cant change it any more. and then in all of the key senate races, look, were tracking 13, maybe 15 senate races right now. i expect that number will shrink. in all of the key races there will be more than enough money on either side. nobody will ...

Whos wont vote for this continuing resolution either. so you need a bunch of democrats. especially in the senate to get to that threshold. >> to her point, it is hard for congress to do anything in an election year. particularly when youre talking about, watch the freedom caucus. theyre under a tremendous amount of pressure to sign on with republicans torsion get this passed. they have the rely on their own conference. to do that, you have to get the conservatives to get on board and they are no...

Steve bannon of course is testifying or talking to members of the house intelligence committee today. joining me now, stephen hadley, former national security adviser to president george w. bush, senior adviser for international affairs, and ambassador chris hill, former u.s. ambassador to south korea and former secretary of state for each asian and pacific affairs. you are very familiar with these oval office situations but here we are, having a summit on north korea on the threat a few days af...

>> well, its the right threshold for secretary tillerson to take. that is the position of the administration. that is the position of the u.n. security council, variety of resolutions. its been the position of the last two, actually three u.s. administrations. so we are not even at the table, the negotiations have not even begun at this point. this is an effort to try to increase the pressure on north korea so they will come to the table and so that we can get an agreement that they will actuall...

Expensive, so deadly. and thats the real worry, that the trump administration will go down the road of calling for low yield weapons. it will reduce the threshold for some kind of nuclear confrontation. that is causing a lot of concern. this report will be out by the end of the month. it is not clear yet what kind of reception its going to get on capitol hill which of course would have to approve any spending for any of these new weapons. chris? >> all right, my friend. stay on it and let us kno...